AlexeiTimoshenko wrote:Lets put this into some real terms. Your ships and the enemies are moving at about .003c. Three hours into the strike you've covered the distance from Earth to Mars at closest approach. Your comm systems are still limited to light speed (no better than what we have now). What happens if something changes? Assuming the enemy has sensor ships of his own, he's tracking and feeding data to his defenses effectively in real time, whereas your strike is using data that's several minutes old.
A lot depends on the dynamics of what is going on and the relative speeds.
.003c is pretty slow in Starfire. About speed 0.5 ish.
At the ranges you are talking about:
(180 minutes x 60 seconds/minutes x 300,000 km/s x.003) / 70,000km /hex = about 139 tH.
If each side has Yb, and isn't in LOD, they are tracking each other pretty adeptly.
It only had to guide the 'strike' about half way to the target before its Ya could find the enemy on its own (assuming Redbeards, Reavers, etc...). The lag time to that point on Commo would be just a tiny bit over one turn. I don't think the targets movement is going to make a big difference.
Now if you are trying to pull of a GB sortie at 3sH, and none of the GB has sY because they won't make it without carrying sQ - it can get trickier when you are 36LM out. That translates to 72 turns both ways for transmissions.
The saving grace is that the target will only be able to detect the GBs at medium range, which is usually less than 100 tH unless you are quite a way up the EL/SL ladder. If you are on long range sorties it is better to have the GB spread out so their sensors just overlap. Makes it easier to find your target and with a sensor range of 20tH is twice as far as the opponent can shoot you.
It is also helpful to just get onto the target course and move along it. Unless the target is manuevering - you will run into them eventually.
It can be somewhat more difficult with long range sorties. But far from impossible.