- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It sure is, and we're going to have to do that ASAP.
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Ace Combat XCOM: Enemy Skies
- Thread starter hYGP
- Start date
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Damn, that is dense.
You're telling me. Fuck.
This at least is good news.
Well, at least he is alive and eventually coming back.
Would this action also raise the country's support of XCOM and lower its alien support?
We delegated hiring science personnel to the Research Division so that we wouldn't need to spend Focus on hiring scientists. We did the same for Enginee
[X] Plan: Science, Science Everywhere
-[X] [Research] Fighter Analysis [40/80]
--[X] Charlie Burns (35 Scientists)
-[X] [Research] Bulb Ship Analysis [40/120]
--[X] Moira Vahlen (45 Scientists)
-[X] [Engineering] Stonehenge Project Estimation [2/5-15]
-[X] Long Caster
--[X] Contact other XCOM Commanders about overall XCOM situation, leading XCOM and how each continent is seeing XCOM and their efforts, and to spread info about the F-14X (Focus ?)
Researching enemy ships since we need to finish the fighter research to be able to continue improving our cannons and the bulbs (apparently) being enemy AWACS learning how they function is important. The more we know about the ships of our enemy, better we'll be at destroying them.
Also continuing the getting the Stonehenge up and running and thanks to our raised Focus cap decided to do the talk with the other XCOM Commanders know, while still keeping this week's Focus usage low to make sure that LC recovers.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
We should try to recruit Grunder Industries scientists who worked on Lasers. That might let us eventually design a laser replacement for the auto cannon
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
@huhYeahGoodPoint
Question to Vahlen: Which is better at damaging the alien material, heat or kinetic force?
Question to Vahlen: Which is better at damaging the alien material, heat or kinetic force?
- Location
- Somewhere and Nowhere in a state of super-position
Based on the way the craft vibrate more as they are hit, I assume that the craft vibrates so much from the damage that the internal machinery is damaged.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Dr. Vahlen: Define "better", "damaging", "heat", and "kinetic force" first, Commander. If we define them as "which means is easiest to deform" the alien materials, it would be heat, but... the requisite heat is measured in thousands of degrees Kelvin, and even then we could only shape the material with an incredible amount of "kinetic" force.
If anything, I think our most promising experiment was an attempt to shape the alloys by running an electromagnetic current through it under heat and force; that seemed to drop the requisite temperatures by one or two thousand Kelvin.
Asmodemus
Subversive Element
Hmm. The enemy craft aren't used to in atmosphere battles and use energy weaponry instead of kinetic. They seem to have no machinery that we're used to.. and the hull was left vibrating earlier..
Is it possible that our weapons' main impact wasn't actually penetration but reverberation? That the kinetic impacts are ringing the enemy's hulls so badly that it's shaking up whatever it is they use for control systems until they break and that's what is really dealing the damage?
And if so can we devise a weapon to capitalize on that or test it out as a theory?
Is it possible that our weapons' main impact wasn't actually penetration but reverberation? That the kinetic impacts are ringing the enemy's hulls so badly that it's shaking up whatever it is they use for control systems until they break and that's what is really dealing the damage?
And if so can we devise a weapon to capitalize on that or test it out as a theory?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
OK yeah this is the shit.
The best I was hoping for was that we could research how to shape alien hull-metal into our own fighter airframes, so that they could be made lighter for equal G-tolerance and better able to withstand the strain of firing EMLs. This is really something though.
I think we need to push the bulb ship analysis. Given how... weirdly... the fighter wrecks reacted to us cutting into them, I'm beginning to wonder if they're piloted or teleoperated somehow- possibly flown by telepathically controlled brains in jars or something. Since taking down bulb ships was historically our best force multiplier, understanding them and just what they do is likely to help a lot.
Meanwhile, Magnetic Accelerators tech presumably means significant improvements on the EML and/or on new Stonehenge-type defensive installations. Want.
My current working hypothesis is the same one as @Asmodemus 's. Namely, that we've been shooting them down by exploiting their tendency to vibrate when struck, instead of damping out the vibrations. Vibrations are high-frequency, so inertial damping or whatever probably has trouble canceling them.
Sooooo... We shoot them down by hammering them so many times that the vibrations build up until either the pilot's brain gets shaken to jelly, sensitive equipment gets shaken into junk, or something similar.
An EML round might be able to actually penetrate, though; the fighters' shells are thicker but not as tough as I'd feared. Sure, the equivalent of two feet of steel armor sounds nigh-invulnerable, but it's not out of the question for modern antitank weapons. Though that does mean that the alien fighters are effectively flying tanks, with armor competitive with the best modern main battle tanks from their most heavily protected favorable angles, all around.
On the other hand, laser weapons may not be the way to go against enemy airframes this tough. Given just how superb their thermal conductivity is, we might just end up lightly warming the enemy's hull all over.
I propose that in our next turn IC budget we purchase one TLS module for static ground testing against an alien wreck. If it seems to work acceptably, put it on the Su-37 formerly known as Baker's.
OK, I like how this turned out. Building up some extra IC in the Gunther Bay area may help.
Oh, one more thing, we need to investigate Wellow soon.
Oh, and one more more thing. We need to poach people from the ruins of Grunder industries. They may have some energy weapons experts we badly need, among other things.
@huhYeahGoodPoint , I'm a bit confused by what we're voting for here.
OK, this is very good. We can procure TLS, and it sounds like if we can get our own in-house team we can make them... if we want them. See previous comment about them maybe not being so effective against an enemy hull made out of thermal superconductors.
Similar remarks apply to the PLSL.
I suspect we'll have to do overhauls of our F-14X-EMLs after every flight or two, but it's still worth it, and it sounds like Albastru-Electrice is scaling up production which is very good news; we can continue up-arming.
OK, so that's great. Next turn we start working on F-14Xs to replace Rigel's Su-33s, but prioritize arming our existing F-14X fleet with EMLs. GOOD JOB BURNS!
Also, F-14X-EMLs may actually be worth replacing F-35s with, since a big part of the value those provide in addition to 5th-gen maneuverability is radar stealth which is as useless as a screen door on an airlock against the aliens.
Oh I was checking and uh, did you say Archer was S-tier or SS-tier after the last battle?
Uh why? We're gonna have to spend focus on that I guess.
Ahhh. Poor sap. Well, glad they're alive at least?
Oh my cool.
Let's see, we have 60 Focus to play with.
I suggest we spend it talking to X-COM Osea about recent developments- Belka and to a lesser extent Wellow.
I'm guessing our plans to shape and work them resemble induction furnaces...
Hm. I like your basic approach.
I think we should wait on Magnetic Accelerators tech before starting a Stonehenge rebuild, because I suspect that once we have the technology, we can make it better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster, But that's not an obstacle to completing the project study on a rebuild.
On the other hand, I'm a bit iffy on your division of labor. It may be that 1 scientist contributes 1 point of research, and I'd hate to have Burns' team stalled on the project at 75/80 progress. Also, I have different ideas about how to spend Focus. In particular, I think our efforts should be more, uh... focused.
[X] Plan: Focus In
-[X] [Research] Fighter Analysis [40/80]
--[X] Charlie Burns (40 Scientists)
-[X] [Research] Bulb Ship Analysis [40/120]
--[X] Moira Vahlen (40 Scientists)
-[X] [Engineering] Stonehenge Project Estimation [2/5-15]
-[X] Long Caster
--[X] Memo to Adam Khatuna, head of Human Resources: start headhunting more scientists and engineers, with an eye to recruiting former Grunder Industries low-rankers. Make sure to run background checks. (5 Focus)
--[X] Memo to Bradford: find a background check agency to vet the people Khatuna's headhunting. Better yet, find more than one. We might still be able to hire some fairly shady people if we need to, but we need to know what about them is shady, and keep an eye on them. (5 Focus).
--[X] Memo to Shen, Vahlen, and all research team leaders or senior researchers: if any specialized pieces of heavy industrial or scientific equipment are required now or in the future, please submit specific requests, including technical requirements and the purpose of the request, with attached IC cost estimates, as expeditiously as possible. They and their people are invaluable members of XCOM, and their needs will be considered a high priority. Waiting for us to ask if anything's wrong is counterproductive. In future, proactive requests for equipment will be met as soon as practicable. (5 Focus)
--[X] Memo to Pixy. Mr. Foulke's dedication to duty and offensive spirit is very much commended. However, we need to re-evaluate cases where critical damage to Mr. Foulke's current airframe causes severe degradation of combat capability. While we understand that there may be circumstances where his remaining aloft in a critically damaged aircraft is necessary to avert imminent mass casualty events or total military disaster, outside these extraordinary circumstances, it is to be considered undesirable. Please inform Mr. Foulke that except under the circumstances cited above, saving his own life so that he can continue murdering the fuck out of the enemy tomorrow, and every other day is to be considered a higher priority than continuing to engage the enemy and killing the fuck out of them today at greatly reduced efficiency in a one-winged airplane. If necessary, we will have legal department draw up a suitable "basic common sense" clause to his contract. If necessary we will hire a legal department specifically for this purpose. We're all very impressed, but we value him as a long-term strategic asset. (5 Focus)
--[X] Contact the commander of XCOM Osea about their status. Try to gain information about the situation with Belka, and anything they know about Wellow or alien involvement there. Also spread info about the F-14X, now with railgun capability! (40 Focus, more if necessary, this is pretty important)
...
[NOTE TO SELF BUT NOT PART OF PLAN: Next turn, sort the Shen-Pulford dispute]
[NOTE TO SELF BUT NOT PART OF PLAN: Next turn, plan to buy one TLS for testing purposes, and a bunch of EMLs for our F-14Xs. Buy another F-14X or two for reserve plane purposes]
[NOTE TO SELF BUT NOT PART OF PLAN: Next turn, set aside some IC to upgrade our fighter production plant to be capable of turning out one F-14X per turn by default. Since 2400 IC bought us 1500 IC/turn of plane-making, it seems reasonable to suppose that another 1600 or so would buy us the 1000 or so we need.]
[NOTE TO SELF BUT NOT PART OF PLAN: The balance of our IC budget should go to building up industrial capacity- I suggest aid to needy surrounding Usean polit(ies) including Gunther Bay, but also to sling at least a little bit Estovakia's way, and to keep doing that]
...
Seriously, the XCOM Osea situation is bad. They just took massive casualties, the only SSR-tier ace on their continent doesn't work for them, one sizeable country on Osea appears to be defecting, an arms manufacturer known to collude with them and possibly making some of XCOM Osea's weapons just collapsed, and then there's the Wellow thing just to add some icing to the giant Belkan bundt cake.
We need to specifically get through to them and help them out, or they may fold and leave us in a much worse situation (e.g. Trigger and the Razgriz being recalled by the Osean Federation to defend the homeland).
...
EDIT NOTES:
Added some edits that were not part of the original plan. Added memo to Shen and Vahlen to quit being passive-aggressive about their equipment needs, directly ordering them to just hand us a cost estimate the next time they need heavy equipment they don't have and can't get ahold of on their own. Because this crap where they want things that they don't have and sit around for weeks grumbling and experiencing obstacles to their research is just annoying. If they want something that costs 10000 IC or something, well, we may not be able to do it, but we could at least seriously consider it. Better than not knowing if there's some 100 IC electro-iono-acousto-whozit that would solve their current problems in like ten seconds and that we could buy out of petty cash.
Also, edited in a memo to Pixy. Because this Solo Wing shit is kind of hilarious as a running gag, but if he keeps it up he just might actually die.
Also added some notes to self on what to do with IC budgeting next turn, at least assuming we don't lose any more planes.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Maybe. The kinds of countries that would get their support raised and have the alien support lowered (e.g Estovakia or Leasath) are mostly saying "look, we desperately need aid, and any port at all is welcome in this shit tornado our life has been".
On the other hand, Osea might not even notice until you put like half your IC into developing Osea's Industrial Capacity.
Very prescient. Tell me, did I confirm earlier that the aliens were not initially equipped for atmospheric battle? Because if not, I'm going to confirm that thus far, the aliens are not equipped for atmospheric battle.
Reverbration seems to be the best guess by far for the source of damage. Devising a weapon to capitalize or test it out would require figuring out what you broke, no?
There's a simpler explanation for why the fighter wrecks collapsed in on themselves when your team cut into them. Also, one of your guesses about how they're operated is very close to what's going on.
Essentially, your Engineering team wants an assignment because
SS-tier, which is now fixed on the front page.
Avril figured something out for Dr. Vahlen. Dr. Shen is begging you in his usual "I understand that this is a bit of an excessive request" way to please buy a proper induction furnace before i tear it down out of stress aaaaaaa -
After everything Dr. Vahlen's seen, she slapped some caution tape and tries to not think about it too hard, like most of what she's done this week.
And this is what you get the insightful for. Notice the Militarism score attached to each country?
Osea's militarism hasn't quite shot up yet, but it probably will when the weekend rolls around.
If that number shoots up too high and Osea doesn't think that XCOM is doing enough for them, Osea is just going to pull out and do their own thing, damn everyone else in the world.
Osea's number one, after all. And if they have to save the world themselves instead of some Usean backstabbers and East Osean weaklings, they'll do it.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Duly noted.
It might be a good idea to sling some IC Estovakia's way. They (via Albastru-Electrice) are providing us with two of our most valuable weapon systems, the Nosferatus and the EMLs.
Mm-HM.
You know, those reverberation problems would actually be worse in a vacuum, because at least being surrounded by air gives you SOME ability to radiate away vibrations as sound energy. And to dump heat energy via convection.
This makes me think that whoever these craft were built to fight, they probably use energy weapons. Actually, the hyper-mobile craft with thermally superconductive hulls are probably almost ideally suited to fight with beam and 'energy bolt' weapons in a vacuum, now that I think about it. The "dodge rapidly in any direction" propulsion system makes them resistant to long range targeting, even with hypervelocity weapons- even with lasers from the kinds of ranges lasers would otherwise be able to engage at in principle in a vacuum. And the superconductive thermal properties would make them highly resistant to spot damage from weapons that dump energy into the hull, while the very great mass of thermal superconductor (hundreds and hundreds of tons, surely) would act as an excellent heat sink.
One wonders if they have materials with nigh-perfect thermal insulating properties too...
The only thing I can think of is... no, it's no good. Given how dense and strong the hull is, the "cutting it ruins the structural integrity and it collapses like an eggshell under atmospheric pressure" theory just doesn't hold water unless this stuff REALLY loses all its strength improbably fast after losing hull integrity.
Which... uh... would be really weird.
Well that's reasonable. I mean, about the only thing I can think of would be to make the bullets out of alien hull metal (we need a better name for that shit), and even that probably wouldn't help without a hypervelocity gun.
OK, well, I'll be happy to allocate some IC to that just as soon as he gives us a cost estimate. Maybe I'd better edit that into my plan.
Well, if we market the F-14X design to X-COM Osea, and to the Osean Air Force itself, maybe that will help some. I'm sure the OAF (OASDF, whatever) could use a fighter that performs like a 5th-gen interceptor without having the excessive cost of a stealth aircraft.
Also, we DID help save their Arsenal Bird, so.
- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
If HESH Rounds have a personification...HESH chan would proudly say "I was born for this"
Unfortunately HESH chan is a tank round. So if we want HESH chan to be able to help XCOM...we have to both chibify HESH chan and upgun HESH chan's partner Autocannon kun from 20mm to...30-37mm.
...so maybe we divide the two tasks between Burns and Scrap Queen?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Kilopi, the problem is that HESH works by spallation. I'm pretty sure this stuff won't spall, it'll just shake. I'm not sure it'll shake harder from taking hits from HESH cannon rounds than from normal ones.
Also there's good reason to think that the project will simply fail, that we can't downsize the relevant ammunition.
TheSilenceIsVast
Of the Sun
- Location
- United States
Reverberation? Time to send the entire airforce up in A-10s.
In seriousness though, I'm with Simon on the plan here.
[X] Plan: Focus In
In seriousness though, I'm with Simon on the plan here.
[X] Plan: Focus In
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
@huhYeahGoodPoint
Three questions.
1) Was Stonehenge, as it existed circa 2004, based on railgun/electromotive/magnetic design principles, or was it a chemical-explosive gun that somehow achieved extraordinary muzzle velocities, or was it some other third category of thing?
2) Will the F-14X cost more because of modifications required to mount the EML, and if so, how much? Or are those costs baked into the costs of the EML itself?
3) Looking at the current iteration of my plan, with its memos to Pixy and Shen-and-Vahlen... in Long Caster's opinion, would either of those two memos be likely to cause serious morale or management problems with regards to the people they're being sent to?
Copying better material science from the aliens would likely help with that though.
Three questions.
1) Was Stonehenge, as it existed circa 2004, based on railgun/electromotive/magnetic design principles, or was it a chemical-explosive gun that somehow achieved extraordinary muzzle velocities, or was it some other third category of thing?
2) Will the F-14X cost more because of modifications required to mount the EML, and if so, how much? Or are those costs baked into the costs of the EML itself?
3) Looking at the current iteration of my plan, with its memos to Pixy and Shen-and-Vahlen... in Long Caster's opinion, would either of those two memos be likely to cause serious morale or management problems with regards to the people they're being sent to?
A laser replacement for the auto cannon is called the PLSL; it currently goes in special weapon slots like a gun pod, but in principle it should probably be possible to mount one in the nose like a conventional cannon, at least in theory, I would think.
Copying better material science from the aliens would likely help with that though.
Zoosmell
Blind Idiot Arcana
- Location
- Kansas
According to Acepedia, 1 and 2. It used a combination of chemical explosives and electric rails to make up for the fact that Erusea in the late 1990s simply didn't have the money/tech to make eight railguns the size of skyscrapers that fired shells the size of schoolbuses.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
1) A combination of both; an initial chemical-explosive to start the round, and railgun/electromotive/magnetic launcher to enable extremely high exit velocities.
2) The cost is built into the EML pricing itself.
3) Probably not.
SHEN: Considering the scale of the alien alloys we'll be able to process regardless, the induction furnace we're going to want to use is probably going to cost about 50 IC.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
GREAT! See? We can afford that out of petty cash! You'll hopefully have it in like a week or so, barring any logistical hangups.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
We absolutely need to smooth things over between Pulford and Shen. This sort of shit festers, and the worse communication is between all our departments, the more inefficient all of our activities become. We need to deal with this now before it becomes more of a problem, and personnel management at this level is pretty much the single most important thing Long Caster can do.
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If vibrations are what cause damage to the alien ships... shouldn't we be able to tune up or down our autocannons to fire bullets at the resonant frequency of the giant hollow resonating chamber that is an alien ship?
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If vibrations are what cause damage to the alien ships... shouldn't we be able to tune up or down our autocannons to fire bullets at the resonant frequency of the giant hollow resonating chamber that is an alien ship?
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
That is impossible. We have no intact ships that we could use to find some sort of resonant frequency, which wouldn't exist anyway because the alien ships are not homogenous materials. Also the only reason the ships were hollow was because they self destruct after being shot down or something like that.
Asmodemus
Subversive Element
Clearly the answer is we need to deploy airborne marines into the enemy ships during combat.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yesbut.
It's also 100 Focus, and I'm trying to keep us at least close to the border of "in the green" this week after Long Caster's near-collapse from exhaustion in the recent past.
So I'm saying we let it wait a few more days. Remember that Pulford isn't one of our subordinates like Shen, he's our commanding officer. We're there to present something of a barrier between the two, and it's reasonable to hope that it can wait long enough to become our priority in next week's plan.
[Note that next week I won't vote for any plans NOT resolving the rift between them, unless there's some overarching world-threatening cataclysm that demands our undivided attention at all costs]
Wouldn't work, because the gun impact points will be scattered unpredictably across the target's hull, and because relative motion of the firing platform and the target will alter the frequency of the rounds' impact on the target (think like a Doppler shift)
The outer hull is, so it might be possible in theory... but in practice it would immediately get tripped up by the points I make above. We couldn't actually ensure that our autocannon rounds are hitting the target at 31.26 Hz or whatever every time, and we definitely can't get up into the hundreds or thousands of hertz, which is far more likely to be a resonant frequency of something like this. The sound speed in that metal has to be absurd, so any resonant frequencies will be very high-pitched.
Some kind of ghastly overzealous anti-tampering mechanism does seem a likely explanation.[/QUOTE]
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
They use plasma, not energy weapons.
It doesn't work that way. The Alien Alloys project was 30/120 and it had 80 scientists on it and was finished in under a week.
We can except them to fix that oversight in the near future.
It is possible. ADF-11F Raven has a PLSL instead of a autocannon, but it was experimental 7th Gen, so having PLSL replace our cannons is possible, just a question of research, time and money.
It wasn't near-collapse. He did collapse from exhaustion and due to that we didn't manage to do everything we had planned that week.
[X] Plan Focus In
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Derp, yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
---
@huhYeahGoodPoint, can we assign team leads to engineering projects?
Also, on that note, the space elevator can beam power to any point within the hemisphere, yeah? Are the ruins of CHANDELIER within beamable power range, and will we risk melting the iceberg it sits on if we try to power the giant railgun from space?