SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread V

[Mayabird]

Huh boy. Fulcrum is going to be one busy, busy bird. I'll see about getting an official response/reaction written soonish. No guarantees on timing as, again, I am a slow writer.

[Ryan Thunder]

Only if there's no wall in the way

It can fly.

If you really want to have those, I move that they be considered small spaceships, not ground vehicles.

What would the point of that be? You'd be granting it strategic mobility it was never meant to have.

Such acceleration is less the province of ground vehicles, and more along the lines of a space craft.

It's only really a ground vehicle in the sense that it operates in atmosphere and frequently makes contact with the ground to give its reactor a moment to recharge some capacitors.

That's standing still to escape velocity in < 15 seconds, or well within what you'd expect from Star Wars. As an aside, such acceleration would liquefy the ground you're standing on, requiring a space drive to achieve.

It only does that in short bursts anyway. The maximum sustained speed is a little under Mach 2.5.

Now for the sad part: assuming you're facing a spaceship in LEO (~100km), that uses light speed weapons, such acceleration will still only manage to get you ~50 micrometers between when it fires, and when it hits.

Still assuming guaranteed orbital support, I see. Not a good idea to count on that.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, orbital support is one of the accepted counters to something this capable, Ryan. In this case, you're looking at either orbital support or theater defense AA weapons, and when you send this thing to pick a fight with an army group-scale formation of a few hundred thousand troops, the theater defense AA may be surprisingly potent.

On $1-5 war machines I don't mind, be advised though I won't be calling for artillery support when/if engaging those kinds of units. I will be calling for orbital Ion cannon strikes

Oh, yes, because the only possible multi-point ground unit is a hulking monstrosity with the maneuverability of a beached whale. What kind of crazed lunatic would ever put an emphasis on mobility for defense at that scale?
Oh, right...

Speed is Armor! Speed is Armor!

[Umerian light cruiser USS Artemisia nods vigorously: "Mhm!"]

Bear in mind that "mobility" does not necessarily mean "can outrun an ion cannon." It can also mean "holy shit the thing was in the middle of us before we had time to call for air support." A combat unit capable of moving fast enough to disrupt the decision loop of the ground forces arrayed against it is a sane concept, I'd say. Indeed, on a battlefield supposedly dominated by heavy orbital bombardment it may be the only sane concept, when you get right down to it.

Calls for fire from weapons powerful enough to casually one-shot something of this point value are going to have very large "danger close" problems and are going to be restricted in their use, which usually implies a slow decision loop. If the target is agile enough, it may be quite impractical to pin down their position for a barrage without vaporizing everything within a large radius. Which you can do, but as Ryan points out, this will very, very seldom be practical.

Also, Beo, the whole "liquefy the ground thing" is really, really out of place in this setting, I gotta say. This is neither the time nor the place to bring up that level of "but it wouldn't work!" nitpicks. Please, think of the poor Chamarrans...

Now for the sad part: assuming you're facing a spaceship in LEO (~100km), that uses light speed weapons, such acceleration will still only manage to get you ~50 micrometers between when it fires, and when it hits. If you really want to have those, I move that they be considered small spaceships, not ground vehicles.

I repeat, you're not trying to outrun the enemy's relativistic ion beam. You're trying to outrun their fire control decision loop, and get deep enough into enemy-controlled territory that firing nuclear-grade weapons at you becomes a questionable undertaking.

And as for calling this thing a small starship, why not? 1 to 5 points is small enough for planetary landings, and the idea of a specialized ground-attack spacecraft (one that, in practice, is always sent into combat in an environment where there are enemy ground troops playing defense, and concentrates on fighting those) is hardly unreasonable.

He can have it.

Am I the only one whose shields simply emulate a tangible wall rather than a dimensional warp?

Nope. I have what would be utterly conventional tech (well, conventional inasmuch as a soft sci-fi setting would be): pew pew lasers, projectile weapons, missiles that go boom, 'shields-as-walls' etc.

Cool. [Expresses solidarity with Shinra]

Yup... My shields generically resist incoming weapons fire.
Hell, if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll shoot your missiles down on their way in...

[Expresses solidarity with Klavostan too]

Hrm...you know, Orichalcum is liable to be a game-changer. It's a passive, unpowered, undetectable anti-psyker device. It can be worn under clothes, mounted on vehicles, emplaced on buildings, even in rooms...

The applications are ridiculously numerous and it stands a chance of neutering any and all ESP activity.

I'm highly dubious of it having the advertised effect with respect to null fields. Of course, I fully agree it has major advantages (scalability and being unpowered, though null fields can get quite small). Then again, our favorite daemonette is not necessarily a perfectly reliable or perfectly honest saleswoman.

Means of detection and response are liable to exist; I don't think it's likely to replace the null field any time soon, nor the BFG for sheer wide-area psi-denial technology. For specialist applications, though, absolutely. Great stuff, quite impressive.

[Ezekiel]

Still assuming guaranteed orbital support, I see. Not a good idea to count on that.

Everything else notwithstanding, as I don't really care either way, it should probably be pointed out here that maximization of probability of orbital support against enemy ground presence is (or should be - highest ground and all that) SOP for pretty much every spacefaring power in this setting. In short, it *is* in fact a good idea to count on.

Simon seems to have found the best explanation though. Large-scale, dedicated transatmospheric ground-support craft equivalent in points to the landbattleship in question. Maybe some sort of Acclamator-like vessel that hangs around to provide on-the-spot heavy weapons fire, covering other landing vessels before touching down itself to deploy...whatever it is you'd have it deploying.

[Ryan Thunder]

Well, orbital support is one of the accepted counters to something this capable, Ryan.

I'm not actually reacting to that so much as the usual knee jerk cries of "lolorbitalsupport" that you usually hear whenever you bring up anything ground-based that's at all interesting and happens to be bigger than a modern tank.

Not everybody wants to just drown their enemies in tanks and infantry, you know. It's boring and derivative.

Bear in mind that "mobility" does not necessarily mean "can outrun an ion cannon." It can also mean "holy shit the thing was in the middle of us before we had time to call for air support."

Yeah, that's another scenario I had in mind. With double sonic booms and wide-aperture pain rays for added pants-shitting value.

Also, Beo, the whole "liquefy the ground thing" is really, really out of place in this setting, I gotta say. This is neither the time nor the place to bring up that level of "but it wouldn't work!" nitpicks. Please, think of the poor Chamarrans...

Well, that's actually some pretty cool imagery.

I repeat, you're not trying to outrun the enemy's relativistic ion beam. You're trying to outrun their fire control decision loop, and get deep enough into enemy-controlled territory that firing nuclear-grade weapons at you becomes a questionable undertaking.

And as for calling this thing a small starship, why not? 1 to 5 points is small enough for planetary landings, and the idea of a specialized ground-attack spacecraft (one that, in practice, is always sent into combat in an environment where there are enemy ground troops playing defense, and concentrates on fighting those) is hardly unreasonable.

He can have it.

Oh god, it's a gundam now...

[Simon_Jester]

Still assuming guaranteed orbital support, I see. Not a good idea to count on that.

Everything else notwithstanding, as I don't really care either way, it should probably be pointed out here that maximization of probability of orbital support against enemy ground presence is (or should be - highest ground and all that) SOP for pretty much every spacefaring power in this setting. In short, it *is* in fact a good idea to count on.

There are a number of problems with this. One is that space naval assets may find themselves unable to approach certain sites due to the risk of winding up in line of sight of ground batteries: it is entirely possible to build planetary fortresses to battleship scale, with battleship-grade defenses that make it very difficult to rely on orbital fire support anywhere nearby.

Another is that space naval assets may well be tied up fighting a space battle elsewhere: this is a routine occurrence during skirmishes in the Koprulu Zone, where the Byzantines or Solarians land ground troops while still fighting Bragulan or Karlack forces- or where the human fleets are promptly attacked by alien naval forces while the ground battle is still underway. One reason the Byzantines incorporate titans into their ground-based order of battle is so they have assets capable of firing starship-grade weapons at ground targets when the starships are otherwise occupied.

Yet another reason is that, by the nature of warfare, you will not always have space supremacy. Any large ground formation (i.e. one you can't afford to write off casually) has to have aerospace defense capabilities to fight back against orbital fire support, or it's just so much meat on the table. That, or they must have doctrinal capabilities that make orbital fire support useless- such as getting into danger-close range of the enemy's own forces.

As an example of this, you do not want to make a close overflight of a 'planetary army' scale (~30 to 50 million troops) Umerian formation in a hostile starship. Their organic aerospace defense systems are quite capable of shooting down battlecruisers in high orbit if the GroundSec commander sees fit to order a planetary army-level fire mission.

Sure, if you're willing to risk ships and slug it out with their air defenses for long enough, you can beat that. But it's not a risk to be taken lightly, and even once you manage to clear a significant portion of the planet of the defenses, it might actually be easier to clear the remaining holdouts rifle-to-rifle and cannon-to-cannon on the ground, where they can't hit you with every laser installation on an entire continent.

Simon seems to have found the best explanation though. Large-scale, dedicated transatmospheric ground-support craft equivalent in points to the landbattleship in question. Maybe some sort of Acclamator-like vessel that hangs around to provide on-the-spot heavy weapons fire, covering other landing vessels before touching down itself to deploy...whatever it is you'd have it deploying.

That's not quite what I'm getting at.

My point is that it is okay for Ryan to have in his military "ground combatants" that use technologies we normally find on starships in this setting. That can mean giant-ass Bolo style superdupertanks with starship-grade energy weapons for fighting duels with orbiting battlecruisers- see also Byzantine titans.

Or that can mean extremely mobile ground units that are, in practice, atmospheric craft of extremely high point value.

Now, the Umerians actually have an Acclamator-analogue, sort of: our strike cruisers are designed for low-orbit fire support and opposed landings of relatively small troop formations. In theory they're perfectly capable of going into the atmosphere and landing on the surface, though I shudder to think about how badly they'd scar up the spot they used as a landing field.

But that isn't what Ryan's built and I won't complain about what he's built. Nor, in my opinion, should anyone else. He may rub people the wrong way, but he hasn't done anything out of line with either the letter or the spirit of the game, except try to come up with a design concept for a super-capable ground combat unit that isn't "clone a Byzantine titan."

Well, orbital support is one of the accepted counters to something this capable, Ryan.

I'm not actually reacting to that so much as the usual knee jerk cries of "lolorbitalsupport" that you usually hear whenever you bring up anything ground-based that's at all interesting and happens to be bigger than a modern tank.

Not everybody wants to just drown their enemies in tanks and infantry, you know. It's boring and derivative.

Hey, I resemble that remark! But yes, fair enough.

Oh god, it's a gundam now...

If you want a gundam, you can have a gundam. The rules allow for gundams. If you want a mecha that (unlike a gundam) is not space-capable, you can have that too... and by the nature of the rules, that is classified as a ground unit, even if it spends most of its time flying around at supersonic speeds.

[Ryan Thunder]

Hey, I resemble that remark! But yes, fair enough.

Sorry, let me rephrase that; I personally find it boring and derivative. If you want to do that I don't hold it against you, nor do I doubt your creativity. Just let me do my thing, is all.

[Simon_Jester]

Hey, I resemble that remark! But yes, fair enough.

Sorry, let me rephrase that; I personally find it boring and derivative. If you want to do that I don't hold it against you, nor do I doubt your creativity. Just let me do my thing, is all.

Go for it. Though I hope (and, if I may show a flash of pride, expect) that you guys will enjoy it if I ever write Umerian ground forces in action.

Never underestimate the power of raygun redshirts and MASSED ARTILLERY...

[Tanasinn]

Count another player in the more mundane "shields as walls" camp. The Union in general adapts a "less advanced but rugged and reliable" approach to most of its military tech. Like the Umerians, the Union has assets for orbital ground support, detatching destroyers or corvettes for it where it can/where the rest of the Union fleet is tied up with another problem. They don't really do troop landings, though.

[Karmic Knight]

Another player who is lazy classic shields and rip-off classic sci-fi.

[Darkevilme]

Despite the Hierarchy's access to some exotic technologies we still use classic tech for a lot of things, shields included. Thus shields as walls here, albeit we try and put up lots of walls between our enemy and our ship in the hope that it'll work better.

[Ezekiel]

I (will) comprise part of the shields-as-walls club, albeit a Macross-style pinpoint barrier user rather than a bubble-of-projected-impervium user.

[Simon_Jester]

Count another player in the more mundane "shields as walls" camp. Like the Umerians, the Union has assets for orbital ground support, detatching destroyers or corvettes for it where it can/where the rest of the Union fleet is tied up with another problem. They don't really do troop landings, though.

We need dedicated bombardment platforms worse than you do. Our standard antiship weapons... very radiological when used against planetary targets. Compared to the amount of firepower they put on target, they're horrendously dirty.

About the only thing we can use really cleanly are the point defense lasers, and those aren't suitable for high-energy bombardment- precision, yes, but not firepower. So we actually have to (HERESY!) install dedicated bombardment mass drivers on our frigates just to get back some semblance of space-to-surface capability when we can't afford to render large areas permanently uninhabitable.

The strike cruisers carry a heavy battery of bombardment weapons- copies of the frigate guns, plus free electron lasers since those are arguably more suited for atmosphere work than the infrared-only PAL panels. But the aforementioned weapons are damned near useless for ship to ship work, the mass drivers because they're high-mass low-velocity weapons, and the FELs because they're energy-inefficient.

You guys are doing better in that respect because you use mass drivers as main battery weapons. As long as a railgun stays below mildly-relativistic speeds, it doesn't create a radiation problem.

[Siege]

Well, if we're going into detail anyway, the concept of Solarian hyperfields is of layered screens of force extending into several dimensions and indeed into hyperspace itself. They are due to their multi-dimensional nature partly traditional energy wall, party trapdoor conduct, and partly just there to prevent assholes from telepathically affecting the crew or walking onto my ships through hyperspace and other such feats of dimensional dickery.

For those interested in hopeless technobabble, there's a bit more on them in my writer's bible fappery up on the wiki .

[Ezekiel]

Question while the thread's hot; where do I put my initial OOB?

[Shroom Man 777]

Bragshields work like standard SF forcefields. Except their generators use conveyor belt-fed vacuum tube gatling autoloader mechanisms, and press-ganged conscripts often get their arms eaten and mangled by these mechanisms.

[Tanasinn]

Question while the thread's hot; where do I put my initial OOB?

See the stickied rules thread? We use a wiki for OOBs.

[Ezekiel]

Question while the thread's hot; where do I put my initial OOB?

See the stickied rules thread? We use a wiki for OOBs.

Namaste.

[fgalkin]

Hrm...you know, Orichalcum is liable to be a game-changer. It's a passive, unpowered, undetectable anti-psyker device. It can be worn under clothes, mounted on vehicles, emplaced on buildings, even in rooms...

The applications are ridiculously numerous and it stands a chance of neutering any and all ESP activity.

It's also ridiculously expensive (think a ton of gold per 100 grams expensive) , can only be produced in limited quantities (there only so much a space monster can shit out) and we control the only source. I don't see it becoming really prevalent in the galaxy any time soon. Especially considering that orichalcum itself does not necessarily resist psyker activity, orichalcum wards in certain shapes do. A comprehensive defensive package such as worn by the Lost emissaries requires several wards and is worth a small fortune. It's massively cheaper just to buy a lot of null-field generators.

Of course, we are willing to offer discounts to our allies.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Ryan Thunder]

Though I hope (and, if I may show a flash of pride, expect) that you guys will enjoy it if I ever write Umerian ground forces in action.

I'm sure I will, you're good at that sort of thing. Far better than I am, anyway.

For whatever its worth, I do still have a largely conventional army. A small subset of it is made up of exotic units like the ADAU and the giant theatre control unit that had everybody in a tizzy a while back.

[Simon_Jester]

Question while the thread's hot; where do I put my initial OOB?

Page me via AIM when you've got something up and I'll help you look it over; I may have some advice depending on what you come up with. And there are some... painful intricacies involving the carrier rules that I want to help walk you through.

[Kartr_Kana]

Not to beat a dead horse, I've just been in class while this discussion was happening so couldn't post. The Hiigaran Storm-class Marine Transport is essentially an Acclamator. 20pts of corvette firepower, with a squadron of Marine Aerospace fighters welded onto a troop transport. Usually we use the depression left by the transports as lakes in the post war "peace parks".

One wonders if orichalcum if shaped into the proper wards could be used to channel psychic energy. Allowing you to create guns powered by the users mind! As long as you can think you can shoot.

[Darkevilme]

Not to beat a dead horse, I've just been in class while this discussion was happening so couldn't post. The Hiigaran Storm-class Marine Transport is essentially an Acclamator. 20pts of corvette firepower, with a squadron of Marine Aerospace fighters welded onto a troop transport. Usually we use the depression left by the transports as lakes in the post war "peace parks".

One wonders if orichalcum if shaped into the proper wards could be used to channel psychic energy. Allowing you to create guns powered by the users mind! As long as you can think you can shoot.

I second this proposal of MIND BULLETS!

[Simon_Jester]

One wonders if orichalcum if shaped into the proper wards could be used to channel psychic energy. Allowing you to create guns powered by the users mind! As long as you can think you can shoot.

Well, Demogorgon's bubble dimension will freeze over before the Lost design such a weapon for you, I suspect.

The idea is mad, do you hear me? MAAAD!

[passes Kartr a list of candidates who might plausibly be commissioned to undertake research on this basis]

[fgalkin]

Orichalcum, by its nature is a material that makes the universe LESS permeable to psychic emissions, not more. So no, no psychic bullets (and we'd be freaked out at the idea).

Sorry

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin