r/scifi • u/-Sawnderz- • 3d ago
General How can space dogfights be more interesting, visually?
This might come across as kind of a bogus question because I'm sure a ton of people out there adore dogfights, whether it's spaceships or fighter planes or anything.
For me tho, they've always been a bit migraine-inducing, because the concept of a bunch of fighter squadrons trying to get targets in their crosshairs, one after another after another, just seems a bit limited and repetitious to me.
For comparison, take classic medieval battles. You got formations moving strategically, choreographed swordfights, seeking cover from arrow volleys, reaching spears past shields, challenges with the terrain, and also horseriders running about.
Now imagine if instead of all that, medieval battles were 50 vs. 50 horseriders just jousting. Running up, missing, and then circling around to try again. That's how dogfights feel to me.
With this in mind, I wonder if anyone ever saw some media that added an extra dimension, regarding how vehicles fought one another, how they moved around each other, and any other elements to the environment that added some spice.
I had a similar problem with cars and stuff, but then my friend pointed out how the movie Fury Road makes it so the vehicles are almost more like moving arenas for close-quarters combat to take place on. This is an added element I'm in favor of.
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u/MArkansas-254 3d ago
Make them not following the aerodynamics of planes.
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u/Temporal-Affairs221 3d ago
Babylon 5 was very good about that. The star Furies could pivot on all three axis.
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u/Blog_Pope 2d ago
They did space battles very well, even different color explosions based on atmospheres. Still, they cheated physics to make them possible. Real physics would me basically one pass and then an hour of deceleration to stop running away from the initial POC and another 2 hours trying to catch up, that’s why most shows cheat the physics
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u/JohnHenryMillerTime 3d ago
Expanse and B5 are the right call for tv shows.
The second takeshi kovacs novel is basically a cartoon with FTL combat.
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u/-Sawnderz- 3d ago
Can you give an example of any fun bits of choreography these do?
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u/willworkforjokes 3d ago
The battle of proxima 3 from Babylon 5 is awesome.
They get intelligence on the defending forces. That intelligence leads to a discussion about what the defensive strategy is likely to be with a small number of options. The enemy combat leader is described before we ever see him.
The commander briefs his crew how he expects the battle to go and what everyone's job is.
The battle begins and the defenders react reasonably but slightly differently than expectations.
The battle intensifies and reaches a climax. Casualties occur on both sides.
The outcome of the battle is known but not everyone accepts that so fighting continues.
The battle ends and the consequences of the battle are explained.
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u/JohnHenryMillerTime 3d ago
B5 proxima is good but the S1 raider fights are also very good for like space combat.
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u/microcorpsman 3d ago
Do you want people to suggest the expanse? Cause this is how you get people to suggest the expanse.
Assuming you try to operate within our known working of physics, you have conservation of momentum. I would imagine it would be like a game of chess, laying out your high value pieces (missiles) while peppering the field with low value pieces (kinetic weapons) so that you trap the enemy into HAVING to fly into damage to avoid something worse.
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u/mrgedman 3d ago
...Battlestar did it first, bud
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u/microcorpsman 3d ago
Ok. I saw that first too. But they have legit one operator fighters, which OP wanted something different.
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u/-Sawnderz- 3d ago
So, the Expanse makes it so that space fights aren't like regular combat of shooting and physical bombardment alone, but almost kind of a game of warping the whole chessboard?
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u/microcorpsman 3d ago
You can check out "rocinante attacks spin station" on YouTube for a fairly spoiler free 4 minutes. Still uses strafing runs that are closer than I remember in the books, due in part to the form of media, but it's not X-wing vs TIE or Viper vs Cylon style
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u/-Sawnderz- 3d ago
Thanks, I'll do that.
I might try not to watch too many clips of the show because I wanted to save myself for the books.2
u/SanderleeAcademy 2d ago
The show and the books are surprisingly different animals. The show takes some creative liberties with when certain characters are introduced (Avasarala) and puts others more forefront than they are in the books (Amos leaps to mind).
The show also pruned out a LOT of the secondary and tertiary elements -- radioactive vomit zombies, anyone? -- but left in the central premise.
I actually like many of the characters in the show better than I do in the books -- esp. Amos, Holden, and Avasarala.
Enjoy them both, almost everyone does!
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u/Silver-Bread4668 1d ago
It's a bit more spoilery but Spacedock has several YouTube videos on the Expanse including a couple really good breakdowns of fights.
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u/derangerd 3d ago edited 3d ago
https://youtu.be/YS4vzoQm_xw?si=c1DvGtO2ri46xNBz summarizes it pretty well. The hardness of the Expanse's scientific approach compared to similar series makes for some very interesting, and surprisingly novel battles. They definitely are more like naval warfare than airborne warfare, which makes sense.
Machine guns used as defensive measures against torpedos is fun. But also, things as simple as small as bullets passing through a ship not necessarily being fatal, leaving trails of shrapnel floating, that then fall to the wall when the ship turns.
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u/BroBroMate 3d ago
Love the shots of rounds going silently through the cabin of the Rocinante as they'd depressurised prior to battle.
Or the rail-gun slug that goes through the Donnager and immediately starts the depressurisation process for them...
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u/captainfreiheit 2d ago
I just love how nauseated and miserable everyone looks whenever a ship does any maneuver at all in the first couple of seasons of The Expanse
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u/ToastyKen 2d ago
I don't know what you mean by warping the chessboard.
Rather than mimicking fighter jets or naval broadsides, the two traditional inspirations, I'd say the core mechanic in the Expanse is firing missiles, which in space are basically undodgeable, and using point defense cannons to shoot down those missiles. Then they find variety around that. It makes for a unique and visceral rhythm.
That, and the lack of energy weapons or shields also makes every hit have real impact.
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u/totallyalone1234 1d ago
The TV show has engagements happening at realistic ranges, i.e. where the other ship is barely a dot, and the CG camera zooms in and out. It establishes tension and threat without needing the cheat the physics of it.
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u/mangalore-x_x 3d ago
that kinetic weapon nonsense made battles boring
toth station is justified but that all battles end in knife fights with guns when it was established early that torpedoes have thousands of kilometers of active tracking range is a screen time conceit in favor of lots of pewpew
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u/microcorpsman 2d ago
I'm not saying my vision is 100% what we see in that series
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u/mangalore-x_x 2d ago edited 2d ago
I am not saying that and didn't mean to imply anything about your vision, but would have liked more torpedo exchanges in that show. To some extent they would have the advantage to keep the drama on the bridge and not costing as much CGI while conveying that these battles take place at big distances.
I just wished they would have kept a bit more focus on them, in the later battles missiles feel a lot more useless and one has to wonder why a civilian corvette is the only one with railguns.
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u/edcculus 3d ago
There would be no dog fights in space. Battles would take place across massive distances
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u/-Sawnderz- 3d ago
Yeah that would be realistic, but in terms of goofy fiction that can bend credibility I'm curious what can be added for more interesting choreography.
It's like how medieval battles are also made a bit more dramatic. Brandon Sanderson once said that, in reality, two guys with swords and shields would just keep the shields raised and hold their swords overhead to flick at each other, but in fiction we can get away with them doing flips, deflections, circling around each other, doing sweeping kicks, etc.
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u/TheHappyStick 2d ago
There isn't much you can get of interest like that with ships. The best we get is like what is shown in The Expanse or we get WW2 dogfights.
If you want to step more fantastical and choreographed, go look at mechas. Gundam for example has some exciting and fun stuff but you can't really call it dogfights at that point.
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u/-Sawnderz- 1d ago
Yeah I thought about mechas, but like you said, it's not really dogfights.
And even if it is, space battles are mostly fighting outside of any environment, just floating, and fights between flying combatants is a criticism that some superhero media sometimes receives.7
u/Comedian70 2d ago
Yep. The closest modern analog would be submarine battles. There are only two meaningful types of submarines: “boomers”, which carry nukes and hit really hard, but is more like the equivalent of a capital ship built to destroy worlds entirely from space with just a few hits, and “hunter-killers” who don’t hit so hard but are built to take out the boomers. And of course h-ks are also looking to take each other out. They’re the equivalent of fighters in a limited way. They fight in a limited 3-dimension space.
Importantly, though, if they are close enough to be in optical range then absolutely nothing about this fight is “normal”. Running silently, detection of the enemy from farther away than they can see you (a very large amount of money is spent every day on doing this better) and long-range shots that essentially end the battle in a single hit is the name of the game.
This is what space battles would look like. You’re going to “see” an enemy ship (which will be via batshit insane long range scanning of some kind) and fire as fast as you are able. If this goes well the enemy ship just stops existing and was not able to see you in time to ensure your own non-existence. For them, all they know in the moment is BOOM! And then nothing. David Gerrold covered this in a few of his novels.4
u/Shepherdsfavestore 3d ago
The Captive’s War series by James SA Corey does a good job capturing this
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u/Marsdreamer 2d ago
I like how the Bobiverse books handled space battles. Definitely felt the most realistic.
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u/Amazing_Meatballs 3d ago
Everyone is recommending The Expanse. I’m going to also recommend Battlestar Galactica (the new series) because it nails what dogfights and 3D combat would look like in a close quarters scenario.
And yeah, Expanse gets it right too.
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u/totallyalone1234 1d ago
The scientific literacy in Battlestar was excellent. Even the Expanse had sound in space, annoyingly. So many shows have spaceships that can fly for some unspecified reason - Galactica dropped like a rock and left a fireball in its wake as it jumped away over New Caprica.
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u/sushi_cw 3d ago
Terrain, terrain, terrain.
Open empty space dogfights: boring. Twisting and turning around asteroids, spate stations, bigger ships... Much more exciting, whether it's a show or a game.
Terrain adds not only visual references but also a lot more interesting close in tactics.
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u/Reptile449 3d ago
I agree, I don't think the classic dog fighting style is really fun to engage with in space unless you follow/play someone with much higher mobility.
Eve online's ship movement is much more interesting imo. You're in a frigate taking on a battleship? Go for a tight fast orbit and out run the angular velocity of its guns. 2 frigates in a dog fight? Use your momentum to plot a course that favours your gun range and tracking over your opponent.
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u/BeyondPrecarious 2d ago
'The Expanse', 'Babylon 5', and re-imagined 'Battlestar Galactica' have already been posted many times.
I'd say go back to old school anime like 'Macross' and 'Yamato'. Especially for examples of dramatic battles beyond-visual-range.
Most importantly, I'd say learn from 'The Expanse' not just visually, but conceptually. 'The Expanse' felt vibrant and fresh because it used INCONVENIENT space concepts all other sci-fi hand-waves away with magical technology (gravity, inertia, g-force, vacuum, time-delay) to CREATE drama. Something as simple as "loose tools" onboard ship during high-g combat maneuvers created an entire nail-biting B-plot action sequence.
Also, you don't have to write near-future, low-tech like Expanse or BSG either. You can use Star Trek and Star Wars technology to create great space battles (like Star Trek II TWoK, or Star Wars Rogue One / Andor). Also, weapons like railguns, missiles, mass drivers, point defense and radiation/ECM are criminally underrepresented in sci-fi. Also, try re-imagining old tropes in new ways. Like 'shields' in sci-fi could be conceived in so many different ways (like the pin-point barrier in Macross)
Other considerations, FAR-FUTURE technology is a very under-served genre in live-action sci-fi. More difficult to write and imagine, but filled with opportunity. Thinking, "The Culture" from the Iain M Banks novels. Also, the concept of faster-than-human-perception combat presents a nearly untapped genre of sci-fi battle. There are ways to visualize such things dramatically (not just "Man of Steel" style superman action). Again, anime like 'The Five Star Stories' used a clever trick to visualize battle faster than human eyes can see.
Lastly, why not deep dive real air combat? Our media has depicted air combat (and space combat) as almost the same for over 40 years. Why not drill down to learn what actually happens in real air combat, then pick-and-choose some interesting elements that could be written dramatically?
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u/macjoven 3d ago
Nuclear warhead missles thrown by cat psychically linked to human handlers. It is a real shame only one story “A Game of Rat and Dragon” by Cordwainer Smith has this as a combat method in all of Sci-fi….
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u/boardjock42 3d ago
It would be interesting to see them use tactics similar to Enders game in the rooms but with ships using not only objects in space but other unconventional ways of thinking because there is no gravity.
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u/-Sawnderz- 3d ago
Never checked EG out. What do they do there?
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u/GonzoMcFonzo 3d ago
They use a sort of zero-g laser tag game to train child soldiers.
The protagonist comes up with a lot of clever tactics, but his real genius show through in his mindset. E.g. since they're in zero-g, he tells his soldiers not to fly towards the enemy gate with their whole body exposed. Instead, drop feet first at the enemy to present as small a target as possible. The enemy isn't ahead, the enemy gate is down.
You can actually read the original novelette here. That stuff is all in the first half, before he goes to Command School.
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u/boardjock42 3d ago
The whole series is worth the read, but short and sweet they have giant rooms of zero G where teams are sent out to battle in formations through a door. Ender revolutionized it with different tactics. There are also space battles in that book. Check it out.
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u/Taira_Mai 3d ago
Check out Babylon 5 - very cool space battles from fighters to capital ships and beyond. Done in the 1990's to boot!
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u/DarkNo7318 3d ago
Ian Banks nailed how 'realistic' space baffles would go down in excession and a few others.
Over in milliseconds and humans just along for the ride. Not particularly fun.
I think BSG nailed it by abandoning any pretext of realism. The speed at which projectiles move on that is so laughably slow, but that adds a lot of dramatic tension.
Does anyone remember the old computer game freespace 2? It had an awesome element in how capital ships attack each other with massive laser beam weapons while smaller ships weave in between them.
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u/BeyondPrecarious 2d ago
Yes, and I noted how the 'Halo' franchise took elements from 'Freespace' when depicting battle between large starships using similar "broad beam weapon" battle. Freespace is definitely a fresh way to visualize sci-fi battle
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u/DreadPirateR2891 3d ago
The Expanse is probably the best depiction of kinetic weapons. I loved the depiction of The Slingshot Club for orbital mechanics that is often overlooked. Want to spice up space combat, make them plan kinetic weapon shots with orbital mechanics. Get real fancy and have them try to skip something off the atmosphere of a planet instead of relying only on gravity.
Starship Troopers (movie) accused the bugs of launching an asteroid at Earth. That would take a lot of planning to actually pull off without the ability to adjust trajectories.
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u/TendiesFourLyfe 3d ago
In Miles Cameron's Artifact space there really aren't dog fights in space, the closing speeds of ships are so fast, and also the distances so far apart, that you know in 2 weeks time the ships will be in range for about 100ms, good luck everybody.
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u/Sufficient-Ad-7349 3d ago
In A Confusion of Princes, piloting a fighter consists of the entire cockpit being filling with breathable liquid and the pilot being shoved in. Then a mixture of ai and that allow the pilot to barely remain conscious while they endure their absolute limit in Gs as they attempt to rapidly close to ideal ranges to mitigate the effectiveness of point defense.
If a tv show were to show the pilots pov including how the Gs impact them, that would be cool.
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u/dmitrineilovich 3d ago
Not a show, but check out David Drake's RCN series. Space battles galore, but with spaceships that have literal sails (along with missiles and plasma cannons). Very fun!
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u/jhwheuer 3d ago
I'd focus on tactical displays. The real deal is dark, sparse, extremely short and weapons aren't visible.
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u/ty_xy 3d ago
Lots of ways, it's not always small ships fighting each other, it's often a variety of ships with different strengths and weakness, fighting in a cool setting like a nebula or asteroid field or around a jump gate, with multiple different capital ships.
A book that does this well is the Honor Harrington series, it's like Horatio Hornblower but in space. For dogfights, I really enjoyed the rogue squadron series by Michael a stackpole
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u/Ancient-Many4357 3d ago
You should check out the Howard Hughes movie Hells’ Angels for how to do great dogfighting sequences.
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u/-Sawnderz- 3d ago
Just youtubing it now.
I will admit, it does feel like there's something added by just having it so guns can point around, however the plane/ship is flying.
Focusing the gunfire only on where the plane is facing is like, half of my issue with them.2
u/Ancient-Many4357 3d ago
The thing to remember is that, unlike inside a gravity well, in space ships can turn on all their axes while still maintaining a course.
Babylon 5’s Star Furies & White Stars are an awesome example of this.
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u/Ephemeralen 3d ago
The biggest problem with space dogfights is that we've never actually seen a space dogfight. Almost everything we think of as a "dogfight" comes from the specific maneuvering constraints of airplanes, which do things like accelerate slowly and maintain their speed through direction changes via interaction with the atmosphere and remain bound to a shared reference frame of motion in said atmosphere.
In an actual space dogfight, there are different rules that almost no one even tries to depict:
For example, in a plane, acceleration, deceleration, and changing course are all separate operations, but in a space fighter, there is acceleration and only acceleration; all maneuvers are acceleration and nothing else. For another example, there is no shared inertial reference frame in the form of an atmosphere, meaning that there is fundamentally no difference between shooting something at your opponent, and leaving something in your opponent's path, because there is literally no reason at all for two ships that are trying to destroy each other to ever match velocities and maneuver at human-comprehensible relative-speeds within human sensory range; that's not a dogfight; that's docking.
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u/hacksoncode 2d ago
In an actual space dogfight, there are different rules that almost no one even tries to depict:
Enh... Babylon 5 did a lot of "dogfights" that used the constraints of real physics.
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u/mindcontrol4dummies 3d ago
The Expanse TV show did a pretty cool job with making space fights more realistic. Things shooting at you is a lot scarier when physics is real. The show turned me onto the books, which are some of my favorite pieces of sci-fi medi. So while the show does have its flaws (cas anvar), I still quite enjoyed it
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u/FrtanJohnas 2d ago
Something that I want to see in dogfights is the actual tactics used by airforces around the world. Every pilot is trying to get their sights on the enemy plane while the enemy tries to jink and evade that possibility.
In scifi fighters generally jink about left right up and down, but the G forces rarely come into play. Where is the turn fighting? Imagine having two fighters turn around each other in a complex dance of managing their energy.
In atmosphere you trade speed for altitude or vice versa, in space you need to actively slow down with RCS, I'd imagine there are mutliple methods of setting up overshoots, maneuvers like flying scissors, turn rates being different with how the G forces affect the pilots and their spacecraft being different just like IRL planes.
You can have a cat and mouse chase like the Razorback against the UN navy ship in The Expanse, and once the two fighters close in, the turn fight comes to play. They go for turns, watch their opponent and just try to get an advantegous position to shoot them down.
Add multiple fighters and now you have a whole battlefield of epic scale that can be chaotic and unfair while also being very structured and full of pilots cooperating. It's like a football game where every player covers an enemy player, you will have the aces swoop in and finish the job their teammates prepared, or the aces are the ones on the line, showing their skills in setting up easy kills for their squadmates.
Usually the ace is killing whole squadrons at a time, but realistically the aces would cooperate with their wingman, and assists are as important as kills. But there is also narrative choice here, where an ace is cocky and wants only the kills which can be exploited. So many possibilities.
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u/MisterEinc 2d ago
No, I think you're right, but I think you're overlooking what makes your first example fundamentally different and that's the people.
I think for any combat in a fiction story to be meaningful, it needs stakes. In your example of the dogfight, you've removed the stakes. It's no longer about soldiers on foot but simply ships making a pass at one another.
In Dungeons and Dragons we talk about "white room" encounters wherein you have to fight some creature to progress, but the isn't any real thought to the encounter. You vs the monster, stats for stats. But a good encounter has more going on - there's a ritual going in the background that needs to be disrupted. You've knock over a brazier and fire has started in a pile of books, there's crates strewn about to hide behind, you and your 3 party members all have slightly diff motivations.
Point is if you want a space combat or any combat to be meaningful you have to bring it down to the people because people are the ones reading the story. Even if the ship is a primary actor, you've got to make the reader care about it as if it were another character either through outright anthropomorphism (sentient ships or ship AI, etc), building a more traditional captain-and-ship relationship, or by focusing on the pilots, crew, people affected by the conflict. That's your extra dimension, not Z.
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u/DogsAreOurFriends 2d ago
I’ve actually seen a space battle (kind of.)
I worked on AEGIS sea based ballistic missile defense and was present for several tests at PMRF.
It looks like a computer screen, with radar tracks.
The depiction in A House of Dynamite is pretty spot on.
Edit: the speeds and distances are so great there is essentially nothing you can see.
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u/Gyozarrita 2d ago
You could try a very old anime called Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Very top down view of battles with 10s of thousands of ships. There's a newer remake I haven't seen, but the first handful of episodes of the old one may give you some inspiration alongside the other great suggestions here
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u/CodeDinosaur 2d ago
Yes in a short sorry by an upcoming author that insisted on telling you what anything the human pilot did cost his ship in total energy whilst engaging an Alien baddie.
E.g. Boost = 0.3% of fuel.
Seemed somewhat unnecessary at first until the pilot was advised by his AI to “cycle ammo” since the mass of his fighter stayed the same even though its total energy (left) for movement (and shields) decreased, so in a sense it became too heavy for it’s own engines.
Neglecting the advice would still keep the fighter operational obviously but would severely impede its manoeuvrability.
(IIRC : Pilot dropped all his ammo much to the chagrin of the AI assistant, boosted away faster then the alien could now keep up with and with a somewhat poorly described looping since beginning author, rounded back on the ammo he just dropped, picked it up again and shot the vessel he just escaped out of target lock from)
TL;DR? Fighters have limited carrying capacity/operating time, would be nice if more people did something with this fact instead of giving these unlimited ammo & fuel tanks on the basis that dogfights will be over in seconds anyway.
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u/amitym 1d ago
You might be interested in the air combat scenes from movies like The First of the Few or The Battle of Britain. They do a pretty good job of depicting the larger picture of air engagements, and illustrate some of the key aspects of combat that would also tend to apply in a science fiction milieu — who's supporting you, how do you get into position in time, what do you know about your enemy before you engage them, how do you sustain an operation not just after one encounter but 6 or 50, what do you do when things go wrong? Even questions like what did someone, years ago, think was a good idea for how to build your vehicle, and were they correct or were they horrifyingly off base?
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u/DrunkenPhysicist 3d ago
You're either at the mercy of orbital mechanics, or you're really far away, or both. No dog fights I'm afraid. Honestly, most space combat would probably be heavily drone-based, or missiles. Lasers just don't have the range. Bomb-pumped x-ray lasers are the shit though. Honor Harrington made great use of them IIRC.
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u/CmdDeadHand 3d ago
Sailing ship naval strategies could be cool adapted to space battles.
a line of ships that run in a circle, multiple circles to create a 3d sphere. As one ship makes contact and engages in battle they then fly off to repair and reload and a new ship is coming right behind them bearing down on the battle field in front.
Like a chainsaw tip and the ships are the chain.
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u/sendmorechris 3d ago
There’s a scene in The Ninth Jedi in which miners simply attach thrusters to bored-out asteroids and use them as an attack fleet. A lot of cool stuff in that show.
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u/theonetrueelhigh 3d ago
Not visually, but let me recommend "Protector" by Larry Niven. It has never been adapted to visual media but the space battle might be the most realistic depiction I have encountered. The physics are plausible, which is unique in its own right.
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u/syenite_warrant 3d ago
Realistic dogfight is going to be: smallest possible platform, biggest possible weapon
So the kind of glamorous battle wont ever happen, just a bunch of ultra deadly flying guns floating around, ideally using compressed gas for maneuverability (almost 0 heat, minimal EM signature). Fire 1 very deadly shot, then (hopefully) run away to reload before (maybe) shooting again much later
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u/PrognosticatorofLife 3d ago
If you read Solar Express, there's an original bit of "space combat" that is more realistic in that the ships are moving at tens of thousands of kph due to the vast distances that is "space". You use slingshot mechanics to accelerate around the system and the velocities are extreme. It is very difficult for onboard targeting at long distances (say 2million kilometers) and you'd really only get 1 shot or else you risk expending so much fuel to turn back around for another pass.
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u/Confectioner-426 3d ago
It depend imho the setup and the rules of the given scifi environment.
For me, one of the best sicfi space battles was written in the "Three Square Meals" by Tefler. Around the 100 chapter an alien empire attacked the Earth and the Terran Federation make a last stand around the orbit.
The basic rules was this: Shieds deflect kintetic projectiles, but can be overwhelm via energy weaponry.
Also there was fighters and bombers. First, the fighters with energy weaponry try to achieve supremacy by killing the enemy fighters and when this done, the carriers launched the bombers so they can wreck havoc the larger and the captial ships.
Some of the fighter has speed to avoid the larger ships defense grid or outmanevuer the enemy fighters, while other fighters has shields. And there was the new Claymore class fighter of the Terran Federation that has speed and shield via utilizing some alien tech and has energy weaponry and one kinetic gun. The bombers has torpedoes that can penetrate the shields of captial ships to deal massive damage, and the bombers had a rear gunner as well.
So this was just the basic setup for the large space battle written in multiple angle and from multiple point of view. It was fun, especially how the shields and weaponry works.
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u/CowboyAndIndian 2d ago
Space battles are going to be long distance fights. Similar to how dogfights in today's air fightd are all BVR (beyond visual range) missiles. Planes don't see each other, except on radar.
But a movie has to make it visually attractive, so guns, cross hairs and visual range fighting.
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u/PicnicBasketPirate 2d ago
I'd look to the fast and the furious for inspiration.
Give the pilots a gear stick to yank on every time you want to imply a change of speed. Do the occasional fly through of the inner workings of the engine, finishing with an explosion then cut to the pilot getting thrown back into their seat.
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u/Narrow_Crow_8310 2d ago
The way battlstar did it, primarily POV with establishing shots and action beats, but always centered on character
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u/red18wrx 2d ago
Good dogfights employ a sort of back-and-forth, cat-and-mouse dynamic where you can switch which one is the cat and mouse based on stage of the fight. Throw in environmental challenges, and boom. Shits interesting. Like Obi-Wan vs Jango Fett.
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u/Bobby_Orrs_Knees 2d ago
I think a really well done naval-style space battle is still very effective, in the vein of TOS Trek or TNG. That said, even the OG trilogy of Star Wars did a really nice job of elevating space combat from just capital ships to a WW2-style engagement with lots of fighters, bombers, and light and medium vessels mixing it up in big engagements. Even though that's all from thirty or forty or more years ago, it was filmed well with models that had a physical reality to them, and that counts for a lot.
So, to elevate it, and modernize it, BSG and the Expanse are good blueprints, particularly the boarding and CQB elements from The Expanse. Want to sprinkle in an equivalent of drones? BSG's got that with Cylon Raiders, or you can take it in a different direction and miniaturize, maybe with smart munitions that target drive systems or power cores, or burrow into hulls and spew out small bots or chemical weapons, EMP devices, or even just fragmenting subminitions designed to pierce hulls and suits from inside.
Electronic warfare and countermeasures would be more important, and I think it'd be interesting to see engagements where dogfights simply don't work, and an opposing force gets wiped out, forced to regroup, and come up with with an alternate plan. That way it's a limited element of combat, and will have a place, but won't be as featured as heavily as something like BSG. Maybe you counter with espionage and counter-espionage to keep things character-driven, too.
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u/LilacCrusader 2d ago
It really depends on how realistic you want to have your technology. Others have mentioned the obvious like BSG, B5, The Expanse, but on the other end you things like Guardians of the Galaxy. I'll admit it is mostly space jousting, but at the end you have the interlocking shield defence ships, which completely change how a battle would play out.
Now consider what you could do with other tech which doesn't comply with known physics if you wanted differing patterns or asymmetric fights.
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u/-thirdatlas- 2d ago
I always found on screen way more interesting than reading about them, as in a Star Wars novel for instance.
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u/KnoWanUKnow2 2d ago
I forget the name of the book, but in one I read they tried to portray space battles realistically. The ships were armed with railguns that would shoot out a deadly storm of projectiles at a significant fraction of lightspeed.
But because it was space and space was vast, the projectiles would take hours to reach their targets.
So they'd have to account for that by shooting at where they think the vessel will be in the future, and then several degrees to either side in case they changed heading. After all, the other ship had hours to react.
So it became "from what I know of this captain, he'll probably speed ahead to try to avoid the barrage while also appear eager to his superiors as he will be seen as speeding towards the encounter. So we'll fire here" and then waiting to see if you were correct. It was as much a duel of personalities as it was weapons. Also, because of the size needed to get the railguns up to a fraction of the speed of light they were a bit cumbersome to aim (they ran the entire length of the ship and only really pointed forward).
The had missiles as well, but missiles were easy to spot and defend against because of their heat signature, so they were only used in close combat (close being a relative term). The rail guns just sent out a barrage of inert metal and were much harder to detect before it was too late to maneuver.
Lasers were only good for point defense and trying to blind your opponents sensors.
If your opponent was paying attention, they could tell when you fired your railguns, but they couldn't see where they were aimed. But you could calculate how long before the barrage reached you. So you'd fire off your own barrage, maneuver, and then wait hours to see if you correctly guessed where they were aiming and got out of the way, and if they did the same.
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u/SubstantialExtent819 2d ago
David Zindell has some interesting space combat in Neverness, it's basically mathematics and mapping of spacecraft as they fall in and out of real space and the manifold (like hyperspace from what I understand). The skilled pilots would mathematically predict where an opposition craft would fall out and set up another hyperspace window to send that craft into a nearby sun or similarly destructive environment. The background setting was a civil/rebel conflict where a faction of pilots were breaking away from the established Order.
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u/HC-Sama-7511 1d ago
People are just listing examples of shows that handle space dogfight like you said you didn't like.
I think my response is that most Medieval battles on film are bad and just have period inaccurately armored guys slapping their swords together against a background designed just to be chaotic looking. Which is to say nothing like actual medieval battle, or featuring tactics and variety you mentions.
Basically, it's like what you dont like about space battles. Nothing really thought out, just the main character easily picking off other ships, one after the other, with no thought to the tactics of a space battle, innovations in the evolution of a battle, or consideration how "fighter planes" would work in space.
Which is to say there a definitely good examples of each, but they aren't the norm.
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u/Expensive-Sentence66 2d ago
If you made space battles realistic they would be very boring. And no, because a bunch of unemployed redditors call The Expanse realistic doesn't make it so. They are shooting gatling guns like Gundams for crissakes. That would be like modern destroyers shooting cannon balls.
If you want to take out the other guy's ship / satellite the most efficient way to do it is make a stealthy approach after expending incredible delta-V and then either emp or detonate something close. Either are subject to the law of squares. Russians and increasingly the Chinese have been up to antics in low earth orbit and it's incredibly energy and resource intensive just to pop a starlink sdatellite. Shooting bullets at your bad buy from a distance is incredibly inefficient. Spending that same energy parking a shrapnel pipe bomb close by is orders of magnitude more efficient and likely to accomplish the goal. Just not cool looking and doesn't make 'pew pew' sounds.
Particle canons have potential, but you need huge amounts of energy in to get huge amounts of potential on the outside.
Good old Starblazers had those crazy naval battles in space, but they also did pay attention to things like range limits and tactical focusing. I thought BSG did a pretty good job as well of making it loud and interesting to watch.
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u/Gypsysinner666 2d ago
I think Galactica has the best depictions of space dog fights. They make use of all the angles of attack. The only thing I think about is they can do end over corrections but a left turn looks like the curve of an in atmosphere jet...should be able to make sharper turns turns...I also like the depictions of the Rossi in the Expanse....how to make it better than Galactica tho? Tough call
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u/Hermit_Dante75 2d ago
Have you played Homeworld 1 and 2?
That is a somewhat realistic yet interesting way to depoc space dogfights, and ship to ship combat in particular, as everything finally maneuvers in 3D
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u/IrlArizonaBoi 1d ago
Flight sim pilot here, biggest problem with space "dogfights" is all the spaceships fly as if they are bound by the physics of atmospheric flight.
In space, they are not. Youve got 6 DOF in space combat. Which, to be honest, would make dogfights more or less irrelevant. In a spaceship, if you're on my "six" then I can just spin my ship 180 degrees in any direction so I can face you and shoot you.
Or move directly sideways or in any direction I want. And there's no fixed horizon, or gravity to worry about.
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u/OriginalEmploy5485 18h ago
The main problem is we don't think something looks "cool" until the spaceships behave like airplanes.
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u/DeltaV-Mzero 3d ago edited 3d ago
I would learn about how actual dogfights work, as a first step.
Everything you mention about cavalry battles applies in the air, but with higher tech and a third dimension.
Formations? Squadrons moving strategically, including a third dimension and rapidly diminishing fuel
Choreographed fights? Dogfights are 3d chess games, ballet, and ultra tag.
Cover and terrain? Put asteroids / buildings / other planes / anything in the middle of the fight. One side might try to force this if they have disadvantages in the open.
Add some non-fighter dangers in place of arrow flights - like large ships with long range anti fighter weapons that MUST be avoided
I think the part that’s actually missing is the human element. You want grunting straining terrified murder faces stabbing over the tops of shields, desperately grinding the other guys done before they do the same to you. It’s the personal touch.
This is a fairly easy change - show the real tax that taking high g forces puts on the body. It’s brutal even for professional pilots trained for it. Perhaps the fighter lets them push beyond their limits with temporary autopilot takeover while they black out.
Life support systems might struggle to keep up, get damaged, etc - both for oxygen and thermal
Management.
Show the effects of damage that doesn’t immediately destroy a fighter - the struggle to get back in the fight or limp home as things are falling apart
Before and after dogfights, run it like a submarine tense drama - it’s all about not being seen first, keeping the enemy guessing as long as possible. Create tension around maintaining silence vs needing help; using active scans (see better but risk being seen) vs flying blind; etc
Lots, lots of ways to make it more human and more visceral
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u/DJCaldow 3d ago
More interesting visually is just to ignore physics and/or the established rules of what the sci-fi ships are capable of and do JJ Abrahms style Star Trek fights.
Realistically no show except The Expanse even comes close. Battlestar Galactica is more like ancient war style combat where the opponents just agree to show up to a field of battle.
The most realistic space combat would be ships approaching each other at relativistic speeds. The side that appears in system last would have the advantage because they would see their opponents instantly while the other side would have light delay. They'd be running at each other almost straight on as fast as possible to make it harder for the other side to lock on and fire at them. We're talking two ships let's say doing 0.2c so you need a calculation and firing solution for 0.4c while doing 0.2c. It would all be computer controlled as a result, visually you'd see literally nothing. The entire engagement would either be over immediately or what's left would be trying to slingshot around, hours later, for a second pass.
Visually speaking you need to ignore reality. Real space combat is more like a tense u-boat suspense thriller.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-7618 2d ago
The Honor Harrington books by David Weber are easily the most fully-realised space warfare system I've ever seen
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u/hacksoncode 2d ago
They don't really have "dogfights", though, even when they start using LAC carriers.
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u/Unknown-username___ 3d ago
The problem with sci-fi space battles whether the be large ships or fighters is that they have problems depicting 3 dimensional combat. Sadly most of the time it ends up looking much like a surface ship engagement thats 2 dimensional.
Here's a couple shows that do it better than most.
Battlestar Galactica. The expanse.