>>6000379It's like a buffet at a luxury hotel restaurant. So many options, picking out the perfect combination of dishes is near-impossible. For a country bumpkin who doesn't even know dining and fine can go together, at least. You scrawl on a connected scratchboard, giant words dominating all over the little red and blue dots. “What would you recommend?”
“Lost your voice or something?” Coyly you nod. Silas near jumps out from his seat, “That fucking in-sect! I will stomp him.” You frantically hold him down with pleading eyes. “Fine, fine. But go see Tsu after this, ok? Good, now where were we? Ah yes, fleet tactics."
Silas falls deep in thought, perhaps retracing his palm's lifeline back to bright hallways and well-aired lecture halls. “To be honest with you, I'm no expert either. Only the best cadets get chosen for Staff College...” Silas didn't say it, but Jean-Pierre already told you so long ago, when you were still a wide-eyed girl fresh off dirt for the first time. Something about almost flunking the final exam and getting tucked away in a forgotten outpost for it. God, why did you sound so old, like Mrs Plauf giggling at gossip?
“Don't worry. I still remember the fundamentals. For example,” he wipes off your chicken scratches and picks two blue icons out of the pack. “A fleet is only as fast as its slowest member. So if we include either Khodovskii or Onko, we will have to cover their lumbering ass the whole fiery mile. Or be willing to use them as bait. Wouldn't feel too bad if it's Konwo to be honest.” You would correct Silas' horrible memory of non-Western names, but who knows, maybe he deserves it.
“Another one. Lanky's law.” This time Ienaga is subbed in for Kholodovski, “No such thing as overkill when it comes to missiles and drones. A PD net can only intercept so many threats at once, anything above that number might as well be a free hit."
Silas pulls closer to the present, passing through blood-drenched days, "Same is true for gunships, but not as dramatic. The more barrels pointing at a target, the less room for manoeuvring it has, until there is no choice but to accept a hit. Sadly this limit increases exponentially with effective range. You do know how to calculate effective range, right?" Yes, it's elementary space combat.
Conceptually, the probability of hitting a ship as simple as dividing 1 by all the different ways a given line segment (the slug) starting from the same end-point (your ship) can terminate in a sphere (potential positions of the target in the near-future). Effective range is when your chances are better than a mere 5%, heaven for gamblers. The actual calculation is significantly more complex, of course, but thankfully, your gunnery officers will handle all the other nasty variables like light-lag, inertia, turret precision, presented cross-sections, et cetera, et cetera.
