Attempting to Shatter the Skies: An Ace Combat Plan Quest

[Simon_Jester]

But I've got to ask, is the floating continent really a possibility? I know Ace Combat has a number of ridiculous megastructures and giant superweapons, but I thought they were more along the lines of impractical designs that look like their creators had an infinite R&D budget, but still on the edges of RL possibilities. Like the space elevator or the flying drone aircraft carrier.

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Your assessment is correct. Lifting a continent into the air is way beyond the scale of the kind of ambitious megaproject we see done Ace Combat.

There's no anti-gravity technology, at least not in this era of the game (not sure about Ace Combat 3, which is set in the 2040s)

I'm not going to say we can't do it, that's the QM's place to decide, but I really don't expect it to be viable. A flying city of some kind, maybe sure, since that's at least sort of commensurate with the scale of the existing 'flying battleship' superweapons like the Arsenal Birds in the sense of "ten times as big."

We put a layer a metal to act as a border around the piece we are lifting into the air.

Kind of like a giant bowl.

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OK, that still requires us to dig underneath the whole continent (or the bits we want to save) and install the bowl, plus we have problems like "when we take off, where is the jet/rocket exhaust that's supposed to lift us going?"

I asked the QM and they said they would answer later.

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Well yeah, same as mine.

 

[DragonMAtlas]

I'm not going to say we can't do it, that's the QM's place to decide, but I really don't expect it to be viable. A flying city of some kind, maybe sure, since that's at least sort of commensurate with the scale of the existing 'flying battleship' superweapons like the Arsenal Birds in the sense of "ten times as big."

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I mean if worst happen I just reduce the scope to Nations instead of Regions/Continents.

As for dig underneath the continents, I pretty sure Nod will manage as they do have a global underground tunnel connect through continent in Canon. So I don't think it gonna be weird to see them focus on 1 specific continents and build something that hold the ground together.

 

[Silvis]

plus we have problems like "when we take off, where is the jet/rocket exhaust that's supposed to lift us going?"

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We add openings on the bottom that the thrusters/lift mechanism would be in. Of course we would have to reinforce the area around them. But that's certainly possible.

 

[Simon_Jester]

That why we use Nod Subterranean tech are important as its can help with digging out and keeping the ground intact.
As Nod got vast spanning tunnel system across the globe in canon so there might as well have something to help with these jobs.

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There's a significant difference in scale between, say, having a couple of hundred thousand linear kilometers of tunnels and having substantially undermined the entire several million square miles of continent and built big reinforced metal structures under all of it.

Plus, I suspect Nod started with more resources than us in canon, and may have taken more than three years to build the tunnel network.

 

[Asmodemus]

A sufficiently giant laser to be relevant in defending Strangereal against Ulysses as a whole is going to be really big, built to the same general scale as the canonical Excalibur. I don't think we can take such a system and just "make it mobile," and as I understand it that's important to you.

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Yes, we cannot just pick up the entire thing. But if we have it so specific parts of the laser assembly can be ripped out lowering it's power and capability immensely but fitting it onto a craft, like a Avatar tearing the weapon off a Beam Cannon, that'd be really cool.

 

[Silvis]

Plus, I suspect Nod started with more resources than us in canon, and may have taken more than three years to build the tunnel network.

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We likely do have more manpower than them though.

 

[DragonMAtlas]

We likely do have more manpower than them though.

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Technically not true as Nod got support over yellow zone population, although we do win over technical front on skilled workers.

There's a significant difference in scale between, say, having a couple of hundred thousand linear kilometers of tunnels and having substantially undermined the entire several million square miles of continent and built big reinforced metal structures under all of it.

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And see how far there spread across multiples continent? I pretty sure each continents got there own tunnels system that cover most yellow zone as we seen in Tiberium 2.

Also that not the point, the point is Subterranean APC (also from Tiberium 2) is Nod tech that technically allows for them to dig absolutely everywhere. (as long as the ground there gonna surface don't have harden concrete cover them of course.
Which gonna be very helpful in drilling the whole continents.

edit: Whew my idea got shot.

 

[grimely]

This is not the Brotherhood of Nod from Command & Conquer. Do not use Command & Conquer as an indicator of your capabilities. This is more of a cameo and a funny joke than a crossover quest.

 

[Simon_Jester]

We add openings on the bottom that the thrusters/lift mechanism would be in. Of course we would have to reinforce the area around them. But that's certainly possible.

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What happens when you light the rocket engine and all that rocket exhaust starts coming out underneath the ground? I am not so sure that the exhaust can be contained and channeled safely, given how powerful the engines must be.

And see how far there spread across multiples continent? I pretty sure each continents got there own tunnels system that cover most yellow zone as we seen in Tiberium 2.

Also that not the point, the point is Subterranean APC (also from Tiberium 2) is Nod tech that technically allows for them to dig absolutely everywhere. (as long as the ground there gonna surface don't have harden concrete cover them of course.
Which gonna be very helpful in drilling the whole continents.

edit: Whew my idea got shot.

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Aside from what the QM said, there's a huge difference between being able to dig tunnels anywhere and being able to not only dig so much that every bit of relevant land is "just tunnel," but that you have replaced the rock with big metal plates and rocket engines.

Honestly, if you had enough rocket engines to lift, say, a million tons of continental landmass (which is much less than one square kilometer of land), you could probably just launch a giant weapon into space to smite Ulysses completely and destroy it.

Yes, we cannot just pick up the entire thing. But if we have it so specific parts of the laser assembly can be ripped out lowering it's power and capability immensely but fitting it onto a craft, like a Avatar tearing the weapon off a Beam Cannon, that'd be really cool.

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It sounds really rad and cool, but I think there'd be a huge scale mismatch unless the Avatar-alike was the size of a mountain. To the point where we just don't get the "we are actually building a powerful and truly effective superweapon" so much as "we are building a thing that shares a lot of component parts with a useful weapon system."

 

[DragonMAtlas]

Honestly, if you had enough rocket engines to lift, say, a million tons of continental landmass (which is much less than one square kilometer of land), you could probably just launch a giant weapon into space to smite Ulysses completely and destroy it.

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Honestly true more cost effective that way, still hopefully we got some anti gravity tech which don't exist yet. Or some crazy propulsion system. To make its viable.

So I think submerging seem more possible at least on technical front + its long term investment. (We might get mix of fighter jet that can turn in to submarine and back too)

 

[Silvis]

Honestly true more cost effective that way, still hopefully we got some anti gravity tech which don't exist yet. Or some crazy propulsion system.

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It might be less cost effective. But it's also way cooler.

And not a one use thing.

 

[Asmodemus]

It sounds really rad and cool, but I think there'd be a huge scale mismatch unless the Avatar-alike was the size of a mountain. To the point where we just don't get the "we are actually building a powerful and truly effective superweapon" so much as "we are building a thing that shares a lot of component parts with a useful weapon system."

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Yeah, giant robot like a redeemer that rips pieces out to use to empower itself was kind of just an optimized cool idea. I mean, it would only be able to roam Antarctica due the size of the thing and be unable to be transported elsewhere.

It'd more be we carefully extract the useful bits from the cannon once done with it's purpose to make a new, smaller, less powerful, superlaser that's attached to a flying massive airship that can then devastate our enemies since we don't need the full power of something that can wreck up a giant asteroid to defeat enemies.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, but honestly I'd rather just have the superweapon be more or less useable as-is without extensive refitting into a role it wasn't originally designed for, thus my interest in basically building Excalibur 2.0.

 

[Nerdorama]

Yeah like. There's absolutely no way that in 3 years with the current tech base we're making a fucking floating continent. What? That's an insane scope of praying that a miracle technology exists, even for a quest in a science fictional setting. There is zero basis for that idea even being kind of feasible.

I'm for "meteorite deleting laser array" but I'd like to posit a sub-idea for the mobility goal: laser arrays that fit on giant nuclear-powered flying wing aircraft.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

So far Joyeuse seems like the best option we have.

 

[DragonMAtlas]

So.. I got crazy idea...

[] Plan:
What if we send Ace combat Pilot in to space?
-[] Name: Project Bifrost
-[] Concept: A fighter jet that design to operate both in space and in atmosphere, equipped with the best techs and weapons to divert the asteroid path from Earth with bombardment and weaponry.
--[] Scope: Monumental
--[] Approach: Fragment destruction + Pre-fragment reduction
--[] Mobility: Mobile (it a starfighter, nuclear thrusters is my guess)
--[] Location: Caulden.
-[] Host Mandates:
--[] [Antarc] Protect ancestral fisheries and hunting grounds
--[] [Chaldea] Establish world-class research institutions
--[] [Joint] Create a meaningful military
-[] Intent: To safeguard Humanity and to the birth of the greatest Pilot sho will ever live.

Aka. The ultimate aircraft the Player fly to end humanity threat. (Spend 10k points on one fighter jet)

Why not fit everything Monumental megastructure should have in to fighter jet that can go to space?

 

[Silvis]

Yeah like. There's absolutely no way that in 3 years with the current tech base we're making a fucking floating continent. What? That's an insane scope of praying that a miracle technology exists, even for a quest in a science fictional setting. There is zero basis for that idea even being kind of feasible.

I'm for "meteorite deleting laser array" but I'd like to posit a sub-idea for the mobility goal: laser arrays that fit on giant nuclear-powered flying wing aircraft.

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Until the QM says otherwise I'm going to say it's possible.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I'm for "meteorite deleting laser array" but I'd like to posit a sub-idea for the mobility goal: laser arrays that fit on giant nuclear-powered flying wing aircraft.

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Roleplaying the superweapon engineer, my objection to mounting the giant laser on a giant flying wing is that there are very few advantages to doing so, in the anti-asteroid role. A stationary mount can be arbitrarily large, but even in Ace Combat there's a limit to how big and heavy you can make a flying battleship.

So far Joyeuse seems like the best option we have.

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Able/Archer is actually a perfectly viable plan as far as I'm concerned. It's just not as mad sciencey.

EDIT:

Durandal is a good basic idea too. The biggest things Joyeuse has going for it are twofold. One, it's relatively easy to convert into a superweapon when the time to go full madboy arrives. Two, it's separable, in that the primary weapon system is something we already know works: basically Excalibur with detail design changes. The 'Holy Lance' chirped laser system is nice, but the basic concept works without it. The 'Paladin' support satellites are more than just nice, but the basic concept should still be able to defend a moderate area of land against direct impacts without them. So if we find we cannot launch the 'Paladins,' there's still a chance for us to freak out and start massively hardening the coastlines against impending tsunamis.

 

[Nerdorama]

Roleplaying the superweapon engineer, my objection to mounting the giant laser on a giant flying wing is that there are very few advantages to doing so, in the anti-asteroid role. A stationary mount can be arbitrarily large, but even in Ace Combat there's a limit to how big and heavy you can make a flying battleship.

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Reviewing the plans in more detail, this is more a suggested tweak to the ABLE half of ABLE/ARCHER, which wanted a modular, mobile array of moderate-sized lasers to break up the fragments. Big flying battleships would be the ideal mobility option there since they don't depend on land infrastructure in the "splash zone". If we're restricting ourselves to a singular monumental cannon a la Durandal, flying it around would obviously be pointless.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Reviewing the plans in more detail, this is more a suggested tweak to the ABLE half of ABLE/ARCHER, which wanted a modular, mobile array of moderate-sized lasers to break up the fragments. Big flying battleships would be the ideal mobility option there since they don't depend on land infrastructure in the "splash zone". If we're restricting ourselves to a singular monumental cannon a la Durandal, flying it around would obviously be pointless.

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That makes sense. Though if we want a fleet of nuclear-powered flying wings, we're going to need provisions for places to land them after Ulysses finishes falling. Lots of potential airstrips. I don't think you want things like that to be doing rough-field landings.

 

[Silencian]

So a concept I wanted to put up.

Name: Hermes and Nymphs (Ion Cannon Array)

Concept: A railgun launch assist facility (Hermes) to accelerate reusable large single stage to orbit craft/shuttles (Nymphs). The shuttles will carry the components and crew to assemble a laser orbital defense satellite network which will target and destroy Ulyssess fragments.

Scope: Huge to Monumental/Scalable. More launches completed means more laser satellites deployed thus having more lasers to shoot at Ulysses to protect more area of the planet.

Approach: Pre-Fragment reduction.

Mobility: Stationary - Ground based railgun launch assist facility, orbital satellite network.

Location: On the island area administrated by the brotherhood of Nod.

Mandates:
Extend Ulysses Mitigation Efforts to Aurelia - basically get them covered by the satellite defense network.
Establish World-Class research institutions - gonna need some good brains to build the Hermes and Nymphs system.
Expand GDI - get more resources to pour into making a more comprehensive satellite defense grid to cover the new nations joining GDI

Intent: A sparkling shield with which to defend our world from extra-orbital threats, and if the cannons can be shifted to point towards the planet… well thats just something we leave in the fine print.

 

[Nerdorama]

Personally, I'm wary of orbital options because we're in about the worst spot on the planet to generate the delta-v needed to get into orbit. If we'd settled down in the thick of things in Usea sure, but a railgun launch from the Antarctic is going to need orders of magnitude more power than one from the equator.

EDIT you know what ignore what I said here. I may be thinking specifically how to reach GEO, which might not be necessary for weapons satellites. I'll research more.

 

[Simon_Jester]

So a concept I wanted to put up.

Name: Hermes and Nymphs (Ion Cannon Array)

Concept: A railgun launch assist facility (Hermes) to accelerate reusable large single stage to orbit craft/shuttles (Nymphs). The shuttles will carry the components and crew to assemble a laser orbital defense satellite network which will target and destroy Ulyssess fragments.

Scope: Huge to Monumental/Scalable. More launches completed means more laser satellites deployed thus having more lasers to shoot at Ulysses to protect more area of the planet.

Approach: Pre-Fragment reduction.

Mobility: Stationary - Ground based railgun launch assist facility, orbital satellite network.

Location: On the island area administrated by the brotherhood of Nod.

Mandates:
Extend Ulysses Mitigation Efforts to Aurelia - basically get them covered by the satellite defense network.
Establish World-Class research institutions - gonna need some good brains to build the Hermes and Nymphs system.
Expand GDI - get more resources to pour into making a more comprehensive satellite defense grid to cover the new nations joining GDI

Intent: A sparkling shield with which to defend our world from extra-orbital threats, and if the cannons can be shifted to point towards the planet… well thats just something we leave in the fine print.

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Hm. Also seems like a valid concept, though I personally favor the raw hitting power we can get from a ground-based system given the precedent of Excalibur working.

The big tricky part is that the mass driver is a single point of failure- we need to get it up and working fast.

Personally, I'm wary of orbital options because we're in about the worst spot on the planet to generate the delta-v needed to get into orbit. If we'd settled down in the thick of things in Usea sure, but a railgun launch from the Antarctic is going to need orders of magnitude more power than one from the equator.

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Eh, it's not that bad. Equatorial launch gives you at most something like 450-500 m/s of extra delta-v. For chemical rockets where every little bit counts due to the infamous tyranny of the rocket equation, it's a problem, but if we can rig up a mass driver or my preferred laser launch system then it's a lot less of a problem.

But there's a reason why I plan to put the Twelve Paladins in 'Molniya' orbits, because they were developed by the Soviet Union specifically to address this problem: to get satellites into orbital trajectories that would let them be more or less 'hovering' over high latitude regions of the world for a long time, without the enormous delta-v expense of launching a payload into geosynchronous orbit from high latitudes.

 

[Nerdorama]

Yeah I thought it was more of a problem than that, but that might be for like, communications satellites that need geosynchronous orbit parallel with the equator. If we're just lobbing a big gun up there for a single use we can use a non-standard orbit.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah I thought it was more of a problem than that, but that might be for like, communications satellites that need geosynchronous orbit parallel with the equator. If we're just lobbing a big gun up there for a single use we can use a non-standard orbit.

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Well, Molniya orbits are specifically used for communication satellites and so on, because while they're not as good as a geosynchronous orbit, they are good enough to serve essentially the same function if you launch enough of them.

...

Oh. Another advertisement for Project Joyeuse, for the Ace Combat fans in the audience:

"When history witnesses a great change, Excalibur reveals itself. First, as a dark demon. As a demon, it uses its power to rain death upon the land, and then it dies. However, after a period of slumber, Excalibur returns, this time as a great hero."