Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Wait for the next release. I want usable mugs damn it!

55 (71.4%)

We can use the current one. I like the big trees and slightly smarter dorfs.

17 (22.1%)

I'll take .34.11 thanks. I want to know I'll get to kill things for sure.

5 (6.5%)

Total Members Voted: 77

[soulslicerjames]

Here's my guess for the reason behind the lacking airpower.
In all worlds, dwarves have by far the greatest number of outposts.  Therefore, if the best way to disguise an outpost (both to keep the natives from noticing anything unusual and hide it from all the other pesky dimension-hopping, time-traveling organizations) would be as a dwarven one.  Obviously, (whether you disguise it as building a new fort/reclaim an abandoned fort or start things up in the shadows of an existing one) 90%+ of the outpost will be underground, and thus untouchable by airpower.  This renders airpower a complete waste of time and money, and noone bothers with it.

It is also worth noting that all outposts would mostly be made up of native dwarves who have no knowledge about the whole time-war thing, as forts made up entirely of dwarves with no history or outside connections whatsoever or refusing migrants would send up more than a few red flags.

[Talvieno]

I do agree, though, that airships should be kept completely out of any battles surrounding Spearbreakers, at least for the time being. If the dwarves saw airships overhead, that would cause a ton of shit to go down, and probably mass chaos... which couldn't be explained through game/canon ties. At the same time, I think that the final battle between Parasol and Ballpoint, when all stops were pulled, would probably have airships - and in huge quantities.

Giant birds, goblins being sent flying, a megaproject... Hell, I bet we could make a airship in DF if the game allowed it.

I hadn't thought of that... it'd probably be easily explained as a giant bird. And what dwarf looks up at the sky, anyway?

@Soulslicerjames: That does a great job of explaining why we don't see any airships in the timewar, but doesn't explain why Ballpoint and Parasol supposedly lack it altogether. I think they have it, but they're simply not using it for one reason or another.


And Splint, what was that meteor shower supposed to be, out of curiosity?

[Aseaheru]

Ballpoint has been established as the only force with reasonable airpower. The  SRA has those flimsy gunship things, but up against a Moghopper they're fairly pathetic. Solar Powered airships sound pretty cool though.

Ennnhhhh, do not like. It doesn't make sense. They have time travel, they hop dimensions with ease, and yet somehow, pretty much nobody has airpower? When was this decided?

If time travel is even possible, we're thousands of years from it, and yet we STILL have plenty of airborne combat vehicles. Hitting a target in the air is a lot harder than it sounds, Splint.

edit: if there's any reason that airborne vehicles haven't shown up yet, it's got to be that they don't want to alert the world to the fact they exist. It's hard to hide an airplane in the bushes. But the idea that nobody has formidable airborne technology frankly seems pretty ridiculous.

reedit: I do agree, though, that airships should be kept completely out of any battles surrounding Spearbreakers, at least for the time being. If the dwarves saw airships overhead, that would cause a ton of shit to go down, and probably mass chaos... which couldn't be explained through game/canon ties. At the same time, I think that the final battle between Parasol and Ballpoint, when all stops were pulled, would probably have airships - and in huge quantities.

triedit (yeah):

above cloud level. costing only 2-3k a year.

Your math doesn't make sense, either, by the way. Even a jet fighter costs around 100,000,000 US dollars (roughly). If you scale money to food, assuming that a dwarf eats about 10 units of food per year, and a real-life human consumes about $1000 worth of food yearly (roughly) and in DF, food is worth about 2 dorfbucks apiece, that means that same jet fighter in DF ought to cost around 200 billion dorfbucks.    (I could have the numbers off for the fighter jet price, but the bare minimum is 100 billion dorfbucks.)

see http://heliosairships.com/

[Splint]

Ok, justification time: Cost. And convienience parasol and ballpoint and probably everyone and thier mother have transports. Parasol prefers to not use them out of cost; roads and truck fuel are cheaper and less suspicious. Ballpoint's moghoppers and Sewaturet's skid runner gunships are repurposed transports. Airpower is geared to help the armies fight on the ground and get them where they need to go int his world, not fight thier battles for them. Also, roads are everywhere, fuel easy to come by at the time, so aside from Ballpoint's preference for fielding fast attack forces by air, they just don't see the need for them.

Let's say infantry platoon (30-36 men)= 1m dorfbux to arm, train and equip.
One pilot would probably cost half of that, his aircraft probably quadruple that, and the weapons would cost more than a soldier and all his kit. Soldiers cost less to maintain going by the 2 dorfbuck food worth count, and can be stitched up in the field, where if a fighter gets hit, it's done for and needs to be compeltly replaced, costing even more than losing a group of soldiers. Sure theres the families to think of, but in the end, this is a world that understands that people are going to die in battle, and accept it. And just think of how many trained soldiers would suddenly be unneeded with prevalent airpower?

Plus a number of story incidents probably would have been squashed completely, because Eris is implied to have all it needs to wage a small scale war if it needs to. This would in turn have meant Ecem's team would have died a long time ago because they'd have had combat aircraft to run thier dropship down.

Multininja'd and my argument is probably poorly set up, but Ive also just seen the DF world as one that shuns airborn warfare for one reason or another.

EDIT: The metors were the sythod's arrival. Those may have been spores, ships or what have you. I figured it'd be a good way to explain thier arrival. And I was going on the cheap end with the calulations for the fighter jet. it also cant be used for anything else, so practicality is an issue.

[Aseaheru]

what about naval?

[Splint]

Plotwise it doesn't seem like alot of places even have a navy; they just haven't needed it because that's not where the fighting is. I again imagine merchant ships and private vessles are probably stupidly common though, with small navies being enough fo a deterrant to disuade piracy (or the crews not taking any shit and always being armed.)

[Aseaheru]

ah. ok.

[Talvieno]

Ah, lighter-than-air travel... Yeah, that's not a smart choice for aerial combat, or really anything anywhere where combat might occur at all.
The costs listed are for renting, not buying. But if that's what you meant, then that makes more sense, yeah. I thought you were saying Stone INC built their ships for cheap. I stand corrected. I'm surprised.

@Splint:

Ok, justification time: Cost. And convienience parasol and ballpoint and probably everyone and thier mother have transports. Parasol prefers to not use them out of cost; roads and truck fuel are cheaper and less suspicious. Ballpoint's moghoppers and Sewaturet's skid runner gunships are repurposed transports. Airpower is geared to help the armies fight on the ground and get them where they need to go int his world, not fight thier battles for them. Also, roads are everywhere, fuel easy to come by at the time, so aside from Ballpoint's preference for fielding fast attack forces by air, they just don't see the need for them.

Sorry, Splint, mechanized combat suits are far more expensive than any fighter plane could ever be.   Far, far, far, far, far - I can't stress how far. Mech suits would reach into the hundreds of trillions, in dorfbucks. If they have mech suits, they can have airships. If you're basing this largely on 40k, remember that it's a tabletop game, and thus can't really have any true air vehicles. I find that unrealistic, but there's not really any way to get around it.

Let's say infantry platoon (30-36 men)= 1m dorfbux to arm, train and equip.

If we're being realistic, it's actually around 1,080,000,000 dorfbucks to do this (1000 times more than 1m), but you're right that it's cheaper than a single fighter jet. Still, planes are worth many thousands of times what ground troops are, just because of their speed and attack advantages.
Still... point taken. Infantry are quite a bit cheaper than aerial vehicles. It still hasn't stopped anybody from going light on airpower in the real world, so why should it elsewhere?

if a fighter gets hit, it's done for and needs to be compeltly replaced

Um... where did you learn this? Fighters can take many hits before they even need repaired. They're built to last. In the movies they generally only take a few bullets, but hey - it's the movies. In real life fighters rarely get shot down. It's the bombers that have trouble, because they're slow... kinda like infantry, only faster. (This was different in WWII, where everything was slow, everything was weak, and pretty much everything got shot down.)

Plus a number of story incidents probably would have been squashed completely, because Eris is implied to have all it needs to wage a small scale war if it needs to. This would in turn have meant Ecem's team would have died a long time ago because they'd have had combat aircraft to run thier dropship down.

No airpower completely squashes a large portion of Vanya's future story, by the way. I was unaware you'd decided that airpower was out of bounds.

I figured it'd be a good way to explain thier arrival. And I was going on the cheap end with the calulations for the fighter jet. it also cant be used for anything else, so practicality is an issue.

That's what I figured, but you'd already written it into canon, if you remember, that Ballpoint was what brought the scythods from their planet.


With all that said... I still say airpower should be kept from the story, at least for the moment. Later on I'd like to see something along the lines of the Alliance vs Reavers battle from Serenity... that'd be an awesome way for Spearbreakers to fall.


Double ninja, but my points still stand.

EDIT: By the way, as to naval, Spearbreakers is only two miles from an ocean (a good ocean, at that). While there might be naval stuff to some extent, it'd be impossible to conceal... and unlikely to make it into the story anyway, as it's kinda out of range of the fortress.

[Aseaheru]

Ah, lighter-than-air travel... Yeah, that's not a smart choice for aerial combat, or really anything anywhere where combat might occur at all.
The costs listed are for renting, not buying. But if that's what you meant, then that makes more sense, yeah. I thought you were saying Stone INC built their ships for cheap.
-snip-

building, not renting, and fairly robust build. they are ostly used (in my head mind) for observation are bombardment. nice passive shit.

[Splint]

I'd gone with them just taking them on board. Sytheod aren't animals after all, they just like killiong things appearently. And this is DF, where even things that CAN fly behave stupidly. ANd I hadn't written it completely out of bounds, it just seems too much. If parasol is as advanced as were going with, since it can field better machines than Ballpoint ever could, I assumed they devised a way to build them on the cheap that they won't share.

A combat fighter can't be repusposed for anything other than combat too. Battlesuits and armored vehicles can be eaily repurposed to move debris or two shit or clean up the general wreck from a battle. And I mean if a fighter takes a hit, I don't mean like from a sissy autocannon or a flak shot or two. i mean if it gets nailed with something that can cripple it, then that fighter is fucked, especially with DF's physics, while a soldier losses an arm and he'll shrug it off with enough thread and cloth on hand. A fighter can't bounce back from bits getting blown off

[Reudh]

Vanya can hitch a ride on a bunch of cave floaters.

[Reudh]

Apologies everyone. I can't get an update going; I've got 1kb/s down and up and I have to go to bed int a few minutes anyway. Just got home.

[Talvieno]

Vanya already escaped the caverns. But that was a few pages back. And at least you could get on to tell us the update would be delayed, right?

I'd gone with them just taking them on board. Sytheod aren't animals after all, they just like killiong things appearently. And this is DF, where even things that CAN fly behave stupidly. ANd I hadn't written it completely out of bounds, it just seems too much. If parasol is as advanced as were going with, since it can field better machines than Ballpoint ever could, I assumed they devised a way to build them on the cheap that they won't share.

A combat fighter can't be repusposed for anything other than combat too. Battlesuits and armored vehicles can be eaily repurposed to move debris or two shit or clean up the general wreck from a battle. And I mean if a fighter takes a hit, I don't mean like from a sissy autocannon or a flak shot or two. i mean if it gets nailed with something that can cripple it, then that fighter is fucked, especially with DF's physics, while a soldier losses an arm and he'll shrug it off with enough thread and cloth on hand. A fighter can't bounce back from bits getting blown off

Ahhhh... I figured they'd brought the scythod there in the first place, as scythod can't possibly develop even land vehicles by themselves, let alone portals or space travel.

As to the second paragraph... that's completely right. lol   Air vehicles become screwed a lot easier than anything else. Might take a missile or two to do it, though. (missiles are actually dodgable in RL, though, and it doesn't take fancy flying like it does in the movies, either. )

[Aseaheru]

-snip-

A combat fighter can't be repusposed for anything other than combat too. Battlesuits and armored vehicles can be eaily repurposed to move debris or two shit or clean up the general wreck from a battle. And I mean if a fighter takes a hit, I don't mean like from a sissy autocannon or a flak shot or two. i mean if it gets nailed with something that can cripple it, then that fighter is fucked, especially with DF's physics, while a soldier losses an arm and he'll shrug it off with enough thread and cloth on hand. A fighter can't bounce back from bits getting blown off

airship=aircrane

[Splint]

An airship isn't a dedicated war machine. They can indeed be used as people movers and freight transport. A fighter jet can't do those things.