>>357209
just looking at how it works, the shields are bleeders. overcharging them cannot make them stronger when their effect is to make things weaker.

also looks like warp 3 just became more important and stronger soldiers less so. since how strong a person is does not help them win space battles. the tactical implants may be good depending on speed and range and if they can piggyback on the ships comms. would let the ships act as a VERY cohesive force.

>>357203

Shields only deflect incoming fire, they do not interfere with our own weapons.

Could you verify if you are suggesting a larger ground turret or an orbital turret? I can give you an RP estimate if you do.

>>357209
The shield wraps not far in front of the armor, so it doesn't matter if a missile is detonated by it or not. What it does is reduce the impulse from the ensuing explosion.

Our shields cannot be burst-charged or directionally oriented as a result of its design.

Since the shields do not extend far from the armor, a 'tanking' ship would have to be able to physically obscure the ships it protects, which makes it not a very efficient way of protecting them.

The shields in no way interfere with FTL or communications. The shielding required to protect an asteroid depends on the asteroid's size. Based on the way the shields work, it is a much better idea to simply individually shield every building in a city than to make a giant bubble over everything.

The shields themselves cannot be used to alter inertia. They do not help much at all when trying to reduce a collision with a massive body.

Not that these things only apply to the Disruptive Shell. Other similar technologies down the line may or may not be bound by these constraints.

Ed Pastry 2011/12/19(Mon)19:02 No. 357233 ID: a611d6
File 132435015273.png - (3.40KB , 259x152 , SHC4.png )

>>357203

Shields only deflect incoming fire, they do not interfere with our own weapons.

Could you verify if you are suggesting a larger ground turret or an orbital turret? I can give you an RP estimate if you do.

>>357209
The shield wraps not far in front of the armor, so it doesn't matter if a missile is detonated by it or not. What it does is reduce the impulse from the ensuing explosion.

Our shields cannot be burst-charged or directionally oriented as a result of its design.

Since the shields do not extend far from the armor, a 'tanking' ship would have to be able to physically obscure the ships it protects, which makes it not a very efficient way of protecting them.

The shields in no way interfere with FTL or communications. The shielding required to protect an asteroid depends on the asteroid's size. Based on the way the shields work, it is a much better idea to simply individually shield every building in a city than to make a giant bubble over everything.

The shields themselves cannot be used to alter inertia. They do not help much at all when trying to reduce a collision with a massive body.

Not that these things only apply to the Disruptive Shell. Other similar technologies down the line may or may not be bound by these constraints.

how about upgrading the moon gun from rail to warpslug? giant bullet going hyper speed.

>>357233
>Could you verify if you are suggesting a larger ground turret or an orbital turret? I can give you an RP estimate if you do.
I'm suggesting 1) upgrading existing turrets with shields, and 2) maybe looking into larger installations for ground-to-orbit defense. Motivation for (1) is that since it's all on the ground, we can afford to install disproportionately powerful shields, making such emplacements tough nuts to crack. As for the bigger "turrets" (it's probably better to call them cannons), I'm not sure if our current tech level allows for something truly effective against ships in orbit; thus an RP quote with approximate projected capabilities would be appreciated.

>We waste 6 month researching shields instead of translating the archive of all knowledge of the race from whom we got dimensional travel and other cool shit.
>Enemies arrive to root us out.
>We must fight them or lose opportunity forever to acquire priceless knowledge.

I MOTHERFUCKING TOLD YOU SO!
Goddammit, I warned about this, other warned about this... But no, who the fuck cares if this is our one and ONLY chance to loot the mother fucking archive of all the knowledge of super advanced race. Who cares if they could find us at any minute... No we want to waste our fucking time on useless shit.

Well I hope you guys are happy.

Hey, what are our infantry using for armor, other than ceramics? Is it still Kevlar? if not (or if it still is) how much stronger is it?

>>357259
yes, because we now have weapons that can break their shields and have shields of our own.

The shields don't completely protect us. They only lessen the damage. Also, I'm just curious.

>>357267
by a moderate amount. so turns heavy damage into normal damage, normal into light, and light into negligible. if we encounter only medium size vessels we can outfight them easy as our ships will not take much damage.and if we wipe out the fleet then we gain the most valuable resource, time. the longer we can stay at one spot the better.

Wasn't talking about ships, but okay...

>>357266
1. We had those weapons before you.
2. The shields were gonna be done either way, if we did archive first then the shields would be done 4 months from now.
3. While it is true I misunderstood and thought they are coming at the archive (which would have been ruinous). We now must now fight prematurely and WIN... because if we escape or lose (and then escape) we would (in either case) disrupt our research progress and must remain there longer, which potentially exposes us to losing it before we decipher it.

Either way it is a critical danger we could have avoided by doing archive followed by shields.

However, we can still make it.

>>357270
We would've avoided jack shit by doing the archive first. We JUST built that colony, do you really think the citizenry would react well to uprooting already?

That's the main reason I want to try to fight. Not because we have to, but because I want to avoid a huge public outcry. Also because I think we have a chance of winning with recoverable losses.

>>357271
indeed, a victory against a breaker fleet is just the thing we need to boost moral.

Not only that, but we could scavenge some scraps from the remains. Even if it is mostly unusable by us, we could possibly use remnants from their shields to upgrade our own or find more effective means to pierce theirs. Heck, if we are very lucky, we may even find their black boxes if they have them.

>>357274
yeah, a single intact shield generator would go a LONG way for science. a central computer would also be great, let us figure out their protocols and be able to engage in electronic warfare.

>>357233
Er, I'm sorry for nagging but I'm going to request more clarifications on the shields. Because to me it seems that there are... inconsistencies.

First of all, a collection of canon descriptions of the shields:
>reducing sudden forces and energies that pass through it by a moderate amount
Whatever this "moderate amount" is is subject to debate. More on this point further.
>equally effective against kinetic and energy weapons
Looks like some kinetic energy sapping effect.
>cannot be deactivated by firepower
This means that the shield effects all simultaneous incoming attacks equally.
>Infantry shields make small arms much less deadly but do little against heavier munitions, while naval shields can significantly weaken powerful shots from enemy ships.
This means that the shields act not like "multiply attack force by the disruption coefficient" but "subtract a certain amount of potency from the attack".

Now, returning to the first quote. Note the word "sudden". It implies that a gradual buildup of the attacking force will bypass the effects of the shield. That means that, while a bullet or a railgun shell will be subject to the effects of the shield, a laser that gradually increases its potency from "red dot on the wall" to "burn right through said wall and whatever it hides" might go unimpeded.

Now remember the communications. When you said that comms are not effected, did you mean radio? Because if "energy attacks" get affected then "lasers" are too (as a subclass of said energy attacks), and that in turn means that tight-beam communications carriers (laser- or infrared-based) might be affected.

Is all of this correct?

Next, on to inertia compensation issue. What I actually meant was not inertia compensation per se, but providing cushioning for loose objects in a suddenly accelerating vehicle.
Quoting you:
> [shields] do not help much at all when trying to reduce a collision with a massive body.
This is subject to relativity. The shields help quite a lot when trying to reduce a collision of a bullet with a (relatively) massive soldier. I was thinking that maybe we can implement such "interceptors"/"cushions" to help with, including but not limited to:
- Amortization of cargo and/or passengers and/or drivers.
- "Ballistic" transport systems: shoot the crate/cabin/landing pod from one side, catch it on the other side. Experimentation (read: your sanction) needed to determine if the shield on a lighter moving object (landing pod) significantly/noticeably affect collision with a more massive stationary object (planet).
- An extension of the previous is such a "cushion" helping with fighters landing on a carrier. If we can help with braking at the end of the way, we could shave some seconds off by reducing the need to brake along that same way (when approaching the carrier).

But wait, there's more!

Looking at your designs, the shield effect volume is actually a thin "sphere" around the shield generator.

(This is actually quite strange when coupled with your assertions that the shields 1) can't be extended farther from the hull and 2) can't be oriented. On one hand, such proximity requirement implies emitters being situated all over this hull, as otherwise (in the case of a single central generator) the shield radius is only determined by said generator's hardware parameters and/or power, both of which can be altered to increase the radius, contradicting (1). On the other hand, if these are indeed emitters, each individual one is responsible for only a little patch of the whole shield sphere, and that means inherent orientation, contradicting (2). Does not compute.)

Now, suppose a long solid object (say, a long missile) is entering into a hole on a big shielded object (say, a hole previously blown into the side of a ship). Suppose also that its entering velocity is such that the time in which the object intersects the shield effect volume (SEV) is non-negligible (say, a second or two).
Q1: Is the object affected by the shield for the duration of the whole time period when it intersects with the SEV?

Q2, which I should have asked sooner: How thick is SEV?

Q3: Am I right in assuming that this shield does not break physics and affects only the matter that is directly within the SEV?

Now, another thought experiment. Suppose we are throwing a small object into a strong shield with a very small initial velocity.
Q4: Is there a threshold for kinetic energy of the entering material below which the shield does not affect the object? And, generalizing this,
Q5: What is the (at least approximate) dependency of shield effect from entering matter's kinetic energy?

... Actually, now that I've written this wall of text, I'll understand if you just say "stop trying to apply your already defective physics knowledge to a sci-fi future tech and just have fun already dammit!". However, I feel that this discussion will help all of us understand and invent more uses for these shiny new exciting technologies.

>>357282
dot laser power up may bypass it, but are you really going to stay still and let that happen?

>>357283
If the target is big enough (like a tank), it isn't too hard to just keep that target in sights for a bit, even while both of you are maneuvering. Modern tanks can do that already.

>>357284
i mean, what's stopping us from shooting them before the laser gets strong enough?

>>357285
Their shields. The fact that there might be many of them and only few of us. It all depends on the circumstances.

>>357286
if there are enough that we can't focus fire on the ones doing the laser show it wont matter because there are enough to destroy us anyway.

>>357239
Upgrading the Interplanetary Railgun to warpslug tech will take 45 SC, 75 BP and 5 RP. The cannon will no longer consume SC to fire, will be more powerful and can attack enemy ships in the planetary system.

>>357263
Most infantry armor consists of ceramic plates over a tough synthetic fabric. This makes them resistant to small arms fire, tearing and environmental hazards.

>>357282
I understand your inquisitiveness and your questions have given me a lot to ponder about.

Hopefully this attempt at implementing the shields will suffice for you.

Ignore the designs, the bubble extends only slightly around the hull. The shield settles on the mass around it, which is why you don't need to cover the hull with emitters (also it means ground units don't get shielding on the parts that come in contact with the ground)

The shield itself is pretty soft on the sci-fi scale. When a sudden impulse hits the shield, the energy (mechanical or electromagnetic) is distributed across the particles in the shield, which then disperse into harmless radiation. The particles are 'refreshed' rapidly by the emitters. The shield doesn't help much against impact with larger bodies in the same way metal armor won't help much against falling off a bridge. The shield doesn't slow you down at all, and you cant really use the shield to disperse a massive body you collide with.

The reason slower/less energetic things can go through easily is because of the way its calibrated. It's designed to let low level energy like visible light, dust particles, or various methods of communication go through it.

You bring up a good point with the missiles, but as of now there are no missiles that go slowly enough not to activate the shield. The gradual laser, at a certain energy level, would activate the shield, but its continuous nature would cause it to overwhelm the 'refreshing' of the shield. Fortunately, all energy weapons we have seen are pulse-based.

Long story short: The shields conveniently (or unconventionally) tend to only react to things like weapons fire.

If there is something I missed or misunderstood, please let me know and I'll try my best to satisfy your questions with an explanation.

>>357336
Tough luck, sorry :p
>The shield settles on the mass around it, which is why you don't need to cover the hull with emitters (also it means ground units don't get shielding on the parts that come in contact with the ground)
This is kinda unclear. How does the shield generator determine where the shielded object ends and the planet starts? Because short of hovering vehicles, everything else is ultimately in contact with the ground.

Next, about missiles, am I to understand that if there's a hole in an otherwise solid hull, the shield won't cover this hole but will instead cover the insides of this hole? Or, in layman terms, no soap film thingy for us? Like, for example, hangars in Star Wars?

Also, what are the effects of the shields on living beings?

How does gravity work on ships? Is it done by rotation or do they have some form of artificial gravity that somehow has no other scientific applications?

>>357367
most likely it doesn't and spreads in a very small puddle around the shielded thing.

>>357370
If that's the case, our MBTs will be known throughout the universe as the Slime Tanks.

Yes, the warpslug doesn't have enough range to snipe them from half a turn away or anything.

>Also, from the Demise we have no idea about how the planet buster even looks like, which suggests that it's not that distinctive from other Breaker ships, which in turn suggests that all our moon-based defenses might be annihilated with one strike and we'll know about that only when the Moon Cannon shells start raining upon our planet-side base.
Um... hang on, don't get all paranoid now. We may not know what the planet buster ship looks like, but you can bet it'll be recognizable since it'll have a huge fuckoff gun on it.

Also there are probably other planets in the system with moons; we won't have to worry too much about attack angles. Besides, unless the planet is really close to the moon there's not a very large blind spot. They'd probably have to know ahead of time to use that angle of approach. Oh, and we'd definitely know if the moon's defenses get destroyed since we have instant communication devices and also sensors.

And yeah the ships we had during the Demise weren't any good against the Breakers. We have waaaaay better weapons now tho! Like, way way better. Also shields. Though we have to build them first.

>>357464
>don't get all paranoid now
You know, I think I really might be paranoid and/or panic-y. On the other hand, it's not really paranoia if someone's out there to get you. On the third hand, if it drives me to increase our development rate/mobility/otherwise improve, then why not?

Also, this link might be relevant.
http://qntm.org/destroy

You know, if position for the moon cannon is a problem, why not make a rail system for it? Have a set of tracks that run on the latitude and longitude of the moon so we can re-position the cannon for any direction. Heck, we could likely make a battleship and attach a moon cannon instead of a orbital bombardment array to use as a ship killer.

As for paranoia or being worried about this and that, we have honestly never fought in a capital ship fight like this. We have no idea how powerful OR weak our current armaments are and I consider that more of a problem. Right now the enemy is relatively small. 3 destroyer class ships with breaker tech. Now, we have seen breaker tech before. Mainly for ground units, but we have none the less. We can assume that breakers have the same style of weaponry on their ships as they do on their ground forces. In that regard, we have the better weapons. We do not know the true strength of their shields, but we can solve that with several pot shots.

As for the whole they will come back in bigger numbers? Yeah, that's a given. However, they are not fast compared to our ships and to mobilize an entire fleet of high class ships would not only take a lot of time, but the sheer girth of them will have us see them a mile away.

In short, it's not a feasible strategy for the Breakers right now. A feasible one is to HAVE us continue moving. We have a set limit on what we can take with us as stated before and if we continue to move, we can't build big ships that can take them down. The three ships we have right now will take many turns to finish. Many, MANY turns. We flee and we can't take them with us. Even a modular ship would have to be made piece by piece and it would still take time for each piece. Further more, if we ever run into a Totus aligned planet, then we may be boned.

Running in a dire situation is OK, but we need to build up our army and fleet if we want to last in the long term. That means we need to bunker down, build stuff, train our workers, military and professionals, and build alliances with other alien races so they don't ally with Totus. If we don't try, we won't win.

>>357471
>rail system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav
That'd be cool.

Also yeah, can we design a ship that is one giant cannon with (some smaller ones for point defense and) engines? Sheer kinetic energy of a shot from such a thing could probably rip a breaker ship a new one.

Or an orbital weapons platform/battlestation.

Also, suppose you're a Breaker fleet slowly chugging through the warp towards the unholy Splinter planet, when suddenly a blip appears on your scanners, indicating a ship (or a fleet; is that discernible?) approaching you and de-warping a short distance before you. Would you de-warp too to destroy this ship/fleet?
Counter-question: how much armor and explosives do we have to stuff into such a ship for it to be able to suicide-bomb a Breaker fleet stupid enough to de-warp? Are there any ways to forcibly de-warp them, or just explode with enough force to affect those in the warp?

>>357367
The shield slightly extends to the area around the treads/boots/whatever of the shielded unit, but the material we use as armor is a better "conductor" of the shield than the ground, so it doesn't extend far.

There is no "soap-bubble" effect with the shields.

The shield does not interfere with living beings at all.

>>357369
Living and command quarters of the ship rotate.

>>357464
>>357471
Just to clarify, the Interplanetary gun can easily bombard other planets in the system, but the speed at which starships move makes it much more difficult to hit ships that are not at least in the same planetary system as it is in, even considering the extremely high-velocity Warpslug rounds. Still, it will garner plenty of free hits before the enemy ships get in range, and can make life somewhat more uncomfortable for enemy ships orbiting around a different planet.

There is no need to worry about placement of the Moon Cannon if you just want to defend a base and the fleet above it: place it in the city you want to defend. This wont stop hostile fleets from dropping troops on the other side of the world, however.

>>357487
Give some specifics for an orbital defense platform and I'll throw you an RP estimate.

Ships are indiscernible to fleets when not in roughly the same point on the map. The composition of a fleet becomes known when inside the same star system or in combat range.

Anything capable of FTL can force other ships out of FTL to engage it in combat. In star systems, this is a bit longer than maximum effective range of our guns, which generally extends a little beyond than a planetary system's radius. Ships can also intercept each other in deep space.

Ships actually in FTL transit cannot be targeted or damaged by any means.



To answer Juroko's request for a Diplomat-mine in the main thread, the cost would be 7 RP to research. The mine would automatically attack any ships within combat range, but as it lacks an FTL drive it cannot attack ships in FTL transit.

>>357492
>Anything capable of FTL can force other ships out of FTL
Can this effect be targeted, and if so, how precisely? I'm thinking of seeding the star system (its outskirts) with sensors/de-warpers (maybe accompanied with automated weapons platforms, like the diplomat mines) in order to automatically give our Moon Cannons a head start on shelling the enemy, but I'm worried that this might interfere with our own ships.

>>357492

what if we gave it an FTL drive?

Hmmmm... in terms of what we talked about, why not make a 'fake' ship? A decoy of sorts? Have it appear as a smaller ship on the radar but make it nothing more than what is needed to fool it. We could set up a few mines near the decoy as well. If it works, the enemy may spend some time searching for other ships in the area and buy us some time if not have them search a different area in hopes they found us.

If we do make this decoy though, I say we name it the S.S. Troll Face.

>>357506
Yeah, that was about my general idea. Although if it proves effective, the "Trollface" will have to be its class name, like Test Patterns and the like.

As an aside, are the galt a manufactured race or another naturally occurring one like the humans?

Considering the obvious social and behavioral similarities, it's entirely possible that they will get genocided as well.

The Galt are natural and very likely skirting the edge of Breakers popping up to ruin their shit. However, they have been bros to us and we may want to help them construct a means to protect themselves and escape.

Right now, they have a thriving industry. We could possibly trade raw goods and luxury items for labor. Maybe make more ships?

>>357560
Their labor force would only be able to supplant the need for workers and maybe some materials, while we'll have to provide professionals. And that's a scarce resource for us. Although the negotiations on this should definitely be started.

On a totally unrelated note, the recent discussion gave me an idea: we should totally steal the Necrons' Great Warding.
(For those not familiar with WH40K, The Great Warding is a set of installations built by Necrons that prevent all access to the Warp in a radius. There are many such installations, so the total exclusion volume is measured in light years. Necrons themselves have an alternative fast transport system that doesn't rely on the Warp, unlike everybody else in that setting.)
The relevant tech should be somewhere down the Warp Tech subtree, research of which would (in more immediate future) give us the speed to catch up with those stealth transports. And probably some teleport tech is in there too.

Although that's such a megaproject that we should at least finish those getting-professionals-fast techs (tac implants and memory mods).

Yeah, this is another iteration of "what to research after the archive" discussion. IIRC we've pretty much agreed that next should be tac implants (upgrade for troops + no risk of death on implanting), followed by memory mods (fast profs). Then a quick skim of the thread gives two suggestions:
1) comp systems V, then whatever comes from that and memory mods (I'll hazard a guess that it'll be true AI);
2) warp 3;
3) custom projects from posters, like that Juroko mine, or the Trollface decoy, or something else.

The CS-5 might give us something for those automated DIPLOMAT caps for indicating that it's a missile, not a profession stations we've discussed. Warp 3 is likely to get us another speed upgrade, and might open paths to what I've described above.

Which do we want more?

>>357562
except we use the EXACT SAME method of FTL just have better speed with it.

and we need to wait until archive is done before deciding what next because it is linked into a lot of new research options.

>>357563
Well duh. Obviously we'd need another FTL method before we do that, just like the ones we're ripping off.

>>357565
what?

>>357567
We will obviously need another way to go FTL before we begin construction of permanent anti-warp wards. So that our own ships are not affected. Because that would be counter-productive.

>>357568
well, see, the reason the necrons could use the other method is they were ROBOTS. they don't need inertia compensation. a living thing on a necron ship would of been turned to paste from the G-forces involved.

>>357569
Who says we can't have inertia compensators? (Or a fast cloning system + consciousness uploads.)
Also, portals. (Maybe that's what that tech that needs Warp3 and Archive is about...)
And, finally, this doesn't have to be exactly the same method as used by necrons; this is not WH40K, after all. This universe can, with the blessing of Ed, have an alternative FTL drive.

>>357571
i'm saying you are getting presumptuous and making super detailed plans for something that may not even exist.

Honestly, we should try and have the 'fast' techs done first. The ones with low tens or single digit RPs. They are mostly defensive/delay objects that can aid us in dealing with future foes.

After that, memory mods and tactical implants, followed by the other stuff.

HOWEVER, we should also wait to see what the archive unlocks first. For all we know, it may offer us a few good items.

>>357572
Yeah, you're right. However, the side-effect is that I'm giving ideas to the OP.

>>357578
except he already has most of this planned out before.