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Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution

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lbmaian said:
While there will be tech that allows creation of Atlantis-sized mobile stations, wasn't there some technical restriction on dreadnought+ size ships entering atmospheres?
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Those limitations basically come down to:
  1. Takeoff thrust
  2. Structural Integrity
  3. Ground pressure
Mass Effect Dreadnoughts have neither the engine power to take off from the surface of a planet nor the structural integrity to avoid collapsing under their own weight. Plus the issue that most aren't designed for landing and so would crush/sink-into anything they touched down on.

The first is solved via sufficient Repulsors, the second is solved by PI's superior material sciences, and the third is solved by designing the ship such that it's ground pressure is minimized.
 
UberJJK said:
Those limitations basically come down to:
  1. Takeoff thrust
  2. Structural Integrity
  3. Ground pressure
Mass Effect Dreadnoughts have neither the engine power to take off from the surface of a planet nor the structural integrity to avoid collapsing under their own weight. Plus the issue that most aren't designed for landing and so would crush/sink-into anything they touched down on.

The first is solved via sufficient Repulsors, the second is solved by PI's superior material sciences, and the third is solved by designing the ship such that it's ground pressure is minimized.
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I'm hoping that future research options will unlock the ability to make landable cruisers/carriers/dreadnoughts. I've apparently failed to convince a large number of people in this thread that spreading RP to useless dreck like monster tanks and giant mechs is a stupid idea, so the least I can do is advocate for ships that are actually capable of transporting these hulks to other planets in a timely fashion.

For reference, I'll remind you that right now the biggest landable ship we can build is 250 meters long, with a giant eezo core located right in the center so the biggest cargo hold is probably something like 50-75 meters in diameter. All giant mechs and giant tanks larger than that are, for the moment, going to be limited to the same star system in which they are built, unless they are laboriously crated up, lifted into orbit, then shuffled into a long-haul starship, then crated up again and gently lowered onto the target planet, which just make them even more useless in a live, fast combat situation.
 
Winged One said:
...is that a fucking balcony on top of the forward cannon? Presumably so that the guy in charge can go out and flip everyone off while they try to line up their shots on him?
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Maybe but then again considering that thing is a troop transport it might be to provide high ground for the soldiers to come out onto and shoot from. Plus the entire thing has several meters worth of armor on all sides.
 
Sinsystems said:
Maybe but then again considering that thing is a troop transport it might be to provide high ground for the soldiers to come out onto and shoot from. Plus the entire thing has several meters worth of armor on all sides.
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Troop transport my ass. Just the ammo for the cannons eats up the internal space. And it does not even includes the fuel tanks and the engine(s).
Also, if that foward cannon fires the crew will be deafened.
 
Dark as Silver said:
Obviously you don't do a lot of 40K.
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I like W40k (though I do not play the tabletop game it for financial reasons, the miniatures an the codexes are very expensive in Hungary, ), but some of the vehicle designs are ridiculous.

It does not helps, that Imperial vehicles look low-tech enough, to not automatically apply SoD, about it.

Sinsystems said:
That's what it's listed as in the lore.
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Well, it somehow works in-universe, but it shouldn't. I suspect, it works on belief or something.
 
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Fools, this is what we truly need.


Behold the might of the Imperial Navy!
 
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Guys, 40K designs are specifically built to be arcane and ineffectual to keep the Warp Gods from messing with them too much. They're not designs we should be copying.
 
TheEyes said:
Guys, 40K designs are specifically built to be arcane and ineffectual to keep the Warp Gods from messing with them too much. They're not designs we should be copying.
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Somewhat true, but they are awesome. And building an Emperor Class Battleship for the purpose of wrecking the Reaper's shit is something I will always support.
 
TheEyes said:
Guys, 40K designs are specifically built to be arcane and ineffectual to keep the Warp Gods from messing with them too much. They're not designs we should be copying.
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Well
I heard that they were built like giant cathedrals because they believe that it will protect them from chaos
and since they believe that the design protects them it will actually protect them to an extent from the daemons
so the design does serve a purpose.
 
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Obviously, the real power behind our military are the marines.

That's why our most effective artillery will always shoot live ammunition. It's economical! :V
 
@Orm Embar: Um, while I do appreciate the mods' doing their jobs and keeping things on topic, the WH40K stuff is in fact thread-relevant: Revy herself is a known WH40K fan, and has made several Warhammer jokes in the actual story posts, though granted she's apparently more of fan of the Ork faction than Imperium of Man, but it's not off-topic.

Even beside that, all of us players like to draw inspiration from sci-fi fandoms of all stripes when contemplating possible new technologies to research, or to have new research heroes specialize in. Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars, the Bolo universe, Angelic Layer, that one video game with the power armor that uses jets to slide across the ground: we've been known to cast a wide net around here when it comes to seeking inspiration, and Warhammer's another good source for it.
 
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So, dwelling on the ground paradigm for a moment, we've got Legionaries which stomp pretty much any traditional force of infantry and most APCs, as well as drones that help augment "not enough hands to shoot people with" problems. We've seen some Batarian efforts to negate our advantages (apparently flak missiles were pretty low tech and effective?), and I don't have a problem with seeing 'gunboat' formations, like Batarian technicals that are essentially conscripted pickups with boxes of flak missiles doing drive by attacks on our drones, just to whittle them down a bit at a time. Likewise, I imagine the Batarians will 'discover' some tech to augment their APCs to make them a credible threat to Tigers (though likely not at even numbers); maybe some sort of ablative armor that repairs itself on the fly, or a bit of ECM to make our missiles fly off course. But eventually, I can see them developing armored units meant to hunt down an APC and armored squad; using a CIWS system to counteract our missiles and chew through Legionary armor, a big gun to deal with the Tigers (yes, kinetic barriers are better against one big hit than a bunch of little ones, but with a big enough hit it matters less, and a larger chassis means more mass to handle recoil and store equipment inside.)

I'm not suggesting that a tank of some sort has to be effective on a credit-to-credit ratio, but if the Batarians can demonstrate that they've discovered the tech to counter the big bad Legionary, I imagine everyone else is going to take notice of it if it happens. (seems like omake material, actually...)

This is probably not as well-organized as one might like, but I may be able to better phrase things when I sober up a little more.

TheEyes said:
and Warhammer's another good source for it.
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Well, for a given value of 'good'. Apparently the STCs liked their tech boxy and clunky looking.
 
Slamu said:
We've seen some Batarian efforts to negate our advantages (apparently flak missiles were pretty low tech and effective?), and I don't have a problem with seeing 'gunboat' formations, like Batarian technicals that are essentially conscripted pickups with boxes of flak missiles doing drive by attacks on our drones, just to whittle them down a bit at a time.
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The flak system was temporarily effective. The Accipitors weren't programmed to handle flak because no one used it. That problem was more or less resolved by hiring a bunch of Drone Directors to program counter-flak strategies into the drones:
Hoyr said:
Andrew wants drone officers not drone operators. (No one use drone operators, I was using Drone Controller in a more computational sense central object that handles sub units, but maybe Drone Director would be clearer?). Basically so that when the enemy figures out a cleaver trick he doesn't have to fix it and can order some one else to. Such as flak missiles, which required new combat patterns or the risk of losing ~50% of ParSec's raw combat power.

Good drones are idiot savants for the most part. They're great until you find their "stupid" point then they're extremely dumb. A drone controller's (director's/officer's/etc) job is to keep an eye out for those points and correct for them.
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Hoyr said:
Because VI's are idiot savants and no one uses flak anymore.

The flak missiles had several advantages:
They did not aim at the drones making IDing them as threats to be removed hard.
They detonated far before getting close to the target
They were fired in massed groups
The defending VIs did not have as much computational power
Flak is effectively not used as hit-scan and seeking weapons are generally available for anti-air use
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Plus our latest drones, the Aspidai, have shields, the Lesser Accipitors didn't because we didn't have the cash/production needed back then, so flak is even less of an issue since it will just bounce off their shields.

Likewise, I imagine the Batarians will 'discover' some tech to augment their APCs to make them a credible threat to Tigers (though likely not at even numbers); maybe some sort of ablative armor that repairs itself on the fly, or a bit of ECM to make our missiles fly off course.
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Worth noting the main gun of a Tiger is either a MAC, Repuslor, or Laser. By default it doesn't even come with Pilums, it does however carry a bunch of Sagitta for anti-infantry/anti-drone duties. So the ECM stuff isn't that useful.

using a CIWS system to counteract our missiles and chew through Legionary armor
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Pilums are actually somewhat protected against anti-missile systems:
Hoyr said:
Using the shield breaching system's eezo you can generate a shield around the missile protecting it from kinetic point defense. Further improvements allow the missile to evade fire as it homes in on its target. Repulsor tech makes the missile faster and safer to the operator. The improved power cell allows the shield breaching system to work on more powerful shields. Finally the actual warhead is upgraded using MHD tech and a few mass effect tricks to deliver more hurt then the previous Pilum.
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I must also point out that if infantry is both on the same battlefield as a tank and exposed enough that the tank can hit them with it's machine-guns well of course they'll get mowed down.

I'm not suggesting that a tank of some sort has to be effective on a credit-to-credit ratio, but if the Batarians can demonstrate that they've discovered the tech to counter the big bad Legionary, I imagine everyone else is going to take notice of it if it happens. (seems like omake material, actually...)
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Eh. Legionaries are really just highly effective infantry, much like how the Tgier is really just a highly versatile troop transport. Building a fifty million credit tank to take on infantry isn't that impressive. Impressive is building an infantry thing that can take on a Legionary in less then 50:1 odds.
 
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