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[NullForceOmega]

Okay, I'm generally willing to give up the gravity control, I'm going to have to clear up a few points tho'.

1) fusion reactors: Toroidal-fusion reactors are a dead end, spherical fusion is a current, proven, process, in fact the test start started fusing so fast they blew out their damn power grid due to excess energy.
2) solar cells: those efficency ratings are for the specific spectrum of light the cells are built to take advantage of, my wife recieved her masters degree in geo chemistry at Colorado School Of Mines, many of her contemporaries worked at the national alternative power labs, and she vouches for the above statement.
3) Nuclearthermal (or for those unversed in the lexicon nuclear steam turbine generators): Why.  Nuclear electrical induction works fine, and is many times safer.
4) particle weapons: as seen in science fiction are iffy, real world ionizing-path weapons, as tested in the 1980s are very viable, simple particle collection/charging grids are in use currently.
5)'pumped' or explosive lasers: I am going to stab Weber in the fucking heart for this idiocy, I swear to hell.  A high-energy plasma laser using electro-magnetic bottle and lensing would be every buit as powerful and much less self-destructive for a much lower cost.
6) electrolasers: Otherwise known as the free electron laser, developed by Nikola Tesla, gaping hole in that weapon that no one wants to look at is it's tendancy to ground out on the nearest piece of metal.  Powerful, sure, but less accurate than a sawn-off shotgun.

The plasma metal seperator sounds good, tho' low frequency sonic shockwave pulverizers work well to.

I like this feedback, it sounds like we have only a few sticking points on this list in need of further discussion, I'd like to hear any ideas you guys have for filling things out. (I realise I'm kind of sounding like an ass in this post, but the amount of tech we don't have right now due to treaties and private interests drives me completely berserk, I kid you not, I actually see red when I read about another system that will never see the light of day because some company or nation doesn't like it.)

[Baffler]

I see the laser weaponry as more of an armament for heavy equipment, or in places where a projectile isn't feasible (like in space, at least at those ranges.) It is true that we can do power armor, but I still think that would either be relegated to specialists or heavy weapons and assault teams. You wouldn't see much of them, in any case. I am okay with the advances in nuclear and solar energy collection, they're kind of necessary to make the other stuff feasible anyway. I'm not very knowledgeable in this field, but would the acceleration you listed be good to get around our solar system within reasonable time, but not outside of it? that's kind of the vibe I got.

IMHO this should be a primarily Earth Based conflict, if there's all of this awesome stuff off of Earth, why wouldn't EA just go out there, instead of trying to expand their influence on Earth? Mineral wealth is all well and good, but so far we don't have any major extraterrestrial settlement that a company whose primary business is entertainment would start a war over to get access to. That is one of the strangest sentences I've typed in awhile.

[NullForceOmega]

Yes, I feel much the same way, the conflict is mainly Earthbound, the space battles are pretty specifically EA's forces trying to prevent off-world forces from interfering with them.  As for the lasers, mostly they're actually small fry in terms of energy weapons 'one trick ponies' if you will, once thermally dissipative and reflective armor is available they become very limited use.  .3 c is 30% of light speed, so actually it could (with further development) be usable for extra-solar exploration, but only within 2-5 light years, so for the time being it is mostly just an effective way to move around in system.

[Mel_Vixen]

Okay, I'm generally willing to give up the gravity control, I'm going to have to clear up a few points tho'.

1) fusion reactors: Toroidal-fusion reactors are a dead end, spherical fusion is a current, proven, process, in fact the test start started fusing so fast they blew out their damn power grid due to excess energy.
2) solar cells: those efficency ratings are for the specific spectrum of light the cells are built to take advantage of, my wife recieved her masters degree in geo chemistry at Colorado School Of Mines, many of her contemporaries worked at the national alternative power labs, and she vouches for the above statement.
3) Nuclearthermal (or for those unversed in the lexicon nuclear steam turbine generators): Why.  Nuclear electrical induction works fine, and is many times safer.
4) particle weapons: as seen in science fiction are iffy, real world ionizing-path weapons, as tested in the 1980s are very viable, simple particle collection/charging grids are in use currently.
5)'pumped' or explosive lasers: I am going to stab Weber in the fucking heart for this idiocy, I swear to hell.  A high-energy plasma laser using electro-magnetic bottle and lensing would be every buit as powerful and much less self-destructive for a much lower cost.
6) electrolasers: Otherwise known as the free electron laser, developed by Nikola Tesla, gaping hole in that weapon that no one wants to look at is it's tendancy to ground out on the nearest piece of metal.  Powerful, sure, but less accurate than a sawn-off shotgun.

The plasma metal seperator sounds good, tho' low frequency sonic shockwave pulverizers work well to.

I like this feedback, it sounds like we have only a few sticking points on this list in need of further discussion, I'd like to hear any ideas you guys have for filling things out. (I realise I'm kind of sounding like an ass in this post, but the amount of tech we don't have right now due to treaties and private interests drives me completely berserk, I kid you not, I actually see red when I read about another system that will never see the light of day because some company or nation doesn't like it.)

3: I dont see how a Nuclear Stirling is more dangerous then the Standart thermo-electric generator. Both work with Thermopiles.
The Thermo-electric (Seebeck-effect) variant and is virtually maintenance free and good for probes. efficiency 1-8%
The stirling variant packs more punch. Top efficiency 20% 

For 1 and 2 i would like to have some direct sources ... no offence to you or your wife but those seem to be hard things to claim. Solar thermals with stirling (heat-)Engines arent even build for any Spectrum but use the heat from an absorber which is normaly very black.
I take it as PM if you think it would clutter the channel. Oh and 5 too since that sounds interesting

6 isnt a free electron laser. It works like a taser but you use the by a conventional Laser ionized path as conductor for your electric charge instead of a cable.

edit: Power-armor and exoscelletons would be perfect for the logistics devions.

[My Name is Immaterial]

On the topic of power armor's feasibility, we're more likely to see powered armor than any sort of force-shielding.
Generally relevant.

[NullForceOmega]

Heph,  I am going to have my wife cover that in a PM, she is vastly better than me at locating the supporting data, and she can even link you to the relevant scientific journals.  As fo thermopiles and thermo-electric nuclear power systems, you seem to be having the same problem most people do regarding nuclear energy, the thermopile is a system sixty years old, modern nuclear power systems are generally of the electro-induction type, where current is generated by active decay of fissile materials, controlled by graphite 'control rods'.  My wife will send further details in the PM.

I like power armor, but am directly opposed to the Halo-esque 'force-field/supercomputer' armor, the power armor I am talking about and is most feasible within the time frame is purely exo-skeletal, strength augmenting, and heavily plated, similar to Fallout or Rifts (Palladium Books) types.

[Mel_Vixen]

Heph,  I am going to have my wife cover that in a PM, she is vastly better than me at locating the supporting data, and she can even link you to the relevant scientific journals.  As fo thermopiles and thermo-electric nuclear power systems, you seem to be having the same problem most people do regarding nuclear energy, the thermopile is a system sixty years old, modern nuclear power systems are generally of the electro-induction type, where current is generated by active decay of fissile materials, controlled by graphite 'control rods'.  My wife will send further details in the PM.

I like power armor, but am directly opposed to the Halo-esque 'force-field/supercomputer' armor, the power armor I am talking about and is most feasible within the time frame is purely exo-skeletal, strength augmenting, and heavily plated, similar to Fallout or Rifts (Palladium Books) types.

Thanks :p its was very informative.

Actually i consider the thermopile as the safest variant of nuclear power. Selfcontained, not prone to meltdowns working for years without maintenance.
"Modern" Nuclear powerplants are also by the tech older then 50 years (10 Development + 40 operation). New designs (Gen 3+) are hard to come by and/or lack often approval.
Still the new Modular reactors like the traveling wave Reactors of Microsoft or LFTR are in the works but i dont see them on the front of early Space-exploration.
Getting the Bad-boys to space is the problem here. Take the new modular reactor from Westinghouse (http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/smr/fact_sheet.pdf) it weights almost three times as much as the Spaceshuttle. The formfactor is good thought for a launch. This means you need a considerable bigger Launchvehicle - bigger then Saturn or Energya rockets.

In terms of the Ea war i would say spacebuild and born Nuclear-reactors (and fusion) are in the 30s when the Spaceborn service-economy is ready to build them. Before that some other techs would have to fill the gap. The sudden spike in energy output would then fuel the Energyweapon revolution.

Or we go with "Rule of Cool"

Exoskeltons work today.  Cyberdines HAL (they are dead serious on the naming!) alows you to lift 5 times as much as you can normaly and weights only 10 ponds ~ 5 kilos.  Strapping 50 Kilos of armor plating and hardware onto it is more of a design-problem. The real hurdle is the power - for long endurance you need some sort of generator or much better batteries. 

[My Name is Immaterial]

FYI, I'm working on some of the ground battles. Bethesda is up now.

[NullForceOmega]

Okay, good deal.  I am forewarding the fusion power systems due to the fact that any energy-weapon equipped spacecraft will have power requirements into the terawatt range, and B12's p-beam equipped ships will be even more power hungry than EA's (makes PA a hell of a lot more plausible too).  So are we satisfied with what we have for tech?  Do we need more discussion on any specific points regarding tech?  If not I'll draw up a general timeline for the space conflict, then try adapting it to fit events on Earth.

[Mel_Vixen]

I am fine with it 

[Helgoland]

Name: Helgoland
Pre-war occupation: Independent contractor
Occupations during the war: R&D, especially field-level dornes - the 'Wasp' and 'Hornet' series -, informal relations with the Rheinmetall and Bavarian conglomerates

I used to work as an independent contractor for all sorts of firms, though mostly for Kickstarter start-ups. I was there during the first wave of the attacks. It was horrible: Blood, guts, brain everywhere, mutilated carcasses that still moved, burnt bodies crying unlike anything you ever heard before... EA knows no limits. Together with a few colleagues I managed to hijack a helicopter, and we flew out - but at the last moment, we were hit by a stray seeker missile. I was the only survivor; luckily the onky serious injury I got was a crushed leg.
To this day, I have to use a cane because of that incident. They wouldn't let me join the ground forces, so I went into R&D - do you grunts remember those RC drones that probably saved your asses more than a few times? Yeah, those were my idea. Drones can't commit war crimes, but traumatized soldiers have no such limitations. 'Nuff said.
During that time, I also used my family contacts to establish an informal research cooperation between the Rheinmetall conglomerate - consisting of the old German giants, e.g. Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, BASF, and of course Rheinmetall itself - and the Bay12 forces: We had some great times using the Nashorn II tanks sent to us to for fixing the overheating as gulash cannons. In the end the flaws were fixed, and you all know what havoc the Nashorn III wreaked in the Balkans. Good times, good times. Later on the Bavarian conglomerate and various other European trusts - the EDF union for example, or the Berlin Startups - joined in, and after some bloody struggles Europe became a Bay12 Alliance stronghold. Especially notable among these battles was the Portsmouth landing: I was told that from Cherbourg to Calais the water turned red with the blood of our brave soldiers; but finally, London fell and the Financial Services of Great Britain capitulated. Without a doubt, the Scots' rebellion led by Agent Owlbread played no little part in our allies' success.

Now the ICC is on my back - they simply hate those frones. I think that when the armistice breaks I'll join with the Logistics HQ - I got some promising leads from a veteran in this thread. I already have some ideas...