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See the Whites of Their Eyes/Playing With

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Basic Trope: Armies that should have beyond visual range (BVR) weapons fight at short ranges.

  • Straight: Starships exchange fire at a few kilometres' range.
  • Exaggerated: Starships fight at mere metres' range and have to move to avoid crashing into each other.
  • Justified: Heavy electronic warfare measures and lack of FTL sensors make hitting anything at more than short range very difficult.
    • Dominant FTL travel method is point-to-point instantaneous jump without "No Warping" Zone a la Battlestar Galactica Reimagined. The only way to attack anything FTL-capable that isn't stuck in a defensive posture is to jump in at close range and strike before the other can jump out.
    • One side has individually superior ships that can destroy a number of the other side's, but the other side has better fire-coordination. The former side thus must get into close range where its individual superiority can seize the day; again a la Battlestar Galactica Reimagined in on the Colonial side whose battlestars can beat the crap out of baseships one on one.
  • Inverted: ???
  • Subverted: ???
  • Double Subverted: ???
  • Parodied: Starships have giant arms and legs and engage in brawls and grapples.
  • Deconstructed: The side that has weapons with very short effective range and lacks the acceleration, defences, stealth or tactical FTL to close the distance gets blown away by the side that outranges it.
  • Reconstructed: ???
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: The starships fight at properly long ranges where they cannot see each other.
  • Enforced: "It's not entertaining to our viewers if all they see of space battles is dots disappearing from radar screens."
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: One side develops high speed heavily-armed and -shielded or stealth ships to close with an enemy that is not as effective in "knife fighting".
  • Defied: One side develops an effective means of BVR combat.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: ???
  • Played For Drama: ???

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