Why? The scientific method is not designed to produce what's true, it's designed to simply eliminate what's not true. Even the lowest level of science: math has a set of axioms from which everything else is built. We think they're true but we've also shown rigorously that you can't prove an axiom and they might be shown to be wrong. For example, Euclid's fifth postulate stood for two thousand years. It stated that non-parallel lines would meet at some point and conversely that parallel lines would never meet. From 300BC to 1830AD this was believed to be true.
My advice? Handwave all of it. Space combat breaks down the more you try to explain it. It never hurt Star Wars.
I meant it more as a funny than anything. It IS kind of funny that we disprove many of our own ideas or accepted rules almost daily. It is a little scary that the bare truth is that even the things we call the Laws of Physics aren’t as concrete as we like to think.
Yeah thats what I've done in my WIP - the first wave of alien cannon fodder were dropped onto earth but then the americans took out the motherships (no detail on how since the characters don't know) Net result is a bunch of alien beasts on the earth surface with no guidance or second wave behind them , fighting it out with human survivors. There's no pretense at hard sci fi here, its just a set up for claws, teeth, acid and flame vs gunfire and arrows
Factorial is the number of ways that you can combine x items. You can combine zero items exactly one way: in a null set. The forum won’t let me explain the power of zero but it basically boils down to an identity that x to the power of one over x to the power of one is one which equations to x to the power of one minus one equals one. I know you were asking, just answering cheekily
It all depends on the method of space travel. Alcubierre Drive: Ships can close the distance between each other instantly. Epstein Drive. Ships must accelerate and decelerate towards each other. Warp Gates. Ships have to exit and enter at fixed points that are built ahead of time.
In terms of space combat you have to account for absolutely massive distances. Millions of kilometers of open space. You and your opponent (barring fancy Sci fi stealth tech) will see each other while days of transit apart. That said, kinetic weapons, even moving at significant percentages of light speed will be easily avoidable outside of almost point blank range. Another thing, is light delay. At distances of light minutes and light hours, any images you’re seeing on your sensors are past events. You are seeing other ships as they were, not as they are, which needs to be accounted for in space naval planning and combat. Hands down for a grounded, as close to “real” as space combat can be, I would recommend looking in Jack Cambell’s Lost Fleet books.
It might be worth taking a look at the novella The Crimson Fist. Its a Warhammer 40K work totally dedicated to one massive space battle between two large Space Marine fleets. Warhammer 40K is sometimes weird and sometimes cool. This was pretty cool.
(Sorry if you were joking, I thought you really wanna know) x^0 is Math notation: x^2 = x^(n+2) / x^(n) x^1 = x^(n+1) / x^(n) x^0 = x^(n+0) / x^(n) = y / y = 1 0! = 1 is due to a extension of the Gamma Function
