Standard Starship Scuffle: Difference between revisions

== Tabletop Games ==

* [[BattleTech]]'s space combat spinoff, BattleSpace / AeroTech has this as one of its core mechanics. WarShips brawl with each other at ridiculously close ranges. The battles are very brutal and reminiscent of sea battles from the age of sail. However, it has advanced rules for Newtonian flight physics instead of the [[Old School Dogfighting]] style physics, and three dimensional movement is important. Likewise, the fiction usually averts this, with direct combat between capital ships typically fought entirely by instruments and mathematics.

** Additionally, 3D combat is handwaved as "just another range modifier", and since most of these battles take place over such insane ranges, the planar weapon distribution could even be structural, only requiring maneuvering rockets to aim in the z-axis (from the frame of reference of our 2D game surface).

* ''Task Force'' Games: ''[[Star Fleet Battles]]'' and ''[[Starfire]]''.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Gratuitous Space Battles]]'' was explicitly designed to provide a pure fix of Standard Starship Scuffle visuals. The player designs a fleet of fighters, frigates and gargantuan battleships then pits them against another fleet in a firestorm of technicolour glory. If you want to see [[Deflector Shields]] shimmering under the onslaught of [[Beam Spam]] while [[Tractor Beam]]s struggle to pin elusive microfighters, this is the game for you.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' averts this—at least according to the [[All There in the Manual|Codex]].

* ''[[Infinite Space]]'' has this to a hilt, especially in cutscenes.

* The [[X (video game)|X]]-Universe games often feature slug fests between capital ships at fairly short ranges, even though the weapons will reach out 8 km, they're too slow to kill the enemy before they close to sneezing distance. Battles between the player capital ship and AI capital ships usually end with the player[[Ramming Always Works|plowing his ship into the AI ship.]] AI vs AI capital ship battles sometimes result in them both smashing into each other (if the player is speeding up time) due to the poor maneuverability of capital ships and the slow reaction time of sped-up AI.

* ''[[Nexus the Jupiter Incident]]'' is a game designed around this concept. While there are fighters in the game, they're pretty much useless until the enemy's [[Point Defenseless|flak]] [[Beam Spam|lasers]] are disabled. All fights are big slugfests, especially the climactic fight in the penultimate mission, where the player's fleet must fight against the constantly incoming enemy ''fleets''. Lasers are specifically used to knock out enemy systems but don't do much physical damage. The other weapons are meant to damage the hull ([[Magnetic Weapons|mass drivers]]) and shields ([[Energy Weapon|energy shells]]).

** Also of note is that [[Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon|Fixed Forward Facing Weapons]] are the exception, not the rule. Most guns are turreted and located all over the hull, so you will often see ships rotating to bring additional weapons to bear while the ones currently facing the enemy are recharging.

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Combat Tropes]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]