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All Wo-rk and No Play: An Abyssal's Trials in the Job Market (KC)

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Wobulator said:
Ehhhh.
It depends on where they are. If, for example, they're in the Oregon forest, cruise missiles aren't going to do anything.
An A-10, however, is a godawful idea.
That's just screaming for a faceful of 5" rounds, which it will not survive.
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Never said that they would survive, or that it was a good idea, just that the ridiculous gun they have would probably do terrible things to a shipgirl. My point is that that is the degree of non-artillery gun you need to reliably impact a warship. (Keeping in mind that even the secondaries on a typical warship would qualify as 'artillery'.)

Though admittedly how terrible would depend on how exactly shipgirl physics works, given that whether a shipgirl functions physically as a full sized ship or a person sized ship is rather undefined.

Sgtsoldier123 said:
... Thought one of the points of the interstate was so it can be used to strategically move our military to any point they are needed. may be wrong, but what does a filthy civie like me know, eh? Skeptically on the wrecking part though, as I'm fairly certain M1s can travel over roads just fine. Also, I do not see why a tank would be limited to roads, their treads should be able to get them across rough terrain.

This is mostly just to show that the government is doing SOMETHING. These proposals may be the best we can do on short notice.
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Tank treads ruin roads, they can use em just fine, as long as you don't intend for anything other than more tanks to use the road after them. In order to drive a tank on a road and not wreck it all to hell you actually need to use special rubber inserts, though even with those IIRC if the road surface is hot enough the asphalt becomes 'gluey' enough that it gets wrecked anyway, doubly so when turning due to the physics of treaded vehicles.

And obviously, how heavy the tank is and how fast it is going has a significant impact on how much damage it does to a road. Lighter tanks can probably use roads all day long with the rubber inserts and be fine, heavier tanks not so much unless they're going very slowly, such as a parade or something.
 
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*Immediately googles this*
hmm, alright, I see your point. Still, it is theoretically possible to transport an Abrams using proper equipment (rubber inserts), at least in my mind. Especially if the government goes "screw it" and wrecks the interstate.

Hardly ideal though, I assume this will be a plan V or something, with plan Z being nuke the bloody thing.
 
Neruz said:
Never said that they would survive, or that it was a good idea, just that the ridiculous gun they have would probably do terrible things to a shipgirl. My point is that that is the degree of non-artillery gun you need to reliably impact a warship. (Keeping in mind that even the secondaries on a typical warship would qualify as 'artillery'.)
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Fair enough, lol
 
Sgtsoldier123 said:
*Immediately googles this*
hmm, alright, I see your point. Still, it is theoretically possible to transport an Abrams using proper equipment (rubber inserts), at least in my mind. Especially if the government goes "screw it" and wrecks the interstate.

Hardly ideal though, I assume this will be a plan V or something, with plan Z being nuke the bloody thing.
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Oh yeah, if you have a choice between 'we need to resurface the interstate' and 'my tanks aren't in position to do anything useful' any sensible military commander is going to wreck the roads every single time. Fixing a road is much easier than fixing enemy action.
 
Neruz said:
Oh yeah, if you have a choice between 'we need to resurface the interstate' and 'my tanks aren't in position to do anything useful' any sensible military commander is going to wreck the roads every single time. Fixing a road is much easier than fixing enemy action.
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Yeah, but even then, you're talking two hours to travel a hundred miles- nowhere near fast enough to react anywhere, even with roads.
 
Wobulator said:
Yeah, but even then, you're talking two hours to travel a hundred miles- nowhere near fast enough to react anywhere, even with roads.
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Indeed, it's the sort of thing you do when the situation is so completely fucked up that there is no reason to hold anything back. Normal logistics-wise I believe tanks are typically carted around on trains, or trucks if trains aren't an option. Tanks aren't exactly what you would call fuel efficient, nor are they designed to engage in cross-country dashes in response to an unexpected enemy invasion. If your tanks are having to bust ass across the countryside in order to just reach the target, something has probably gone very wrong.

Given that Trini is on foot and can no longer use her ship propulsion, there's really no reason to rush: It's going to take her hours if not days to get anywhere important. The trick will be keeping track of her, and how hard that will be depends entirely on how shipgirl radar signatures work.
 
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Neruz said:
Indeed, it's the sort of thing you do when the situation is so completely fucked up that there is no reason to hold anything back. Normal logistics-wise I believe tanks are typically carted around on trains, or trucks if trains aren't an option. Tanks aren't exactly what you would call fuel efficient, nor are they designed to engage in cross-country dashes in response to an unexpected enemy invasion. If your tanks are having to bust ass across the countryside in order to just reach the target, something has probably gone very wrong.
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But I'm saying that even beyond that, the response times are just... really, really big.
 
Wobulator said:
But I'm saying that even beyond that, the response times are just... really, really big.
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Sometimes a couple of hours does make the difference though, even on a strategic scale, and if so much shit has hit the fan that you think you might be in that kind of position then you really don't have the luxury of playing it safe. You just throw everything you have in the general direction of the problem and hope like fuck something works out.

That is definitely not the current situation though, if an entire Abyssal fleet plus Princess had made landfall then that might qualify for a 'USE EVERYTHING! And hope whatever is even theoretically within range can slow them down enough to consolidate our forces' scenario. But a single shot-to-hell carrier with unclear goals and deviant non-hostile behavior, while concerning, is not even close to justifying that kind of reaction.

It would, however, justify a whole bunch of logistical mobilization across the country as people try and figure out where Trini is going and how much material and personnel they can reasonably get to her target before she arrives. Possibly even to the point of commandeering the train lines entirely. And if there is one thing the USA's armed forces are really good at, it's logistics. In fact they are arguably the best in the world at logistics, even if they do insist on calling it 'systemology' instead.
 
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Neruz said:
Sometimes a couple of hours does make the difference though, even on a strategic scale, and if so much shit has hit the fan that you think you might be in that kind of position then you really don't have the luxury of playing it safe. You just throw everything you have in the general direction of the problem and hope like fuck something works out.

That is definitely not the current situation though, if an entire Abyssal fleet plus Princess had made landfall then that might qualify for a 'USE EVERYTHING! And hope whatever is even theoretically within range can slow them down enough to consolidate our forces' scenario. But a single shot-to-hell carrier with unclear goals and deviant non-hostile behavior, while concerning, is not even close to justifying that kind of reaction.

It would, however, justify a whole bunch of logistical mobilization across the country as people try and figure out where Trini is going and how much material and personnel they can reasonably get to her target before she arrives. Possibly even to the point of commandeering the train lines entirely. And if there is one thing the USA's armed forces are really good at, it's logistics. In fact they are arguably the best in the world at logistics, even if they do insist on calling it 'systemology' instead.
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Oh, absolutely- but they're going to focus their forces around the major cities- Seattle and San Francisco, mostly(Southern California is already plenty covered by San Diego). If she lands literally anywhere that's far away from there of which there's a lot, then we're talking pretty long response times. If she decides to just... go hide in a cave for a week? In the middle of the rain forest? You aren't gonna find her anytime soon.
 
Wobulator said:
Oh, absolutely- but they're going to focus their forces around the major cities- Seattle and San Francisco, mostly(Southern California is already plenty covered by San Diego). If she lands literally anywhere that's far away from there of which there's a lot, then we're talking pretty long response times. If she decides to just... go hide in a cave for a week? In the middle of the rain forest? You aren't gonna find her anytime soon.
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Depends on the radar signature thing, like, if Trini has the radar signature of an aircraft carrier that is just moving around on land somehow then keeping track of her shouldn't be too difficult, but if she has the radar signature of a human who is made out of aircraft carrier materials, or worse a human made out of normal human materials, then yeah they're never going to find her until she shows herself.
 
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Neruz said:
Depends on the radar signature thing, like, if Trini has the radar signature of an aircraft carrier that is just moving around on land somehow then keeping track of her shouldn't be too difficult, but if she has the radar signature of a human who is made out of aircraft carrier materials, or worse a human made out of normal human materials, then yeah they're never going to find her until she shows herself.
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Wrong. Even an aircraft carrier radar signature can get lost in the ground noise.
 
y'all talking about how to shoot trinite-chan, and here i am wondering how will trinite survive now? can she hunt and eat stuff there? how will she handle wandering around secretly? she's a carrier, not a submarine, and submarine probably would be baffled on how to submerge into land.

... will we see trinite-chan just... somehow ending up working in McDonalds? or funnier yet, a truck driver.
or maybe a park ranger. that would be hilarious, after an entire month doing park ranger job, trinite just suddenly remember "wait, i'm here to find my princess. where is she!? wait, i can use this internet thingie right? no, that's not my princess, that's not a (abyssal) princess at all!"
 
Lovhes said:
y'all talking about how to shoot trinite-chan, and here i am wondering how will trinite survive now? can she hunt and eat stuff there? how will she handle wandering around secretly? she's a carrier, not a submarine, and submarine probably would be baffled on how to submerge into land.

... will we see trinite-chan just... somehow ending up working in McDonalds? or funnier yet, a truck driver.
or maybe a park ranger. that would be hilarious, after an entire month doing park ranger job, trinite just suddenly remember "wait, i'm here to find my princess. where is she!? wait, i can use this internet thingie right? no, that's not my princess, that's not a (abyssal) princess at all!"
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She will be picked up by an aging hippie and then have a Great American Road Trip, meeting all kinds of interesting people on her search for her princess.
 
Lovhes said:
... will we see trinite-chan just... somehow ending up working in McDonalds? or funnier yet, a truck driver.
or maybe a park ranger. that would be hilarious, after an entire month doing park ranger job, trinite just suddenly remember "wait, i'm here to find my princess. where is she!? wait, i can use this internet thingie right? no, that's not my princess, that's not a (abyssal) princess at all!"
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She saw the transformation though? Not all that clearly, but she did see it.
 
Heaven Canceler said:
She saw the transformation though? Not all that clearly, but she did see it.
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did she know what's saratoga name when not being an abyssal princess though? for all we know, trinite only know saratoga as "mother" "midway princess" "carrier princess" or other variety of it that is not "saratoga"

also, considering trinite is kinda.. naive mixed with kinda slow to really think new ideas... she might just try to search "my mother princess" in google search. at least for starter.
 
PyrrhicSteel said:
Which is fair, and a really good argument can be made for having abyssals like this in a setting.

However, since the interpretation where firing heavy guns causes the shipgirl to turn into a projectile themselves is inherently funner to me, and since it allows for me to write crazy, Monty-Oum-style fights to contrast with the more grounded combat at sea, this story will be going with the former interpretation.
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The best part of this is that no one involved would really know what they were doing. Shipgirls and Abyssals should know how to fight at sea with a natural ease, but ridiculous acrobatics on land should be entirely new to them. I'd expect the first few battles like to involve a lot of tripping and falling.

Though this also makes the thought of mundane forces fighting an Abyssal on land even more dubious. Fighting a person sized bunker is bad enough, but a person sized bunker that can abruptly jump around dozens of feet? That makes things way harder.
 
Zefferen said:
The best part of this is that no one involved would really know what they were doing. Shipgirls and Abyssals should know how to fight at sea with a natural ease, but ridiculous acrobatics on land should be entirely new to them. I'd expect the first few battles like to involve a lot of tripping and falling.

Though this also makes the thought of mundane forces fighting an Abyssal on land even more dubious. Fighting a person sized bunker is bad enough, but a person sized bunker that can abruptly jump around dozens of feet? That makes things way harder.
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If by 'tripping and falling' you mean 'abrupt ballistic acrobatics and accidental mountainside interceptions' then yes, I expect it will.

Assuming that shipgirl physics fuckery is somewhat limited on land with regards to their 'apparent' mass and mitigating recoil, land battles would probably end up looking remarkably similar to warfare in Starsiege Tribes: People flying all over the place at ridiculous speeds while spitting high explosive death in every direction.

Of course, that's only after they've got some practice in. At first a shipgirl is going to engage a target and then wonder why she is suddenly airborne and traveling backwards at high speed. Bonus points if she gets a 'duh, physics' facepalm moment right before pancaking into a cliff.
 
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Dang mentioning Tribes makes me wonder what would happen if they put on some roller-blades designed for rugged terrain. It probably wouldn't be compatible with their rigging, but it would be pretty amazing if they could use the propulsion of their shots to get some ridiculous speed. Shipgirls battling it out on the highway would be spectacular.
 
Neruz said:
Bonus points if she gets a 'duh, physics' facepalm moment right before pancaking into a cliff.
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It is in no way obvious that anything like that would happen. In fact it would require even more physics melting than usual as you'd need the shipgirl (including the barrels of her guns) to be acting like a girl at the same time as her ammo (including the charge) acts like a ship.
 
khang said:
Would they be able to move on land with rigging out wouldn't that be the equivalent of beaching them selves?
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I figure they do the same as Wo, it hurt initially, then girl side logic take over and they can hobble chase onwards with their pistols equivalents

I hope Wo staff of awesome will smack some fools eventually

what the heck is it on the ship side? anchor?
 
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Zefferen said:
Dang mentioning Tribes makes me wonder what would happen if they put on some roller-blades designed for rugged terrain. It probably wouldn't be compatible with their rigging, but it would be pretty amazing if they could use the propulsion of their shots to get some ridiculous speed. Shipgirls battling it out on the highway would be spectacular.
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Project: Tankshipgirls is a go! Wheeeee!

If putting wheels on a battleship works, there really isn't any reason not to do that. :V
 
Man I kinda wish they talked it out more, or got Sara to show up during that whole conflict, poor Trinitite, it's gonna be a tough next few chapters for her that's for certain!
 
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