Bête Noire
Abhorrent Anathema
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So I went a read through the story posts, whatever happened to Cipher?
Ace Combat XCOM: Enemy Skies
- Thread starter hYGP
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Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
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- Cold snow fields of Finland
He's working for Nordland under the name Elcero.
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- Mid-Atlantic
To be fair, existing air-to-ground munitions are probably adequate. I doubt many of the aliens' ground units, except perhaps the very heaviest like the Sectopod-equivalent, are going to have much chance of laughing off a Maverick missile or a 500-pound bomb hit.
The problem isn't that we don't have such munitions, or even that we necessarily need new ones. It's that we just straight-up didn't bring that shit to the battlefield this time. I think we were excessively complacent about what our plains could do with conventional MSL/GUN armament, and/or we underestimated the threat of actual alien ground troops.
Well, that and lack of actual ground troops.
He's known Count for several months, and he's heard the comm chatter. Other members of Strider and Cyclops who know him well are going to be commenting along the same lines and may alert him. I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume Long Caster can figure this out.
We may want to experiment with Pixy leading a ground unit. That may be subject to change.
The OTHER thing I'm considering doing with Pixy is seconding him to X-COM OSEA because I suspect they could really use the fucking help. Also because it increases the risk of Belkans going NEIN NEIN NEIN in horror when they realize the Galm Team has gotten the band back together.
We should seriously consider letting X-COM OSEA have either Pixy, Cyclops Squadron, or both. It'll reduce the political sting of our having both of Osea's protagonist-tier aces somewhat, I think, and they have Belka to worry about along with the usual alien threats.
Streamlined Construction Practices are currently being worked on.On the bright side, recent experience of refugee city gave us plenty of experience in the area.
Didn't we have some sort of project centered around more cost-efficient building of stuff?
I am honestly surprised the aliens went for the Gullfaxi in a focused enough manner to sink it and would be curious to find out from @huhYeahGoodPoint how that happened.
Yeah, the problem is, they have specifically and only Talisman in the air, and no other elite aces that we know of, and no superweapon to draw off the battleship's attention.
So things may have gotten weird.
Ehhhh.
It bears consideration that we have literally no idea what the maximum range on the battleship's rift weapon is, and that the things were probably originally designed for use in space combat.
We know what the minimum range is (namely "danger close"), but we don't know the maximum range. It's at least theoretically possible that they could hover up in planetary orbit, high enough to see Stonehenge rounds coming and sidestep, while obliterating the guns with their own weapons.
Thaaat may work.
The Belkans know about Stonehenge and will probably warn the aliens. Since the aliens have as much orbital reconnaissance as they want, they have a pretty good chance of finding out we're repairing the thing, especially since there is no way we'll have enough IC to do it in a hurry.
That is... interestingly plausible. If Trigger managed to punch an Ethereal in the brain, even nonlethally, it could definitely explain why they fell back. They must know by now we have psionically gifted pilots like their own, but they probably didn't expect that much mental muscle.
Still working for the East Osean Mutual Defense Pact, as far as I know. They're probably frantically battening down the hatches in preparation for the Belkans' declaration that they're going to launch a military offensive on February 14th.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
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- Your nightmares.
That's part of why the Reapers in WotC are so damn deadly. Explosive cars on demand? That sh*t's insanely strong. That, and the bullsh*t stealth, and the C4, and...I dunno, pretty much their entire kit? It's pretty nuts, IMO. Even purely as spotters for a Squadsight Marksman, they're ridiculous. I've literally pegged objectives I needed to destroy from across almost the entire length of the map with that combo. I always laugh my head off when I just trivialize the assaults on the Avenger by destroying the turrets with what are effectively over-the-horizon shots. I think I've managed to OTK Sectopods with just those two units. Not even with that "fire until the clip's empty" skill, either.Hey, any XCOM veteran can tell that exploding cars are an excellent way to kill aliens.
Yup. Having the discovery of psionics come with a jamming method seems kinda self-defeating, IMO. Not complaining, mind you. We really need to incorporate the jammer pods into our tactics. And possibly into security checkpoints on base.
Yeah, that's also probably a factor.
Also, the King may just be able to build himself another uprising, if his old contacts are still around. This is still a fight about borders, after all...
I mean, they also may have railgun tanks. Possibly even mini-Chandlier AA turrets. Their general focus was/is pretty different from ours, so it's kinda hard to predict the outcome.
Counter point: if they could project rifts at a distance, why didn't they? Surely destroying cities from miles away would be an even greater punch to the gut of any human resistance. There's also the question of if it's even feasible to project psionic black holes long distances. I'm willing to believe they could have other weapons that have much greater range, but I rather doubt the Rifts have such a long range. It's quite possible that they're either active defenses or close-ranged weapons. Or, alternatively, the aliens optimized their battleships for crushing native resistance, or they're not considered ships, but rather massive moving fortresses, either of which makes the Rifts more akin to siege weaponry. Siege and bombardment ships have been a thing for a long time historically.
Point. Still, I can't imagine those shields can hold out for a particularly long period of time. One would think they'd use them much more extensively if that was the case. I kinda doubt they'd be untouchable the entire way in. They have to have some weakness. Otherwise, they'd be using them for everything from buildings to ship hulls.
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I am quite sure that Huh has plans for how to make things difficult for us, jamming or no jamming.
Chandelier is so blatantly a fixed gun emplacement that a "mini-Chandelier" AA system would rapidly converge on looking like Stonehenge instead, or looking like an EML on a swivel mount.
Though of course either of those is viable.
Not necessarily. The aliens' psychology from X-COM, to an extent that is carried over here, seems to include a concept of direct, in-your-face combat. Landing troops and getting stuck in on the ground, while directly engaging and destroying our greatest superweapons with very visible attacks by very visible alien forces, seems consistent with their overall modus operandi so far.
I'm not saying the aliens CAN fire their rift weapons at extreme ranges, but until and unless we're given a specific reason to believe they can't (not just generic skepticism), we should bear in mind that we don't actually KNOW they do.
I would be prepared to believe, yes, that taking repeated, sustained hits from Stonehenge would be enough to put down even one of these battleships. It's just that, again, we don't know they don't have a comparably long ranged weapon.
One of the fundamental limitations of Stonehenge, and something we need to address if we're actually going to make it the centerpiece of a fortress capable of protecting Usea, is that it's actually quite vulnerable to orbital bombardment from outside its designed engagement envelope of "a bubble reaching up to low planetary orbit." The guns are fixed and any hit from a strategic weapon is likely to wreck them. Of course, they can shoot down many kinds of incoming threats, but not all.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
I more meant in the sense that it incentivizes us not to rely on psionics, but rather use the Jammers to even the odds. It's like...why put a double-edged sword that harms you if explore the "research tree" further at the tree's base?
...Stonehenge doesn't shoot missiles. The Chandelier does. That's a pretty fundamental difference between the two systems, I'd say. Said AA turrets from my Omake were also intended to fire magnetically-launched missiles. It's a crazy idea in a lot of ways, honestly, but the point stands.
Edit: I mean, I get the reason it does that, it's to make up for only having one massive gun. It's like a massive magnetic shotgun...only the "buckshot" homes in on the target. But building a giant railgun that fires cruise missile-filled capsules is still insanely silly.
Oh, for sure. I'm not advocating we get cocky, or instantly pour our resources into rebuilding Stonehenge, or anything like that. I'm quite willing to treats the Alien battleships cautiously. And that's a good point about the psychology of the aliens.
...Okay, I think I know what you mean by "fixed", but it took a second, since "fixed gun" also a technical term that doesn't really apply to the Stonehenge turrets. Yeah, the Stonehenge turrets can't dodge, and that's a big weakness. We're probably going to want our own large-scale energy shielding before we even consider rebuilding Stonehenge.
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I mean, that's a bit like asking, in a fantasy setting, "why research both better
Reader mode
melee weapons for your soldiers, and better blast-effect magical spells, when you can't fire the blast spells into a melee without hurting your own troops?
Well, the only real advantage to a magnetically-launched missile is that it's more flexible in terms of terminal maneuvers than a ballistic shell. This is a bit... iffy... as a good choice for ground defense turret guns in this situation. Mainly because of the limits of the missile warheads themselves. Just putting an EML cannon on a turret is almost certainly going to be more effective at engaging alien fighters than a gun-launched missile, unless the aforesaid missile has something like an ADMM's mini-burst warhead.
What I'd been getting at is that at least the Stonehenge guns can rotate to fire on anything that attacks them from any direction, and so have a hope of defending themselves.
Chandelier doesn't have that going for it, not in a realistic way. There's not going to be a lot it could do about a battleship hovering thirty miles overhead and firing void rifts down at it.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Most likely the shield is a massive power hog, which is why the aliens don't have them on their smaller ships. The shield ships couldn't run their engines while their shields were on, and it is also very possible that they cannot shoot through their shields. Battleship puts on its shields, it can no longer shoot at anything.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Not...quite an accurate analogy. There's a range differential there that isn't necessarily true of psi-jammers and Aces. It's closer to deploying melee golems that explode on death in with your normal melee units, though even that analogy is pretty flawed. I can think of a couple of solutions that might work to reduce or minimize the impact of the jamming on our Aces, ranging from "jamming guns" that only jam a small area around a single targeted unit, to some sort of "psionic insulation" or other protections against the jamming, to arming our Aces such that they don't need to be in jamming range at all to fight.
Moreover, the problem is that our opposition is super far down the "psionic" tech tree. To the point where it's worth a lot more for us to invest in anti-psi tech. If we can massively debuff all of their units (normal fighters are now unable to connect to C&C ships, their Aces are now back down to being A-Rank pilots or worse) and reduce the power of, or even disable, some of their most powerful weapons, why would we not invest in that technology heavily, and just skip heavy investment in psionics? We have so many other areas we're playing catch-up in tech-wise that nixing the psionic tech tree and focusing on anti-psionic tech just seems like it makes more logical sense.
I mean, maybe once they can actually fire at a decent rate. But I'm not super confident in AA turrets that take several minutes to recharge between rounds. Plus, we could probably build much cheaper railguns if they're only needed for one shot, period, then tossed out or recycled. And that could avoid the poor fire-rate issues, to some extent. Also, there's really no reason not to put the best warhead you can on it, beyond expense.
That said, nixing the missiles and just building rail-shotguns is probably more reasonable, TBH. Alien Alloy projectiles optional.
...Wut. The Chandelier wasn't even a part of that thread of the conversation. I think you crossed the streams, mate.
My thoughts as well. Also, I'm guessing they probably don't have the energy to keep the shields up for hours at a time. And their battleships are either slow, or were deliberately moving slowly in this case, either to save power or produce dread.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
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- Cold snow fields of Finland
That is an interesting thought, how much do the alien aces, like FGU and Nova rely on their psionic hax? How much do their skills rely on it, since they were most likely born with psionic powers. Flying withtout them would probably be like suddenly losing one of your senses.
Fittingly enough, this reminds me of the research notes for Alloy Canon in EW, how the big problem Vahlen's team faced with its development was developing a gun barrel that wasn't immediately torn apart by the alien alloy flechettes when fired.
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One obvious approach is to have 'mook' squadrons armed with a mix of psi-jammers and whatever special weapons we want to bring to the fight (EMLs for ship-hunting, air-to-ground munitions for bombing runs). The psi-jammers reduce the risk of the aliens successfully targeting them and mean our ace squadrons can go off and do something completely different, several kilometers away.
We don't know enough about what the psionic tech tree looks like for us to really say that. Trigger's recent... ascension... is the first sign we have of humans being able to use psionics for anything other than passive enhancement of their physical abilities.
Remember Pops' analogy about how being in denial about psionics would be like fighting a war where not only does the enemy have radio when you do not, but where your own top brass thinks radio is a fluke that can be pretended away.
In that context, what you're saying is like saying "the enemy has better radios than us, so it makes sense for us to concentrate exclusively on radio jamming and not work on ways to use radios for our own benefit."
Which MIGHT be true, but isn't obviously and automatically true.
That raises the question ( @huhYeahGoodPoint ) of why EMLs take so long to recharge between shots.
The most obvious reason is because they're drawing electrical power from the engines of the jet, and the plane's electrical system can only trickle-charge the EML's batteries so fast. If so, then we can greatly increase rate of fire by hooking the EML up to a bigger generator or a battery with power for multiple shots... which is easy for us to do in a ground defense role.
Another possibility is that the EML risks overheating if fired too frequently... but, again, that's a more easily solved problem on the ground where there are fewer weight constraints and we can stick more and heavier cooling equipment on the gun mount.
So it's reasonable for EML tech to be much faster-firing when on the ground (or when attached to a superweapon-sized platform with a big onboard reactor).
I suspect that one-shot railguns will turn out to be less economical than long-lasting quick-firing railguns, for the same reason that nobody in real life builds one-shot artillery pieces.
(One-shot missiles, yes, but that's an entirely different design principle.)
The problem then is in-flight instability. What you're describing reminds me of the 'beehive' rounds the Japanese invented for the main guns of the Yamato-class battleships, and those didn't work well.
What I was getting at is that if you're trying to design a viable air defense weapon, you can't take many design cues from Chandelier, because Chandelier is a fixed mount built into a giant iceberg. By the time you've modified the design enough (by downscaling it and making it trainable onto target bearings of your choosing), it no longer really resembles Chandelier, and more closely resembles something like a Stonehenge gun.
Chandelier fires cruise missiles, sure, but you lose a lot of the advantage of high initial muzzle velocity if the missiles don't keep going in the general direction they were fired. Having to turn around means slowing them down a lot.
It is probably unwise to make assumptions at this time about the limits of what alien power generation technology is capable of. The slow movement may very well have been deliberate in this case because it's clear that part of the goal was to attract the planet's strongest defenders (including its only two mobile superweapons, Gullfaxi and the Arsenal Bird) to known locations where they could be destroyed in direct combat.
Insofar as there was an objective to this mission beyond "scare and humiliate the crap out of the puny humans," it was almost certainly "draw out their forces for a decisive battle that will snap the spine of their resistance, so that even if they are resolute they may lack the means to go on."
You don't do that by hitting the enemy fast and hard in a single spot, though; you need them to have the time to get their act together and mobilize.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
For small-scale stuff, certainly. Anything large and emplaced and we might run into problems.
I'll agree that it's not inherently true. But given all the other factors, I think it's probably the better option on our part. Mind you, some amount of understanding of psionics is probably necessary to improve on our jamming tech. For testing, at the very least, assuming we don't want to purely test in the field, against the enemy. Heavy investment, though, may be unwise.
All very good questions/points.
I mean...that's kinda exactly the sort of design I was considering using as a basis, so...no, it's really not "entirely different". I was literally thinking of one of the various mobile missile platforms, like the M270 (only more AA and Russian), when I was writing about that, just with added speed and force from the railgun. The sort that are very limited in ammunition by reason of logistics, and basically only have as many shots as they have launchers. For units like that, firing large, bulky missiles and only having as many missiles as it can carry, single-shot launchers are the norm.
...I literally mean a rail-shotgun. Like...no missiles or anything. That's very different from airburst shrapnel and incendiary weapons, even ones that detonate in a cone pattern. Especially when the emphasis appears to have been on "incindiary". And the reasons the Sanshiki rounds failed are at least partially more tactical and logistical rather than general flaws: the Yamato-class had the problem that firing their main guns would necessitate a pause in anti-air machine gun fire. Combine that with the rounds being unreliable due to poor manufacturing, and the way the constant fire would wear down the barrels, and yeah, I see why they went mostly unused.
Yeah...we think of very different primary differences between Stonehenge and the Chandelier, apparently. My immediate thought is to how the weapon systems themselves differ on a fundamental level, not how the gun is mounted. A "Chandelier-type railgun" to me would immediately be "magnetic missile launcher" not "immobile fixed turret". I guess I can see how you'd jump to "downsized Chandelier" from the phrase "mini Chandelier", but I think that, one, jumping to an obviously untenable and unworkable solution and assuming that's what the other party means is kinda insulting, and two, I don't consider how the gun is mounted or the size to be at all fundamental aspects of a gun. Mounting a gun differently is generally doable. Changing the ammunition and firing mechanisms, on the other hand, basically means inventing a brand new sort of gun.
So, in conclusion, I think we're arguing over trivialities and terminology differences. The looks aren't really what I was talking about. I was talking about the core fundamentals of the weapon. That's all that was ever meant. That said, given the size differentials, it could probably even be shaped almost exactly like the Chandelier, and still be made to rotate and depress with fairly minor structural changes. It'd be something akin to a certain kind of mortar or artillery mount for vehicles. The kind with a turntable base and a pneumatic support strut under the barrel that can be aimed up and down fairly easily.
As for the turn around thing...that would be why the missile aspect would mostly be to for minor adjustments to aid accuracy, rather than to allow it to home in even in the case where it would miss to that extent. At those speeds, you might as well keep going rather than turn around. I never said the idea was perfect, either. Which is honestly why I'm kinda glad to hash this out, and have someone point out potential problems. I just wish we actually had the same gun in our heads, rather than having to work hard just to get on the same page in that regard. That's probably a failure to communicate clearly on my end, though it was admittedly something of a throwaway line originally...
That's a good point, and it's possible that the speed at which the battleship bugged out is the more accurate metric for the ship's max speed. Which is something I'm sure was recorded, and something we should probably have some of our analysts look at. Figuring out the displayed capabilities of our opponent's superweapons seems like rather a important thing to do for future conflicts. It might not be entirely accurate, but knowing what their battleships can do, even if we don't know what they can't do, is still useful, if that makes sense.
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If we run up against something the jammer-armed squadrons of low-rankers can't handle, it's time to sic aces on it. Not both at the same time.
Remember the danger of trying to predict what will be beneficial when there are so many 'unknown unknowns' involved.
Given how railguns work, I don't think you'd get enough benefit for it to be worth it. Getting missiles to go fast just isn't that hard.
More generally it's... just... a bad idea, really.
Bundles of flechettes or whatever don't keep up stable trajectories as they spread out from a muzzle. Shotguns use spherical shot that lose velocity rapidly, hence their relatively short range. With railgun projectiles that must be shaped to be adequately aerodynamic, as the cloud of shot spreads in atmosphere you'll get individual submunitions tumbling and rapidly losing enough speed to be ineffective.
In vacuum you can get a lot of mileage out of a railgun shell with a small bursting charge that turns the round into an expanding conical zone filled with antitank impactors, but that's not going to work where air resistance is a factor.
I just don't think gun-launched missiles of any kind are the wave of the future, so to speak.
Did they bug out quickly? I don't recall.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
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Just reminder regarding the Chandelier that it didn't fire cruise missiles directly, it fired canisters filled with cruise missiles that were released when they got close to the target, and that it was capable of turning itself full 360 degrees.
It is unclear if we judge by the description alone, especially considering that it had its shield up, which is most likely a massive energy hog and stopped the previous ships that used it from using their engines. That would probably be something brought up in the AAR, when comparing its leaving speed to arrival speed.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
At a certain point, you kinda need to accept and work with the information you've got. I'm willing to accept that perhaps anti-psionic tech could be a worse investment than psionics, but avoiding any commitments research-wise is also equally risky. Pretty much any strategy with regards to research is.
I know. I'm still not really sure what the Chandelier gained from using missiles, TBH. Maybe if they were purely kinetic missiles? Those are a thing.
Never said they were, just that they might work better for ground-based AA purposes.They'd be far too bulky to use for aircraft, for one thing. But our current guns are, quite frankly, terrible for the purpose. Assuming continuity with our aircraft version (which seems reasonable for land-based mobile platforms, I don't see us mounting that much larger of a power system in an armored frame, as opposed to an aircraft), they fire far too slowly to work as effective AA. Hell, even right now, they fire too slowly to really do as much as we'd like.
Firing multiple projectiles at once might help compensate for that. Maybe. I'm at least partially spitballing here. Pretty much any of these ideas would also mostly be a stop-gap, something to be used until we get better, faster firing normal railguns.
Another alternative is developing a better warhead for dealing with the aliens. I've alluded to some sort of saner variation on the Shockwave Ballistic Missile in the past. Something focused on producing a high pressure shockwave rather than any sort of conflagration. That may very well be viable.
I was more saying that they would have less reason to move slowly when leaving than when they came in. Mostly because Trigger very well might have pursued them. So that might be a better indicator of their actual top speed
I mean, technically speaking, that was the iceberg moving, not the gun itself. Also, hanks for clarifying about when the missiles left the canister. The wiki was not very forthcoming on the topic.
Point. I'm hoping they dropped their shields once they got sufficiently far away, and that we kept an eye on them as long as possible, to get maximum data on their abilities. If shields do slow them down, that's also useful information.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
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My guess would be that since Estovakia didn't have time/resources for multiple railguns, like Stonehenge, they wanted to go with weapon that, while being a singular weapon, would have the capability to strike multiple asteroid fragments with single shot. It was also said that the Chandelier missiles had heavy payloads.
No problem. Chandelier being immobile and shooting singular missiles are common misconceptions of it.
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I mean yes. On the other hand, when you know you've got a big blank spot on your tech tree, and when researchers are the one thing you're pretty sure you can get more of without undue trouble, it's a bad idea to write off chunks of the tech tree you haven't made an effort to explore because, realistically, they only just unlocked.
What, EMLs?
Again, I'm pretty sure the rate of fire limitation on EMLs is either a cooling problem or a power distribution problem. We can solve both of those on the ground. One-shot disposable barrels are not the answer, because a gun that breaks on the first shot is generally not a gun that fires its rounds with great accuracy, and we're unlikely to be able to make EML rounds guided.
Also, say what you will against the EML, it at least seems to give us good single-shot lethality. That is huge given that previously we had effectively no way to ensure a quick kill against an alien fighter and we were killing them with cumulative vibrations from umpty-ump shrapnel and gun hits.
@huhYeahGoodPoint , roughly what is the cooldown/reload/recharge time for the EML on our F-14Xs?
Given that our ability to work with alien alloy is improving rapidly, and that alien alloy is both a superconductor and an excellent heat sink, it is very possible that faster-firing EMLs are a straightforward development of tech we're already working on, or will soon be working on. Trying to develop a stopgap measure in the interim may not be cost-effective compared to just designing doctrine around the EML.
If nothing else we should be able to compare air-to-air performance between the Battle of Expo City and the Battle of the Grenada Plains to see how the EML stacks up against the weapons that might replace it...
Probably gated behind Cyclonic Accelerators and the related burst missile technology. We're already working on it.
The obvious candidate would be to build a launcher for ADMMs that doesn't fire so many missiles per salvo, and thus isn't such an ammunition hog. We'd have to reach out to the manufacturer in Estovakia about that, though.
Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't assume we know the upper bound on either their speed or the range of their rift weapon, though.
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It depends.
If the limit on the rate of fire is how fast you can cool off the barrels safely (as with very early machine guns) then a multibarrel weapon is a great idea (as with very early machine guns), though it's going to make the weapon several times heavier and less transportable (as with very early machine guns).
If the limit on the rate of fire is how fast you can pump electrical power into the battery the jolts the gun and electromagnetically launches the bullet out the gun, then more barrels won't help. You need either a bigger battery, a faster-acting charger for that battery, or both.
If the limit on the rate of fire is some other factor I haven't thought of, then I have no idea what the answer to your question is.
But the short answer is, it depends on whether "we have more barrels on the same gun mount" actually lets you fire faster. It might. It might not.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Makes sense.
...I feel like we're going in circles, here. I'm not even writing it off, I'm saying heavy investment in it may not make sense, because we'll be playing catch-up the entire time. I'm not sure it makes sense to do that, is all I'm saying. Note the phrase "not sure", because it indicates I'm willing to be proven wrong.
Look, I'd just rather not be 6 months and like a million man hours deep into the Psionics tree when we realize trying to match or exceed the aliens in psionics is a fool's errand, or that it's so incompatible with our SOP (which might end up involving blanket psi-jamming) that we can't make use of it. And meanwhile, we could have had all those personnel working on matching their weaponry, or working on alien alloys, or any of the vast array of other areas we're going to be playing catch up in. I'm saying that maybe, just maybe, we might want to strike out on our own path somewhere, instead of constantly having to copy the technology of the Aliens.
I mean, look at the EML. Going other directions the aliens didn't has given us so much of an advantage that we can basically pot anything they want to send our way. As such, does it make sense to more sense pursue plasma weapons right now, or refine the weapon we know is incredibly effective? I'd say probably the latter. And I think psi-jammers could be something similar. Psionics are so vital to their military operations that not looking deeper into anti-psionic tech seems seriously negligent to me.
And before you say it, I'm actually of the opinion plasma weapons are potentially the best option for infantry. I don't see the aliens equipping their infantry with Alien Alloy Armor. Too heavy. Doesn't mean it makes sense for any other units, though.
...You do remember that the subject of this discussion is a hypothetical unit that might have sprung from a line in one of my stories from ~6 months ago IRL, right? Because I know I forgot about it at some point. This literally sprung from me saying "maybe ANEA has railgun tanks and Chandelier-style AA". I'm thinking this discussion just needs to die, at this point, unless you've got a reason to want to continue it. I'm perfectly willing to wait and see what the future holds in this area, and we've wandered so far off from the original point that I'm not sure we're in the same solar system as it anymore.
...Wait, are Burst Missiles also based on incredibly idiotic, buzzword dropping insanity dreamed up by a scientifically illiterate monkey on a bad acid trip? Aka "cyclotron warheads that somehow make a big shockwave"?
Okay, I'm being slightly hyperbolic. But I do find the entire scientific justification for SWBMs utterly laughable. It's basically a thermobaric weapon, only using some ill-defined and nonsensical "meson fuel". That apparently needs a separate meson discharge to ignite it. Do I even need to address how "igniting" subatomic particles makes no goddamn sense whatsoever? Every time I read one of the descriptions of a Shockwave weapon's mechanics, I get the impression some troll ran a find-and-replace on the wiki page, changing out sane ideas for how such a weapon could function with "cyclotrons" and/or "mesons". It literally feels like someone jammed the words into the explanations with a crowbar.
Looking at the Burst Missile description, though, it seems much saner. I feel like the writers of AC: X could benefit from observing hYGP's lack of specificity, and how talking in very general terms can stop you from looking utterly ignorant on a given topic.
I'm not trying to establish an upper bound. I just want to know what we know they can do. Just so we don't find ourselves needlessly losing troops because we never bothered to figure out what these things have demonstrated they can do. While I do understand your concerns, and appreciate the reminder to consider the worst-case scenario, I'm firmly of the opinion that we need every bit of data on these things we can get. We need to establish a baseline minimum if we want to make any sort of estimate about what these battleships can do.
I know, I know. Making an estimate right now might be premature and bite us in the ass because of assumptions. I get it. Hell, I agree with the concern. However, consider what may happen if we don't make such an estimate Not making any sort of estimate at high command levels means the guys on the front lines are left to make their own estimates. Without the benefit of all the data we refused to collect and process. Collating and publishing that data to other branches would potentially prevent people from drastically low-balling estimates that they would know are false, if only they could examine the data, and getting killed as a result. Data is invaluable, and not properly analyzing what you've got is generally a much bigger problem than analyzing is.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I was actually coming to much the same conclusion myself. Unless toroidal power storage miniaturizes a lot better than I expect, we won't be able to build a good rail rifle for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the aliens have some kind of body armor, something fairly respectable. We'll have to wait on the after-action reports here.
At this point the idea has kind of gotten entangled with my own idea of dismounting EMLs and using them as AA guns for base defense, which I've been fiddling with for a while.
I'm working from a gameplay perspective where I know what burst missile warheads do but not what they are. And what they do is explode like goddamn mininukes (or when loaded into an SLBM-sized platform, arguably like regular nukes). They don't seem to create radioactive fallout like a nuke, and they are clearly differentiated in-game from a nuke, but if it weren't for the dialogue telling me otherwise I would conclude that they were nuclear airbursts.
So whatever the acid-tripping monkeys do or do not say, I can only assume they're some kind of [[[handwave physics]]] that generates a "clean" nuclear-equivalent explosion without the fallout. Or something. Clearly Strangereal physics has some shit going on that isn't found in real life, and in Ace Combat X-COM that's even more justified than in the canonical games.
[sigh]
OK look, I'm pretty sure that establishing those minimums is going to happen without your eager advocacy. @huhYeahGoodPoint doesn't seem to impose artificial stupidity on the player character; shit we don't know is usually shit Long Caster just hasn't had the time or experience to think of.
So while we may have to spend focus on (or issue orders to our Doctrine teams) to make sure they've exhaustively categorized all the observed footage and information on the battleships and alien ground weapons revealed in this mission... I don't think we have to obsess over it out of character.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Probably depends on the alien. Based on the games, the main units that were armored (aside from mechanical units) would be Mutons and I guess Heavy Floaters. And Andromedons and Gatekeepers, assuming anything from XCOM 2 is showing up, though those are considered half mechanical.
Like I said, I was making fun of AC: X's Shock Wave Ballistic Missiles, which are incredibly nonsensical thermobaric weapons that use mesons and cyclotrons (the latter being the point of commonality) in the warhead. Using particle accelerators in warheads to produce nuclear-bomb like effects without the radiation makes some degree of sense. Those are bordering areas of science. Using mesons in some sort of thermobaric process that involves igniting subatomic particles in a fuel-air explosion is blithering insanity.
I'm personally just going to assume Burst missiles purely produce neutrinos and WIMPs as decay products. That would be relatively clean. Hell, I could probably come up with some decent justification for that if I looked around hard enough. Alternatively, they could just be pure fusion weapons, which would be "clean" by some definitions, though that would also produce a metric f*ckload of gamma radiation, so it kinda doesn't work because that would probably kill our pilots.
I'm fine with not doing so. You're kinda the one who pointed out that our numbers might be flawed, and thus got me trying to figure out how flawed we're talking. Also, the more thinking we do, the less hYGP has to. He can just quietly take notes while we hash out problems for him. Or not, it's really at his discretion.
Mission 05 ACE OF ACES: ALL OUT, Debriefing I
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
...We're alive. That means we accomplished the most important mission.
I'm not supposed to say it, but honestly, I'm flying just as blind as you guys are. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's what we have to work with.
Rest up, everyone. We're all going to need it.
...Not here. We'll sort that out later.
Trigger earns 5 XP. 15/50 XP to advance?? Trigger's...different.
Count earns 10 XP. 32/35 XP to advance.
Huxian earns 15 XP. At 29/20 XP to advance, Huxian advances. 9/20 XP to advance.
Jaeger earns 15 XP. At 20/20 XP to advance, Jaeger advances. 0/20 XP to advance.
Mobius One earns 9 XP. 46/50 XP to advance.
Baker earns 21 XP. At 32/20 XP to advance, Baker advances. 12/35 XP to advance.
Mobius Four earns 26 XP. At 26/10 XP to advance, Mobius Four advances. At 16/10 XP to advance, Mobius Four advances. 6/20 XP to advance.
Blaze earns 23 XP. 24/50 XP to advance.
Captain earns 11 XP. At 36/20 XP to advance, Captain advances. 16/20 XP to advance.
Pops earns 9 XP. 9/20 XP to advance.
Archer earns 8 XP. At 41/35 XP to advance, Archer advances. 6/35 XP to advance.
Fencer earns 23 XP. 23/35 XP to advance.
Tailor earns 26 XP. At 26/20 XP to advance, Tailor advances. 6/20 XP to advance.
Skald earns 22 XP. At 22/20 XP to advance, Skald advances. 2/20 XP to advance.
Lanza earns 21 XP. At 21/20 XP to advance, Lanza advances. 1/20 XP to advance.
Nine Lives earns 32 XP. At 32/20 XP to advance, Nine Lives advances. 12/20 XP to advance.
Rigel 2 earns 21 XP. At 25/10 XP, Rigel 2 advances. At 15/10 XP, Rigel 2 advances. 5/10 to advance.
Zvezda 1 earns 21 XP. At 25/5 XP, Zvezda 1 advances. At 20/5 XP, Zvezda 1 advances. At 15/10 XP, Zvezda 1 advances. 5/10 XP.
Zvezda 2 earns 13 XP. At 17/5 XP, Zvezda 2 advances. At 12/5 XP, Zvezda 2 advances. 7/10 XP to advance.
Fat Man earns 18 XP. At 32/20 XP, Fat Man advances. 12/35 XP to advance.
Chaperone earns 19 XP. At 21/20 XP, Chaperone advances.
Azdaha 1 earns 13 XP. At 13/10 XP to advance, Azdaha 1 advances. 3/10 XP to advance.
Azdaha 2 earns 20 XP. At 21/10 XP to advance, Azdaha 2 advances. At 11/10 XP to advance, Azdaha 2 advances. 1/10 XP to advance.
Waltz 2 earns 15 XP. At 19/5 XP to advance, Waltz 2 advances. At 14/10 XP to advance, Waltz 2 advances. 4/10 XP to advance.
Druid 1 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Druid 1 advances. 0/10 XP to advance.
Druid 2 earns 5 XP. At 8/5 XP to advance, Druid 2 advances. 3/5 XP to advance.
Druid 3 earns 5 XP. At 8/5 XP to advance, Druid 3 advances. 3/5 XP to advance.
Druid 4 earns 13 XP. At 13/5 XP to advance, Druid 4 advances. 8/10 XP to advance.
Bard 1 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Bard 1 advances. 0/5 XP to advance.
Bard 3 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Bard 3 advances. 0/5 XP to advance.
Bard 4 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Bard 4 advances. 0/5 XP to advance.
Pixy earns 17 XP. 17/35 XP to advance.
Baker is SS-Rank.
Mobius 4 is S-Rank.
Zvezda 1 is A-Rank.
Zvezda 2 is A-Rank.
Fat Man is SS-Rank.
Waltz 2 is A-Rank.
Druid 1 is A-Rank.
Druid 4 is A-Rank.
Losses:
3x F-14X XCOM Hellcat II.
3x EML.
Mobius Three.
Mobius Five.
Bard Two.
Pulford is waiting for Long Caster just outside the debriefing room. Hands folded behind his back, his frame is pulled into a taut line.
"Sir," Long Caster instinctively salutes. Pulford returns it sharply, before motioning Long Caster to follow him.
"Report," Pulford tightly says.
"Mission accomplished, though not because we drove them off - "Long Caster starts.
"That is not what I care about. Losses?" Pulford demands.
"Mobius Three, Mobius Five, Bard Three, and their aircraft. No chance of recovery."
Pulford nods. "Is that all?"
Long Caster blinked. "What do you mean, is that - ?"
"If that is all, that will be the best bloody piece of news I have had the displeasure of hearing all night," Pulford bit out.
"Ah."
Pulford glances sideways at Long Caster for an instant, before focusing in on the middle distance. The two of them walk in tense silence down a hallway. By the time they complete a loop around the building without stopping, Long Caster realizes Pulford is pacing.
Finally, Pulford sighs.
"I suppose there is no point in trying to compartmentalize anymore. XCOM USEA may well be the vast majority of XCOM's remaining combat power. We lost contact with XCOM OSEA's HQ shortly after combat operations began, and have heard nothing since.
"As for XCOM VERUSA, we have a report from their HQ that the submarine Gullfaxi reported hitting the alien battleship before a white beam hit somewhere near their location. Supposedly, that beam was so bright everyone on the continent could see it. After that, the alien battleship began to ascend, and alien screening elements are currently preventing XCOM VERUSA from ascertaining the status of the Gullfaxi.
"XCOM ANEA is the other branch that's managed to survive reasonably well, and by reasonably well I mean 'have managed to limp away with combat assets'. Supposedly, the hero of the Emmerian-Estovakian War, her wingmate, and the tattered remnants of Windhover Squadron managed to survive the alien burst attacks, while ground forces managed to not lose everybody to the alien attackers, thus leaving them in the second-best state out of all of XCOM."
"What about the Belkan front?" Long Caster asks.
"Nothing but bad news. Our EOMDF liaison was disappointed that no more help was forthcoming, and with reports of alien forces providing air and ground support the front line has been moving as fast as the EOMDF can retreat. Supposedly, the wing led by El Cero is slowing down the alien advance. But only that."
"I see."
"Which leaves us now in this bloody mess. We have the choice of either centralizing our forces, or spreading our aces out to try and stem the bleeding. Considering that you are the one in command of the forces, well..."
[] We should centralize our forces.
Gathering our aces, research, and engineering teams together, we abandon Osea entirely, leave tripwire forces in Anea, and then choose between centralizing in either Verusa's Red Corridor or Selatapura. The risk, of course, is that XCOM OSEA, ANEA, and VERUSA will simply disregard orders; however, the remaining force will be much stronger and be much more able to resist alien incursion.
[] We should stem the bleeding.
We maintain the four branches of XCOM, although we retreat to more defensible strong points; XCOM ANEA will reestablish itself in Bartolomeo Fortress, XCOM VERUSA remains in the Red Corridor, and XCOM OSEA finds and/or creates a new strongpoint entirely. In order to sustain these groups, we dispatch ace squadrons, like Strider, Cyclops, Razgriz, and Mobius Squadron for support.
Front page is not yet updated; I'll get around to that sometime TM. Gains from the Battle of Expo City are currently uncollectable, due to on-going house to house fighting between the National Guard and chitinous...bug creatures. XCOM is too far away to assist, at the rate they're clearing the city. Armor elements are currently thundering down the highway to hopefully put a stop to it.
Not all of us.
Couldn't even scratch the bastard.
Yeah.
So...what's the plan now?
Couldn't even scratch the bastard.
Yeah.
So...what's the plan now?
I'm not supposed to say it, but honestly, I'm flying just as blind as you guys are. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's what we have to work with.
Rest up, everyone. We're all going to need it.
Are we, uh, going to talk about Trigger?
...Not here. We'll sort that out later.
Trigger earns 5 XP. 15/50 XP to advance?? Trigger's...different.
Count earns 10 XP. 32/35 XP to advance.
Huxian earns 15 XP. At 29/20 XP to advance, Huxian advances. 9/20 XP to advance.
Jaeger earns 15 XP. At 20/20 XP to advance, Jaeger advances. 0/20 XP to advance.
Mobius One earns 9 XP. 46/50 XP to advance.
Baker earns 21 XP. At 32/20 XP to advance, Baker advances. 12/35 XP to advance.
Mobius Four earns 26 XP. At 26/10 XP to advance, Mobius Four advances. At 16/10 XP to advance, Mobius Four advances. 6/20 XP to advance.
Blaze earns 23 XP. 24/50 XP to advance.
Captain earns 11 XP. At 36/20 XP to advance, Captain advances. 16/20 XP to advance.
Pops earns 9 XP. 9/20 XP to advance.
Archer earns 8 XP. At 41/35 XP to advance, Archer advances. 6/35 XP to advance.
Fencer earns 23 XP. 23/35 XP to advance.
Tailor earns 26 XP. At 26/20 XP to advance, Tailor advances. 6/20 XP to advance.
Skald earns 22 XP. At 22/20 XP to advance, Skald advances. 2/20 XP to advance.
Lanza earns 21 XP. At 21/20 XP to advance, Lanza advances. 1/20 XP to advance.
Nine Lives earns 32 XP. At 32/20 XP to advance, Nine Lives advances. 12/20 XP to advance.
Rigel 2 earns 21 XP. At 25/10 XP, Rigel 2 advances. At 15/10 XP, Rigel 2 advances. 5/10 to advance.
Zvezda 1 earns 21 XP. At 25/5 XP, Zvezda 1 advances. At 20/5 XP, Zvezda 1 advances. At 15/10 XP, Zvezda 1 advances. 5/10 XP.
Zvezda 2 earns 13 XP. At 17/5 XP, Zvezda 2 advances. At 12/5 XP, Zvezda 2 advances. 7/10 XP to advance.
Fat Man earns 18 XP. At 32/20 XP, Fat Man advances. 12/35 XP to advance.
Chaperone earns 19 XP. At 21/20 XP, Chaperone advances.
Azdaha 1 earns 13 XP. At 13/10 XP to advance, Azdaha 1 advances. 3/10 XP to advance.
Azdaha 2 earns 20 XP. At 21/10 XP to advance, Azdaha 2 advances. At 11/10 XP to advance, Azdaha 2 advances. 1/10 XP to advance.
Waltz 2 earns 15 XP. At 19/5 XP to advance, Waltz 2 advances. At 14/10 XP to advance, Waltz 2 advances. 4/10 XP to advance.
Druid 1 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Druid 1 advances. 0/10 XP to advance.
Druid 2 earns 5 XP. At 8/5 XP to advance, Druid 2 advances. 3/5 XP to advance.
Druid 3 earns 5 XP. At 8/5 XP to advance, Druid 3 advances. 3/5 XP to advance.
Druid 4 earns 13 XP. At 13/5 XP to advance, Druid 4 advances. 8/10 XP to advance.
Bard 1 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Bard 1 advances. 0/5 XP to advance.
Bard 3 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Bard 3 advances. 0/5 XP to advance.
Bard 4 earns 5 XP. At 5/5 XP to advance, Bard 4 advances. 0/5 XP to advance.
Pixy earns 17 XP. 17/35 XP to advance.
Baker is SS-Rank.
Mobius 4 is S-Rank.
Zvezda 1 is A-Rank.
Zvezda 2 is A-Rank.
Fat Man is SS-Rank.
Waltz 2 is A-Rank.
Druid 1 is A-Rank.
Druid 4 is A-Rank.
Losses:
3x F-14X XCOM Hellcat II.
3x EML.
Mobius Three.
Mobius Five.
Bard Two.
Pulford is waiting for Long Caster just outside the debriefing room. Hands folded behind his back, his frame is pulled into a taut line.
"Sir," Long Caster instinctively salutes. Pulford returns it sharply, before motioning Long Caster to follow him.
"Report," Pulford tightly says.
"Mission accomplished, though not because we drove them off - "Long Caster starts.
"That is not what I care about. Losses?" Pulford demands.
"Mobius Three, Mobius Five, Bard Three, and their aircraft. No chance of recovery."
Pulford nods. "Is that all?"
Long Caster blinked. "What do you mean, is that - ?"
"If that is all, that will be the best bloody piece of news I have had the displeasure of hearing all night," Pulford bit out.
"Ah."
Pulford glances sideways at Long Caster for an instant, before focusing in on the middle distance. The two of them walk in tense silence down a hallway. By the time they complete a loop around the building without stopping, Long Caster realizes Pulford is pacing.
Finally, Pulford sighs.
"I suppose there is no point in trying to compartmentalize anymore. XCOM USEA may well be the vast majority of XCOM's remaining combat power. We lost contact with XCOM OSEA's HQ shortly after combat operations began, and have heard nothing since.
"As for XCOM VERUSA, we have a report from their HQ that the submarine Gullfaxi reported hitting the alien battleship before a white beam hit somewhere near their location. Supposedly, that beam was so bright everyone on the continent could see it. After that, the alien battleship began to ascend, and alien screening elements are currently preventing XCOM VERUSA from ascertaining the status of the Gullfaxi.
"XCOM ANEA is the other branch that's managed to survive reasonably well, and by reasonably well I mean 'have managed to limp away with combat assets'. Supposedly, the hero of the Emmerian-Estovakian War, her wingmate, and the tattered remnants of Windhover Squadron managed to survive the alien burst attacks, while ground forces managed to not lose everybody to the alien attackers, thus leaving them in the second-best state out of all of XCOM."
"What about the Belkan front?" Long Caster asks.
"Nothing but bad news. Our EOMDF liaison was disappointed that no more help was forthcoming, and with reports of alien forces providing air and ground support the front line has been moving as fast as the EOMDF can retreat. Supposedly, the wing led by El Cero is slowing down the alien advance. But only that."
"I see."
"Which leaves us now in this bloody mess. We have the choice of either centralizing our forces, or spreading our aces out to try and stem the bleeding. Considering that you are the one in command of the forces, well..."
[] We should centralize our forces.
Gathering our aces, research, and engineering teams together, we abandon Osea entirely, leave tripwire forces in Anea, and then choose between centralizing in either Verusa's Red Corridor or Selatapura. The risk, of course, is that XCOM OSEA, ANEA, and VERUSA will simply disregard orders; however, the remaining force will be much stronger and be much more able to resist alien incursion.
[] We should stem the bleeding.
We maintain the four branches of XCOM, although we retreat to more defensible strong points; XCOM ANEA will reestablish itself in Bartolomeo Fortress, XCOM VERUSA remains in the Red Corridor, and XCOM OSEA finds and/or creates a new strongpoint entirely. In order to sustain these groups, we dispatch ace squadrons, like Strider, Cyclops, Razgriz, and Mobius Squadron for support.
Front page is not yet updated; I'll get around to that sometime TM. Gains from the Battle of Expo City are currently uncollectable, due to on-going house to house fighting between the National Guard and chitinous...bug creatures. XCOM is too far away to assist, at the rate they're clearing the city. Armor elements are currently thundering down the highway to hopefully put a stop to it.
Last edited:
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] We should stem the bleeding.
Don't give orders you know won't be followed, or can't. We can't abandon everyone else, and we simply can't get people there fast enough from one location.
Don't give orders you know won't be followed, or can't. We can't abandon everyone else, and we simply can't get people there fast enough from one location.
