Writers, Justify Your Battles!

[@Spacedock]

Get Sins of a Solar Empire II and Support Spacedock: steam.gs/l/157jf/Spacedock

[@Ushio01]

Isn't going to warp inside a solar system a bad idea in star trek? they have mentioned this a couple of times.

[@fisk0]

@@Ushio01 they've been incredibly inconsistent about it, in TOS you could time travel doing it, but in First Contact the Phoenix goes to warp just barely outside of Earth's atmosphere, and ships warping in and out of orbits of planets are a fairly regular occurence in most of the Star Trek shows.

[@icarus_falling]

I had no idea sins were getting a 2nd game... sneaky!

[@cmbaz1140]

In startrek ds9 they did that to allow the defiant to reach the station the defiant was small fast and by coming out of warp that far away they kinda dictated were the fught would take place since the cardassians are prideful people they got baited into engaging and once the federation fleet managed to create a gap for sisko enabling him to move towards ds9 thing moved as planned this was not only very unexpected fot the enemy fleet seeing the federation sending out only one small ship it also made sure there was a proper distance between the enemy fleet and the defiant could reach ds9 undisturbed.

[@ArvexYT]

Thinking about it, but I'm just glad it's not yet another mobile game that plagues KZbin sponsorships...

[@mitwhitgaming7722]

I have been watching a lot of WWII documentaries here recently and something I have come to realize is that, across the war, almost every time paratroopers were used it was to capture bridges or other infrastructure that the enemy may try to destroy to slow down an invasion. Provides both a reason to send in small groups of elite soldiers in a sci-fi setting and an easy reason why you can’t just bombard an entire region from space. You risk destroying the very assets you aim to capture.

[@whyherewhynow7418]

On a tangent to that, I always pictured big "space wars" would work a lot like the island-hopping campaigns in the WWII Pacific. If an island (planet) has nothing important on it, you destroy the ships & planes (spacecraft) based there, isolate it, and move on. That helps explain how entire planets can be "conquered" in the space of one TV episode instead of it taking years or decades.

[@UnfollowYourDreams]

​@@whyherewhynow7418 IF you want though, you could use that same reasoning to slow down a force that has to pack up everything into a fleet, fly to the next planet and unload everything again to conquer the planet on foot.

[@domusavires19]

Exactly, that and trying to rescue or capture a high value person. In the sci-fi novel I’m writing, habitable planets are rare and the enemy faction of humans wants to capture and annex as much of the divided human race as possible. I went out of my way to explain why there is ground and space warfare still with trenches and human soldiers. Ground to space weapons, orbital platforms, and fortified bunkers make taking planets hard.

[@matthewconnor5483]

Having been a paratrooper I would say jumps fall broadly into two categories. One it to seize somewhere important like an airfield so other forces can move in/through that area. The other is to grab the tiger by the tail. A force suddenly being attacked at the rear forces them to split attention and defend their rear. This tug on the enemy's tail can buy the main force enough time to exploit a hole or to break away.

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

@@matthewconnor5483 Sometimes you WANT to destroy the asset, e.g. a bridge or railway tunnel, so that the enemy can't use it to bring up reinforcements or supplies.

[@vonneely1977]

Remember how Thrawn used interdictor cruisers on his *own* forces to pinpoint their hyperspace exit right on top of his enemies? Also... glad to see that I'm not the only person who plays Star Sector.

[@MjolnirFeaw]

Remember that in the book but can't remember if this trick was used more recently in Rebels or anything. This Thrawn really deserved his frightening aura...

[@RyuUrami]

To be honest the way interdictors work in the book is different from how it was applied in animation the books had a directed cone emanating down from ship orientation over a large area but one that can be avoided easier as you got closer and moved angular relative to the ship. The animation version seems to be a sphere that affects a smaller distance away from the ship in all directions but means you just fly directly away to get out of the field. It'd be harder to get an entire fleet to arrive in the sphere than in a huge cone.

[@caliperstorm8343]

You can still do the Thrawn Pincer with spherical gravity wells, it just limits your entry angles somewhat. The more pressing issue is that newer Star Wars allows precision jumping at any time (like the Clone Wars episode where Anakin is able to jump in mere meters from Grievous’ ship, just by having a spotter in system), so the tactic is kind of redundant.

[@Daniel_Huffman]

I consider the Battle of Coruscant to be a good example of a space battle being intentionally messy: As depicted in _Star Wars: Clone Wars,_ the massive, seemingly randomized attack was an elaborate ploy to draw attention away from Grievous' plan to kidnap Palpatine, and the number of ships involved was so great that some of the Confederate ships collided with the Republic's vessels immediately upon exiting hyperspace. Furthermore, the forces of the CIS deliberately targeted orbital mirrors, communication satellites, civilian plazas, and evacuation shelters to force Coruscant's defenses into prioritizing the safety of innocent lives rather than continuing to fight. These terror tactics, while a staple of how Grievous conducted his forces, were nevertheless learned from Dooku and Sidious.

[@khoipham8303]

My favorite trope of space battle still has to be the "defensive line" trope, where one faction commits their forces to assault the opponent's homeworld/base of operation, and the opponent throws their similarly large forces to stop them leading to a massive brawl. Battle of Coruscant (Star Wars), First Battle of Saturn (SBY2202), and Fortress vs Fortress (LOGH) all feels very well done.

[@Ushio01]

Well it's a real thing the UK's Royal Navy's grand fleet's job was to stop the German's High seas fleet bombarding the UK's coastal cities during WW1.

[@getnohappy]

Don't forget the Battle of the Line (Babylon 5)

[@jacara1981]

Babylon 5s Battle of the Line is rather awesome, most of the ships are not even warships.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

Well said, and either I'm an idiot that missed it, or I'm merely disappointed that there were zero shots used from SBY2199 or 2202! 😔

[@isaiahsmith7123]

Bonus points for the LOGH reference

[@BennyLlama]

One of the reasons I love The Lost Fleet series so much is the realistic space battles. The author even mentioned how he ran the physics of ships maneuvers by actual physicists to ensure accuracy.

[@lewismassie]

I was also thinking about The Lost Fleet series while watching

[@jakubkolacek6813]

Fuck yes, love those series. That would deserve a good adaptation.

[@getnohappy]

That series is one of my guilty pleasures. The space battles are so well thought out / justified

[@IIIJG52]

Ive enjoyed a bunch of such Book Series actually, Ive had the Duchy of Terra, Castle Federation, Starship Mage, Honor Harrington and most recently Empire Rising as sort of long space opera type MilSciFi.

[@BennyLlama]

@IIIJG52 those are some of my favorite series. I haven't heard of Castle Federation or Empire Rising though

[@russelljacob7955]

Good mention about hyperlane routes. Many complained when Stellaris changed warp mechanics, but it was entirely because of reason you mentioned. 'I have warp so I can land my death ball in whatever system I want, bypassing your defenses with ease.'

[@cp1cupcake]

I thought the main reason they changed it had less to do with mechanics and more to do with late game lag.

[@russelljacob7955]

@@cp1cupcake That was fleet size and fleet cap. It used you be you had a choice of three travel options. Hyperlane, Wormhole gate, or warp. People only used warp because could just jump to whatever system was away from enemy or intercept, the jump out. Essentially would just headshot entire empires.

[@sosogo4real]

Gates were also popular. It was slower to set up but allowed you to be the ultimate turtle.

[@igncom1]

I will say that playing against gates made you take on a more, defence in depth, approach as no front line was actually possible. Warp drives could try and fight back but were slow. Bad hyper-lane routes for the lane users were the death of you when compared to these. I still prefer Sword of the Stars use of different FTL devices, and having asymmetrical wars against every foe because of them. Very very few Sci Fi settings even try something like that.

[@AdmiralTails]

@@cp1cupcake From what I've gathered, it was multiple factors. Mechanical improvement, with a lot of player already choosing to play hyperlane only, and some performance improvements due to the difficulties of AI pathfinding on the other methods.

[@cmedtheuniverseofcmed8775]

I often operate on a system of rules for how I would normally conduct space warfare: - Space is very enormous, and it doesn't make sense to have battles in the middle of nowhere. However, - Battles can occur outside of a star system if there is something like an observation post station where losing the outpost can create a hole in the sensor network for fleets to slip through. There can be a few other but rare reasons for causing it to happen. - Battles normally occur near planets, moons, or asteroids due to bases or population. - Battles can be used to distract an opposing fleet and force fleet movements to create a hole in the defenses. - Usually, the opposing side knows a battle is coming. However, there is still a strategy in distraction, positioning, moving fleets, and creating the conditions to allow victory. - You can still have skirmishes with small fleets where the opposing side is testing the defenses or recon the solar system.

[@mrsupremegascon]

Kinda the same rules than with navy warfare. Most battles usually happened near lands but it can also be in the middle of oceans, like during interceptions or submarine warfare.

[@themightyalpaca313]

It depends on the setting, and the method of FTL utilised. In most Sci-fi settings, the FTL methods allow for ships to effectively appear right on top of the enemy ships. However, in Warhammer 40K Imperium and Chaos ships have to exit the Warp at the edge of a star system (to minimise the possibility of hitting a planet, moon, or asteroid). So, in such a setting where FTL methods are too inaccurate to facilitate jumping into the middle of star system, I have this to say; A fleet commander, unless they are incompetent, will have, at best, days, hours at worst, to study their enemy’s fleet and compare it to their own. However, perhaps more importantly, they have to decide whether or not what they’re defending is worth the potential loss of billions of credits worth of ships. Nobody will congratulate the commander who loses half a dozen ships defending a small, newly founded mining colony of a few thousand souls, as cruel as it sounds.

[@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773]

​@themightyalpaca313 that's the biggest issue with Trek. It's basically a plot as demand and inconsistent. Let say B5 for example, it's known that opening a jump point in atmosphere is stupid. However the white star under Sherridan did it when he had to escape. Then during the earth Civil War a single white star was able to jump in close in Mars because of exact coordinates. Jump points themsleves can be influenced by gravity wells and there needs to be precision to re-enter normal space. So for fights being away from gravity wells of larger celestial bodies makes sense.

[@bionicghost2772]

"These settings will naturally have battles with FANTASTIC justifications" as footage from the sojourn is playing. I observe the action you have performed herein.

[@Spacedock]

I wish to state for the record that our editor did that without being asked lol

[@hupablom8851]

@@SpacedockI wish to state that your editor is right!

[@theguywiththegoatee7801]

Time stamp?

[@metadragon6443]

@@theguywiththegoatee78016:01

[@getous]

The Sojurn have footage? I thought it was only an audio drama? (Haven't listened to it yet)

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

The video mentions wet navy battles. What it misses is that even Wet Navy battles are usually dictated by geographic features. Commerce raiders and convoy escorts almost always engage each other along merchant shipping routes. Battle Fleets will often engage around chokepoints or near islands or the coast, since one or both sides will have an objective in that area. For example, the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 took place in the middle of the ocean, with neither fleet ever spotting the other with their own surface ships. However, the engagement was dictated because both forces were attempting to support ground operations on nearby islands. The Japanese were trying to invade Port Moresby while the Allies were trying to stop them. I mentioned Honorverse in a previous comment. In that series, battles often happen in star systems that lack any obvious utility, such as The Battles of Hancock and Seaford Nine that started the Havenite-Manticoran War or the Battle of Grendelsbane during Operation Thunderbolt. In all three engagements, the star systems were uninhabited, with either no planets or planets that were uninhabitable. But all three systems were fought over because they held other value. Hancock was a fleet support base, chosen because of its proximity to the single-system nations of Zanzibar, Alizon, and Yorik, nations allied to Manticore at the start of the War. Seaford Nine was important mainly as a Havenite staging ground for offensives in that region of space. And Grendelsbane is a major shipyard between Manticore and Erewhon, with 145 warships under construction there when the battle was fought. David Weber does a pretty good job of explaining how and why battles wind up being fought where they are.

[@smalltime0]

A lot of early sci-fi has spaceships that are outright submarines. Like silent running is adopted, and everyone/everything goes silent, when they're trying to evade... Star Trek is pretty notable for this. It's like, guys, you're in space.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

@smalltime0 in the early days of sci-fi, there wasn't really a lot of information about how shit worked in space. But, at the same time, there is a human drive to get quieter when danger is near.

[@Yora21]

Also oilers and colliers. Without nuclear propulsion, navies at war need supply lines. Especially when they operate in areas where they have no naval bases. Ports that provide supplies to ships of nations engaged in war lose their neutral status, so you either have a local ally to join your war, or haul all your fuel (and ammunition) across vast distances of ocean.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

@Yora21 even with nukes, food and ammo are necessary.

[@RorikH]

Another limitation of FTL that could encourage big engagements is precision. If you can get your fleet to all end up in the right solar system after a jump, but not necessarily to all end up in orbit of the exact planet you're trying to attack, you might have to have your fleet jump to the edge of the system and then begin forming up before attacking, rather than being able to just dump a whole fleet straight into battle. Could also encourage use of carriers/motherships/highliners that can transport other ships to keep a fleet in the same location or Dreadnought type things that could hold off 10 enemy ships at once if they ended up in the wrong position.

[@FearlessSon]

That's something that used to be a thing in the Star Wars Legends continuity. It was difficult to jump directly into close proximity of a large gravity well like a planet, so fleets would tend to jump further away and take time forming up. One of Thrawn's tactical innovations was sending an Interdictor-class ship ahead of the main fleet formation. Once it disengages it's hyperdrive, it engages it's artificial gravity generators and forces the fleet behind it out of hyperspace all in the same place at the same time. That way the attacking forces could form up quickly, strike their targets before the defenders could fully muster, and then be back on their way before reinforcements could arrive to drive them back.

[@darkehartplays]

I use something like this in my unpublished writings. The difference being that the inprecision is in terms of time. The first ship to arrive after a short FTL jump can sometimes even arrive before it left in an absolute sense, and this phenomena gets worse the farther you jump at once. Keeping your fleet together requires making the shortest jumps you can and taking roll call after each one so nobody gets left behind. Not knowing when you're going to arrive also means that trying to come out too close to a navigation hazard, like a whole planet or something, means you could very well materialize _inside it_ and have a very bad day.

[@richardvhal8140]

@@darkehartplays Materializing inside of something is a painful way to die so that piece of your lore is perfect for a sci-fi body horror scene.

[@TheWarmachine375]

1:11 Battle of Loum - it is where the Earth Federation found out the hard way that mobile suits are a threat to their space fleets after Zeon Zakus led by Char Aznable wiped them out. Hence, Project V was given a greenlight with Tem Ray leading it and that produced the Guntank, the Guncannon and... *The Gundam.*

[@AdotLOM]

UC Gundam is also superbly able to justify where and when battles take place Super-BVR combat is impossible in the setting due to Minovsky particles, and so space battles are forced to happen between vessels that are mere hundreds or even tens of kilometers away, and often with large massed formations of ships being necessary to achieve the required fire density. This then further justifies mobile suits and similar "dogfighting" machines as a primary means of force projection, as assuring hits on enemy vessels to attack points of interest is made far easier by mecha with their own organic firepower and their ability to close in to within visual range and remain "mobile" when compared to a warship. The same Minovsky particles makes it extremely difficult to obtain a reliable track via target illumination, and any attempt to use a missile with active RADAR homing would make that weapon too vulnerable to being shorted by Minovsky particles as well (hence dumb-fire rockets are one of the preferred methods of delivering payloads during intense firefights). And whenever a space battle takes place, it's either in proximity to a colony, the moon, or in orbit around Earth - but when fighting around Earth, they by default do not stay "stationary" relative to the Earths location, and often make multiple passes of the Earth during a chase/confrontation. Point is, space battles in UC always seem to happen because one faction has ships that need to go somewhere, and they're either intercepted or meet resistance wherever they are going.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

The original Gundam show is superb in this regard, the White Base was always going somewhere, with a clear goal, and the fights occurred with reasonable contexts.

[@darthhuller5201]

In Stargate Atlantis there was one space battle where the protagonists were able to stage an ambush on a wraith fleet in the middle of nowhere using the justification that wraith ships lacked shields and needed to regenerate their hulls between short hyperspace jumps because of exposure to hyperspace. It's a nice piece of worldbuilding to give one faction a distinct disadvantage in particular technologies like hyperdrives even if the wraith had an overwhelming advantage in sheer ship tonnage.

[@ElEscolta]

Probably the strategy that Carter commanding the USS Phoenix used as well on the alternate future of "the last man" episode, knowing where the ships where going to stop she was able to keep doing quick guerrilla strikes jumps to their location, destroying them and escaping.

[@BNOBLE981]

They did the same again against the humanoid replicators later in the series, in both cases they obtained a means of tracking the Wraiths hive ships and the replicators aurora class ships. It stopped working against the Wraith once they learnt to counter the Asgard beam technology, as for the replicators, they started travelling in wolf packs of multiple ships instead of lone vessels.

[@thelordofcringe]

​@@BNOBLE981the same tactic ends up being used against SG-1 when they get their ship upgraded with an asgard core. The core releases subspace emissions whenever it's active, so the Ori ships are able to follow them whenever it's active (but they can't really stop because their weapons and shields can't harm/protect from the Ori ships without the core).

[@baznugent9301]

The Alien tabletop RPG space combat system is essentially a joust between two ships: for it to make any sense, they have to be headed straight at each other without FTL. One of the best tabletop space combat mechanics I've seen cause it's super simple.

[@TheWarmachine375]

Hera Syndulla: "We're gonna fly straight through the blockade!" Imperial Navy: *shot down all Rebel ships coming straight at them* Hera Syndulla: *surprised Pikachu face*

[@martinjrgensen8234]

Hera is time and time again portrayed as a moron 😂

[@WilhelmImperatorRex]

That pretty much sums up all Disney Wars space "battles" 👍

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

@@WilhelmImperatorRex It kinda sums up Star Wars in general. Episode 4: Let's fly straight at the target. Episode 5: Let's fly straight at the target. Episode 6: Let's fly straight at the target. Episode 1: Let's fly straight at the target. Episode 2: No space battles. Clone Wars: Let's fly straight at the target. Episode 3: Let's fly straight at the target.

[@CantankerousDave]

If only space weren’t 2D in Star Wars.

[@AdmiralBlackstar]

"They can't kill all of us." "Why not?" "Oh...um..."

[@templarw20]

A big problem with Trek battles and FTL is that there is not really consistent treatment of what, if any, restrictions on warp travel there are. A couple times they talk about warp travel within a system (whatever THAT means) is risky, but that's never really shown. Phasers aren't supposed to work in warp, only torpedoes because they have their own warp field... except when they do. Star Wars, for all the oddities in Rogue One and Force Awakens, has a fairly well defined system, and they're not afraid to exploit those for narrative effect. B5 more so.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Why did the Federation fight the Borg at Wolf 359? Because "Wolf 359" sounds cool when said by the actors. Much better than some bland X-Y-Z coordinate designation.

[@templarw20]

@@MonkeyJedi99 It's also a real star, pretty dang close to Sol.

[@AngeloBarovierSD]

I can’t really think of a major Babylon 5 battle which wasn’t properly motivated by story. Short of the occasional surprise attack, “We have to go there and do that” or “They’ve come here to do this” was always clear and the stakes quite obvious. Yet they still managed some killer moments even in non-battles like “Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me…” For all its low budget and melodrama, I love that bloody show!

[@templarw20]

@@AngeloBarovierSD indeed.

[@DomWeasel]

It used to be consistent throughout TNG to Enterprise. But then with the new series post-Abrams, Warp has become confused with Star Trek's hyperspace. Ships in warp previously existed in real-space with the 'warp field' shielding them from the effects of relativity while travelling at light speed. Ships at warp could be intercepted. Then the reboot films and series came along and warp now inconsistently exists both in real-space and hyperspace. This is why I liked Stargate. Almost everyone uses hyperspace which takes them out of real-space while travelling, meaning ships can't be intercepted and can only be engaged in real-space. The Asgard have both hyperspace engines and "hyperspeed", allowing them to travel at FTL speeds while still in real-space; crossing light-years in seconds. It was clearly defined.

[@CollinBuckman]

Fun fact: 40k of all settings gave an in-universe explanation for why fleets don't jump past each other in something called the Mandeville Point. The Mandeville Point is an area at the edge of a star system where it's most safe to exit the warp, often very far from the star (for example in the Sol System, the Mandeville Point is beyond Pluto). While it's possible to jump into system closer, doing so is often risky due to potential interference from the gravity of the star or nearby planets.

[@dumnor]

Or something in the warp manifesting due to some significance the system has in the warp.

[@lachlanmckinnie1406]

And sup-light travel is much slower too, so the travel from the Mandeville to the important planets takes quite a while, and thus is much easier to intercept.

[@DrakeRunner]

Battletech has Jump points too. Its basically the same as Gate style FTL travel. 40k always has "The warp did it" as a constant excuse though.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

​@@DrakeRunner As does Star Wars, Allston's X-Wing novels go into it as the Wraiths go pirates and have to plan out raids and ambushes.

[@basedeltazero714]

@@DrakeRunner It's very explicit in Battletech (less so in 40k, as it has unclear canon at best) that 'jump points' are a concept of convenience, and in reality the relation is the other way around - all of space is a valid jump destination except for the gravity well around a star. If you've got a fleet of warships you can show up anywhere the force of gravity isn't too strong - including lagrange points. Of course this is hard to calculate and even around the edges of the system the danger zone is distorted by planetary bodies (for instance, Sol's no-jump zone reaches almost to Saturn... but *Saturn itself* has its own gravity well, and is constantly moving.) So, to simply the math and also provide a convenient reference point to put waystations, most ships jump directly 'above' or 'below' the star's ecliptic plane.

[@HeadlessChickenTO]

I always felt Sisko engaging the Dominion fleet was not only justified but necessary. In his pre-planning stage and sales pitch to the admiralty, they almost didn't sign off on the mission, stating that they'd need to pull ships off defensive lines protecting the core worlds. Starfleet was stretched very thin at this point of the war. They knew the Dominion still outnumbered them and could easily replace any of their losses. Weaking their own defensive posture gave the Dominion a B line to the heart of the Federation with minimal resistance, taking out critical supply points, ship building infrastructure, and destroyed what little moral was left.

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

Also, Star Trek has FTL weaponry. If they had really wanted to, you could explain that it was either stop to fight the Dominion Fleet, or have the Dominion Fleet rip them a new one as they shot at the Starfleet ships warping past them. Since the Dominion fleet isn't in warp, they'd have the firepower advantage since their warp engines aren't sucking up power that would have gone into into weapons and shields. And then while Star Fleet is engaging Deep Space Nine's defenses, the Dominion Fleet can come up right behind them, pincering them in.

[@HeadlessChickenTO]

@noppornwongrassamee8941 Well, about engaging in combat at warp. Yeah, your weapons and shields won't be as effective since the majority of your power is being directed to your FTL drive. But on top of that, being this was a fleet formation, your fleet can only move as fast as your slowest ship. Despite having ships that could act as carriers, Sisko had fighters in his formation. They were probably running CAP while at sublight as i can'tsee them being much faster than shuttles at warp. And dialog did mention some ships falling out of formation due to over-extending their warp capabilities.

[@filanfyretracker]

I would also argue that it brought the fight away from the asset, Protecting DS9 from any collateral damage from weapons fire or ships put into an out of control status due to combat damage.

[@chaost4544]

The Dominion proved to have technology more advanced than the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant. At this point in the series the Federation found some tricks to deal with their advanced technology in the field of battle. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Federation engaging the Dominion on a fleet level was mostly disastrous using traditional tactics employed by the Federation up to this point. It's almost like Sisko was using a Battle of Trafalgar type tactic of slowly trying to punch through the offensive line. The Sisko is a military genius and probably knew a surprise warp attack wouldn't work.

[@smalltime0]

The Dominion, mostly Dukat, recognises that they have a leak of information too. Sisko's plan required pulling the actual bulk of Earth's defensive fleet and that of neighbouring sectors (I think one of the commanders says that if the attack fails the next nearest fleet couldn't arrive in time to defend Earth), which would be an idiotic gamble unless Starfleet knew that the arrival of Dominion reinforcements was imminent. The fact that Sisko is in command, meant that the target was obvious, so the Dominion prepared for their defence. Sisko had foreseen that they'd react that way, since to them Earth is a major planet and the federation capital but DS9 controls the wormhole, and whoever controls the wormhole controls the alpha quadrant.

[@DrakeAurum]

This can play into the whole "stealth in space" thing - one good way to get two fleets into battle is if one of them finds a way to ambush the other.

[@sharlin648]

In Babylon 5 you can fight in hyperspace but unless you're an ancient race you generally do not wanna do that as its very easy to get lost in hyperspace and if you loose the beacons, you're basically doomed. There's also fun gravitational waves and other 'terrain' hazards in hyperspace, so generally combat in Hyperspace in B5 is VERY rarely done by the younger races and is often more a case of desperation than anything trying to risk an intercept in hyperspace.

[@robingill9940]

so are you saying that some places just are to dangerous? and if you value your lives be somewhere else??

[@sharlin648]

@@robingill9940 Exactly! As not even one human captain faced the Minbari fleet in hyperspace and survived...

[@dariustiapula]

"Save the Ascension, no matter the cost."

[@MyVanir]

"Megatron must be stopped, no matter the cost."

[@janhornak5739]

"Destroy the Cadia, no matter the cost."

[@piedpiper1172]

@@janhornak5739CADIA STANDS …in my weeping heart 😭

[@Dark_Fusion19]

"All Alliance ships hold formation. Wait for a shot at Soverign. Nothing else matters. I repeat, nothing else matters".

[@TheJoazzz]

@@janhornak5739 "The Cadia"

[@DrewDyrewood]

With the battle to retake DS9, wouldn't it have been better to take out the fleet rather than warp to the station? If the stations defensive systems were still active, the Dominion fleet could warp in behind the Federation fleet and smash them in a classic hammer-and-anvil attack. Its been a long time since I've seen the episode though, so maybe I'm missing some details.

[@islandmaster5064]

In star trek into Darkness the ambushed enterprise at warp shows that if a ship is hit while at warp the damage is increased. It's the difference of a bullet hitting you dead on vs a bullet that is tumbling in the air.... Basically one is being hit by an arrow while the other is being hit by a boulder.

[@Arashmickey]

One thing Expeditionary Force takes its sweet time to do is setup the battle. A lot of it is sneaky sneaky stuff that has to happen without anybody noticing, usually involves a multi-step plan of finding the target, gathering more info about it, setting up misinformation and decoys, getting in and out, and then monitoring the aftermath to make sure nobody knows whether or why anything is wrong.

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

Thats mostly due to the fact the the Merry Band of Pirates can't let ANYONE even know that they exist.

[@Arashmickey]

@@Tetsujinhanmaa Very true. Or else the hairless monkeys will be so much as a paisley of bugs splattered on a windshield. For me it's a huge part of what makes it such a fun and interesting story.

[@beeffilledshark1714]

I swear I thought I was going insane when the Supreme Commander OST started playing. Sunk hundreds of hours into that game as a kid and getting throttled 15 years back was a trip

[@Omega_1111]

Love that game

[@CallsignYukiMizuki]

Not the first time they used Sup Com ost in their vids. Also UEF UEF UEF UEF UEF

[@jimmymcgoochie5363]

If your FTL system is a load of individual ships moving in the same direction towards the same destination, it makes sense to have them not all appear in the same place at the same time to avoid having to use the phrase “catastrophic Kessler Syndrome chain reaction” as one of them botches their arrival coordinates and Holdo Manouvre-s half their fleet into shrapnel in one go.

[@williammagoffin9324]

That happens a few times in the Honorverse during wormhole transits in combat conditions. A ship might not switch from sail (FTL) to impeller (sublight) fast enough or another ship transits too soon and the impeller wedges strike tearing the ships apart. Smaller ships then have to rush in and tractor beam debris out to clear the transit lanes and look for survivors.

[@laisphinto6372]

I think the more sensible FTL systems would BE that they Stop at the Edge of a system and Go in by sublight speeds since you dont want to drop your fleet into a Star ,moon or planet

[@williammagoffin9324]

@@laisphinto6372 The Honorverse has that. The gravity of any stellar large mass prevents you from dropping out of hyperspace too close. The exception is a wormhole, which is very rare & valuable since it allows a ship with a hyperspace drive to instantaneously transit between its termini.

[@wilwatkins2773]

2 of my favorite examples of good execution of sensical space battles come from book series. The Black Fleet Saga from Joshua Dalzelle, and David Weber's "Honorverse".....here's hoping someday they get adapted.

[@cp1cupcake]

There was an attempt to make an Honorverse film but the studio went under.

[@seanheath4492]

@@cp1cupcake Too bad. I always kinda pictured Honor as Claudia Christian when she was in Babylon 5.

[@michaelmutranowski123]

the joint attack on the Replicator homeworld in Stargate:Atlantis is one of the best space battles in that series cause it gives us a glimpse of what the Ancient-Wraith War actually looked like in its early stages

[@ElEscolta]

Probably a close second would be the Orion and Daedalus battling the 2 Wraith ships in the void between dimensions, even tho the Orion could only destroy one ship the use of drones must of been a formidable weapon in a full fleet encounter against Wraiths

[@TomSedgman]

6:00 is why I miss the multiple FTL types in Stelaris. You used to have 3 different ways of FTLing and each had different interplay between other empires that might have had different tech

[@Sorain1]

True, it was the best example of why differing FTL types would dictate warfare.

[@onyhow]

You should try Sword of the Stars then. Every single playble sides have their own method of FTL.

[@brothergrimace3859]

The point you make about travel & battles occurring around/due to naturally occurring or specifically created avenues or access points in space is a major point in DC comics since 1988's 'Invasion!', where it became canon that EVERYONE knew about Earth due to it being VERY close to a natural hyperspace access point.

[@wingsabre]

I think they explained why in Star Trek, ships warp to the edge of a system instead of directly to a planet. It’s because warping in a solar system could cause astrometric anomaly. It happened when they did that in TMP and was mentioned several times in shows. In DS9 the defiant needed to warp within a system to avoid a bomb to set up a Nova. The choice was to do that or their fleet would be destroyed.

[@danielhale1]

One of the best movie space battles I've ever seen is Serenity. The enemy is waiting for them and they know to expect a fight, so they pull a brilliant and dangerous trick to even the odds. And the fight itself is awesome to watch!

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

And the local conditions that blind sensors is used by the Alliance Fleet use to lay in wait for their prey. Those same conditions prevent the Alliance from seeing that Serenity brought along a fleet of their own. In open space, the Alliance probably could have shot the Reaver fleet to pieces before the Reavers could get close. But in the close quarters battle created by the sensor blocking clouds, the Reavers could get close enough to the Alliance to hit back.

[@TalosCreations]

A good justification I can think of is why Earth in Stargate wasn't immediately destroyed by a Anubis almost immediately due to the Asgard treaty. Anubis would go on to test that treaty several times before figuring out he could get away with it.

[@fatcoyote2]

My favorite space battles have always been the ones from Babylon 5 and its supporting mini-series. The battles always seemed to actually mean something, rather than just happening for the hell of it.

[@PltOffPPrune]

Agreed. Enough of the main characters had been through wars to know that combat shouldn't be entered lightly, and when they chose to engage it was done for justifiable reasons.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

3:40 Regarding Star Trek fleets getting intercepted and having battle in the middle of nowhere, it is important to remember that unlike most other FTL systems, fighting during Warp is completely feasible, safe (as in, unlike Babylon 5 Hyperspace or Warhammer 40k Warpspace, this shouldn't risk a chain reaction with space itself that could wipe out both sides and mess up travel for everyone else in the local star cluster) and common Now, there's no apparent reasons why fleets should prefer to drop out of warp to fight when intercepted. But then, there's no reason why ships shouldn't enter warp when in combat. My headcanon is that the freed power can be diverted to the shields and weapons, weapons potentially still able to hit an enemy ship at warp. Ergo, a ship out of warp while practically stationary relative to one at warp, is impervious to and can easily cripple the latter, if it drops out just right to still intercept So everyone drops out by doctrine

[@fisk0]

In Star Trek they have a term for going into warp during a battle - the Picard Manuever. Crazy to imagine that it took 200 years after the invention of the warp drive before someone thought of doing that.

[@Cananatra]

Several times we see that weapons fire can disrupt warp fields, and being forced out of warp often stresses and damages the ship. Add to this in one of the episodes of voyager i believe it was pointed out that while you can turn at warp, you can not turn fast. Seems like fighting at warp makes you easier to hit and easier to damage, so you'd only do it if you were in a massively more dominant position. (big ship vs shuttle for example). Thats my take on top of the extra energy available.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

@@fisk0 The Picard Manuever is more about using short range faster than light bursts of speed to create afterimages and sensor ghosts.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Yes, ships in Star Trek do not enter subspace completely like ships in Babylon 5 enter hyperspace. They just skim subspace on the surface, meaning they can still targeted by ships in regular space. A ship is vulnerable for the reason you stated, there is just not enough energy for both the engines and the shields. Add to that the catastrophic consequences a collapsing warp field can have for the ship and you don't want to be on warp close to an enemy.

[@lordsrednuas]

Maneuverability is actually brought up in several star trek episodes. With ships having very different capabilities at warp and sub light speeds. So the dynamics of a fight can massively change who is favoured based on if the fight is happening at warp or at impulse speeds. Dodging incoming fire is a perfectly viable tactic in star trek, so smaller ships will almost always do better at impulse speeds against lager ships (which are not only less manuverable, but just missing the bit you were aiming at is more likely to still hair the ship). And if the larger ship wants to actually have the fight, they've got to drop out of warp too, that or try for some sort of jousting flyby attack I suppose

[@charlestownsend9280]

In the universe I'm writing I have a rule where you can't use most FTL methods in a solar system, especially near a planet, large moon or star because the gravity messes with them, so large fleets have to fight through entire systems when it comes to invasions or targeting specific targets on a planet. That way I also don't have to explain why a fleet doesn't just appear right at the planet and can have a we've just detected an incoming fleet moment, cause sensors near the outer solar system have seen them. It also just makes sense from a traffic management perspective, there way more room in the outer solar system than near the center or a single planet, where they'll be tons of traffic a space stations and satellites and stuff. You'd probably also have technology specifically to prevent fleets from getting to close to vital locations with FTL.

[@trekkie1701c]

I have kind of similar in my books, though it's planet-based, mostly. Large gravity wells make the FTL field a bit wonky. Even have a scene planned to show off an 'eh, what's the worst that can happen' for someone trying to jump anyways. A neat thing that this enables though is it can actually force a battle. Let's say you're in a gravity well with a fleet. You can't jump. You must exit at sublight. Etc. A fleet outside of the well has no such restriction and depending on where your fleet goes they can easily outpace you and get in front of you. Give a bit of a spool up time on the drives or some other reason you can't just punch it immediately upon getting to jump altitude and now you *have* to engage or run the blockade.

[@igncom1]

Yeah similar in my setting. Besides the star systems are the places that have all the interesting stuff in them, empty interstellar space largely does not. It also gave me the excuse for everyone, bar the space swarm, to set up space infrastructure like gravity gates to make travelling through a system quicker and easier, further concentrating all the stuff together as everyone travels, and giving something to fight over, even if they can just bypass it more slowly.

[@BlandSpagetti]

Having faster than light restricted by gravity wells like stars and planets adds a great reason as to why ships would move towards a destination at sub light speed, in the setting I’m working on ftl “jump” drives creates an artificial singularity between two points for instantaneous teleportation (think Battlestar Galactica) they have to travel far out into the edge of the solar system so as to be able to generate a wormhole without the stars interference

[@m1a2abrams50]

I actually use multiple forms of FTL travel in mine. There are different kinds of FTL that have tradeoffs and advantages, for example, I have the Alcubierre concept (where you bend the space in front of you and expand the space behind you), Wormholes, and Quantum Teleportation. Alcubierre only works outside of a gravity well, but other than that it's your standard method of travel. Wormholes exist and provide gateway/instantaneous travel between one part of the galaxy to another, but they only form naturally, there very few of them, making them a strategic asset and controlled by certain powers that must be negotiated with to use the wormhole. Then there is quantum teleportation, which can be used inside of a gravity well and is instantaneous, but it requires ten times the power generation than using Alcubierre, and it only works on non-organic objects, because you can't teleport organic matter because it will "mush" when quantized.

[@mrsupremegascon]

Please make sure that when your fleets are travelling at sub light speed, it must be slow, like taking days or even months to travel the entire solar system, especially if the star is large. Folding space to get FTL might not take that much energy, we don't know. But we do know that accelerating an object at relativistic speed, (above 1% of the speed of light) takes a massive amount of energy. If you want to make something that weight as much as an aircraft carrier go from Pluton to the Sun in 6h, so around 80% the speed of light, you need 5,992 10^12 J So more than the total of energy earth receive from the sun, in a year.....

[@kappazo2268]

MS Igloo was showing a battle referred to in the original series at Laum. It was pretty well done.

[@sjins1poolboy698]

I love the effect the mass relays have on combat in the Mass Effect series, knowing exactly where the attacker is going to come from is such a huge defensive advantage. But then with the reapers, it doesn't really matter but it doesn't stop those Turian dreadnoughts dropping in next to reapers just exiting a relay and going for the point-blank exchanges. Wish there was more visuals of ME space combat, such an awesome lore.

[@tba113]

Homeworld had a number of aspects that support the points made here. The battles in that game happen for generally sensible reasons. Since the overwhelming majority of interstellar space is an empty void with nothing of interest, the Taiidan Empire was able to figure out where the Hiigaran fleet was likely to have to stop along the way, and set several traps for them once they figured out where the Hiigarans were heading. The inhabitants of the Garden of Kadesh had hyperspace-inhibiting technology that they typically used to ambush, trap, and either capture or annihilate anyone passing through their territory. The Taiidani had a network of listening posts that could peer into hyperspace and catch evidence of passing ships. More terrifyingly, the Beast entity in HW Cataclysm had been (mostly) bottled up by the incredible isolation of interstellar space: when the original crew of the Naggarok realized just how dangerous the plague they'd picked up truly was, they dropped into realspace deep in an interstellar void and destroyed their engines. It wasn't as effective as destroying the Beast outright, but it did serve to trap the entity on the ship for eons. Over a million years later, it was pure horrifying bad luck that an Imperial Taiidan force, attempting to shake off pursuit following an unsuccessful raid on Hiigara, made a blind jump and ended up near a drifting distress beacon fired off by the immobilized Nagarrok.

[@SuperFailzocker]

In Elite Dangerous, you can also use the Frameshift Drive Interdictor to take a ship out of supercruise (the "slower" of the two FTL modes), although the other ship's pilot (or you, if you're the target) can actually avoid the interdictor if they're good enough. There are also FSD Interruptors, but these are missiles whose warheads are designed to interrupt the charging of another ship's FSD before it can even start the jump. However, both FSD Interdictor and FSD Interruptor presumably work on the principle that they overload the target's frameshit drive and trigger an emergency shutdown.

[@JasonJrake]

The “Lost Fleet” series (of series) of books needs Stardock attention. The author was a Naval officer who adapted real ship tactics to interplanetary settings, and made some fun stories in the process.

[@IncoherentOrange]

I love how Stellaris handles hyperlanes by giving you a risky way to bypass them with sufficient technology - the Jump drive can penetrate deep into any enemy empire, but imposes severe penalties while recharging on both speed and weapon damage, making the fleet much more vulnerable.

[@danielcroslin]

I love interdictor tech in space IPs it's a fantastic confrontation and over-come-a-hurdle medium.

[@Matthew_Lawless]

In Star Trek, they say multiple times using warp inside a solar system could mess up the local sun. It's why they fly impulse whenever in range of a star's gravity or to visit planets. They take a massive risk of going to warp to stop a shuttle that was turned into a bomb by changling Bashir in DS9 before it could cause a massive solar flare once.

[@Evil0tto]

Problem is that we see ships go to warp inside systems all the time. Even next to planets. The writing is very inconsistent on that.

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

@@Evil0ttoim fairly certain they jump from planetary orbit a few times

[@maxwellpauric00]

​@Evil0tto ive always understood it as, it was more dangerous to warp within a system(as in start the system and end there) than to just warp out of it directly. Possibly also that warping directly into the system is dangerous so they add a safely margin and aim for just in the edge of the system

[@HailHydra27]

​@@Evil0tto perhaps exiting a system at warp is less risky than entering one

[@mittensfastpaw]

I always enjoy the many varied sources you pull from for each point.

[@PaulCashman]

Another good example -- and a fantastic battle to boot -- is the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One. It makes total sense for the battle to take place near the shield gate, because it HAS to be taken out. I like the "trade paths" approach to interstellar travel taken in books, like CJ Cherryh's Chanur series, where ships or fleets HAVE to emerge from hyper at a certain spot outside the gravity well. David Weber's Honorverse books are similar, with the concept of hyperspace junctions....and massive Junction fortifications to defend against large fleet attacks.

[@davidgipe997]

Loved the Chanur Saga. And yes. Good to have velocity dumping and speed\distance effect transmission gathering as you get closer to the source. Also "FTL has its own war crime section"

[@mmcb2910]

That SupCom music is soooooooo good!

[@Restilia_ch]

Eyyyy, Gundam Seed Freedom representation at the end!

[@BlakeWaymire-r4e]

Good timing, I was just thinking of this for myself. Had to do this recently in the book I'm working on. Jump drives are the FTL method, so to fix the problem of leaving in the middle of a battle, I introduced a spool up element. If a ship tries to run, it's defenseless for a minute or so.

[@AndrewHenson-x8x]

OK so I haven't finished the video yet but I LOVE your content and writing in general and what comes to mind? The battle of Midway! The decisive engagement planned around an island as close to the middle of nowhere as you get!

[@Recon777x]

Ironically (or not) the sponsor of today's video actually solves this the best. If you have FTL "lanes" you get natural chokepoints you can defend, where in _open_ space, you can just FTL past any blockade straight to your target.

[@Myehn]

Bless the person including the gundam clips. Would be great to get another gundam based episode

[@AbsurdShark]

Thank you for subtitling the clips in the corner, it was really helpful since i was wondering on certain clips what game or movie it takes place in.

[@angelomigueldedios1697]

The battles in the Legend of the Galactic Heroes had so much background to each of them and are amazing to socio political to logistics and historical

[@forestwells5820]

Something I added for my FLT is a "spin-up" period. You can't just jump right to FTL. You gotta spin the drives until they're ready. Now if you can dump a lot of power into the process, it will take less time, though those coils might be getting a bit hot (think over clocking your GPU). However, that's hard to do in combat since you need that power for shield, weapons sublight engines, ECM so they can't target you easily, and so on. So you have to gradually build up the spin while fighting to stay alive. In theory, you can maintain the spin of your HL drive after you arrive or just a "keep your foot on the gas just in case", but that still takes a fair bit of power, and also adds to wear and tear on the coils, which could risk damage to them. The thing about "why can't they just warp right on by?" is always hard to justify. You need a reason for it to happen, but "in reality", it would be near impossible to actually force unless you're fighting over a specific target. So most of the time, it's better left untouched really since, in the end, the reason is "because the story needs it". Why didn't they fly over starbase with the inhibitor on it? Because the starbase has a critical plot role to play that can't happen without the battle happening in range of it. Inserting complex layers of why this happens threatens to become an info dump, and can overly complicate a key moment of the story.

[@MrElegos]

A franchise with great justified Fleet Battles is The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell. Every battle takes place in a star system with a set geography, including planets, stars, jump points (star lanes) and hypernet gates

[@terranceaskew3165]

Agreed. In a story im writing, there are two space battles that happen in what will hopefully be the first book. Wont bore yall to death with the tiny details, but basically....Alien fleet is arriving in Sol System, unaware of earths fleet but earth is aware of them and their "not so great" intentions. Earths mars fleet ambushes them at a Lagrange point, but gets wiped out (mostly). Earths main fleet then prepares two ambushes - one near the moon, the other being a final ditch effort in atmosphere (nuke and laser satellites). Earths fleet is disables the bulk of the fleet while the nukes/lasers takes another swath of vessels (of which, most are mining/supply vessels - leaving three large cruisers to "land" on earth). They are the two battles that drive the central plot, where Earth ground forces are cut off from Mars and Luna and any space support, while another unknown fleet battles their way to help earth and mars.

[@TheFirstObserver]

Always love when the Supreme Commander music is used! Really emphasizes the epic nature of the spacebattles on screen!

[@seanbigay1042]

My favorite battle in David Weber's Honor Harrington saga, and the one that establishes her rep as a galactic-level space fighter, is also the battle that everyone from Honor herself on down later criticizes as a freak of circumstance that could happen once and only once. Put most simply, not too long ago some lazy security officer of the People's Republic of Haven ("Peep" to its many enemies) mandated that there could be one -- and only one -- proper approach to the Peep prison world of Hades ("Hell" to the many people who don't want to be there, including at this time Honor and her staff). Realizing this, Honor sends her motley flotilla of hijacked Peep ships (long story) on a ballistic course, using only maneuvering thrusters, straight for the point where she knows an incoming Peep warfleet will pop out of warp. Since no one ever scans for piddling liddle maneuvering thrusters when everyone uses big sexy macho warp drives, Honor catches her enemies completely off guard -- and decimates them in one swell foop!

[@cidiracing7481]

The space battle in Serenity is also great near the end when utter chaos breaks out because of the unexpected reaver fleet.

[@redtornado422]

STARSECTOR MENTIONED?? THIS IS THE BEST CHANNEL EVER

[@therealshadow99]

In my Guardians of the Stars setting, FTL is effectively straight line travel and is vulnerable to strong gravity wells. So 'lanes' form naturally as the straightest path from one system to another is a specific straight line. If you want to 'go around' a system between one system and another one must skirt around it to travel along the next leg of such a trip. Though their is nothing stopping a vessel from not traveling between two systems from the most direct path or even stopping travel after a time and changing the path your taking. This allows Pirates and military forces options civilian vessels would usually avoid. So most fighting happens either near planets or along these paths, but a smart enemy will know when they are most vulnerable and try to work around that.

[@fredbyoutubing]

The Galactica having to put itself between a civilian fleet and a supervisor force was brilliant.

[@tyrannicpuppy]

Some games force hyperlane behaviour by accidental mechanic too. No Man's Sky for instance. Unless it's massively changed since I last played, you take straight line travel from system to system, meaning pirates can focus themselves on those lanes between systems or planets. A high-risk cargo could normally choose to avoid such obvious points of attack by flying out into deep space then back in towards the destination, coming in from a wider angle and providing a less obvious approach to bypass such defences. You just then run the risk of running out of resources or breaking down in an area with minimal or no resources to replenish them. But you'd probably calculate all of that before lift off.

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

Firefly episode Out of Gas is what happens when you break down while taking these alternate routes. Just rewatched it today in fact.

[@tyrannicpuppy]

@@noppornwongrassamee8941 More what happens when you ignore the warnings of your mechanic for months and then wonder why ship broke. "You said that buffer panel was good for another three weeks." "That was six months ago, Captain."

[@padawanmage71]

There's a scene in 'Best of Both Worlds, Pt 1' where the Enterprise is in a nebula and has to escape. Next we literally see it fly right past the Borg Cube! When i first saw it as a kid, i though it was ok, but years later i thought, 'They could've left on the opposite side of the Nebula, but they instead fly right past the cube, essentially putting a 'SHOOT ME!' sign on the hull'?

[@danielseelye6005]

They were trying to keep the Cube's attention to buy time for the fleet to gather at Wolf 359

[@bigsarge2085]

Spacedock's great content justifies me writing this post!

[@Pennyguy3]

Always happy to see the Legend of Galactic Heroes love.

[@Alexquints]

Loved the scene in stargate atlantis where they tracked the wraith ships saw how far on a single jump it could go and then waited at the next stop to ambush and how most of the space battles happend above the planet being defended.

[@theclonelieutenant5976]

I can only speak for myself but i like the desperate chaose of as he calls it 'furballs' especially when we we actually feel the madness from all points of the battle and how pivital the battle is that both sides cant aford to back down or that would bean total destruction, so both sides just keep funnaling troops in and surviving means just luck, skill and instinct. Like the battle of corosant in the clone wars where ships were just jumping in and crashing into ally and enemy ships and boarding followed by capturing a ship was a literal option that could be used. Not only that ground troops were told to fly fighters and even shuttles were used when no fighters or bommers were left.

[@S1337theoddoneout-ip9xc]

Man! I just remembered those galaxy class strike wings from the Dominion war. Time to dust off my world razer and get some beam overload action.

[@AuthorDodgeMerrin]

This helps me put some things in perspective where I had some of the pieces but wasn't quite sure how they all fit together. Thanks!

[@Muncible]

In my opinion, the Halo novels have *amazing* written space battles. Highlight is the battle over Onyx, which heavily uses prowlers to *mine* the battlefield prior.

[@DarthEarp]

Huge fan of Supreme Commander, and love that you included music from its OST, but i think the music was a tad too loud in this video.

[@BetaAceX]

Killer use of the supreme commander soundtrack. Love that series.

[@Limubi1]

I think a very good example of the close range battle is at the climax of Serenity. There BOTH fleets are tricked into a close quarters surprise conflict by the 'Serenity' as it leads the vengeful Reaver fleet into the expectant Alliance force. With both pursuing and trapping forces suddenly engaged in a fight for survival against each other, the 'Serenity' can use its maneuverability to slip through the conflict and arrive at its destination on the surface of the planet relatively unmolested. Plus, the completely different nature of the fleets makes for a visually interesting battle that is clear despite the chaos.

[@Liopleurodon]

Sisko kinda knew what DS9 was able to do to a fleet, so it made some sense to string out the Dominion fleet away from this massive stronghold, trying to grind it down in isolation and then deal with the station itself. This would have also given the opportunity if they can defeat the fleet, but NOT the station to just criple the graviton emitter enough so that the minefield could stay in place for a little longer

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

Honorverse makes FTL combat kinda interesting. Hyperspace, in many ways, works a lot like an ocean. As long as everyone is in the same "band" of Hyperspace, there are certain routes that basically everyone will always take, dictated by grav-waves. Since you know the routes everyone takes, because you know where the Grav-waves are, then you can set up to interdict them. This mainly works against merchant ships, since warships don't have to balance shipping schedules.

[@randlebrowne2048]

Aren't ships unable to use their "shields" (grav wedges and sidewalls) in hyperspace because the grave wedges have to be converted into hyperspace sails (being moved away from a mostly blocking position)? This makes combat why in hyperspace very dangerous; since, ships are far more vulnerable to damage than while in realspace.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

@randlebrowne2048 yes and no. In hyper, Impeller wedges can still be used. But in Grav Waves, they can't. The ideal is to catch a target as they exit a grav wave.

[@Sorain1]

One of the best representations of space battles in pen and paper games is (in my view) Lancer. An entire sub game focused on fleet battles exists within the setting, with good reasoning for why battles play out the way they do (because of how their techbase works) and a specific focus for how PC's (who are usually mech pilots) interact with them. An entire chunk of the introduction chapter is focused on the whole 'why naval battles happen' and emphasizing the enormous expense of ships, brining up the point that navy's don't fight if they can avoid it for that reason. (This feeds into the main mode of gameplay because comparatively mechs and elite pilots are quite expendable.)

[@jenthefoxgirl1170]

If the Starfleet fleet had just warped past the Dominion fleet to DS9, they would've been easily pincered between DS9 & the Dominion fleet.

[@Its-Tonal-Whiplash]

The fleet chase in TLJ is so dumb, the phirst order could have had multiple star destroyers jump to hyperspace and head off the resistance from literally any direction.

[@spartan078ben]

If the fleet in Operation Return had skipped the fleet and came out right at DS9, it would have been caught between a heavily armed space station and a fleet that outnumbered it two to one. They had to meet the fleet.

[@tymek200101]

I think Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse have some of the best justified battles followed closely by Stargate and then, a bit further down the list but still pretty good is star trek

[@Lordrocky24]

The Expanse is the masterclass in justifying space battles. ANY battle is so risky that you don’t pick a fight at all unless you absolutely have to.

[@ironduke6100]

So many of the characters spend so much time trying desperately to avoid getting into battle in the first place. It's so grand tbh, it makes the stakes feel truly risky and shows that every battle was completely justified from a narrative standpoint. And nesrly every time people rush into an engagement, it ends so poorly for them...

[@SinisterSlay1]

This sort of contrasts to what actually happened to me in a game. Just last night. I was playing X4 and one of the vig started attacking one of my L traders. I was in a Hydra so I figured I could fight them. I jump in to help and there has to be hundreds of fighters attacking. So we already have the crazy swarm, but seeing this I quickly retreat a safe distance with boost and call in my own carrier fleet with hundreds of fighters. Creating a massive chaotic space battle with hundreds of ships all in close quarters. So I think it can be possible to have a real chaotic battle in the middle of nowhere. The trader didn't make it, but my fleet of Agards are making quick work of the Vig now. Revenge is ours!

[@katarjin]

Vig have been pretty active in my current game, need to fix that. (once I save ZYA from the Xenon)

[@Belligerent_Herald]

Honor Harrington series does a pretty good job of justifying its where and when, given that the whole point of the narrative is to make wet navies in space make sense. Yes you can hyper strait to your enemies home system, but you better bring enough to win or it’s a long walk home with wounded sailors and broken ships and empty magazines. So the more common strategy is to move the “frontline” closer to your main objective by securing secondary systems for repair and resupply.

[@shadowsayan3454]

One thing i really love about Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is the Change in Which the Gamilas Empire interacts and fights the Yamato. At first they dont even take her seriously, which at the Time is kinda understandable, Earth is nearly destroyed entirely and the Humas launch a Single new ship? What is it Gonna do anyway? Its only after the Yamato destroys the Pluto Base the Gamilas change their approach but even then its more of an "you broke my Honor" type battle, the Leader of Gamilas Dessler even uses the Yamato as an "Test Subject" for an Biological Weapon however this is turns completly upside down and the entire Gamilas Military Leadership witnesses the Wave Motion Gun a weapon powerful enough to destroy Planets, which is quite Similiar to an Prototype Gamilas is Working on. Its only now that the Yamato is taking as an serious threat but at that Point the Yamato is open Space and it is hard to catch here. A lot of attempts and even the use of an Interdimensional Submarine cant stop her. And it only gets worse for Gamilas, thanks to Internal Power Struggles, the best Shot at taking her down is stopped and later the Yamato even destroys their Transwarp network at Balun Connection the Milky Way Galaxy to the Small Magelanic Cloud making most of Gamilas fleet stranded Months away from Home and at the least weeks away from the Yamato.

[@reeceemms1643]

Could you do a video on using the environment in space battles. Because a space battle I did for a story has the Hero ship taking on four enemy ships. Whilst in a debris field. Which A: allowed them to do an ambush. and B: Also gave them cover because they started to move around whilst stay confined to the debris field. Basically I just want to see a video on battles like the Battle of the mutara nebula and how certain environments play into space combat. Like if it's in an asteroid field or around near a black hole.

[@apophis40123]

Large number of ships might result in subspace turbulence, like what happened to Voyager in Scorpion. Might explain why we saw the Fed fleet moving at impulse instead of warp.

[@emerydittmer3601]

Never really though about this,but I really liked the way that freelancer had trade lanes and unique settings for almost all story battles. Each location felt unique and made sense. The very first mission you are thrust into battle right in your face and the next a trade lane is disabled and attacked. Sometimes the missions felt like you had to go to the four corners of the game but it made it very cool for exploring the game

[@roguecarrick816]

when i dabble in my sci fi setting ship fights are generally around installations or planets. and tend to be small contingent engagements. a couple capital ships with escorts having a short fight while AI attempt to math their way to dominion. or local control of ftl application. because forcing half your opponent into ftl while the other half stays put tends to end naval engagements

[@trekkie1701c]

You can do a big close range brawl with interdiction (as mentioned previously) and/or really good intel. Eve Online's second battle of M2-XFE comes to mind; coalition assaulting a Keepstar in the system accidentally revealed their jump in point for their Titans, didn't realize it, and jumped into a prepared killing ground. Ironically attempting to do this saved a bunch of Titans as the server choked processing it. Similarly the "False Tower" of Rooks and Kings fame where they used an interdiction field to hide that a starbase forcefield was not online; the Provibloc fleet attacking the tower landed out of position due to the interdiction and facing a decently sized fleet at close range that was unexpectedly able to engage them, and were prevented from leaving by the same interdiction. (R&K were kind of masters of this stuff).

[@Ryukuro]

The Lost Fleet pulls off necessary fights very well i think. What does help is ftl is limited to specific locations.

[@jamesadfowkes]

The description says "Battlezone II Music" but the background music is actually from Supreme Commander.

[@Arashmickey]

I kept noticing the same thing. However, I think it's the little intro jingle that is from Battlezone? I dunno, I haven't played it or played a little 20 years ago and forgot.

[@M1A1abramsFTW]

That it is

[@Bowserinator]

I came to comment this but you beat me to it

[@uppishcub1617]

Here's a simple one that doesn't get used enough despite being the most common reason for naval engagements irl, two ships on opposing just happening to run into each other while fulfilling their normal duties. If a pair of destroyers sees an enemy merchant vessel while mine laying, of course they'll attack it to score an easy kill. If a cruiser sees an enemy submarine while commerce raiding, of course it'll attack the submarine. Two fleets doing maneuvers happen to bump into each other? Fleet battle.

[@youraveragescotsman7119]

Hell, just have a space Gettysburg. One side was getting harassed by a skirmishing fleet, so they called back up. The harassing fleet calls for back up as well. Suddenly, you've got two full fleets out in bumfuck nowhere ready to beat each other to death over the dumbest possible circumstance.

[@steemlenn8797]

In my mind it's always sort of "if you can do FTL, you can also inhibit it". That is why ships don't break off in the middle of combat. That is why a fleet can pluck out everything from hyperspace. There is a ranking of energy capacity here - a small shuttle might not be able to prevent a battleship from jumping away - but generally either for safety or disturbance reasons you can't enter FTL too close to another (that has not tuned in to your frequency) and should be forced to leave FTL a certain distance away.

[@nomar5spaulding]

I'm having PTSD right now from my first time in Eve Online where I went with a group into nullsec. I had never encountered a drag bubble before, so when we warped to 0 on the outbound gate, and I see the gate sail right by... and I drop out 200km from the gate I started freaking out (quietly). Before anyone gets after me about bad fleet tactics etc, let me mention a few things. Firstly, this was in 2008. The game was simpler in a lot of ways back then and players themselves were often using tactics that look downright stupid even a few years later. Secondly, I was just a noob. The FC and scouts knew about the bubble. They also knew no one else was around us, so everyone in the fleet except me knew what was going on. They had to explain to me that it was an inconvenience, but not much of an actual threat at the time.

[@TimberWolf99]

THANK YOU for using Star Wars as good examples. On the Star Trek front, I do wish DS9 had been given more of a budget (and production time and ILM hadn't broken the models after First Contact) to get the fleet battles "right" in terms of Star Trek's internal logic. Yes, they're still great, but they could have been *so much* better.

[@hughsmith7504]

I know it's not cannon, but the Wolf 359 project actually has a reason for the cube to engage the fleet. Basically Starfleet laid a trap with graviton mines that knocked the cube out of warp when it got to the system. The attacked before it could restart it's engines.

[@malevolentmoose]

One of my favorites come from a book series that I don't think is translated into English, where FTL travel happens through something called like "The Depth", which 1) can be unstable and throw you out off-target, 2) requires a fair while to get the warp drive prepared and to get the crew into a state similar to cryostasis to travel safely and 3) warps are easily detectable through something similar to radar. This way FTL travel is much more limited and it becomes basically impossible to 1) travel to an unknown location safely, 2) escape mid-engagement with hostiles and 3) warp undetected behind enemy formations, which then creates a lot of interesting options for various encounters.

[@Kalatash]

I remember hearing that the largest tank vs tank engagement in WW2 was between two armies that were attempting to flank the main engagement happening nearby and ran headfirst into each other.

[@kurtuhlig2553]

One of the engagements in the Battle of Kursk. The fog lifted and tanks at twenty paces.

[@yarodin]

For just jumping past the enemy, it depends on the universe's settings. One example is the Harrington series, where suns and other huge masses create a hyper-threshold around them. Since most of the time, any worthwhile target is in a planetary system, you can't just "jump in" and hit the colony or shipyard directly. They have to drop out of hyper pretty far out.

[@TheArklyte]

I still feel like Stargate did all other races dirty be it Goa'uld, Asurans, Asgard or others. However they didn't want to make it a show about interstellar politics, so down to the chopping block everyone had to go... and then half the list were either revived or rebranded anyways 😅

[@seanheath4492]

To be fair, a lot of that had to do with them being told "this is your last season" and then getting another season.

[@thelordofcringe]

That's a better description of atlantis. Everything just resets constantly. They don't achieve much for 3 whole seasons. In sg1 they don't even have the means to affect interstellar politics beyond assassinating system lords until the defeat of anubis as that's around the time their navy begins growing, as well as serious power finally coming from the Tauri's mujahideen: the jaffa rebellion. For a good season or two, they start slapping down system lords left and right and their main threat ends up being Ba'als shenanigans, they don't have to worry about destruction of earth for the most part until the full scale ori invasion much later.

[@laisphinto6372]

Yeah they massively nerfed goa'uld technology meanwhile ridiculously deus ex machina earth Tech from M16 doing almost nothing against Jaffa Armor from Meer Pistols one shitting jaffas left and right , from staff weapons blowing Up entire Walls Up to direct Shots nearly creating a minor flesh wound. Also the deadalus class wasnt that powerful and was even Outclasses by hataks from Lucian alliance aka space Pirates WHO dont really know how to operate hataks, but then comes along the asgard Upgrades and Boy the deadalus class gets ridiculous powerful somehow even Outclassing asgard ships