Basic Trope: Armies that should have beyond visual range (BVR) weapons fight at short ranges.
- Straight: Starships exchange fire at a few kilometres' range.
- Exaggerated: Starships fight at mere metres' range and have to move to avoid crashing into each other.
- Downplayed: Starships "artillery duel" at tens to hundreds of kilometres - acceptable for modern tactical weapons, but far short of strategic intercontinental weapons, much less what realistic interstellar combat should be capable of.
- Justified:
- Heavy electronic warfare measures and lack of FTL sensors make hitting anything at more than short range very difficult.
- They technically can target the foes at the distance but they seldom do because of target identification issues and other technical constraints make IFF systems non-viable.
- Dominant FTL travel method is point-to-point instantaneous jump without No Warping Zone a la Battlestar Galactica (2003). The only way to attack anything FTL-capable that isn't stuck in a defensive posture is to jump in at close range and strike before the other can jump out.
- One side has individually superior ships that can destroy a number of the other side's in close combat, but the other side has better long-range barrages. The former side thus must get into close range where its individual superiority can seize the day; again a la Battlestar Galactica (2003) in on the Colonial side whose battlestars can beat the crap out of baseships one on one.
- Point defense has become very fast reacting so cannon and missiles will be destroyed or deflected if you don't close the range - using More Dakka at a distance will just backfire as the systems are also smart enough to cause the projectiles to fratricide.
- There's a huge gravity well nearby, so the starships have to get close enough to each other to ensure that their weapons aren't deflected by gravity.
- Heavy electronic warfare measures and lack of FTL sensors make hitting anything at more than short range very difficult.
- Inverted:
- Starships shoot at each other from entirely different star systems if not galaxies.
- Both foes take the time to train guided missiles from vast distances on each other despite being well within visual range and a quickly aimed conventional gunshot would be quicker, cheaper, and more reliable.
- Subverted:
- The only fighters that do this are drones specifically sent out to clarify the target before possibly attacking if hostile - essentially the equivalent of missiles themselves. If the drones themselves are destroyed expect to see a massive barrage from distant weapons retaliating.
- The apparent close combats are explained as an adaptation for the user's sake due to difficulty fathoming the sense of scale. Reducing the apparent distances several orders of magnitude resulted in far superior performance in simulations as a reverse 'objects in mirror are closer than they appear' improved their judgment above an 'objective' depiction of reality.
- Double Subverted: However they later encounter Scary Dogmatic Aliens who have Energy Shields can be penetrated only by shorter ranged Energy Weapons.
- Parodied: Starships have giant arms and legs and engage in brawls and grapples.
- Zig Zagged: Engagement ranges vary depending upon the technology level and relative advancements. At times BVR is the only viable option, at others it belong mixed with other weapons, and in others it is useless or worse.
- Averted: The starships fight at properly long ranges where they cannot see each other.
- Enforced: "It's not entertaining to our viewers if all they see of space battles is dots disappearing from radar screens."
- Lampshaded: Space scenes are frequently prefaced with 'objects order of magnitude more distant than they appear'.
- Implied: We never see the fight but rival wreckage are always found in close proximity to each other.
- Invoked: One side develops high speed heavily-armed and -shielded or stealth ships to close with an enemy that is not as effective in "knife fighting".
- Exploited: An enemy army notices this tendency and starts exploiting tactics against it like longer ranges or defensive emplacements that would otherwise be destroyed at no risk by attacking from beyond their maximum range.
- Defied: One side develops an effective means of BVR combat.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: The side that has weapons with very short effective range and lacks the acceleration, defenses, stealth or tactical FTL to close the distance gets blown away by the side that out-ranges it.
- Reconstructed: While tactically it is undeniably better to use Beyond Visual Range weaponry strategically it is a poor move. Ensuring proper target identification is vitally important - the distant signals can be spoofed. Enemy signals organizations are capable of a wide variety of deceptive tactics ranging from distant decoys to force them to reveal themselves early, to tricking them into Friendly Fire or worse attacking vastly stronger third parties. Eschewing BVR make them essentially Too Dumb to Fool - they'll get close enough to hail, investigate, and use the full strength of their sensor arrays to detect any trickery before opening fire.
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