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1: NC

2: NC and TR

3: NC, TR and Vanu

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Well played Dice, well played.

[Siquo]

Because all the profit to be had from it wouldn't start showing up until the people who started work on it were dead. It's one of the central flaws of our economic model: nothing gets done unless the corporation that does it gets a fast payoff, and the government can't get funding for things that aren't popular. Hence why we went from full-gear Space Race to essentially nil (beyond occasional shuttle missions) after the Cold War. Also obviously barring very wealthy people and groups who want to do something because it's awesome a good idea, as with SpaceX and that asteroid mining project that isn't expected to see any sort of meaningful production until 2025.

But yeah, basically it's because there's no short-term financial payout in space exploration and development, despite it being completely essential to the continued development of our civilization and our long-term survival as a species. 

So the advancement of the medical sector, extending the lifespan of a single generation, is key to the survival of our species, as without it we wouldn't be able to embark on bigger projects. Which brings us back to Auraxis, where immortality had the opposite effect, and we're all millennia old, bored out of our skulls, and kill eachother over and over again because of that.

[Sensei]

Old discussion, ho! For Science!

Also note that agrav must by necessity not cancel the effects of the planet's gravitational field, as the planet is moving at incredibly high velocity in orbit. The Earth orbits at ~30km/s; as a similar rocky planet in the Goldilocks zone, Arraxis (or whatever) can be construed to have a similar orbital velocity. Cancelling the influence of the planet's gravitational field on the tank altogether wouldn't mean that it could fly, it would mean that it would be ripped from the surface and hurled into space.

Eh, there's nothing about gravity, or the loss of it, that would affect how you move relative to the planet's rotation. It's not a gravitational field constantly acting on that keeps you in place, it's simply momentum- an object in motion stay's in motion. You were born going at 30km/s and you'll stay at that speed unless a force acts on you to change that. Even without gravity, even without atmosphere. If the opposite were true, then an astronaut stepping out of a shuttle moving through space at high speeds would appear the fly behind the shuttle. This would of course mean his speed is changing, as if a force acted on him.

That said, the way the Magrider behaves suggests it does exert a force against the ground, rather than simply negating gravity, since it falls straight to within a certain distance of the ground when it is in the air. Scythes probably work on a similar principle. When a Scythe is not level, in moves in the direction in which it is tilted, and loses altitude, suggesting it exerts force downward (if it negated gravity, its orientation would not matter). Since it does so without respect to terrain, presumably a Scythe is light and powerful enough to do this against the atmosphere itself. After all, we never see a Scythe in space, and it shares an altitude ceiling with the other aircraft which all appear to use conventional jets.

It's significantly advanced alien technology, and thus akin to magic... stop trying to explain it.

(Disclaimer: This only applies to in game and most otherwise fictional things. I fully support trying to explain any actual real world phenomena, similar to this or otherwise.)

Seconded. If tech in games could be easily explained with science, then we'd have that tech in the real world. If we knew exactly what properties affected anti-gravity tech, and what we'd need to have it, someone would've thrown money at it to make it real.

Oh, poo to that! If we treat the antigravity itself as a black box (electricity goes in, gravitational force comes out, and we don't know why) the rest is scientifically sound. Now, WHY analyze it? It's in our nature!

[Ivefan]

So the advancement of the medical sector, extending the lifespan of a single generation, is key to the survival of our species, as without it we wouldn't be able to embark on bigger projects.

My pessimistic outlook would be that selective breeding and/or gene manipulation is the key for maturation of the human species, because if we keep going like we are we will cause our own extinction in one way or another.

[Siquo]

Way too long-term. I predict a singularity within 50 years and the subsequent end of (the relevancy of) mankind.

[Ivefan]

Nice. You're even more pessimistic than me

[Sordid]

Nooooooooooooooooo they have since the beta removed my favourite sniper douche spot. I used to be able to drop pod or fly up to those green house roofs and drop down a hole in the middle, landing on a platform that gave me a firing arc for basically the entire inside of the green house. Like 99% of my kills in the beta came from that spot :p

The problem with that spot is that you're trapped there, can't get back up, can't go down without dying from fall damage. The first Light Assault that notices you will just jetpack up the dome, drop down right behind you, and knife you.
You can still get there as Light Assault, btw. You can also climb the building from the ground in order to get into the dome without the use of teleporters, aircraft, or those levitation-based elevator things.

[Werdna]

It can't fly because the magnetic repulsion is only effective out to a certain distance.

aka Coulomb's Law - electromagnetic force is an inverse square of distance (in other words, it drops off rapidly as distance increases).  Evidently this is why the Magrider would be impossible on Earth, even if our planetary magnetic field were stronger - Earth's effective magnetic 'center' is deep within the center of the planet, and at the surface there is so little change in the magnetic field that it can't even 'levitate' the smallest magnet.  The distance to the surface, squared, and inverted, means there is very little force, and minor changes in elevation do not change this.

However, your surface iron explanation might go some ways towards addressing this.  If the surface was highly magnetic, the proximity between surface and vehicle would allow some significant force to be generated against each other.  We can already magnetically levitate multi-ton trains here on Earth, but we need to concentrate the magnetic field in a rail close to the vehicle.

[Knight of Fools]

I just killed 30 people in a row as the sole defender of a Biolab.

I feel awesome, even though I was primarily using the spawn room. Why people still sit around and watch them like something won't shoot them is beyond me.

[Siquo]

Just noticed you can also climb the crown on the S-W cliff face as a LA. Killed people until I ran out of ammo, then ran out of ammo for my pistol, then started knifing, and when I was finally dead I remembered that I still had my C4. Damn.

Also, I remember why I hate the crown.

[alway]

My favorite is finding a heavily-populated enemy sunderer spawn in a magrider. At which point I go right up to where everyone is spawning, and spin. Today's specialty milkshake flavor: NC.
The other day I managed to get over a dozen kills in seconds with this method; though only because it was a rather intense battle already, and so their heavies were busy reloading from shooting other tanks. The constant 'pling; pling; pling; pling' of xp was immensely satisfying.

[Siquo]

"Wanna go for spin?" It really gives a new mental image to "meat-grinder". Speaking of which, why is there no blood in the game, at all? I kind of miss all the splatter.

[alway]

"Wanna go for spin?" It really gives a new mental image to "meat-grinder". Speaking of which, why is there no blood in the game, at all? I kind of miss all the splatter.

More particle effects is the last thing we needs.

Though it could be to widen potential markets. Some countries like to censor that sort of thing; case in point, WoW: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/China-World-Warcraft-MMORPG-Game,8415.html

There's also the issue that we programmers are inherently lazy, particularly when asked to make boring artsy stuff, and so they may just have never got around to it.

Alternatively, everyone is made of nanobots, and simply disassembles, flies back to the nearest re-assembly point, and so have no blood. Thus explaining why corpses disappear after you rez. In fitting with the previous theory of advanced aliens running it all as a weapons testing and entertainment venture. Congratulations: you ARE the nanite systems.

Edit: Also came across this gem: http://www.planetside2.com/news/intel-brief-magrider
Apparently the Scythe is, indeed, a form of Magrider.

Long ago, Vanu scientists attempted to triple the Magburner's boost power in exchange for less armor and a smaller gun. Twelve scientists died in the first 2.8 seconds of the experiment, and a week later the original Scythe prototype was introduced.

[Knight of Fools]

There's blood splatter in the video trailers for the game. At one point, the screen is spattered in gore and the character attempts to clear his vision by smearing his hand over it.

It was probably left PG for increasing the audience size, though.


Also: Sad day. They fixed the crazy legs.

[Ivefan]

Edit: Also came across this gem: http://www.planetside2.com/news/intel-brief-magrider
Apparently the Scythe is, indeed, a form of Magrider.

Long ago, Vanu scientists attempted to triple the Magburner's boost power in exchange for less armor and a smaller gun. Twelve scientists died in the first 2.8 seconds of the experiment, and a week later the original Scythe prototype was introduced.

I'm just gonna go by the assumption that the few posts of debate we had is more than they ever did while designing the magrider.