Sci-fi Writers Guild Forum

Aerospace Combat Vehicle is to 'military spacecraft' what Anti Infantry Cannon is to rocket launcher. It's my unique way of continuing to create obscenely long acronyms, as well as create a more visible name for military spacecraft- when I read spacecraft, I think of modern-day spacecraft, ranging from Voyager 1 to the Orbiter ("Space Shuttle") rather than technologically advanced and much larger vehicles.

One quick note adding to that: in these "Ship Identification Databases" I differentiate between the larger ACVs and the smaller ACVs (although never actually called ACVs) by using 'vessel' for the former, and 'craft' for the latter.

The physics in the Project One Man War Saga Universe are largely based on my understanding of real-world physics, which would appear to preclude the kind of craft movement you see on Star Wars- although I give kudos to the Extended Universe writers for reaching towards real-world physics in a better way than the movies: you can often tell that a maneuver spans a great distance through their writing, whereas in the movies there is often no point of reference, and it seems like an X-Wing is turning around on a dime. For this reason, although I use 'fighters' and 'bombers', their tactics are derived from a mix of MiG-31 Foxhound high-speed one-pass attacks and the 'human tide' of Omaha Beach. For a fighter pilot in space to turn 180-degrees say, left, they would have to engage their thrusters full right, and halfway through the turn, switch to full left. Throw in human responce times and you, at best, start counter-thrust just before the midpoint. Throw in a brutal reality check and you scrap the whole idea on anything more complicated- I highly doubt the average person is going to know exactly when they need to counter-thrust to tail an enemy craft, especially when they could be tailing at extreme distances on RADAR alone, or at close range, where they cannot physically see their counterpart until they're well past the midpoint. (Giving the prey all the advantage; as well, a slower-turning craft would be better in that a faster-turning one, piloted by the average man, would be jerking up and down to center it on their target, while their target could simply pick any point in time to 'level' off (no real horizontal horizon in space, remember) and let their hunter waste time correcting their overturn.)

Although it isn't even in the item, I've extended these tactics to most of the Imperial BioAndronian Empire and their BA legions as well- even these super-soldiers would be hard-pressed to execute a picture-perfect (literally the only realistic way to keep up) chase with another fighter. So, fighters run at each other or at bombers in large clusters, saturating the area with their firepower, and then turning around and doing it again. Bombers are largely bound by the same- they fight like any other bomber from World War II, en masse so ensure some get through- but as they aren't apt to go hunting each other or another fighter, they are more apt to move around.


Just some interesting notes on a sliver of the OMW Saga Universe- although not all of it is wholly connected to the item (the Genesis has no crafts aside from Fleet Tenders- intership shuttles), it can come in handy elsewhere; who knows? Someone could be reviewing the Genesis' tactical sense someday.






As it says, it isn't completly finished, but at this point, I've just got to finish up the Primary Armament and background/other info if anything comes to mind. (I was working on the Primary Armament and had to plug it in there in a hurry, so I didn't have the chance to alter the information at the bottom saying I had to complete the Primary Armament entirely.)

Me being me, I suck at drawing, so I'm forced to go into detail about what these ACVs look like. (Not that I don't enjoy that, indeed it's become one of the most enjoyable parts of the design process- I try my best because I know five years from now I'm not going to have a clue what most of these looked like, and I'll need to be able to reimagine them myself! Already I've had to scrap or try to redo five because I didn't stick enough detail in them.)

So if there's something that I've detailed but you're unsure if you know where it is for sure- of if I've completly forgotten to include where it is- tell me! (The exception being generators for shields, weapons, engines, etc; mostly the innards, which is a whole different level of hard to do, and usually not something I include in my stories- even the SwarmCarrier, the first detailed ACV I created and have been working on adapting for all eight years I've been writing Project One Man War Saga, only has basic interiour description- and largely due to the hangar. I actually did have a fairly detailed record of the inside between the hangar and the generators (they're right in front of the engines) but I wrote it on paper, which has since become horribly lost in a sea of papers dating back to 1997- crap I made way back as age five.)