General Forum

Test Post

ParaDOX — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 00:46:10 GMT

Posting this to see if I can! It seems that the Text editor is missing the tools for editing text. So... No customization. Not even line returns!

Reminiscing... Found some old links

ParaDOX — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 19:35:53 GMT

I found some old links while cleaning up some server stuff. The funny thing is a bunch of them are still live! The links on some these old pages likely don't work, they may point to systems or services we no longer use or support. For instance: Psychostats! Anyone remember that?

Tie Contest

MC Game Servers

ParaDOX — Sun, 13 Jan 2019 07:52:25 GMT

Most of our Game servers are down due to lack of use and or interest. Most if not all of the servers are still around but they are stopped.

If there is any interest in playing any of the old servers let me know and I will bring the server up for as long as desired.

Some of this is resource related. We keep changing games that we host and some of them have had conflicts with the old servers so we stopped them to play the newer games. If there is a desire I can make resources available to host the old servers. I do bring them up once in a while.

Games Like Space Engineers, FTB Revelations and a few others are currently somewhat active.

Join us in Discord or TeamSpeak or even Steam Chat for more info.

Black Desert Online

Swift62 — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 01:23:55 GMT

As mentioned in the news, I'm playing Black Desert Online. We have a guild started on Uno Calpheon U2 and would love for anyone who's interested to join us and help get a guild rolling. My family name is swift62, character name Hiyori0.

Is anyone still using Xfire?

ParaDOX — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:59:40 GMT

I wanted to know if anyone is still using Xfire or is it just dead now?

http://www.xfire.com

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

If you still use xfire, what is your Xfire nickname?

Hello

DontShoot — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 00:16:26 GMT

Hey, I'm not sure if anyone from around here would remember me but I was curious to see if you guys were still kicking around here. Anyone still active? :)

{MC} what does it mean?

ParaDOX — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 09:09:30 GMT

This question has been asked many times and the answer remains the same.

This brings back some memories, check out this old post on the classic MC site:

http://oldpg.paradisesgarage.com/mcweb/Forums/Misc/8953.aspx

Paradises Garage Classic Site (updated)

ParaDOX — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:09:01 GMT

The oldpg site was brought out of retirement. :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The old site was run using asp.net 1.1. Unfortunately this is only 32 bit. If I add asp.net 1.1 to the new 64 bit server it forces all the sites to be run in 32 bit mode. I didn't think it was worth the performance just to keep this old site around.

I took the time and felt like a challenge. I upgraded the old site to use the new asp/net 4.0 or higher to make it 64 bit compatible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who want to reminisce, or those of you who are new here and want to readup on some of the historical posts that have taken place here in the MC community, I am finally providing a public link to the old site.

There are lot's of goodies there including:

Inox's Reviews (good console game reviews)
Forums
Pictures (I wish users would post more pix on the new site the way they used to on the old one)

The site has never been down, its was just moved and unlinked so that only a few of us knew how to get to it. The site is in READ ONLY mode so you can't post anything there or sign up anymore. We only want new posts in this forum. We were going to move the posts over originally but decided to start with a clean slate for the new site. If you had a login before it will still work and that is the only way you can access certain areas of the site. If you are new and need access to hidden areas, PM me and I'll see what if anything can be done.

http://oldpg.paradisesgarage.com/mcweb/default.aspx

Keep in mind the site goes to sleep when it not accessed for 20 minutes. No reason to waste resources. Just give it a minute to start up the web application on the server. Once it's been woken up it should respond pretty quickly.

Let me know if you find anything interesting in there. If you want o revive an old thread from there, the best way is to copy and paste from the old site and turn it into a quote. You can also link back to it as well. Please keep in mind what section a post was originally in and post it in the equivalent Forum here. DOn't post something from a private Forum in a public Forum here!

Have fun and happy reading!

New MMORPG - Outside

ParaDOX — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:20:24 GMT

Unexpected...

ParaDOX — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:51:55 GMT

I just got an email from my ISP that said they just increased my Upload speed for free...

Here is my most recent speed test since this:

Not too bad...

The Never ending debate

ParaDOX — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:33:09 GMT

Which side are you on?

Source: Best Online Engineering Degree

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

Canadian Bacon

Troop — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 22:07:32 GMT

A few days ago I was out with my family and we went to a nice breakfast diner to eat. While looking at the menu I saw Canadian Bacon. I thought it was pretty funny Canada would have there own bacon named after them. Anyways, I started to wonder why it was named Canadian Bacon. Why do they get there own Bacon? How is it different from Ham? Why is it called Bacon at all if it's just Ham? I went on Ventrilo when I got home, and asked a Canadian. The conversation got more confusing from there. It turns out he didn't even know what Canadian Bacon is. If a Canadian doesn't know what Canadian Bacon is, who will?

Wikipedia.
I jumped onto Wikipedia today to do some research.

"Bacon is defined as any of certain cuts of meat taken from the sides, belly or back of a pig that may be cured and/or smoked."

So I thought "Is our Bacon called American Bacon elsewhere?". No, typical American Bacon is called "Streaky Bacon". "Rindless bacon, however, is quite common. In the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, bacon comes in a wide variety of cuts and flavours whereas bacon in the United States is predominantly what is known as "streaky bacon", or "streaky rashers" in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland".

So...wait...if I went to a different country and ordered two eggs and a side of Bacon, what would I get? You would most likely get Canadian Bacon, although I'm not completly sure because I've never actually tried. "Bacon made from the meat on the back of the pig is referred to as back bacon and is part of traditional British and Irish breakfasts. In North America, back bacon may also be referred to as Canadian-style Bacon or Canadian Bacon."

So believe it or not fellow Americans, Bacon is not just the Bacon we think it is. There's all types of Bacon! Get out there and try them all.

Extra Bacon Information (straight from Wikipedia):

Streaky bacon comes from the belly of a pig. It is very fatty with long veins of fat running parallel to the rind. This is the most common form of bacon in the United States. Pancetta is Italian streaky bacon, smoked or green (unsmoked), with a strong flavour. It is generally rolled up into cylinders after curing.
Back bacon comes from the loin in the middle of the back of the pig. It is a lean meaty cut of bacon, with relatively less fat compared to other cuts and has a ham-like texture and flavour. Most bacon consumed in the United Kingdom is back bacon. ^[3]
Middle bacon is much like back bacon but is cheaper and somewhat fattier, with a richer flavour.
Cottage bacon, thinly sliced lean pork meat from a shoulder cut that is typically oval shaped and meaty. It is cured and then sliced into round pieces for baking or frying.
Jowl bacon, is cured and smoked cheeks of pork

Bacon joints include the following:

Collar bacon is taken from the back of a pig near the head.
Hock, from the hog ankle joint between the ham and the foot.
Gammon, from the hind leg, traditionally "Wiltshire cured".
Picnic bacon is from the picnic cut, which includes the shoulder beneath the blade.^[1] It is fairly lean, but tougher than most pork cuts.

Back bacon or Canadian bacon
Back bacon is a lean meaty cut of bacon.

Canadian bacon is a term used in the United States but elsewhere it is simply back bacon. It refers to any lean meaty cut of bacon, and is sometimes used as a pizza topping. In Canada back bacon is sometimes known as peameal bacon, which refers to a specific variety of unsmoked lean bacon that has been sweet pickle-cured and coated in yellow cornmeal (originally, as the name suggests, peameal was used). Other proteins, such as turkey and beef, can be made in the style of peameal bacon by employing this same sweet pickle and cornmeal process.

Often times in the US, products sold as "canadian bacon" are actually nothing more than pieces ham cut into circles and is not the true peameal bacon popular in Canada. Such "canadian bacon" is a popular ingredient in fast-food breakfast sandwiches, including the Egg McMuffin.

Web Server retirement party

ParaDOX — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:00:47 GMT

The site has been migrated to a new server. After many years of reliable service I have finally retired the old Dell Server that has "Served" us so well for all these years.

I will most likely donate the old server hardware to my son's school. It is a technology based school so they will be able to put it to good use.

A blast from the past

Stab — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:14:00 GMT

{MC} Community,

Most of you will remember me as my Counter Strike name "Stab-you-in-the-eye" which defined my middle-school career (despite my claims otherwise haha). I had a discussion with one of my classmates today about games we used to play back in the day and CS 1.6 was the big topic of discussion. Ultimately it made me think of the {MC} community which taught me some pretty valuable life lessons.

I am posting here hoping that the guys I hung out with...4-7 years ago... are still a part of this community and also to put some sort of closure to the "drama" I created as a kid. You guys made my childhood a lot better for me, even as I pretended to be older than I was. I was pretty bad at it, looking back on it =P. Regardless, I think it would be so cool to hear from all the ppl I used to know and chill in vent with on a daily basis if your still around.

The thing I came here to share is this....

I was asked to write an article for my school newspaper by one of the editors after talking to him for a while. It is about my childhood, and tries to shed some light while I try to help other kids who might be dealing with the same sort of problems. This is not a sob story from me to you guys, I am sincerely interested in your take on my role in this community so long ago after reading this.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/12/5/Harvard-Diving-Olympics-2012-Freshman-Unlikely

Hope to hear from all my old friends,

Stab

Unlimited Detail Real-Time Rendering Technology Preview 2011 [HD]

ParaDOX — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:05:33 GMT

The next generation of 3D graphics is almost here. Check out this preview of the upcoming teknology.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Company's website http://www.euclideon.com

Guess who's backkkkkkk

fireball — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 19:43:18 GMT

As you can probably guess by the topic and who posted it guess what i'm back :P. Havent talked to you guys in ages. Schools been consuming my ever min in life and i dont have a chance to live but its coming to an end for the year. Thought i would post to see whos alive and how your all dooing. Also what games you guys have on the go.

-John (Fireball)

origin of rpg

khaliss — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:52:16 GMT

First off I'll say I was going to put this under the MMORPG section but it said something about having permission, so it comes to general. Once while playing AO & chatting on TS we were talking about AO generally, but I tend to reflect on the original RPG (Dungeons & Dragons) & how it spawned so many other RPG's, some better, some worse, well I bring up the matter of creation of D&D, the original RPG to see Sword & Para's opinion of D&D ..& neither of them heard of it.

I was surprised they never heard of D&D! I thought every RPG style gamer knew something of D&D, I was probably 8 years old by the time I heard of D&D though I never played it 'til the mid-90's because no one I knew played it, actually I played the AD&D version. D&D inspired a cartoon that I remember watching in my youth in the 80's http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085011/ , also a movie at the turn of the century http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190374/.

Sadly the inventor & co-inventor have died in recent years http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7278927.stm http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-10/entertainment/obit.david.lance.arneson_1_dungeons-dragons-gary-gygax-role-playing?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax

I have probably about $600 worth of AD&D books/guides I bought back when I played, 1 full blood red set of dice, 1 full transparent-gold sparkle set of dice, & 1 complete set of noob color coded dice including a 100 sided dice, yes a one hundred sided dice, no campaigns but when you have a DMG & character guides all you need is imagination, in playing the only limits are by imagination. So back to the 1st topic, sorry if this shouldn't be here but hope you found it interesting.

Message in a bottle

Axile — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:53:51 GMT

Hey everyone im currently about 7 hours away from Aruba and ill be probably only getting 5 hours or no sleep tonight on the cruise ship. Just thought I would like to keep you all up to date where in the world I currently am as well and mostly to brag on where I am. If your wonder I am on the Island Princess Cruise Ship and left out of Florida, been on the open waters for 3 days now and it keeps getting hotter by the day but its so humit thats I prefer to be in the sunlight than walk outside at night. Some of my other stops im going to be making are to carticana, Panama, and Jamaca!! Ill update you all when I reach each one.

4/19
11:00am Boarded the Island Princess at Fort Lauderdale Florida
5:00pm Left port heading to Oranjestad (Aruba)

4/22
7:00am Arrived at Oranjestad (Aruba)
1:00pm Left Port heading toward Cartagena (Colombia)

4/23
9:00am Arrived at Cartagena (Colombia)
4:00pm Left port heading to Panama Canal

4/24
6:00am Arrived at the breaking head of Panama Canal
7:00am Entered the first lock
8:00am Entered Gotun Lake (Panama Canal, Panama)
1:00pm Ship went back through locks
3:00pm Ship docked at Cristobal (Panama)
6:00pm Ship left port heading toward Limon (Costa Rica)

4/25
7:00am Arrived at Limon (Costa Rica)
6:00pm Ship left port heading for Ocho Rios (Jamaica)

Hey everyone!

Rampage — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:10:42 GMT

Just thought I'd drop by and see how everyone was doing. Hope all is well with everyone!!!

Speed tests

Axile — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:03:38 GMT

Post your speed tests from speedtest.net and let the good times roll!!

U.S. To Be Hit By Massive Cyber Attack On Feb. 16. Asterisk.

ParaDOX — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:48:58 GMT

Click for Original Story

Feb 10 2010, 1:59 pm by Marc Ambinder

U.S. To Be Hit By Massive Cyber Attack On Feb. 16. Asterisk.

On February 16, at about 10:00 am ET, the U.S. will be hit by a massive, crippling cyber attack from an unknown entity. Key players will convene in the White House situation room and plan the response, from mitigation to (possibly) retaliation. It'll be live on television -- G.N.N.

Of course, my knowledge of this attack will not add me to the radar screens of the FBI -- they know about it too. The reason I felt compelled to write a pseudo-serious lead to this post is because, for the first time, a cyber attack is going to be war-gamed, in public, for all the country to see. It will be quite realistic, featuring senior intelligence and national security officials, including former directors of intelligence agencies and combatant commands and homeland security advisers. A production company has been hired to re-create a White House Sit Room in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and professional scriptwriters have been working with experts to create a real-life scenario.

The sponsors of the event include companies with financial stakes in the future of cyber defense -- General Dynamics is one -- but also companies whose transactions are the lifeblood to the American economy, and who want to foster a greater sense of urgency among the public and policymakers. (PayPal has joined as a sponsor.)

Actual participants don't know what's going to happen. I have a general idea, but I have been sworn to keep the scenario a secret until it unfolds. It will be, I can say, dynamic -- runners with cards will enter the "Sit Room" with new information. It is not obvious. And it will not be easy to mitigate.

At the end, participants will step out of their roles for a hotwash -- open to the press and the experts.

At least three times this year, the U.S. government has held private versions of cyber wargames. This will be open to the press. CNN has agreed to record the event for broadcast later in the week.

Participants include John Negroponte, the first DNI, who will be the fictional Secretary of State. (Intel insiders will enjoy this role change.) Ex-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff will be the National Security Adviser. Fran Townsend, the former White House Homeland Security Adviser, will be the secretary of DHS. Former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin will be the Director of National Intelligence. Other big-name participants include Jamie Gorelick, Stewart Baker, Joe Lockhart and Bennet Johnson.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, which has ported over the 9/11 Commission co-chairs, Lee Hamilton and Tom Keane, is coordinating the event.

a riddle, not as tough as Para's

Swordguy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:53:02 GMT

you've been walking through the snow and the cold, you're freezing and you're lost and you come across a vacant cabin. In this cabin there is a wood stove, a coal stove and a gas stove (methane of course!) and you only have one match; what do you light first?

4 Women Cross a Bridge

ParaDOX — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:08:17 GMT

There are 4 women who want to cross a bridge. They all begin on the same side. You have 17 minutes to get all of them across to the other side. It is night. There is one flashlight. A maximum of two people can cross at one time. Any party who crosses, either 1 or 2 people, must have the flashlight with them. The flashlight must be walked back and forth, it cannot be thrown, etc. Each woman walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the rate of the slower woman's pace.

Woman 1: 1 minute to cross
Woman 2: 2 minutes to cross
Woman 3: 5 minutes to cross
Woman 4: 10 minutes to cross

For example if Woman 1 and Woman 4 walk across first, 10 minutes have elapsed when they get to the other side of the bridge. If Woman 4 then returns with the flashlight, a total of 20 minutes have passed and you have failed the mission. What is the order required to get all women across in 17 minutes? Now, what's the other way?

Send me the answer as a PM, if no one gets it, I'll post the answer.

Nerf Guns Hacked!

ParaDOX — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:30:25 GMT

Check out these modded and Hacked Nerf guns:

http://www.oobject.com/category/nasty-nerf-weapons/

http://gizmodo.com/383943/steampunk-nerf-rifle-lets-you-get-victorian-on-someones-ass

http://gizmodo.com/5115844/how-to-hack-a-nerf-vulcan-to-fire-500-rounds-a-minute

(Please visit the site to view this media)

http://gizmodo.com/tag/nerf

The Physics of Space Battles

ParaDOX — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:44:12 GMT

Check out this article on the science of space battles: Original Link Click me!

I had a discussion recently with friends about the various depictions of space combat in science fiction movies, TV shows, and books. We have the fighter-plane engagements of Star Wars, the subdued, two-dimensional naval combat in Star Trek, the Newtonian planes of Battlestar Galactica, the staggeringly furious energy exchanges of the combat wasps in Peter Hamilton’s books, and the use of antimatter rocket engines themselves as weapons in other sci-fi. But suppose we get out there, go terraform Mars, and the Martian colonists actually revolt. Or suppose we encounter hostile aliens. How would space combat actually go?

First, let me point out something that Ender’s Game got right and something it got wrong. What it got right is the essentially three-dimensional nature of space combat, and how that would be fundamentally different from land, sea, and air combat. In principle, yes, your enemy could come at you from any direction at all. In practice, though, the Buggers are going to do no such thing. At least, not until someone invents an FTL drive, and we can actually pop our battle fleets into existence anywhere near our enemies. The marauding space fleets are going to be governed by orbit dynamics – not just of their own ships in orbit around planets and suns, but those planets’ orbits. For the same reason that we have Space Shuttle launch delays, we’ll be able to tell exactly what trajectories our enemies could take between planets: the launch window. At any given point in time, there are only so many routes from here to Mars that will leave our imperialist forces enough fuel and energy to put down the colonists’ revolt. So, it would actually make sense to build space defense platforms in certain orbits, to point high-power radar-reflection surveillance satellites at certain empty reaches of space, or even to mine parts of the void. It also means that strategy is not as hopeless when we finally get to the Bugger homeworld: the enemy ships will be concentrated into certain orbits, leaving some avenues of attack guarded and some open. (Of course, once our ships maneuver towards those unguarded orbits, they will be easily observed – and potentially countered.)

Now, let’s talk technology.

First, pending a major development in propulsion technology, combat spacecraft would likely get around the same way the Apollo spacecraft went to the Moon and back: with orbit changes effected by discrete main-engine burns. The only other major option is a propulsion system like ion engines or solar sails, which produce a very low amount of thrust over a very long time. However, the greater speed from burning a chemical, nuclear, or antimatter rocket in a single maneuver is likely a better tactical option. One implication of rocket propulsion is that there will be relatively long periods during which Newtonian physics govern the motions of dogfighting spacecraft, punctuated by relatively short periods of maneuvering. Another is that combat in orbit would be very different from combat in “deep space,” which is what you probably think of as how space combat should be – where a spacecraft thrusts one way, and then keeps going that way forever. No, around a planet, the tactical advantage in a battle would be determined by orbit dynamics: which ship is in a lower (and faster) orbit than which; who has a circular orbit and who has gone for an ellipse; relative rendezvous trajectories that look like winding spirals rather than straight lines.

Second, there are only a few ways to maneuver the attitude of a spacecraft around – to point it in a new direction. The fast ways to do that are to fire an off-center thruster or to tilt a gyroscope around to generate a torque. Attitude maneuvers would be critical to point the main engine of a space fighter to set up for a burn, or to point the weapons systems at an enemy. Either way, concealing the attitude maneuvers of the space fighter would be important to gain a tactical advantage. So I think gyroscopes (”CMGs,” in the spacecraft lingo) would be a better way to go – they could invisibly live entirely within the space fighter hull, and wouldn’t need to be mounted on any long booms (which would increase the radar, visible, and physical cross-section of the fighter) to get the most torque on the craft. With some big CMGs, a spacecraft could flip end-for-end in a matter of seconds or less. If you come upon a starfighter with some big, spherical bulbs near the midsection, they are probably whopping big CMGs and the thing will be able to point its guns at you wherever you go. To mitigate some of the directionality of things like weapons fire and thruster burns, space fighters would probably have weapons and engines mounted at various points around their hull; but a culture interested in efficiently mass-producing space warships would probably be concerned about manufacturing so many precision parts for a relatively fragile vessel, and the craft would likely only have one main engine rather than, say, four equal tetrahedral engines.

How about weapons? Well, we have to consider just how you might damage a spacecraft to put it out of action.

Explosions are basically a waste of energy in space. On the ground, these are devastating because of the shock wave that goes along with them. But in the vacuum of space, an explosion just creates some tenuous, expanding gases that would be easily dissipated by a hull. No, to damage spacecraft systems, you can’t hit them with gas unless it’s really, really concentrated and energetic. So unless you want to just wait till your enemy is close enough that you can point your engines at him, the best bets for ranged weapons are kinetic impactors and radiation.

A kinetic impactor is basically just a slug that goes really fast and hits the enemy fighter, tearing through the hull, damaging delicate systems with vibrations, throwing gyroscopes out of alignment so that they spin into their enclosures and explode into shards, puncturing tanks of fuel and other consumables, or directly killing the pilot and crew. You know…bullets. But it sounds much more technical and science-fictiony to say “mass driver” or “kinetic lance” or something of the sort. Of course, the simplest way to implement this sort of weapon in space is just as some kind of machine gun or cannon. Those will work in space (ask the Soviets, they tested a cannon on their first Salyut space station), and the shells will do plenty of damage if they hit anything. However, space is filled mostly with empty space, and hitting the enemy ships might be a challenge. Furthermore, if the impactors are too large, the enemy could counter them by firing their own point-defense slugs and knocking the shells out of line. Therefore, I contend that the most effective kinetic space weapons would be either flak shells or actively thrusting, guided missiles. The flak shells would explode into a hail of fragmented shards, able to tear through un-armored systems of many craft at once without the shell directly hitting its target, or able to strike a target even after it tries to evade with a last-minute engine burn. The missiles would be a bit different from the missiles we are used to on Earth, which must continuously thrust to sustain flight. In space, such a weapon would rapidly exhaust its fuel and simply become a dummy shell. No, a space missile would either be fired as an unguided projectile and power up its engine after drifting most of the way to its target, or it would fire its engine in sporadic, short bursts. A definite downside to kinetic weapons on a starfighter is that they would impart momentum to the fighter or change its mass properties. Very large cannons or missiles might therefore be impractical, unless the fighter can quickly compensate for what is essentially a large rocket firing. Even that compensation might give the enemy just the window he needs…

Radiation-based weapons that burn out the electronics of a spacecraft sound exotic, but are still potentially achievable. This would be the attraction of nuclear weapons in space: not the explosion, which would affect just about nothing, but the burst of energetic particles and the ensuing electromagnetic storm. Still, such a burst would have to be either pretty close to the target vessel to scramble its systems, or it would have to be made directional in some way, to focus the gamma-ray and zinging-proton blast. But while we’re talking about focused energy weapons, lets just go with a tool that we already use to cut sheet metal on Earth: lasers. In space, laser light will travel almost forever without dissipating from diffraction. Given a large enough power supply, lasers could be used at range to slice up enemy warships. The key phrase there, though, is “given a large enough power supply.” Power is hard to come by in the space business. So, expect space laser weapons to take one of three forms: small lasers designed not to destroy, but to blind and confuse enemy sensors; medium-sized lasers that would be fired infrequently and aimed to melt specific vulnerable points on enemy space fighters, like antennae, gimbals, and maneuvering thrusters; and large lasers pumped by the discharge from a large capacitor or similar energy storage device to cut a physical slice into the enemy craft wherever they hit. Such a large weapon would likely only be fired at the very beginning of a battle, because the commander of a ship with such a weapon would not want to keep his capacitor charged when it might unexpectedly blow its energy all at once once he’s in the thick of things.

Deflector shields like those in fiction are not possible at present, but it would still make sense to armor combat spacecraft to a limited extent. The spaceframes of the fighters would likely be designed solely for the space environment; the actual ships would be launched within the payload fairings of a rocket or assembled in space. If launched from the ground, armor must be minimized to reduce the launch weight of the spacecraft. But if built and launched in space, it would make sense to plate over vital systems of the vehicle. Thick armor would prevent flak or small lasers from piercing delicate components, and might mitigate a direct strike from a kinetic impactor or heavy cutting laser. However, the more heavily armored and massive a space fighter is, the more thrust it will take to maneuver in orbit and the more energy it will take to spin in place. (Here’s where computer games get space combat all wrong: the mass of a huge space cruiser would not place an upper limit on the speed of a vehicle, but it would reduce the acceleration a given engine could produce compared to the same engine on a less massive vehicle.)

I’m assuming that we’d have some intrepid members of the United Earth Space Force crewing these combat vessels. Or, at least, crewing some of them – robotic drone fighters would be a tremendous boon to space soldiers, but the communication lag between planets and vessels in orbit would make the split-second judgments of humans necessary at times. (Until we perfect AIs… but if we’re giving them the space fighters from the beginning, we deserve the robot uprising we’ll get.) The crews will hardly be sitting around nice conference-room command bridges with no seat belts; nor will they be standing upright in slate-gray console pits with glowing glass displays all over. It’s not even a good idea for them to have windows, which would be vulnerable to flak and could give the crew an intense sense of disorientation as the spacecraft maneuvers, and could give them tremendous trouble adapting to rapid changes in light levels as the ship rotates near a planet or star. No, they should be strapped into secure couches and centrally located in the most protected part of the spacecraft. They should also be in full pressure suits, and the interior cabin of the spacecraft should already be evacuated – to prevent fires, or any secondary damage if all the atmosphere rushes out a hull breach. This also reduces the need for escape pods. Camera views from the exterior of the ship and graphical representations of the tactical situation would then be projected directly onto helmet faceplates.

Now, for the final word, let’s say the United Earth Space Force defeats the Martian rebels in orbit. What do we do to hit them on the ground? Well, strategic weapons from space are easy: kinetic impactors again. You chuck big ol’ spears, aerodynamically shaped so they stay on target and don’t burn up in the atmosphere, onto ground targets and watch gravitational potential energy turn into kinetic energy and excavate you a brand-new crater. At some point, though, the imperialist Earthlings probably want to take over the existing infrastructure on Mars. Time to get out the Space Marines!

It’s not terribly expensive or difficult, comparatively speaking, to get people from orbit down to a planet surface. You fall. This is the purpose of a space capsule. What’s really, really, prohibitively difficult is getting them back up again. So, the victorious orbital forces would have to bring in a transport ship chock full of Space Marines and drop them all at once in little capsules (little because they can only be so big for the atmosphere to effectively brake them, and because you don’t want all your Marines perishing in some unfortunate incident). Some orbital forces would remain in place to threaten the ground with bombardment and give the Marines a bit more muscle, but really, the ground-pounders are going to have to be pretty self-sufficient. If they ever want to come back up, they would have to build and/or fuel their own ascent vehicle. (This is the problem facing any NASA Mars efforts, too: getting back up through the Martian atmosphere is much harder than any of the lunar ascents were.)

[ADDENDUM, 14 Dec 09: What would combat spacecraft end up looking like?

Well, there are good arguments to have both large and small spacecraft in the Earth forces. A big spacecraft could have a lot more armor to keep its systems and crew safe, more room for large fuel tanks and electrical power supplies, and larger mass to resist impulses from cannon recoil. However, a smaller craft would be less visible to radar, more maneuverable, and could achieve higher accelerations for constant engine thrust. As with just about any military force, the role of the craft would be tailored to the tactical operations required, so the Space Force would probably include several sizes of craft.

Enemies could come at your ship from any direction in space, which means that you would want to react, strike, and counterattack in any direction. So, you would either have to mount weaponry all around your starfighter, put the weapons on gimbals so that they could rapidly point in any direction, or make the fighter maneuverable enough that it could rapidly point in any direction. Gimbals would be a bad option, because they would introduce points of increased vulnerability, unless they could be very well-armored. I conclude that the big ships would have many weapons, pointed in many directions; the small ships would have a few weapons, with the main weapon systems pointed in one direction.

Maneuverability (angular acceleration) you could achieve with gyroscopes, or by mounting engines or thrusters away from your fighter's center of mass. For the highest levels of maneuverability, the spacecraft should be close to spherical and these engines should be as off-center as possible, which might mean putting thrusters on long booms or struts. The problem with this kind of Firefly-like engine layout is that it becomes very vulnerable. If a fighter can achieve high maneuverability with gyros, those are probably the best option.

So, I think the small fighter craft would be nearly spherical, with a single main engine and a few guns or missiles facing generally forward. They would have gyroscopes and fuel tanks in their shielded centers. It would make sense to build their outer hulls in a faceted manner, to reduce their radar cross-section. Basically, picture a bigger, armored version of the lunar module. The larger warships would also probably be nearly spherical, with a small cluster of main engines facing generally backward and a few smaller engines facing forward or sideways for maneuvering. Cannons, lasers, and missile ports would face outward in many directions. On a large enough space cruiser, it would even be a good idea to put docking ports for the small fighters, so that the fighters don't have to carry as many consumables on board.

I think it's time to sketch some pictures and write some stories!]

I certainly hope we don’t get into any space wars. Human nature being what it is, though, and given how scarce a lot of resources really are on the scale of a solar system or a galaxy, I don’t think it’s out of the question. I would like to think that when we start colonizing other worlds, we will be sufficiently enlightened to do so from on board the Ship of the Imagination, and not as futuristic conquistadores. Still, the part of me that loves science fiction has fun with these thought experiments.

Joseph Shoer