Space fightercraft in RPGs.

[Cancer]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Indeed, we've missed you, TH. I need to send Nyrath an email asking him to come back, too.

[Tasha]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Yes' date=' I was on the list of people who needed a break. Now I never stopped working in HERO -- if anything, I've been more active than ever. But I needed to get away. I'm hoping to maintain my return at long last. Post some new projects. Figure out how to blog.[/quote']

 

Welcome back, you and the Ice Cream Cone of Smiting! I enjoy your posts a bunch.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Welcome back! We missed you' date=' but while you were out we had some target practice....[/quote']

 

Dude. You SO owe me a new starboard hull and weapon pod. I mean... REALLY? MY SHIP? What were you, drunk?

 

High?

 

No. Don't answer that.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Oh yeah.

 

Fighter craft.

 

Fighter craft are awesome. They worked in WWI & WWII, the gulf, Afghanistan, what have you. Instead of limiting the premise to "I have fighter craft... INNNNN SPAAAAAAAAAACE" remember that there are many roles small tactical craft can play, including space and ground based missions, such as the AH-64E Apache, the A-10 "Warthog" Thunderbolt II, and AV8-B Harrier Jump Jet. All multi-purpose craft, all capable of doing a number of things, including bombing fortified positions from a position of safety.

 

Everyone always assumes it doesn't make sense, but take another look at it:

 

* A manned maneuverable harrasser is deadlier than a fixed turret, although both can be eliminated fairly easily

* Yes, your ship has lots of torpedo tubes. It's also obvious. Having a group of torpedo boat/fighter/bombers hanging well back and unleashing the fury AFTER the fight begins has a tremendous advantage.

* Once I start deploying fighter/bombers, you must deploy interceptors, to handle both the torpedoes AND my craft.

* Craft & pilots are expensive. I'm okay with that. One live pilot, in the hot seat, with all his senses connected to his ship, is going to be more effective than a drone pilot operating purely on visual data.

 

These are not "be all end all" arguments, they are just points that can be made. Ultimately, you don't need to defend the choice of including fighter craft. This is because fighter craft are awesome.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

I totally agree TH about fighter craft being super cool in sci-fi games. Look at something like Cowboy Bebop where each character has a unique fighter craft based around their personality.

 

As far as addressing your “it doesn’t make sense” points, Taking another look at it from a hard sci-fi perspective (and only from a hard sci-fi point of view) (I was also assuming you meant manned craft, my points are not valid if you meant unmanned craft):

 

* A turret is much cheaper, and you can have many many turrets for the price of a ship (no need for extraneous systems like engines, life support, individual sensors)

* The torpedo tubes thing is an argument for larger ships. If I can have larger ships hang back, then in theory they would be even more effective. If you want to talk price, an unmanned drone could do the same thing and still be more effective than a manned fighter

* Once You deploy fighters/bombers, why must I care about interceptors? It’s not like in a hard sci fi environ, they have any inherent maneuverability advantage over a larger ship (with proportional engines). Besides I can pick them off with missiles or point defense, the same as I would with a larger ship or missile. I can also deploy drones to engage them which would be cheaper.

* A computer program would be faster and better than a flesh and blood pilot. Think about if you had equal value on fightercraft and I had an equal value of missiles. Missiles are cheap and expendable.

 

I do agree that fighter craft are inherently awesome. What GMs should do, is decide how much they want fighter crafts to be a part of their game, and then base the setting on that. It doesn’t matter how much sense they make, it’s about the game that everyone wants to play. No one will question if mecha make sense in TTGL HERO, because TTGL HERO is inherently awesome.

[Cancer]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

I do agree that fighter craft are inherently awesome. What GMs should do' date=' is decide how much they want fighter crafts to be a part of their game, and then base the setting on that. It doesn’t matter how much sense they make, it’s about the game that everyone wants to play. No one will question if mecha make sense in TTGL HERO, because TTGL HERO is inherently awesome.[/quote']

 

And that is the correct way to work this question out for your campaign: Decide what you want and make it so. For one gee of acceleration on a 2000-ton ship you need a power plant generating 10^15 watts, which is crazy when using Real Physics ... so might as well go for more awesomeness of choice and let the relevant violated bits of physics be d***ed.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

You almost, and I mean this with no rancor, completely missed my point.

 

I wasn't making a case and saying "Look, it makes total sense!" I know my hard sci-fi, I know the massive amount of energy and expense it takes to put a human into a craft and that craft to be sound and space-capable. Oh Star Wars, how you lied to everyone. Point being, I was just throwing out options to give the possibility that it isn't a complete waste of time to consider it.

 

Fighter craft, and dogfights, are awesome.

 

Don't forget, Roy, that any argument I can make can inherently invite a counter-argument, an "I can one-up you" position or similar. The intent here was to speak from the perspective of including those craft, and the kinds of stories that the inclusion of said craft allow you to tell. Read Ender's Game, and then watch the Trench Run in Ep. IV.

 

Ender's game is a great book. I cried. But there's not a single dogfight to be found, not really. It's all one giant simulation (or so they tell you). With all that being said:

 

* Turrets consume power, space, and require ammunition. While a computer controlled turret certainly has advantages, they should not provide your only defensive layer. Fighter craft can provide a second cloud, ie:

/\

== here, your ship has immediate points of defense. There is no, assuming standard Trek/Wars construction, perfect sphere with

\/ perfect accuracy. The complexity of the weapon system plays a part in all of this as well.

( )

By adding a second layer: ( )

( )

 

You can provide additional protections. Again, we're going to assume that all sides have/use/deploy fighter craft. They aren't a perfect weapon, but they are more capable and respond faster and, best of all, are dual role. They can go on offense or defense, where your turrets are purely defensive. If I throw all shields forward, I can soak your turrets, but I may not be able to respond to a group of fighter craft that bend around the side.

 

* Again, hard sci-fi must auto-assume no fighter craft. If you deploy drones (this is really 2 & 3) and I know the algorithm, I own them. They cannot respond with the speed and efficiency of a human pilot. This is certainly up for debate, but in a heroic setting, I would hold that rule as a given.

 

What the heck is TTGL?

 

DEM/TH 8 Feb @ 1:32p; please assume the formatting -- it mucked with meh, and I don't feel like putting in a whole slew of periods.

[Sundog]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

I totally agree TH about fighter craft being super cool in sci-fi games. Look at something like Cowboy Bebop where each character has a unique fighter craft based around their personality.

 

As far as addressing your “it doesn’t make sense” points, Taking another look at it from a hard sci-fi perspective (and only from a hard sci-fi point of view) (I was also assuming you meant manned craft, my points are not valid if you meant unmanned craft):

 

* A turret is much cheaper, and you can have many many turrets for the price of a ship (no need for extraneous systems like engines, life support, individual sensors)

* The torpedo tubes thing is an argument for larger ships. If I can have larger ships hang back, then in theory they would be even more effective. If you want to talk price, an unmanned drone could do the same thing and still be more effective than a manned fighter

* Once You deploy fighters/bombers, why must I care about interceptors? It’s not like in a hard sci fi environ, they have any inherent maneuverability advantage over a larger ship (with proportional engines). Besides I can pick them off with missiles or point defense, the same as I would with a larger ship or missile. I can also deploy drones to engage them which would be cheaper.

* A computer program would be faster and better than a flesh and blood pilot. Think about if you had equal value on fightercraft and I had an equal value of missiles. Missiles are cheap and expendable.

 

I do agree that fighter craft are inherently awesome. What GMs should do, is decide how much they want fighter crafts to be a part of their game, and then base the setting on that. It doesn’t matter how much sense they make, it’s about the game that everyone wants to play. No one will question if mecha make sense in TTGL HERO, because TTGL HERO is inherently awesome.

 

A few counterpoints:

Turrets still need a platform to fire from. If you're loading your battleships with turrets, that's either more mass (and thus less acceleration), or you have to skimp somewhere else - fewer offensive weapons, less armour, something. Simply forcing you to do that could be all the edge I need.

Larger ships are more expensive ships. You deploy a battleship with 30 tubes. I deploy 10 fighters with six missile hardpoints. I have double your throw weights for one tenth of the cost. Now, you'll probably have greater endurance, and that could win a battle for you, but economics says I win this war.

We ASSUME computer controlled fighters would be better. It looks a good assumption. But it IS an assumption.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

If we're limited by gravity(i.e., if ships can only accelerate at the tolerance limits of their crew), then large ships not designed explicitly for maximizing the crew's ability to withstand g-forces(and possibly lacking the thrust to weight ratio necessary for high-g maneuver) are likely to be less maneuverable compared to small craft with higher thrust-to-weight ratios(because their operating range is much less, meaning they have to carry proportionally less of everything) and designed for high-g(angled back seats, g-suits), then the difference in maneuverability might be as high as 3:1(9 or 10 gs max vs. 3 gs max).

If we're not limited by gravity, then you remove one of the selling points for drones over live pilots(no difference in acceleration/maneuverability).

[austenandrews]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Personally I'm not convinced a good deal of space combat won't be mutually assured destruction. If the enemy can shoot at you, you're effectively already dead. As an analogy, think of modern warfare if tactical nukes were commonplace. From that perspective, a large human-bearing target (like a battleship) sounds a lot like the proverbial "one neck." I wonder if you couldn't make the argument that dividing personnel into many smaller vessels, remotely controlling big, lightly-manned weapons platforms, could have advantages over sticking everybody's eggs into one basket. And if, from there, it would make sense to build these smaller vessels with weapons, armor and high maneuverability, not unlike what we think of as "space fighters." In function they'd almost be the opposite - the point would be to avoid getting blown up, as opposed to hurtling into the thick of combat - but such an arrangement might serve up smaller engagements of the sort we see in space opera, while maintaining some semblance of plausibility.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Personally I'm not convinced a good deal of space combat won't be mutually assured destruction. If the enemy can shoot at you' date=' you're effectively already dead. As an analogy, think of modern warfare if tactical nukes were commonplace. From that perspective, a large human-bearing target (like a battleship) sounds a lot like the proverbial "one neck." I wonder if you couldn't make the argument that dividing personnel into many smaller vessels, remotely controlling big, lightly-manned weapons platforms, could have advantages over sticking everybody's eggs into one basket. And if, from there, it would make sense to build these smaller vessels with weapons, armor and high maneuverability, not unlike what we think of as "space fighters." In function they'd almost be the opposite - the point would be to avoid getting blown up, as opposed to hurtling into the thick of combat - but such an arrangement might serve up smaller engagements of the sort we see in space opera, while maintaining some semblance of plausibility.[/quote']

 

The only caveat to that is that armor tends to scale up for larger ships. If the super-battleship has armor consisting of 10 meters thick of carbon nanofiber and tungsten(or some synthetic material with a ludicrously high melting point), and weighs several million tons, with multiple redundancies and thousands of sealed subcompartments, you might need a VERY large nuke to take it out. And a laser might just be a waste of time and energy.

[Escafarc]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

In the newest Honerverse book In Fired Forged by David Webber, he has a whole section about Starship Armor.

[austenandrews]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

True enough. Would there be circumstances where a decentralized weapons platform would be more desirable than a giant block of armor? Say, against an enemy that has some very large nukes?

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

True enough. Would there be circumstances where a decentralized weapons platform would be more desirable than a giant block of armor? Say' date=' against an enemy that has some very large nukes?[/quote']

 

Not so much against the nukes, but Traveller's meson guns didn't interact with armor at all: they went right through it. A ship with 'dispersed structure' type hull would stand up to meson gun fire better than most, IIRC.

[Tasha]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

I totally agree TH about fighter craft being super cool in sci-fi games. Look at something like Cowboy Bebop where each character has a unique fighter craft based around their personality.

 

As far as addressing your “it doesn’t make sense” points, Taking another look at it from a hard sci-fi perspective (and only from a hard sci-fi point of view) (I was also assuming you meant manned craft, my points are not valid if you meant unmanned craft):

 

* A turret is much cheaper, and you can have many many turrets for the price of a ship (no need for extraneous systems like engines, life support, individual sensors)

* The torpedo tubes thing is an argument for larger ships. If I can have larger ships hang back, then in theory they would be even more effective. If you want to talk price, an unmanned drone could do the same thing and still be more effective than a manned fighter

* Once You deploy fighters/bombers, why must I care about interceptors? It’s not like in a hard sci fi environ, they have any inherent maneuverability advantage over a larger ship (with proportional engines). Besides I can pick them off with missiles or point defense, the same as I would with a larger ship or missile. I can also deploy drones to engage them which would be cheaper.

* A computer program would be faster and better than a flesh and blood pilot. Think about if you had equal value on fightercraft and I had an equal value of missiles. Missiles are cheap and expendable.

 

I do agree that fighter craft are inherently awesome. What GMs should do, is decide how much they want fighter crafts to be a part of their game, and then base the setting on that. It doesn’t matter how much sense they make, it’s about the game that everyone wants to play. No one will question if mecha make sense in TTGL HERO, because TTGL HERO is inherently awesome.

 

One thing that I think people may forget about large ship is the enemy of Vehicular Engineering, Inertia. I have a hard time believing that a Huge ship can make a 6+ G turn without structural damage or a ton of waste space for the increased strengthening of the hull to take those stresses. A smallish fighter like craft has less mass to heave around with the engines and should be able to get away with crazy maneuvering that a large ship couldn't.

 

Drones MAY get good enough. UAV's have issues that I pointed earlier in the thread (Jamming...). It may be that humans keep their edge vs drones (ie via direct neural interface to the craft). It may also be that Small attack craft prove to be better at certain missions than unmanned drones.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

And that is the correct way to work this question out for your campaign: Decide what you want and make it so. For one gee of acceleration on a 2000-ton ship you need a power plant generating 10^15 watts' date=' which is crazy when using Real Physics ... so might as well go for more awesomeness of choice and let the relevant violated bits of physics be d***ed.[/quote']

 

Re: power plants, I ran across some interesting info from Robert Bussard about polywell fusion reactors. According to Bussard, the fusion power produced might (for certain reactor configurations) scale up with the seventh power of the reactor radius. (Disclaimer: I am not a nuclear physicist, so I can't evaluate this claim.) If this is true, it raises a couple of points for the current discussion:

 

1) That ridiculous terawatt-output power plant may not be ridiculous at some point in the future.

2) If the power plants used for space propulsion scale up that sharply with size, it would be another point against smaller spacecraft, such as fighters. (And very much to the advantage of larger ships!)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Re: power plants' date=' I ran across some interesting info from Robert Bussard about polywell fusion reactors. According to Bussard, the fusion power produced might (for certain reactor configurations) scale up with the [i']seventh power[/i] of the reactor radius. (Disclaimer: I am not a nuclear physicist, so I can't evaluate this claim.)

 

 

What?

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

RE: TH

I didn’t miss your point, I was pointing out that justification is what you do after you decide how much fighter craft you want, rather than letting it decide how much fighter craft you have.

 

Why can drones not respond with the speed and efficiency of a human pilot? Space combat is all about rapid calculations and determining how to best attack your enemies. Plus they wouldn’t need to worry about survival. We seem to be talking about different things. I say that small unmanned vehicles have uses, you say small manned vehicles have uses, and we should stop talking about the uses of these vehicles but rather if adding a pilot is useful.

 

We are literally talking about two separate things. One we agree on: fighter craft are awesome, one we disagree on (hard sci fi space fighters). I won’t disagree with “in role playing games, PCs are awesome” thus justifying space fighters, but if we are talking about a possible real space combat, I think having pilots is unnecessary.

 

TTGL: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (A mecha Anime where mecha are powered by “being awesome”)

 

 

RE: Sundog

 

Turrets and fighters have different mission parameters. Turrets are probably best used for point defense, whereas I would compare a fighter to a missile. A missile is pound for pound better than a fighter, and cheaper too. The reason you want a battleship is so that you can perform deep space missions other than “limited endurance fighting”. If you just want that, use a missile. Battleships would be useful for -> Customs, Exploration, Diplomatic Envoys, etc.

 

If you are loading your fighters with turrets then they are also weighted down. Nothing says fighters or battleships need to have turrets. I also can spend the money I didn’t spend on fighter craft on more engines to make up the mass difference. My point was that if you are comparing the fighter to a turret, then the turret is more effective, but now I will edit that point to say that a missile is a more reasonable comparison in terms of roles.

 

As far as throw weight, unless I have to defend a planet, I can always deny combat because we will see each other coming from far enough away for me to make that decision. Or I can accelerate towards you, minimizing our combat time. Your 10 fighters need to compete with my larger and thus longer range missiles too. And nothing says I can’t carry my own drones to intercept your fighters.

 

I assume computer controlled fighters would be better, as fighting in space is probably a game of missile tag. We have computers which can locate, identify, and collide with targets today. Nothing says in the future we will not have them.

 

(By battleship I really mean cruiser, as in a ship which can operate on its own)

[megaplayboy]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

I think ultimately it boils down to whether we are talking "hard" sci-fi settings, "semi-realistic" sci-fi settings, "soft" sci-fi settings, or space opera/science fantasy settings. In a hard sci-fi setting, it might be difficult to justify manned fighters instead of drones. In a semi-realistic sci-fi setting, maybe you can come up with a reason they exist and kinda sorta work. In a soft sci-fi or space opera setting, OF COURSE there are space fighters, because manned space fighters are teh awesome.

[Cancer]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Oh, you could have space fighter craft in a game/setting that felt like "hard" sci-fi; you'd just need to build a reason why drones wouldn't work into your alternate physics. As long as you build the alternate physics in from the start and it hangs together consistently, you could do this with a "hard" sci-fi feel. It just takes more up-front thought to pull it off.

[Sundog]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

 

RE: Sundog

 

Turrets and fighters have different mission parameters. Turrets are probably best used for point defense, whereas I would compare a fighter to a missile. A missile is pound for pound better than a fighter, and cheaper too. The reason you want a battleship is so that you can perform deep space missions other than “limited endurance fighting”. If you just want that, use a missile. Battleships would be useful for -> Customs, Exploration, Diplomatic Envoys, etc.

 

If you are loading your fighters with turrets then they are also weighted down. Nothing says fighters or battleships need to have turrets. I also can spend the money I didn’t spend on fighter craft on more engines to make up the mass difference. My point was that if you are comparing the fighter to a turret, then the turret is more effective, but now I will edit that point to say that a missile is a more reasonable comparison in terms of roles.

 

As far as throw weight, unless I have to defend a planet, I can always deny combat because we will see each other coming from far enough away for me to make that decision. Or I can accelerate towards you, minimizing our combat time. Your 10 fighters need to compete with my larger and thus longer range missiles too. And nothing says I can’t carry my own drones to intercept your fighters.

 

I assume computer controlled fighters would be better, as fighting in space is probably a game of missile tag. We have computers which can locate, identify, and collide with targets today. Nothing says in the future we will not have them.

 

(By battleship I really mean cruiser, as in a ship which can operate on its own)

 

Oh, I quite agree that larger ships are more useful in more areas. Fighters can't do a lot of what a larger ship can do. What they CAN do (whether manned or drone) is serve as a series of launching platforms for missiles, which are cheaper, more numerous but simultaneously more expendable than a big ship. Fighters don't obviate big ships, they support them (or are supported by them, in the case of carrier-first policies).

 

I can't quite agree with the characterization of a fighter being similar to a missile. Militarily, there are similarities; but when you factor in economics and logistics, those similarities vanish. Fighters are designed to come back - fight the battle, risk themselves, yes, but if possible return for reuse. Missiles are fire and forget - you'll never see that 300 000 Oiks again. Also, fighters won't generally carry the defensive armament of larger ships - some defenses sure, but their primary defense is evasion and a small signature (no, there's no stealth in space. But there can be subterfuge).

 

Also, assuming larger and more effective missiles isn't necessarily a good bet. External hardpoints don't care how big their payload is as long as it's within the mass limits of the pylon. Internal tubes have limits on size (real life example: the Phoenix long range air-to-air missile carried by the F-14 Tomcat in the 1960's and '70s was larger than the missiles launched by most US cruisers of the era. Of course, the F-14 could only carry two of them).

 

The big ships have major advantages, better sensors, better fire control, endurance, damage control. But enough bee stings can kill an elephant. I DON'T think fighters will ever dominate the way they have surface conflicts. But I'm not ready to write them off.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

 

What?

 

I'm inclined to take this with a grain of salt -- Bussard didn't really explain it. Any scaling factor greater than 1.0 for power output would most likely favor larger ships, though.

 

This is where most RPG vehicle design systems favor simplicity over reality: Power Law? What's a power law? If engine A is twice the size of engine B, it puts out twice the power -- done. Reality isn't linear like that. Hero goes even farther into 'fuzzy math' with no stats of any kind for the size/mass of a power plant and a completely undefined unit (Endurance points) for power output. It drives me crazy. (Like anyone's gonna notice. Yeah, right....)

 

I dispensed with it altogether in my campaign: the spacecraft have BIG FREAKIN' FUSION REACTORS with more power than they'll ever need -- nothing costs endurance.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

Oh, okay. Giant reactor has crazy power level, therefore there are no endurance costs. This, he muttered, I can wrap what brain I have around. Also, that's perfectly reasonable when you think about it. Conversely, I'm a mind to convert Star Trek wholly independent of anything done before. If you haven't checked them out, Xavier, you might want to look at my halo/ hero conversion material.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

I can't quite agree with the characterization of a fighter being similar to a missile. Militarily, there are similarities; but when you factor in economics and logistics, those similarities vanish. Fighters are designed to come back - fight the battle, risk themselves, yes, but if possible return for reuse. Missiles are fire and forget - you'll never see that 300 000 Oiks again. Also, fighters won't generally carry the defensive armament of larger ships - some defenses sure, but their primary defense is evasion and a small signature (no, there's no stealth in space. But there can be subterfuge).

 

The fact that the fighter has to return means that it needs four times the delta-v for the same mission (it has to start, stop when it gets there, start on the return trip, and stop when it gets back to the ship), which means carrying substantially more than four times the fuel, which means lower acceleration and maneuverability. There's also the question of what the fighter is going to do when it gets to the mission area . . . launch missiles? If that's the case, you'd be better off by far just adding a drop tank to your missile.

 

Giant reactor has crazy power level, therefore there are no endurance costs.

 

It doesn't have to be crazy, just enough. Two reactors, each capable of supplying 100% of the ship's power needs is plenty. That's the way a Nimitz class carrier does it. It might make for dramatic television, but if you have to decide which of two mission critical systems you're not going to use because you haven't got the power, your naval engineers are doing it wrong.

 

On the other hand, limitations on how much waste heat you can dissipate without using your fragile non-combat-rated folding radiators would be entirely realistic.

[Sundog]

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.

 

The fact that the fighter has to return means that it needs four times the delta-v for the same mission (it has to start, stop when it gets there, start on the return trip, and stop when it gets back to the ship), which means carrying substantially more than four times the fuel, which means lower acceleration and maneuverability. There's also the question of what the fighter is going to do when it gets to the mission area . . . launch missiles? If that's the case, you'd be better off by far just adding a drop tank to your missile.

 

True...if you have a targetting solution from that distance, if you're willing to risk bringing your ship into missile range, and if it's not needed somewhere else.

Fighters, or more accurately in this case, parasite launch platforms, give you flexibility that you will NEVER engineer into a 100% expendable missile, for simple economic reasons. A Carrier and it's parasites can be in two places at once. A single craft can't.

Yes, using a reusable parasite means more fuel expenditure, and it won't be able to match a missile for accel and maneuverability. I'll take the economic advantages and the capacity to fine-tune my attack from optimum distance every time.