Planetoid vs. Culture ship

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-16 05:28am

Shrike wrote:
HRogge wrote:One important question:

how do an effector penetrate a shield ?
Sometimes, by overwhelming the shield and punching through, othertimes, by going through a wormhole (I seem to recall them doing that once, I may be wrong)

So it's questionable if they are even able to penetrate the 5th Imperiums shields.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-16 05:34am

Khemri wrote:So let's review.
1)Culture Ships out range 5thI Ships by quite way

Okay.

2)Culture Ships almost always fight at FTL, Planetoids mostly fight at STL.

Right, but only because the Planetoids have insane short reaction and evasion capabilites when using their enchanach drive. Try to hit something the can change it course at random every few femtoseconds.

3)Hyper Missiles are useless againts .78 C STL missiles, good luck hitting a ROU Zooming around at 200,000 C

Same problem for culture... ( see above )

4)A Mind can react a hell of a lot faster than a human captain. Planetoids are commanded by humans.

... but are controlled by the computer. The computer is told what to do, the exact implementation of the task is up to the computer.

5)A Plantoid is not going to survive a goddamn blackhole, these are ships whose shields buckle againts a few hundred 10GT M/AM warheads.

Planetoids are used to survive incoming black holes. Easily... they would laugh about the micro-blackholes Culture uses.

As it stands, 5thI Ships do not have the reaction time to deal with any Culture weapons being thrown their way. And please provide proof that Effectors and Displacers would not work againts Planetoids.

The computers of the 5thI are fast enough to navigate with the Enchanach drive. We have no proof that Minds are this fast too.

Effectors: 1.) have to penetrate the shield 2.) 5thI does not use computers with electrical circuits

Displacers: 5thI shields are used to block incoming attacks from other dimensions.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-16 05:35am

HRogge wrote: So it's questionable if they are even able to penetrate the 5th Imperiums shields.

Not really. Effectors can be used through hyperspace. The hyperspaces of the two series are different, as pointed out in my first post. I will repost the quotes describing them:

Cultureverse hyperspace - From Consider Phlebas wrote:Imagine a vast and glittering ocean seen from a great height. It stretches to clear curved limit of every angle of horizon, the sun burning on a billion tiny wavelets. Now imagine a smooth blanket of cloud above the ocean, a shell of black velvet suspended high above the water and also extending to the horizon, but keep the sparkle of the sea despite the lack of sun. Add to the cloud many sharp and tiny lights, scattered on the base of the inky overcast like glinting eyes: singly, in pairs, or in larger groups, each positioned far, far away from any other set That is the view a ship has in hyperspace as it flies like a microscopic insect, free between the grid and real space. The small, sharp lights on the undersurface of the cloud cover are stars; the waves on the sea are the irregularities of the Grid on which a ship travelling in hyperspace find traction with its engine fields, while that sparkle is its source of energy. The Grid and the plain of real space are curved, rather like the ocean and the cloud would be round a planet, but less so. Black holes show as thin and twisting waterspouts from cloud to sea; supernovae as long lightning flashes in the overcast. Rocks, moons, planets, Orbitals, even Rings and Spheres, hardly show at all . . .

Dahakverse hyperspace - From Heirs of Empire wrote:Yet "hyper-space" was more a convenient label for something no human could envision than an accurate description, for it consisted of many "bands" - actually a whole series of entirely different spaces - whose seething tides of energy were lethal to any object outside a drive field. Even with Imperial technology, human eyes found h-space's gray, crawling nothingness... disturbing. Vertigo was almost instantaneous; longer exposure led to more serious consequences, up to and including madness. Ships in normal space could detect ships in hyper; ships in hyper were blind. They could "see" neither into normal space nor through hyper-space, and so their displays were blank.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-16 05:51am

HRogge wrote: Displacers: 5thI shields are used to block incoming attacks from other dimensions.

So are Culture shields. This door swings both ways, dude.

The ability to block one hyperdimensional weapon does not give one the ability to block all hyperdimensional weapons. That is called the no limits fallacy. Further, Culture vessels have devices called shield-disruptors:

The Player of Games wrote:The primary effector, surrounded by it's associated shield-disruptors, scanners, trackers, illuminators, displacers, and secondary weaponry systems, bulked large in the dim light, and looked like some gigantic cone-lensed eyeball encrusted with gnarled metallic growths.

I personally despise this particular tactic, but if you insist on using it, I will be happy to follow suit and club you over the head with it.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2003-01-16 05:57am

Khemri wrote: 5)A Plantoid is not going to survive a goddamn blackhole, these are ships whose shields buckle againts a few hundred 10GT M/AM warheads.

Those were more than just a few hundred.
Besides, in no point did the shield of a planetoid falter or drop. The 10GT warhead slipped *past* the shield on an ungarded hyperband and detonated inside the shield.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-16 06:11am

XaLEv wrote:
HRogge wrote: Displacers: 5thI shields are used to block incoming attacks from other dimensions.
So are Culture shields. This door swings both ways, dude.

The ability to block one hyperdimensional weapon does not give one the ability to block all hyperdimensional weapons. That is called the no limits fallacy. Further, Culture vessels have devices called shield-disruptors:

The "Effectors can penetrate any kind of shield" tactic is a "no limit" fallacy too. And the "Culture weapons have zero reaction time"... And the "Effectors work on any kind of technology, even completely aliean one."

I know Culture might be able to block incoming hypermissiles, but some may slip through ( no shield is perfect )... just as culture weapons may or may not penetrale the shields of a planetoid. Both sides have technologies which might be able to block the weapons of the other side.

gravity · Post by **gravity** » 2003-01-16 06:48am

A Culture ship such as a GSV could beat a planetoid easily, simply by surrounding it (at a distance such that it can't get out in the time it takes to create) with a hollow sphere of gridfire, and then rapidly filling the sphere in, until the planetoid is hit during one of its brief bursts back into realspace.

Whether a weaker Culture ship (such as a GCU) would be able to beat a planetoid depends on whether Effectors would work against a planetoid or not.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-16 06:51am

gravity wrote:A Culture ship such as a GSV could beat a planetoid easily, simply by surrounding it (at a distance such that it can't get out in the time it takes to create) with a hollow sphere of gridfire, and then rapidly filling the sphere in, until the planetoid is hit during one of its brief bursts back into realspace.

And the Planetoid escapes the sphere by jumping to hyperspace.

Whether a weaker Culture ship (such as a GCU) would be able to beat a planetoid depends on whether Effectors would work against a planetoid or not.

yes.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-16 06:57am

HRogge wrote: The "Effectors can penetrate any kind of shield" tactic is a "no limit" fallacy too.

And here we have a textbook example of a strawman fallacy. I have never said that effectors can penetrate any shield. What I have said, though not explicitly, is that effectors can go around any shield which does not - nay, cannot - stand in their way.

And the "Culture weapons have zero reaction time"... And the "Effectors work on any kind of technology, even completely aliean one."

I have claimed neither. I should also point out that you are guilty of the latter, though with Imperial shielding rather than Culture effectors, as shown in the post these quotes are responding to.

I know Culture might be able to block incoming hypermissiles,

Try none of them.

but some may slip through ( no shield is perfect )... just as culture weapons may or may not penetrale the shields of a planetoid. Both sides have technologies which might be able to block the weapons of the other side.

Neither side can block the hyper-weapons of the other, as neither has access to the other's hyperspace.

gravity · Post by **gravity** » 2003-01-16 07:08am

HRogge wrote:
gravity wrote:A Culture ship such as a GSV could beat a planetoid easily, simply by surrounding it (at a distance such that it can't get out in the time it takes to create) with a hollow sphere of gridfire, and then rapidly filling the sphere in, until the planetoid is hit during one of its brief bursts back into realspace.
And the Planetoid escapes the sphere by jumping to hyperspace.

Isn't the whole point that they have to keep dipping out? And presumably they can't stay there forever, the GSV keeps following it around until they have to come out for some reason, then uses the sphere tactic.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-16 07:14am

XaLEv wrote:
HRogge wrote: The "Effectors can penetrate any kind of shield" tactic is a "no limit" fallacy too.
And here we have a textbook example of a strawman fallacy. I have never said that effectors can penetrate any shield. What I have said, though not explicitly, is that effectors can go around any shield which does not - nay, cannot - stand in their
way.

So it ends at something said many posts ago:

even Effectors might just be blocked by the shields.

And the "Culture weapons have zero reaction time"... And the "Effectors work on any kind of technology, even completely aliean one."
I have claimed neither. I should also point out that you are guilty of the latter, though with Imperial shielding rather than Culture effectors, as shown in the post these quotes are responding to.
I know Culture might be able to block incoming hypermissiles,
Try none of them.
but some may slip through ( no shield is perfect )... just as culture weapons may or may not penetrale the shields of a planetoid. Both sides have technologies which might be able to block the weapons of the other side.
Neither side can block the hyper-weapons of the other, as neither has access to the other's hyperspace.

Sorry about being a little bit too unspecific about WHO made the claims. There were multipe postings in this thread which said things like "a hypermissile would not work, the trapdoor would catch it every times"... so I overreacted when you accused me to use a "no limit" fallacity.

If neither side can see/block the other sides hyperspace it would be a "first hit kills" battle.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2003-01-16 07:25am

gravity wrote:
HRogge wrote:
gravity wrote:A Culture ship such as a GSV could beat a planetoid easily, simply by surrounding it (at a distance such that it can't get out in the time it takes to create) with a hollow sphere of gridfire, and then rapidly filling the sphere in, until the planetoid is hit during one of its brief bursts back into realspace.
And the Planetoid escapes the sphere by jumping to hyperspace.
Isn't the whole point that they have to keep dipping out? And presumably they can't stay there forever, the GSV keeps following it around until they have to come out for some reason, then uses the sphere tactic.

If they use the Enchanach Drive they travel FTL in realspace, were they have dwell times in the femto second range at any given position.

But they have hyperdrive as well. As far as they are outside the hyperlimit, they simply can jump to hyperspace.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-16 07:29am

gravity wrote:Isn't the whole point that they have to keep dipping out?

Where do you get this 'dipping out' stuff? If you're thinking about the bit with the 750 attosecond dwell time in realspace, that's Enchanach drive, completely different from hyperdrive. If they used Enchanach drive, then yes, they would be reduced to quark-gluon plasma as the pass through the Gridfire. But with hyperdrive, they are completely outside realspace and would go around the Gridfire.

And presumably they can't stay there forever, the GSV keeps following it around until they have to come out for some reason, then uses the sphere tactic.

No mention is ever made of a maximum time one can spend in hyper before having to come back to realspace. In fact, there is no way to drop out of hyper before reaching your destination. Now, how exactly is the GSV going to follow it?

gravity · Post by **gravity** » 2003-01-16 09:43am

XaLEv wrote:
gravity wrote:Isn't the whole point that they have to keep dipping out?
Where do you get this 'dipping out' stuff? If you're thinking about the bit with the 750 attosecond dwell time in realspace, that's Enchanach drive, completely different from hyperdrive. If they used Enchanach drive, then yes, they would be reduced to quark-gluon plasma as the pass through the Gridfire. But with hyperdrive, they are completely outside realspace and would go around the Gridfire.

And presumably they can't stay there forever, the GSV keeps following it around until they have to come out for some reason, then uses the sphere tactic.
No mention is ever made of a maximum time one can spend in hyper before having to come back to realspace. In fact, there is no way to drop out of hyper before reaching your destination. Now, how exactly is the GSV going to follow it?

Well I guess this whole debate is moot then, since neither of them has any way to attack, or even see, the other unless we consider the two hyperspaces to be the same for the purposes of this debate (in which case the GSV probably wins).

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-16 09:46am

gravity wrote:Well I guess this whole debate is moot then, since neither of them has any way to attack, or even see, the other unless we consider the two hyperspaces to be the same for the purposes of this debate (in which case the GSV probably wins).

If the Planetoid runs then the Culture wins by default. You'd be fighting over some objective and if the planetoid ran then the Culture would win.

If the Planetoid stood and fight it would be killed. It's as simple as that.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-17 11:39am

Stormbringer wrote:
gravity wrote:Well I guess this whole debate is moot then, since neither of them has any way to attack, or even see, the other unless we consider the two hyperspaces to be the same for the purposes of this debate (in which case the GSV probably wins).
If the Planetoid runs then the Culture wins by default. You'd be fighting over some objective and if the planetoid ran then the Culture would win.

If the Planetoid stood and fight it would be killed. It's as simple as that.

It's just the same if the battle is near an orbital or a sphere... the planetoid kills the stationary objective and there is nearly nothing the GSV can do... would be a boring "fight".

So I could argue that the Planetoid wins by default if it is the aggressor.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-01-17 11:51am

The Planetoid has to survive to win, if it dies on the way out, the fight would almost certainly be considered a draw. There is also the question of what conceivable Culture target couldn't evade the planetoid by itself, or be easily replicated down to the household pets if it was destroyed.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 11:58am

HRogge wrote: It's just the same if the battle is near an orbital or a sphere... the planetoid kills the stationary objective and there is nearly nothing the GSV can do... would be a boring "fight".

So I could argue that the Planetoid wins by default if it is the aggressor.

If the orbital was undefended it would work.

However against a defended orbital a planetoid would have to stay long enough that if would take fire and it would be destroyed. There's no question about that. They would die if they're complelled to fight.

And if you succeeded you'd better watch out. The Culture would then proceed to dismanlte the Imperium bit by bit. And if your warships are deployed they can't beat the Culture ROUs back.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-17 01:03pm

Stormbringer wrote:If the orbital was undefended it would work.

However against a defended orbital a planetoid would have to stay long enough that if would take fire and it would be destroyed. There's no question about that. They would die if they're complelled to fight.

And if you succeeded you'd better watch out. The Culture would then proceed to dismanlte the Imperium bit by bit. And if your warships are deployed they can't beat the Culture ROUs back.

They will just destroy the sun at the center and watch when it go nova... orbital gone...

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 01:18pm

HRogge wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:If the orbital was undefended it would work.

However against a defended orbital a planetoid would have to stay long enough that if would take fire and it would be destroyed. There's no question about that. They would die if they're complelled to fight.

And if you succeeded you'd better watch out. The Culture would then proceed to dismanlte the Imperium bit by bit. And if your warships are deployed they can't beat the Culture ROUs back.
They will just destroy the sun at the center and watch when it go nova... orbital gone...

True, but that will take time enough for the Culture ships to kill them planetoid.

And do you really want to do something like that to the Culture? Because that's absolute suicide. The Imperium would be dead inside a year.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-17 01:49pm

They could always make the O go into hyperspace by dragging it in, the supernova shockwave would take several minutes to reach the O which is enough time to phase the thing into hyperspace.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-17 01:52pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:They could always make the O go into hyperspace by dragging it in, the supernova shockwave would take several minutes to reach the O which is enough time to phase the thing into hyperspace.

Then just fire the missiles directly into parts of the orbital. A total destruction radius of more than 400000 km should be enough to create a total desaster... even better, destroy the mind at the hub with the first missile.

Both sides have enough possibilities to wipe the stationary parts of the other side... and no defense against it.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 02:06pm

HRogge wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:They could always make the O go into hyperspace by dragging it in, the supernova shockwave would take several minutes to reach the O which is enough time to phase the thing into hyperspace.
Then just fire the missiles directly into parts of the orbital. A total destruction radius of more than 400000 km should be enough to create a total desaster... even better, destroy the mind at the hub with the first missile.

Both sides have enough possibilities to wipe the stationary parts of the other side... and no defense against it.

Actually the Culture could deploy it's naval forces to cover the planets and no Imperium vessel would be able to do anything about it.

And you forget the snail-esque speed of Imperium FTL. The war will be over and the Imperium gone long before they even get to their target. The Culture is galaxy spanning, the Imperium isn't.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-17 02:33pm

Stormbringer wrote:Actually the Culture could deploy it's naval forces to cover the planets and no Imperium vessel would be able to do anything about it.

And you forget the snail-esque speed of Imperium FTL. The war will be over and the Imperium gone long before they even get to their target. The Culture is galaxy spanning, the Imperium isn't.

1. the Culture could not prevent the Imperium to reach any orbital they want, they are unable to hit the ships of the Imperium during FTL travel.

2. Who cares what has happend at home ? The 4th Imperium designed it's planetoids to start a new civilization if necessary.

3. How do Culture plan to HIT the planetoid ? The FTL engines are just too fast for them. In addition to this they can use the hyperdrive.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 02:59pm

HRogge wrote:1. the Culture could not prevent the Imperium to reach any orbital they want, they are unable to hit the ships of the Imperium during FTL travel.

But they have to drop out of FTL to hit their targets.

HRogge wrote:2. Who cares what has happend at home ? The 4th Imperium designed it's planetoids to start a new civilization if necessary.

Only if the Culture doesn't hunt them down. They'll only make good lifeboats if they can't be intercepted. Some might get away but their civilization would be destroyed in a war they can't win.

HRogge wrote:3. How do Culture plan to HIT the planetoid ? The FTL engines are just too fast for them. In addition to this they can use the hyperdrive.

But not inside the hyperlimit. If they have to enage they'll die. If they run the Culture will win.