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I kinda wish the guy playing Amos were bigger and balder, but the person who most fits the mental image my wife and I built of him isn't nearly qualified enough to handle the task. It's the Big Show
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Dec 2, 2015 16:23
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I'm halfway through the first novel, it isn't all that well written, but I've been reading Raymond Chandler almost exclusively for the last year so maybe it's just different. I'm enjoying it at any rate, I think that the strangest part is how unexciting space combat is, with attacks resigned to minutes in advance, like when the stealth ship shot at the Canterbury and they had enough time to say "Yeah we aren't going to be able to avoid these so go hide and make preparations for hostage negotiations
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Dec 2, 2015 21:33
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Professor Shark posted:I'm halfway through the first novel, it isn't all that well written, but I've been reading Raymond Chandler almost exclusively for the last year so maybe it's just different. Why should it be exciting or unpredictable when it's a unarmed freighter against a heavily armed stealth ship?
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Dec 2, 2015 21:36
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The Canterbury was in no way equipped to deal with that situation. It's actually pretty realistic that in space you'd be fighting over distances so far that it would take minutes for targets to hit. Space is really big and even in a "dense" environment there's a lot of empty space between objects.
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Dec 2, 2015 21:41
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I just said it was strange, not bad
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Dec 2, 2015 21:45
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It gets more exciting later on, but yeah the 'realistic' space combat never ends up as high adrenaline ducking and weaving type stuff. It's more like a tense stand-off with both sides trying to cook up a way to survive the next few minutes.
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Dec 2, 2015 21:52
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Strategic Tea posted:It gets more exciting later on, but yeah the 'realistic' space combat never ends up as high adrenaline ducking and weaving type stuff. It's more like a tense stand-off with both sides trying to cook up a way to survive the next few minutes. Also it's one of the ways the Expanse is somewhat close to BSG. There's no amazing insta-hit laser weapons, it's mainly the space version of things already found in naval combat such as torpedoes, point defense systems and ship killing missiles. etalian fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 22:13
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What was the term BSG used for their "flak cannon missile destroying/ death zone" again?
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Dec 2, 2015 22:18
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Probably "Point Defense".
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Dec 2, 2015 22:42
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Professor Shark posted:What was the term BSG used for their "flak cannon missile destroying/ death zone" again? I don't know but the US military calls it the Phalanx system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS 
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Dec 2, 2015 22:47
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The Muffinlord posted:Probably "Point Defense". 32MB OF ESRAM posted:I don't know but the US military calls it the Phalanx system: Actual answer, after checking with the BSG Wiki: firing solution, which was cool as Hell Man BSG was a good show, I hope The Expanse can work as a spiritual successor
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Dec 2, 2015 23:26
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If you like reading different kinds of space battles, there's this series called The Lost Fleet that Amazon recommended to me because of The Expanse. I checked out the first book, Dauntless, and the space battles and communications and everything were pretty neat. There was FTL jumping and the ships were slightly more maneuverable, but a lot of the same ideas applying. A lot of thought going into relativity and plotting attack patterns and stuff. In The Expanse, it's usually the POV of one ship against one or two others, but in this one, it's about the difficulties in directing an entire fleet while taking into account the time lapse between speed-of-light communications across broad stretches of space. So kind of like how there's time between the missiles launching, and them actually hitting the Canterbury, there would be scenes where they're watching a fight in a different position in the system, knowing full well that the fight they're watching has already happened, it just took a few minutes for the footage/information to reach them. Nothing much about the characterization or the story in the first novel was really memorable, but the battles were really interesting to imagine.
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Dec 3, 2015 00:02
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KatWithHands posted:If you like reading different kinds of space battles, there's this series called The Lost Fleet that Amazon recommended to me because of The Expanse. I checked out the first book, Dauntless, and the space battles and communications and everything were pretty neat. There was FTL jumping and the ships were slightly more maneuverable, but a lot of the same ideas applying. A lot of thought going into relativity and plotting attack patterns and stuff. In The Expanse, it's usually the POV of one ship against one or two others, but in this one, it's about the difficulties in directing an entire fleet while taking into account the time lapse between speed-of-light communications across broad stretches of space. So kind of like how there's time between the missiles launching, and them actually hitting the Canterbury, there would be scenes where they're watching a fight in a different position in the system, knowing full well that the fight they're watching has already happened, it just took a few minutes for the footage/information to reach them. Nothing much about the characterization or the story in the first novel was really memorable, but the battles were really interesting to imagine. Sounds good, thanks.
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Dec 3, 2015 00:07
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Is there a scifi series where space is so junked u and full of poo poo that instead of missiles and lasers, ships just have massive debris intakes, which they superheat. Then they have to launch the massive nuclear debris glob by cranking their ships up to near FTL and slamming on the brakes while pressing 'FIRE!' Or by pulling right up beside other ships and letting loose with smaller debris cannons, like old naval battles. Does that exist?
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Dec 3, 2015 00:13
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Is there a scifi series where space is so junked u and full of poo poo that instead of missiles and lasers, ships just have massive debris intakes, which they superheat. Then they have to launch the massive nuclear debris glob by cranking their ships up to near FTL and slamming on the brakes while pressing 'FIRE!' Or by pulling right up beside other ships and letting loose with smaller debris cannons, like old naval battles. In the novels they talk about how the war between Mars and the Belt could be solved with just one ship chucking couch sized rocks into orbit or rocks with chemical tanks welded onto them
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Dec 3, 2015 00:28
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Is there a scifi series where space is so junked u and full of poo poo that instead of missiles and lasers, ships just have massive debris intakes, which they superheat. Then they have to launch the massive nuclear debris glob by cranking their ships up to near FTL and slamming on the brakes while pressing 'FIRE!' Or by pulling right up beside other ships and letting loose with smaller debris cannons, like old naval battles. Sad as it is to say, the first thing that comes to my mind is Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, of all things. They re-used the same shot of a cargo ship flipping and opening its doors to send junk or a bomb flying out at a target using the ship's momentum like 6 times.
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Dec 3, 2015 01:00
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Professor Shark posted:In the novels they talk about how the war between Mars and the Belt could be solved with just one ship chucking couch sized rocks into orbit or rocks with chemical tanks welded onto them and then it happens... Kinda
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Dec 3, 2015 20:08
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KatWithHands posted:If you like reading different kinds of space battles, there's this series called The Lost Fleet that Amazon recommended to me because of The Expanse. I checked out the first book, Dauntless, and the space battles and communications and everything were pretty neat. It's pretty okay popcorn fiction although you might not want to read too many in close succession. Certain repetitions in passages and structure really start to grate once you read past them literally every book. Let me tell you about battlecruisers....
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Dec 3, 2015 20:31
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darnon posted:It's pretty okay popcorn fiction although you might not want to read too many in close succession. Certain repetitions in passages and structure really start to grate once you read past them literally every book. Let me tell you about battlecruisers.... Ah yeah, I've only read the first, but I was worried that would happen, and have been waffling about buying the second one for months now. Ever since I got a couple books into the Lord of the Isles series as a kid and realized it's literally the same plot structure every novel, I've been paranoid about getting into new series like this. Probably why I'm such a sucker for The Expanse, because the stories change pretty drastically from book to book.
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Dec 3, 2015 23:53
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There's lots of SF with space battles, but it's a bit harder to name books mostly about them. If you want basically 'Horatio Hornblower in SPAAACE' you could try the Honor Harrington books. The ship combat there is this weird cross between Age of Sail wet navy and submarine tactics. Of course, you'd also have to deal with David Weber's writing style (which isn't for everyone), and in the later books there's a lot of people sitting around and talking about interstellar politics. Weber also collaborated with Steve White on the Starfire novels, which are almost nothing buut huge fleets of spaceships clashing constantly. On Death Ground and The Shiva Option are halfway decent, but the rest of the series is meh-to-bad.
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Dec 4, 2015 00:01
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Should they ever get to turning Cibola Burns into a season, I hope they cut the first half of the book down. Hard. Like don't even think about making an episode.
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Dec 4, 2015 00:21
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Combat Pretzel posted:Should they ever get to turning Cibola Burns into a season, I hope they cut the first half of the book down. Hard. Like don't even think about making an episode. Nuts to you. I want an entire season dedicated to interplantary real estate law. Way more interesting than poison worms a green eye goo.
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Dec 4, 2015 00:56
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WarLocke posted:There's lots of SF with space battles, but it's a bit harder to name books mostly about them. I own every Vince Flynn book, I can handle "bad" if it's fun.
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Dec 4, 2015 01:06
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Combat Pretzel posted:Should they ever get to turning Cibola Burns into a season, I hope they cut the first half of the book down. Hard. Like don't even think about making an episode. I hope they cut the whole book. I don't think anything happens that couldn't be covered in an adaptation of book 3.
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Dec 4, 2015 01:40
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GigaPeon posted:Nuts to you. I want an entire season dedicated to interplantary real estate law. Way more interesting than poison worms a green eye goo.
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Dec 4, 2015 01:40
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I hope they do not cut Cibola Burn and in fact I hope they adapt it in an excruciatingly close to the text manner.
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Dec 4, 2015 02:14
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I just watched the OnDemand premeire for this, and having no knowledge of the material it's based off of, I enjoyed it. It's got a cinematic feel to it, ala BSG (as others have pointed out). And Thomas Jane is a rad dude.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:23
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Finished the first book... it was falling apart at the end and I'm not sure how excited I am about the show or starting Caliban's War now... Plot wise, writing wise, it became a give-no-poo poo-just-get-it-done Stephen King story
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Dec 4, 2015 23:27
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Professor Shark posted:Finished the first book... it was falling apart at the end and I'm not sure how excited I am about the show or starting Caliban's War now... Caliban's War was, until the release of Nemesis Games, generally seen as the best of the series. What was it that you found disappointing about the ending of LW?
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Dec 5, 2015 01:10
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Risen Empire is a good cool sci fi duology and very short.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:24
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Professor Shark posted:Finished the first book... it was falling apart at the end and I'm not sure how excited I am about the show or starting Caliban's War now... What do you have against Stephen King?
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Dec 5, 2015 03:24
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Gonz posted:I just watched the OnDemand premeire for this, and having no knowledge of the material it's based off of, I enjoyed it. It's got a cinematic feel to it, ala BSG (as others have pointed out). And Thomas Jane is a rad dude. He was the most stand out great of the whole cast IMO.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:27
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Milky Moor posted:What was it that you found disappointing about the ending of LW? The writing became very poor towards the end, like a marathon runner who let's their form slip when they get within sight of the finish line. I was fine with it being an Airplane Novel for the majority of it, but it began to read like an online amateur fiction by the end. Dazerbeams posted:What do you have against Stephen King? He can't write endings, he admits it himself.
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Dec 5, 2015 11:41
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Professor Shark posted:Actual answer, after checking with the BSG Wiki: firing solution, which was cool as Hell Firing solution is actually a naval warfare term. It just means the instructions that are fed into a fire control system to direct a weapon. So you say you've got a "firing solution" when you (or a computer) have taken some observations, done some math, and come up with a solution that hopefully points the guns in the right direction to hit something.
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Dec 5, 2015 20:44
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The way it works in the show, though, is they just fill the whole space between the ship and the enemy with an impenetrable wall of flak. So it's not just a firing solution but a solution to (enemy) firing 
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Dec 5, 2015 21:30
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The fights and military stuff in BSG was so cool. I really didn't like when it started to fall into the background of the later seasons.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:10
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Strategic Tea posted:The way it works in the show, though, is they just fill the whole space between the ship and the enemy with an impenetrable wall of flak. So it's not just a firing solution but a solution to (enemy) firing Yeah it was one of the more unique and cool things about space battles the show did- a flak barrier/shield between the two ships that had missiles blowing up around the edges while the fighters fought around it BSG was a good show that got bad
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Dec 6, 2015 00:44
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I only intermittently watched BSG when it first aired. Is there a good stopping point anywhere between Season 1 and, er, when it becomes clear they don't have a plan?
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Dec 6, 2015 01:29
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Season 3 finale is a good spot, though many disagree
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Dec 6, 2015 01:47
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Professor Shark posted:Season 3 finale is a good spot, though many disagree Even the staff admit the later seasons went haywire from the original message due to thing such as the writers strike and also how Moore didn't have a long term roadmap for the plots.
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Dec 6, 2015 01:58
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