The big problem with 'patroling the jump points', is that anywhere beyond Saturn's orbit is effectively a jump point. That's a lot of area to patrol, which means you need a lot of patrolling units to effectively cover that volume. The stellar poles are just the 'standard jumppoints', and anyone jumping to a standard point while looking for CSN territory is either foolhardy (CSN/GDI are rather closedmouth about the location of their homestar(s) and are known to use nukes for system defence) or they are relying on a Lithium Battery to allow them to bug out fast when they hit paydirt.
That and with BB communications being just around the corner for the CSN, they'll be able to provide near real-time data transferring between sensor buoys (and Earth itself) well out beyond the jump limit. Buoys that are deliberately placed and use extremely large/passive IR detection arrays to spot incoming jump signatures. Within 5 years of annexing Antallos, CEarth should be virtually impossible for any jump capable vessels to enter it further in then the Oort Cloud, and not get spotted. Within 10 tens, Brightstar arrays will be on the ground, orbit, and on the dark side of the moon. Within 15 years, you'll see an orbital defense grid straight out of Macross Plus with dozens 'battlesats' that are only large enough to stick in a Brightstar & Heavy NPPC, fission/solar powered, and enough heat sinks to keep from frying, along with hundreds of smaller sats only big enough for a ERLL, LPL, and L-AMS to exist together as anti-ASF/Dropship sections of the grid. 20 years you'll see warships openly patrolling Sol in full fleet strengths. Not one fleet broken into taskforces, but entire whole fleets. By the time of the canon Jihad, the only thing the Comstar fanatics (remember, WoB become the GOOD GUYS in our fic, with the faction splitting taking the opposite of the canon names) could even hope to do is jump in somewhere past the orbit of Eris or Orcus, using those dwarf planets to hide their jump signatures, and then proceed immediately to either Dysnomia or Vanth (the moons of Eris & Orcus, respectively) and do their best to boost one, if not both moons, inwards using hundreds of dropships. Yes, you heard me. Hundreds. And hope to get either moon moving fast enough that it won't be possible to stop them in time. Because if they jump in ANY closer, they'll be spotted, and have the entire wrath of the GDI's home fleet(s) drop down onto their heads like god incarnate. That or, any smaller objects, closer in, won't have built up enough momentum, and the GDI will be able to stop them easily.
Why do the missile on those satellites have pointed noses? No way in hell are they going to survive re-entry like that, and the aerodynamic aspects aren't needed if they are space-to-space missiles.
I perfectly agree with you Barricade - only a small problem though ... a lot of people people will scream "EARTHWANK!" on this even if it is realistic ... I always point such people to Keiran Halcyons sig then, to cool'em down a little bit: "The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." On another note, I really do not understand why so many people are fans of the "31st-century-BTverse-owns-anyverse-of-21st/20st-century-Earth" school. It is like the "ST versus SW" debates all over again! }p
Typically, because doing that costs money. While all the cool stuff may be nice, there is still a sane limit imposed by how much people are expected to give up from their taxes. While on the outside it's obvious that the Coalition needs to go balls to the wall to defend itself, it's a slightly harder sell to populations that haven't seen what the mess of the Inner Sphere or the Clan Invasion means directly. However, building up space infrastructure and making spaceships does provide jobs to millions, so... it may balance out in the end. Detection is easy. Space is BIG however, and interception is necessary. Who is even bothering to argue against being able to detect the enemy's approach? The issue is with the number of hulls available to deal with them. Satellites are static defenses, and must remain close to the planets or stations they defend. Trying to lay down satellite 'minefields' is pointless due to the sheer vastness of space. That leaves the bulk of system defense to cheap monitors. The money to build them has to come from somewhere, and unless the population of Earth is stoked into a buying frenzy, the economy of a single planet can only support so much. Making earth a beehive of SDS systems is not Earthwank. Having that and a surplus of power projection as if, say, sufficient to take on the Clans on their own, is something else.
Ok ... <reads on ...> What!? :wtf: I didn't say the Spheroids are idiots ... Com* has just been killing the most bright of them ... so they shouldn't generally stupid ... and then look on Hanse "I give you CapCon" Davion as a fine example that they aren't "mostly" twits.
It means stop making strawman statements. It's simply the polar opposite of what you just said. This is SB. If there are two sides, they both get to be overly-invested idiots.
:wtf: But, for example, I do not want CEarth to hit a Tech Singularity in 3040s and bolostomping both the Clans, C* and the IS. That is the worst case, opposite scenario I can think off.
Except, of course, that CEarth system is virtually (give or take a few rocks given the 1000 years relative time diffence) a copy of Battletech's Terra system; a lot of the pirate points will be the same. And Quintus Allard knows this already; I can't see CEarth remaining anonymous much past the Fourth Succession War anyway given Comstar's Explorer Corps only have a relatively limited volume of space to search.
Given the way the store is going the early projection of the next Tech Singularity in 2030 is most like to happen in the RL before the story is up to there. but try and remember RL when through a Tech Singularity in the 1960’s and normal there should be one in 2024, follow by the next one in 2030-2050.
