Warhammer 40k, why is it appealing to you?

[Adrian Laguna]

For me? The Warp.

I don't care about the novels, codexes or the tabletop game. I sometimes use 40K as a game or story setting, and the Warp makes for such an incredibly diverse and potent storytelling material that it beggars the mind. I also find it quite original, but that may be due to the fact that I don't really read that much sci-fi or fantasy

If you haven't done so, go read Daemonworld. It's awesome.

[PeZook]

If you haven't done so, go read Daemonworld. It's awesome.

I will, if I can find it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Heh, to comment a bit on my previous post: I actually find tat I enjoy telling stories in the 40K universe that do not involve any of the iconic characters or organizations.

No Space Marines, no aliens, no Necrons, no Eldar. I like to play with the Warp and various fucked up things that are the result, and of course the moral abiguity of the entire struggle of humanity.

[Connor MacLeod]

The rule of thumb is, an object travelling at 3 km/s carries its own weight in BLAM.

I'm going to calculate the energy a smallish 40k ship travelling at 12 km/s carries with it. That's a real crawl, btw, we know 40k ships can do at the very least hundreds of gees of acceleration. For the purpose of simplicity our ship shall be a a block 1x.25x.25 km. We'll assume it's made of 5% iron and 95% air. Note that the real solid proportion is much higher, and the materials used by 40k make iron look like chalk.

The volume of the block is 62,500,000 cubic metres. Of these, 3,125,000 cubic metres are iron and 59,375,000 are air at 1 atm and 20 degrees C. Iron's density is 7870 kg per cubic m, and air's density at stated temperature and pressure is 1.2 kg per cubic m.

Thus, the mass of our starship is 24,593,750,000+71,250,000=2.4665E10 kg

The formula for kinetic energy is half the mass (in kg) multiplied by the square of the velocity (in m/s). We have the mass, and the velocity is 12 km/s = 12,000 m/s. The square of the velocity is thus 144 million metres per second. So:

KE=2.23325E10 x 144,000,000
KE=3.21588E18 Jules

So the kinetic energy is basically 3.2 exajules. Since a megaton of energy is defined as 4.184 petajoules, our ship carries with damn near one gigaton of energy.

But wait! We were using a ludicrously conservative velocity. What happens if the ship were travelling a hundred times faster? Well, that's 1200 km/s = 1,200,000 m/s, the square of which is 1.44E12 m/s. We substitute that for our old 144 million m/s and we get:

KE=3.21588E22 Jules

That's 32 exajules, in other words, our ship just hit the other with a whopping 7.7 teratons.

In short, Ryan Thunder can take his ignorance and shove it.

In most large scale collisions, as I understand it, energy becomes less of a factor and momentum more. Even a large slow moving rock can do damage if its massive due to momentum. Momentum cna't be "blocked" by shields - the structure has to be able to take the absue as much as the shields do.

In any event the prow is more than just a "ramming" tool - that seems more like a throwback to the older "space fleet" stuff. The prow is super-strong armour designed to protect the Imperium ship in head-on approaches/engagements (like when closing on an enemy.) Being a good ramming instrument is probably a nice side-benefit if anything.

[Teleros]

In any event the prow is more than just a "ramming" tool - that seems more like a throwback to the older "space fleet" stuff. The prow is super-strong armour designed to protect the Imperium ship in head-on approaches/engagements (like when closing on an enemy.) Being a good ramming instrument is probably a nice side-benefit if anything.

Model-wise, you could equip Imperial ships with either a nova cannon or a ram on the prow of the ships. All the BFG rulebook illustrations have either the ram & torpedoes or just a nova cannon instead (this is also backed up by the optional rules for certain ships - and yes, I know it's game rules). Point is, it sounds like ramming is common enough that many (if not most) larger Imperial ships have a whopping great spike on their prows specifically for ramming.

[Sidewinder]

Point is, it sounds like ramming is common enough that many (if not most) larger Imperial ships have a whopping great spike on their prows specifically for ramming.

The Space Wolves novels shows that the spike is hollow, so after an enemy ship is rammed, Space Marines can board the enemy ship, fight their way to the reactor or whatever is powering her, and plant bombs there to blow the enemy ship-- and everyone aboard it-- to Kingdom Come.

[Imperial Overlord]

Ramming's a viable option of IoM ships, although I don't see it used much. The close range torpedo strike is more popular.

[Ryan Thunder]

Hmm, firepower? They've rammed ships to cause damage, rather than shoot them.

And? Even the smaller ones must mass several hundred thousand tons, and can easily hit thousands and thousands of kilometres a second. That's going to leave a mark.

The rule of thumb is, an object travelling at 3 km/s carries its own weight in BLAM.

I'm going to calculate the energy a smallish 40k ship travelling at 12 km/s carries with it. That's a real crawl, btw, we know 40k ships can do at the very least hundreds of gees of acceleration. For the purpose of simplicity our ship shall be a a block 1x.25x.25 km. We'll assume it's made of 5% iron and 95% air. Note that the real solid proportion is much higher, and the materials used by 40k make iron look like chalk.

The volume of the block is 62,500,000 cubic metres. Of these, 3,125,000 cubic metres are iron and 59,375,000 are air at 1 atm and 20 degrees C. Iron's density is 7870 kg per cubic m, and air's density at stated temperature and pressure is 1.2 kg per cubic m.

Thus, the mass of our starship is 24,593,750,000+71,250,000=2.4665E10 kg

The formula for kinetic energy is half the mass (in kg) multiplied by the square of the velocity (in m/s). We have the mass, and the velocity is 12 km/s = 12,000 m/s. The square of the velocity is thus 144 million metres per second. So:

KE=2.23325E10 x 144,000,000
KE=3.21588E18 Jules

So the kinetic energy is basically 3.2 exajules. Since a megaton of energy is defined as 4.184 petajoules, our ship carries with damn near one gigaton of energy.

But wait! We were using a ludicrously conservative velocity. What happens if the ship were travelling a hundred times faster? Well, that's 1200 km/s = 1,200,000 m/s, the square of which is 1.44E12 m/s. We substitute that for our old 144 million m/s and we get:

KE=3.21588E22 Jules

That's 32 exajules, in other words, our ship just hit the other with a whopping 7.7 teratons.

In short, Ryan Thunder can take his ignorance and shove it.

Alright, now take some generous fraction of that number. It was a frigate, ramming a retreating escort, not a head-on collision.

In other words, about 700 gigatons, or two heavy turbolaser bolts from an Acclamator troop transport's main guns.

[Ryan Thunder]

Ghetto edit: Never mind the last sentence...

I meant to say: "In other words, a number that can be measured in terms of a few heavy turbolaser bolts from an Acclamator troop transport's main guns."

[Teleros]

It may be worth mentioning that BFG shields seem to be based on velocity - objects that travel slow enough can pass through the shields (eg bombers, torpedoes, other warships etc). So whilst your turbolaser shots would most likely be stopped cold by the shields, the dirty great spike on the end of your ship won't be and can thus cause a hell of a lot of damage.

[Ryan Thunder]

It may be worth mentioning that BFG shields seem to be based on velocity - objects that travel slow enough can pass through the shields (eg bombers, torpedoes, other warships etc). So whilst your turbolaser shots would most likely be stopped cold by the shields, the dirty great spike on the end of your ship won't be and can thus cause a hell of a lot of damage.

No limits? I'm throwing firepower at them like its candy. They fail to brute force; turbolasers can achieve that.

But let's not turn this into a comparison. I was just making an analogy.

[Connor MacLeod]

Your analogy is crap. I like how you idiotically compare a phyiscal impactor to an energy weapon without understanding the differences between the two.

[Dark Hellion]

But Connor all energy is teh SAMEZ! [/sber]

Why is it that 40k gets all the really dumb opponents. Where is our anti-40K darkstar? I feel left out.

[Ryan Thunder]

Your analogy is crap. I like how you idiotically compare a phyiscal impactor to an energy weapon without understanding the differences between the two.

Conservation of momentum, shield generator mountings taking all the punishment, etc. I understand (at least some of) the differences. I was saying that a few hundred-metre-long Acclamator troop transport can easily produce this much energy and direct some significant fraction of this into its weapons. What's wrong with that?

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

We have missiles that would eat through that shit like its nothing...

But Connor all energy is teh SAMEZ! [/sber]

Why is it that 40k gets all the really dumb opponents. Where is our anti-40K darkstar? I feel left out.

Are you suggesting Darkstar is intelligent?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Conservation of momentum, shield generator mountings taking all the punishment, etc. I understand (at least some of) the differences. I was saying that a few hundred-metre-long Acclamator troop transport can easily produce this much energy and direct some significant fraction of this into its weapons. What's wrong with that?

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

You are kidding right? Is this energy all in the form of heat energy or kinetic energy? A collision is largely kinetic energy and less heat energy and a energy beam is more a heat/light energy than a kinetic energy with different effects on the hull. What you are saying is that a fist punch is exactly the same as laser.

And Tank Armour!?! YOu do realise that tank armour now is geared towards KE and HEAT rounds? It probably won't work as well against laser weapons.

[Ritterin Sophia]

But Connor all energy is teh SAMEZ! [/sber]

Why is it that 40k gets all the really dumb opponents. Where is our anti-40K darkstar? I feel left out.

I feel that it's the fanbase size that keeps you from getting a Darkstar, only excessively popular fandoms get them.

[Black Admiral]

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

Wrong. The Land Raider cutaway is written as an in-universe document, and it does not specify RHAe, it just says 'conventional steel armour'. Since we have no idea what the hell the Imperium considers 'conventional' steel, that doesn't tell us a thing.

[white_rabbit]

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

Wrong. The Land Raider cutaway is written as an in-universe document, and it does not specify RHAe, it just says 'conventional steel armour'. Since we have no idea what the hell the Imperium considers 'conventional' steel, that doesn't tell us a thing.

Another interesting bit from those tank cutaways, the predator version refers to the Titanium component as "pseudo-titanium"

[Nyrath]

WH40K always had a sort of dark fascination for me.

The ships enter another dimension in order to move faster than light. It is basically Hell.

There is a grimly implacable Inquisition. By the time you finish realizing why it exists, you not only applaud it, you think it isn't implacable enough.

Every day, thousands of children are born with the gift of telepathy. One stray telepathic thought in the wrong direction, and the telepath is instantly possessed by a demon from the warp. The Inquisition hunts down all telepaths, hopefully before they are possessed.

Strong telepaths are trained to become Astropaths. The thousands of weak telepaths have their souls riven from their body to nourish what's left of The Emperor. He is the only thing keeping the signal from the Astronomicon going, without which all starships in the warp will become lost forever.

[Falkenhayn]

The IoM's ships are the biggest screaming allegory in the Universe. When people by the thousands are compelled to serve under an officer caste until they die in the Space Cathedral that whacks the crust off your planet should you piss off HIM's servants, what is GW saying about religion?

Or maybe I've taken one too many English courses.

[Connor MacLeod]

Conservation of momentum, shield generator mountings taking all the punishment, etc. I understand (at least some of) the differences. I was saying that a few hundred-metre-long Acclamator troop transport can easily produce this much energy and direct some significant fraction of this into its weapons. What's wrong with that?

Gee, I bet you skimmed a few catch phrases from a few of Mike's page and then expected me to be impressed. Well, I'm not.

Using Adrian's mass figure of around 2.46e10 kg for the ship and the velocities 12 km/s and 1,200 km/s.

For the former velocity the ship's momentum will be 2.95e14 kg*m/s. The momentum of a ship moving at 1200 km/s is 2.95e16 kg*m/s (or 100x greater.)

the momentum of a massless beam of energy is its energy divided by the speed of light (~3e8 m/s to be approximate.) A beam of energy impacting with the momentum above would be between 9e22 and 9e24 joules of energy. Assuming the generator mountings absorb the similar amount of force/momentum in both cases (massless energy beam and a ship collision), the energy outputs are going to be VASTLY different.

By contrast, ,the combined output of 12 200 GT TLs is around 2400 gigatons will have around 3.5e13 kg*m/s worth of momentum approximately. Momentum-wise, it's FAR LESS than the aforementioned collision, and energy-wise, its not unusual for a 40K ship of those size/dimensions to endure.

This is why, as Mike's page indicates, physical impactors and collisions are generally much more complicated than energy beams. The Acclamator's combined TL output is not even remotely comparable to a phyiscal impactor, because the physics of the two are still dissimilar (far more than a mere comparison of energy, because the momentum involved and the nature of the collisions/impactors differ so dramatically.)

So to reiterate again, your analogy is crap.

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

We have missiles that would eat through that shit like its nothing...

Prove it, given that Honour Guard suggests otherwise (and those calcs have existed on THIS forum for god knows how long.) There's also the "not-so-minor" fact that a cannon volley from a Russ armoured regiment (Narmenians) can knock Titan-sized constrructs on its ass as per Necropolis. There's also the 2nd edition Guard Codex which indicates that a demolisher cannon's recoil will flip the tank over with a single shot.

Oh, and last but not least, Crimson Tears has a krak grenade possessing enough energy to cremate a human - which can be equal to upwards of 500 kilos of TNT at a minimum, and a Krak Grenade isn't among the most effective "anti-tank" munitions out there (at best it will soft-kill a tank.)

Neverminding the energy resilience of 40K tanks, there is more than ample proof suggesting how goddamn tough they are.

[Teleros]

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

No, Land Raider armour is equivalent to __mm of "conventional steel armour" (I forget the number), whatever the hell that is (not specified). The problem is that there are so many examples of Imperial tanks shrugging off damage that would turn an Abrams into scrap that either Imperial "conventional steel armour" is radically different from what we have, or the technical documents are all missing a big string of zeroes .

[NeoGoomba]

I became intrigued with 40k because of this dump. All the threads and fluff thrown about made me skim a rulebook, then buy the Necron codex, then watch some games at the gameshop I used to live near. I find it very entertaining reading, considering I don't expect too much death, just space explosions with powerlevel 9000! Sadly I'm currently in the middle of nowhere, so its a pain in the arse to get

Also, white_rabbit's sig picture makes me giggle almost every time I see it .

[rhoenix]

I became intrigued with 40k because of this dump. All the threads and fluff thrown about made me skim a rulebook, then buy the Necron codex, then watch some games at the gameshop I used to live near. I find it very entertaining reading, considering I don't expect too much death, just space explosions with powerlevel 9000! Sadly I'm currently in the middle of nowhere, so its a pain in the arse to get

I agree with you. I read (well, quickly skimmed) the core rulebook when I was in high school, but hadn't thought much about it until I signed up for the forums here, and began reading more about it.

And yeah, when I have some extra spending cash to throw at some 40k books, I'm going to. From the sounds of it, they'd be very interesting reading.

Alas, I'm not interested in actually playing the game as it is, from what I understand of it so far.

Also, white_rabbit's sig picture makes me giggle almost every time I see it .

Hah, me too - it's the "Oh god, WHY?" part that does it.

[Ryan Thunder]

Conservation of momentum, shield generator mountings taking all the punishment, etc. I understand (at least some of) the differences. I was saying that a few hundred-metre-long Acclamator troop transport can easily produce this much energy and direct some significant fraction of this into its weapons. What's wrong with that?

Gee, I bet you skimmed a few catch phrases from a few of Mike's page and then expected me to be impressed. Well, I'm not.

Using Adrian's mass figure of around 2.46e10 kg for the ship and the velocities 12 km/s and 1,200 km/s.

For the former velocity the ship's momentum will be 2.95e14 kg*m/s. The momentum of a ship moving at 1200 km/s is 2.95e16 kg*m/s (or 100x greater.)

the momentum of a massless beam of energy is its energy divided by the speed of light (~3e8 m/s to be approximate.) A beam of energy impacting with the momentum above would be between 9e22 and 9e24 joules of energy. Assuming the generator mountings absorb the similar amount of force/momentum in both cases (massless energy beam and a ship collision), the energy outputs are going to be VASTLY different.

By contrast, ,the combined output of 12 200 GT TLs is around 2400 gigatons will have around 3.5e13 kg*m/s worth of momentum approximately. Momentum-wise, it's FAR LESS than the aforementioned collision, and energy-wise, its not unusual for a 40K ship of those size/dimensions to endure.

This is why, as Mike's page indicates, physical impactors and collisions are generally much more complicated than energy beams. The Acclamator's combined TL output is not even remotely comparable to a phyiscal impactor, because the physics of the two are still dissimilar (far more than a mere comparison of energy, because the momentum involved and the nature of the collisions/impactors differ so dramatically.)

So to reiterate again, your analogy is crap.

And besides that, the best tank armour they can muster is equivalent to some 365mm RHAe, or about half as good as a modern vehicle, slower, and with a much bigger profile. (SEE: Land Raider)

We have missiles that would eat through that shit like its nothing...

Prove it, given that Honour Guard suggests otherwise (and those calcs have existed on THIS forum for god knows how long.) There's also the "not-so-minor" fact that a cannon volley from a Russ armoured regiment (Narmenians) can knock Titan-sized constrructs on its ass as per Necropolis. There's also the 2nd edition Guard Codex which indicates that a demolisher cannon's recoil will flip the tank over with a single shot.

Oh, and last but not least, Crimson Tears has a krak grenade possessing enough energy to cremate a human - which can be equal to upwards of 500 kilos of TNT at a minimum, and a Krak Grenade isn't among the most effective "anti-tank" munitions out there (at best it will soft-kill a tank.)

Neverminding the energy resilience of 40K tanks, there is more than ample proof suggesting how goddamn tough they are.

Funny. Nobody else I know has ever come across this shit. Oh well.

Conceded.

[Connor MacLeod]

Funny. Nobody else I know has ever come across this shit. Oh well.

Conceded.

What "Shit?" What the fuck are you talking about? The first half of it is your apparent inability to understand what I was talking about (meaning I had to spell it out in numbers, which is vaguely annoying because it is time consuming) and the second half is you making an assumption about tank armour that proves equally baseless (and would have been reconciled with a topic search, because the topic has come up umpteen times before.)