Starship Thread

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Anyone lurking?

Aye.

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Can we talk weaponry, lads?
I've been watching The Expanse (it's good, although not a godsend like people seem to claim) and I'm somewhat puzzled in the absolute absence of laser weaponry. I've looked up a few arguments as to why this is the case and all the answers seem to be doubly true of magnetic weapons, especially the way they're portrayed in the show. There's also no reason why their point-defense systems shouldn't be lasers. I understand they want to have kinematic and impacting visuals, and that's fine, but given how they've stylized the railguns and point defense fire (i.e. to a ludicrous degree) it seems nuts to suggest colorizing the lasers was just too far for them to go.

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Lasers generate heat. Lots of heat. Which is a problem. Especially in space, where you have nowhere in particular to vent it to keep your tin can from turning into a kettle.

Fact is, missiles and railguns will probably dominate space combat, since in space, you don't need constant thrust to keep your missile going in a specific direction. This means that you can pack more explosions in your missiles.

MCRN

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It's possible that in the setting of The Expanse they were never able to solve the waste heat problem or they did, but it's too bulky/costly to use effectively in mass. Of course they could have written the setting to allow for regular use of laser weapons, but folks tend to think guns = grounded science fiction and that's the tone the Expanse aims for.

In theory we could solve the waste heat issue eventually. Railguns also suffer the same problem though in a different way (the barrel starts to get fucked up). The Expanse is science fiction, they could have easily written in lasers being practical tech just as they did with railguns.

The missiles I have no problem with, it's the railguns - which seem to be massive, and actively require other systems to be powered down just to function - that make it seem as though the setting doesn't really have an issue with heat dissipation. Is the energy and heat difference just that much more extreme?

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Is that how it is in the show? I don't watch it, so I wouldn't know.

Though you can deal with heat in the form of ejectable heat sinks - really, just things that will absorb all the heat you generate which you then shove out the airlock.

Which would be pretty neat if you had it eject right after firing your bigass railgun/laser, 'cause it'd be like your ship is a giant gun that ejects brass.

Well in the show at least, the two kinds of ships with railguns dont seem to power down any systems to fire.

I've only read the first two books so far, but the show never explains how the weapon systems work exactly. For all we know they have lasers, but prefer kinetics for purposes of doctrine or logistics. It's not really military science fiction.

The Donnager looks like it powered down, but that could have been because her reactor got hit during the course of the engagement.

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Yes the reactor WAS hit

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I've just rewatched the episodes to be ready for S2, and the captain calls for power to be diverted to the CQB railguns. Then the lights dim for a moment as power is presumably rerouted. It might be different in the books, however.

In fairness whosoever is crewing the stealth ships seems to have little or no regard for the safety of their crews, given various SPOILER events and the readiness with which they chuck ships at problems.

The Donnager's railguns are enormous, easily a sixth or even a fifth the length of the entire ship. It also gives off an absolutely ridiculous amount of light when it fires; it's absolutely the brightest object around when it fires, moreso than the Sun, which is probably solely for effect on part of the show's directors but still gives an indication of how much power they're dumping into these things.

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I have to admit, I really like it when the Ship turns out to have its own AI, that the ship is alive, in a sense.

That it is a character and not just a glorified taxi.

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