SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread III

[Kartr_Kana]

Well it was named after the Moldy Crow from Jedi Knight, but I liked Moldy Bragulan better for our Universe.

[Shroom Man 777]

That is a great name.

Tanasinn, I like your stories of post-revolutionary consolidation. Good stuff, mans.

[Simon_Jester]

Still gets one. That's what logarithmic scales are for, silly!

If you want a never ending logarithmic scale, sure!

Why wouldn't I?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Still gets one. That's what logarithmic scales are for, silly!

If you want a never ending logarithmic scale, sure!

Why wouldn't I?

Not if the God Emperor is at the top end of the scale.

*God Emperor obliterates an entire Imperator Titan*

[Kartr_Kana]

Hey Fin, Simon was educating me on 40k plasma weapons and I was wondering if you had any pointers for Kyle Wolfs pistol and it's capabilities?

[Simon_Jester]

Not if the God Emperor is at the top end of the scale.

*God Emperor obliterates an entire Imperator Titan*

[God-Emperor's rating rises by two points]

Logarithmic. Scale. Scientists use them for a reason.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hey Fin, Simon was educating me on 40k plasma weapons and I was wondering if you had any pointers for Kyle Wolfs pistol and it's capabilities?

What.. are those?

[Kartr_Kana]

Kyle Wolf is a thinly disguised Kyle Katarn from Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight but instead of the Bryar Pistol he uses an Astartes plasma pistol. Simon was telling me that plasma weapons in the WH40k 'verse are anti-tank weapons and should be able to punch through an APC. I'm wondering how gracefully they've transferred to our SDNW4 'verse. Especially since most of my WH40k knowledge comes from ECR's Squelch of Empires and the Dawn of War games.

[KlavoHunter]

Given what I know about the definition of "Plasma Pistol" in 40k, and the definition of "APC" as opposed to "IFV"... Yeah, I tend to see Byzantine equipment as being on the higher-end of the SDNW4verse's weaponry, since they have more or less completely sacrificed their entire culture to the making of war.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Kyle Wolf is a thinly disguised Kyle Katarn from Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight but instead of the Bryar Pistol he uses an Astartes plasma pistol. Simon was telling me that plasma weapons in the WH40k 'verse are anti-tank weapons and should be able to punch through an APC. I'm wondering how gracefully they've transferred to our SDNW4 'verse. Especially since most of my WH40k knowledge comes from ECR's Squelch of Empires and the Dawn of War games.

The Byzantine Imperium's weaponry are on the higher end of the WH40K's weaponry, and on par with the Eldar's weaponry (what with our Warp cannons and all which are still distinctly Eldar weapons in the WH40K universe).

Yes we do have plasma weapons, from pistols to rifles, to heavy guns (such as capital ship scale weapons which are found on capital ships and Titans). All well and good, and I'm of course hand waving the fact that plasma simply ignites the air. Of course maybe if some magnetic bottle that could wrap around the plasma and prevent the plasma from actually coming into contact with the air...

[Simon_Jester]

For capital ship weapons, the option of neutral plasma beam occured to me, though I dunno how you'd accelerate it. For warships, a plasma cannon might just be a mass driver designed with homicidal indifference to accidentally vaporizing the projectile with waste heat during the acceleration stage...

[Ryan Thunder]

Of course maybe if some magnetic bottle that could wrap around the plasma and prevent the plasma from actually coming into contact with the air...

That's the usual excuse these days, but it'd be trivially easy to create a similar and stronger field to deflect it.

Nah, just handwave it. It's a plasma cannon. Who cares how it works?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

For capital ship weapons, the option of neutral plasma beam occured to me, though I dunno how you'd accelerate it. For warships, a plasma cannon might just be a mass driver designed with homicidal indifference to accidentally vaporizing the projectile with waste heat during the acceleration stage...

Well, that's quite the kicker really...

On the other hand, well, we could resort to the good o' anti-tank projectiles with plasma contained in a magnetic bottle.

[Simon_Jester]

For capital ship weapons, the option of neutral plasma beam occured to me, though I dunno how you'd accelerate it. For warships, a plasma cannon might just be a mass driver designed with homicidal indifference to accidentally vaporizing the projectile with waste heat during the acceleration stage...

Well, that's quite the kicker really...

I'm not sure I take your meaning.

But yes, that's actually a major hard-SF concern with coilgun design; the amount of energy it takes to accelerate a solid projectile to speeds of, say, ten kilometers a second is roughly comparable to the amount of energy it takes to melt or vaporize it. If you can design something that just doesn't care about vaporizing the shell on its way out the gun, you'd probably be able to achieve much higher kinetic energy in the resulting shell cloud of superheated gas/plasma.

Still better if you can design something that lets you do this while at the same time preserving some degree of coherence in the resulting high-speed plasma blob. Which is where I got the idea for the plasma cannon being used by Force Lord's Centrality Navy and the pirates they're fighting (the focus of my recent posts).

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe we could chalk it up to a heretofore unknown future design inconceivable to primitive early 21st century humans in primitive paleo-internet discussion boards.

[PeZook]

Or it's just a monicker, much like a "boltgun" doesn't actually fire wooden bolts, yes?

[Simon_Jester]

Oh of course. I don't even try to speculate about how the details of how this stuff is implemented. But the broad strokes, the "what is a plasma beam, physically, why would we want to use as a weapon something that can be described as a plasma beam..." that I find entertaining.

And again, just to soothe any tempers ruffled by my foray into hard-SF questions, I don't ask any more respect for it than Shroomy does for his penis jokes; in both cases it's a personal habit that we hope others will be amused by, nothing more and nothing less.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hey, it's cool man. And yes, I do like your details into particulate physicsing, which is excellent since you are an actual science major who is writing about stuff in a knowledgeable way that is not BS (unlike poor attempts at technobabble, like Star Trek or whatever). It's like how Stuart is good to read when he's rattling on the stuff he knows about, exactly like that, although your writings are also entertainings because they have other things going for them.

[Simon_Jester]

Aww. Thanks, mang.

The Umerians began as nothing but an exercise in "writing what I know:" parodies of my coworkers and large particle beams. I suppose they've just sort of grown from there.

[RogueIce]

And again, just to soothe any tempers ruffled by my foray into hard-SF questions, I don't ask any more respect for it than Shroomy does for his penis jokes; in both cases it's a personal habit that we hope others will be amused by, nothing more and nothing less.

Heh heh.. You said hard...

...

God damn you, Shroom!

Anyway, on a more serious note, I'm glad I didn't get any Halo fanboy flak for Cortana. Maybe that means I can safely introduce the Pelican aerospace troop transport!

[Ryan Thunder]

Anyway, on a more serious note, I'm glad I didn't get any Halo fanboy flak for Cortana. Maybe that means I can safely introduce the Pelican aerospace troop transport!

Actually, I just hadn't noticed.

<snip a hundred kilobytes of nerdrage>

I'll have to start babbling about bolos at this rate...

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, the guy has Cortanas and Lizard Master Chief, but he won't deign having enormous motorcycles or ridiculously huge swords wielded by evil geostigma-ridden albinos. Does that seem rite to you?

KATR KANA: Hanson!

[Simon_Jester]

Former Operative Early:

"Yep. Seems right to me."

[PeZook]

Anyway, on a more serious note, I'm glad I didn't get any Halo fanboy flak for Cortana. Maybe that means I can safely introduce the Pelican aerospace troop transport!

Dude, we mutilated pretty much every sci-fi franchise there is...and you expected fanboy rage for an innocous reference?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Anyway, on a more serious note, I'm glad I didn't get any Halo fanboy flak for Cortana. Maybe that means I can safely introduce the Pelican aerospace troop transport!

My Imperial Guards are basically UNSC Marines, I already use the UH-144 Falcon as an ultra-light troop transport, and the Wendee Lee class destroyer and its subclasses are basically the UNSC Destroyer. Unfortunately, Tanasinn stole the UNSC Frigate design for his cruisers before I could lay a claim to it, and I recall Sorchus using a Covenant ship design somewhere. That's basically it as far as Halo-derived designs go in this game.

Maybe the SDNW4 Pelican was a joint Haruhiist-Shinra project designed to replace dropships in both nations' militaries. The Holy Empire and the Shinra Republic are allies, after all; there may be a few shared projects here and there.