1.I'm not saying they're horribly innaccurate. It was a minor throwaway comment saying a wide profile is harder to hit than a tall one, and I said that it has a minor effect. And yes, I am very, very aware of exactly what snipers are capable of. Interestingly, you're wrong. At distances "well over a mile" you don't aim for the head. You aim for the torso. If you're using a gun that's accurate at that distance, then it'll have pretty much the same effect and it's easier to line up the shot.
Also, snipers don't snipe fast moving targets. A guy that is running in a straight line is a hard target, even at a hundred meters. A guy that's running erratically at a mile? It's nearly impossible to hit him. A flying hexacopter, that's two miles away, moving several times as fast as that man, and in more possible directions with faster direction changes? That's difficult to hit even with a laser. And before you put words in my mouth, I'm using difficult in the sense that it is certainly possible, just would require a skilled individual.
2.Okay. I never contested that. I just said that a hexacopter would be several times as mobile as a equine. Do you disagree? If so, please define mobility.
3.True.
4.Ah, really? Yes, automatic weapons are used for anti-aircraft. But smaller targets? This thing is tiny in comparison to anything except a camera quadcopter, which is so new and rare that there are no weapons optimized for it. The UWM uses ballistic weapons because they have more punch than lasers. And yes, at short ranges this thing is much more vulnerable- one reason why I said it's not cost-effective for that role. It's still really hard to hit, because shooting a foot wide target at 100m is difficult, especially when it's moving erratically. And shooting back.
5.You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? *Sigh* First, they're not the "only vulnerable part". In fact, they're not vulnerable at all. The tail rotor is vulnerable, and taking it out will effectively beat a helicopter, if not make it crash, but that's still a much larger target then this whole UAV. Second, the pilot is pretty dang well armored from infantry bullets. Third, the rotors aren't armored, or even designed to take rounds. They just don't get shot in general. And even if they did, most rounds just poke holes in them. The hexacopter's rotor would break if it got shot, but then you lose 1/24 of the thing's overall lifting power on average. So what? Laser's could cripple several rotors easily, but gauss rounds would be unlikely to do any damage at all to rotors, and on the rare instance that they did, it would be negligible.
...I can't believe I'm really arguing with somebody over the liklihood of bullets hitting a spinning rotor.
6.Again, this thing is moving erratically. I don't care if your ballistic weapon has pinpoint accuracy out to a lightyear, if it takes three seconds to travel from you to the target, and you can't predict where the target will be, then hitting it is entirely based on luck. Now, you can get pretty dang lucky if you roll enough times. If they aim a gatling gun at it, then it'll probably go down. But the UWM seems to favor a few strong bullets rather than lots of weak ones. Also, I've never said ballistic weapons are innaccurate. I said they're hard to hit with under these circumstances.
7.Not completely different. The primary purpose of both is shooting enemies. My original idea had a quadcopter shooting at the same ranges, and I listed the disadvantages it would have, as well as the advantages. I admitted that you would lose functionality in certain areas, but contestsd that you would gain it and more back in other areas.
8.*Sigh* Which of the two things is "it"? If you mean the CPU, because it's negligibly small. It's as hard to hit as the motors. If you mean the generator, because I don't know how large it would be without asking PW.
9.I was going off the component prices given by PW in the thread. He didn't mention armor. I know battlesuit plate would cost probably eight or so tokens, going off of the pricd of milnoplate, so enough to shrug off several gauss rounds. It still wouldn't stand up to a cutting laser or gauss cannon.
10.(Rather certain of the opposite) Ahh, it has several variants of weak lasers, and grenades. I was saying a cutting laser would be more effective than all of them combined, although it would lose some indirect fire support. Plus, nothing is saying you can't just give it the same arsenal as a RT.
@Sean
Aww, but arguing with GWG is fun. Plus I'm in the hospital so I really don't have anything better to do for once.
And that's an advantage I hadn't thought of- weight lugging. I've been thinking of it in terms of short duration direct action style stuff, not extended deployment. This would be more useful as a general purpose tool, yeah. I'm uncertain if it would be more effective than, say, two exoskeletons, but that is a use.
Lastly, I don't like MLP. But I have to say, it would make an excellent surveillance tool... for marking targets.
@Laser battery discussion
Laser batteries are useless against kinetic bombardment. So you shoot the solid gauss shell. Now what? You have a lump of plasma flying at you instead of a lump of metal.
@Radio Controlled
Yeah, I'm arguing from the perspective that one of these would make an excellent long range support vehicle. And I have reasons for thinking a cutting laser's better than rockets, but I actually don't really care if one these is ever designed or used. I just want to win the argument.