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[Parisbre56]

Yeah, but the fleet also can't produce stuff. And has less troops than we can produce.
The laser batteries can keep entire fleets at bay. Vaporizing anything not going at a fraction of the speed of light should be trivial.
The fleet is not equipped for ground battle. They never expected anyone to make it past the fleet.
The fleet wants to control the planet's infrastructure, not destroy it. Rebuilding an entire planet's worth of facilities would take a very, very long time. And many of those facilities are deep underground.
They're coming back to investigate. They don't know what happened yet. They will probably assume it's a worker's rebellion once we start shooting them, not a rebellion led by competent people.
And we'll begin our attack by laying nuclear mines on the jump point they'll be using to enter the system.

[Taricus]

First rule of the military: Assume the worst-case scenario. They would no-doubt have less troops, but that would mean that bombing and such would be further emphasised in order to bridge the manpower difference. The laser batteries can be overwhelmed by volume of fire, especially from differing angles which would certainly hinder their capability to respond to incoming projectiles.

The infrastructure would take a while to rebuild, but it can actually be done so. As I said, something has to give for the mission to succeed in an aspect. With a HMRC ship having docked there at the same time of the rebellion, I'd damn well bring some of the nastiest shit and competent personnel considering the pox the majority of the population of such a ship would contain, and the equipment contained on such a ship. Invasion fleets don't do recon as well, they're there to damn well take out the rebelling forces

The mines would be absolutely useless with the distances involved in space, unless you used an ungodly amount, but that would take up a significant portion of the manufacturing capability of the world.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Honestly, if anti-orbital defense batteries were as useless as you imagine them to be, Taricus, Hephaestus wouldn't have them at all. Anything that has to shoot down at the planet faces the same difficulties as the thing on the planet has shooting into orbit, and the thing on the ground doesn't have to worry about heat dissipation or loss of atmosphere.

And the fleet that's returning is not an invasion fleet, it's the planet's own defense fleet. They aren't going to bring in anything that they didn't pack before heading out.

[Taricus]

I'm not talking about the defense fleet though. And honestly, I'm just assuming the defenses are there just to keep anything like small-time pirates away: Not meant to go up against a full-scale invasion force as anything other than a speedbump.

[syvarris]

Spoiler: coptertalk (click to show/hide)

1.Have you ever fired a gun at any significant range?  If we're facing automated vehicles, yes, the onboard computer can compensate.  But if we're fighting infantry, they'll have a hard time adjusting for drop.  It's a problem in real life warfare.
And yeah, it's pretty obvious, considering you've ignored the sizes that I've stated.  It's a way smaller targer than R3- I explain more in a later number.
2.Okay.  Define mobility.  This thing can fly at 125 MPH in any direction, faster if it's going down, slower if up.  It can pull something like five gees for a second or so if it needs to make a quick dodge.  For comparison, the fastest any racehorse has ever been recorded to run is 43.97 MPH.  And that's on really good ground, in a straight line, and for a short period.  Let's say it can pull .7 gees if we're being really generous.
3.Actually, I was unaware of the exact size of an RT's arsenal.  The hexacopter could easily carry the full weapons package an RT carries.
4.And I'll maintain that it's near impossible to shoot this thing with ballistic weapons.  They take time to travel, and you're shooting at a target that is effectively the size of the weapon it's shooting at you.  Which, if it's pointed at you, is pretty dang small.  Lasers would be able to take it out easily if it isn't armored against them, and armoring is difficult.  An automanip would render it immune to small lasers, but I don't know the specs of the laser-resistant material so I don't know how hard it would be to armor it.  If it's too heavy to put on the rotors, then lasers would easily shoot it down.  I've never argued against this.
Explosive weapons aren't effective because they need to explode near the target, and it is hard to make a lightweight weapon that does that.  Crew served weapons like a Javelin might be able to do it, but that's getting to the point where the weapon to kill it costs more than the vehicle.
5.20" long, tip to tip.  They occupy 5% of the area that they spin in at any given moment.  There's six of them.  It can lose two arms/rotors without losing much function.  Horizontally, they're paper thin.  They spin fast, but a bullet goes way faster than the rotors.  If the rotors were in any real danger, then we wouldn't use attack helicopters in real life- any idiot with an assault rifle could shoot it down.
6.Yes.  That's why I decided to move to a hexacopter, which can lose two propellers without losing any notable amount of manueverability, just some speed.  And they are unspeakably tiny targets- the motor itself is a few inches in diameter, and an inch tall.  The rotor is nearly impossible to hit without a continuous beam weapon.  Yes, rotors are hard to armor.
7.I have never once said that it would be able to perform all the same functions as an RT.  From the start, I said it would have trouble following people through doors, which was the biggest problem.  You trade having a horse next to you for having a laser in the sky.
8.Sitting on top of the generator.  CPU for flying a hexacopter, even with super fancy manuevers, is very very cheap.  An average RL laptop could do it without breaking a sweat.  CPU for aiming is also negligible.  Note that we have tablets in ER with processing power that puts supercomputers to shame.  The CPU is entirely negligible and tiny.  The generator would be the only weakspot, and... well, I need to get some stats on lasers, but it looks like it only needs one  or two gauss rifle generators, so it's probably tiny too.


One big thing I think you're missing is that RT has no armor.  It can't take a gauss round either, although it could stand up to a laser for a few seconds.  And an RT is way, way, way easier to hit with gauss weaponry than the hexacopter.


Overall, I never thought it would be cost effective as a sod for infantry combat.  At least, at close range.  I just thought it'd be better than a horse.  However, looking at these stats, it would make a very effective high-altitude drone, IF cutting lasers are effective at long range.  That's the only place I see it being cost effective.

Yes, I've said a RT has advantages over it.  I just think flight and mobility outweigh those advantages.  It's not universally better, I've never said that, it's just more effective in a wider variety of situations.  And probably cheaper.

Medifoam is a sterile non-toxic, fast hardening... foam.  Common in sci-fi settings, the idea is that you can inject it into a wound and it'll stop bleeding and infection immediately.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It is, however, significantly easier to armor up the Artee. In fact, the base design includes both a heavy frontal plate, and auxiliary armor panels to cover the top and the sides - half the schtick of the RT unit is the laser-rifle-wielding arms that fold under its wing-shaped armor plates for concealment. I'm not certain why PW did not include that in the cost listing. But, battlesuit plate is relatively cheap, and even an analogue of the Civic Defenders Longcoat refitted as a covering for the synthoid equine body will provide adequate gauss rifle protection.

[Tavik Toth]

Anyone here played Aurora 4x?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Define "played".

I mucked about in it for some time, but its gameplay was as bland as its interface. And this was some rather long time ago. Not to mention the author still stalwartly refuses to support x768 resolutions.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Maybe, but destroying the rebels ability to produce reinforcements makes it THAT much easier on the invasion force, since the enemy numbers are now static.

And "That" isn't much if your main objective is merely destroying their facilities to make more stuff. Instead...
Conclusion 1: Make sure the hangars and garages and stuff are well-defended.

And the objective may state that, but the thing is with rebels this close to civilian populations and infrastructure, something has to give way, and that's not about to be the mission of eliminating the rebels.

Your mission is not to eliminate the rebels, it's to eliminate the rebellion. Moreover, one has to consider the political fallout of that decision. "Worker Protest Quelled with Orbital Bombardment" makes a hell of a headline.

As for the laser batters, or ANY ground-based batteries in general, is that they will be UTTERLY useless and priority targets for orbital bombing.

How will they be utterly useless?

If the UWM fleet has any kinetic weapons on their ships, the only thing they have to worry about when it comes down to bombing the planet is making sure it hits

Which is rather impeded by the projectile being destroyed before it hits the ground, now isn't it?
(P.S. We have laser batteries most everywhere. If they're close enough that laser batteries are our only way to stop the incoming projectile, they're probably close enough to get hit.)

Really, once that invasion fleet gets there, you're literally at their mercy: You can't get supplies from off-world, nor can you leave it. Any attempts to build a weapon to strike at them would be pounded into oblivion.

Which is why they build the weapons beforehand.

First rule of the military: Assume the worst-case scenario.

Indeed, but we mustn't also forget which bad scenarios are plausible.

Invasion fleets don't do recon as well, they're there to damn well take out the rebelling forces

It's not a black-and-white, one-dimensional issue. You need to get the planet under control, but you also need to not screw the PR pooch and avoid causing abhorrent costs in getting Hephaestus active again.

The mines would be absolutely useless with the distances involved in space, unless you used an ungodly amount, but that would take up a significant portion of the manufacturing capability of the world.

He means right around the jump point. Like, one area. I'm not sure how big an area he's thinking of mining, but it could be plausible.
Efficient? Probably not.

Spoiler: coptertalk (click to show/hide)

1.Have you ever fired a gun at any significant range?  If we're facing automated vehicles, yes, the onboard computer can compensate.  But if we're fighting infantry, they'll have a hard time adjusting for drop.  It's a problem in real life warfare.
And yeah, it's pretty obvious, considering you've ignored the sizes that I've stated.  It's a way smaller targer than R3- I explain more in a later number.
2.Okay.  Define mobility.  This thing can fly at 125 MPH in any direction, faster if it's going down, slower if up.  It can pull something like five gees for a second or so if it needs to make a quick dodge.  For comparison, the fastest any racehorse has ever been recorded to run is 43.97 MPH.  And that's on really good ground, in a straight line, and for a short period.  Let's say it can pull .7 gees if we're being really generous.
3.Actually, I was unaware of the exact size of an RT's arsenal.  The hexacopter could easily carry the full weapons package an RT carries.
4.And I'll maintain that it's near impossible to shoot this thing with ballistic weapons.  They take time to travel, and you're shooting at a target that is effectively the size of the weapon it's shooting at you.  Which, if it's pointed at you, is pretty dang small.  Lasers would be able to take it out easily if it isn't armored against them, and armoring is difficult.  An automanip would render it immune to small lasers, but I don't know the specs of the laser-resistant material so I don't know how hard it would be to armor it.  If it's too heavy to put on the rotors, then lasers would easily shoot it down.  I've never argued against this.
Explosive weapons aren't effective because they need to explode near the target, and it is hard to make a lightweight weapon that does that.  Crew served weapons like a Javelin might be able to do it, but that's getting to the point where the weapon to kill it costs more than the vehicle.
5.20" long, tip to tip.  They occupy 5% of the area that they spin in at any given moment.  There's six of them.  It can lose two arms/rotors without losing much function.  Horizontally, they're paper thin.  They spin fast, but a bullet goes way faster than the rotors.  If the rotors were in any real danger, then we wouldn't use attack helicopters in real life- any idiot with an assault rifle could shoot it down.
6.Yes.  That's why I decided to move to a hexacopter, which can lose two propellers without losing any notable amount of manueverability, just some speed.  And they are unspeakably tiny targets- the motor itself is a few inches in diameter, and an inch tall.  The rotor is nearly impossible to hit without a continuous beam weapon.  Yes, rotors are hard to armor.
7.I have never once said that it would be able to perform all the same functions as an RT.  From the start, I said it would have trouble following people through doors, which was the biggest problem.  You trade having a horse next to you for having a laser in the sky.
8.Sitting on top of the generator.  CPU for flying a hexacopter, even with super fancy manuevers, is very very cheap.  An average RL laptop could do it without breaking a sweat.  CPU for aiming is also negligible.  Note that we have tablets in ER with processing power that puts supercomputers to shame.  The CPU is entirely negligible and tiny.  The generator would be the only weakspot, and... well, I need to get some stats on lasers, but it looks like it only needs one  or two gauss rifle generators, so it's probably tiny too.

One big thing I think you're missing is that RT has no armor.  It can't take a gauss round either, although it could stand up to a laser for a few seconds.  And an RT is way, way, way easier to hit with gauss weaponry than the hexacopter.


Overall, I never thought it would be cost effective as a sod for infantry combat.  At least, at close range.  I just thought it'd be better than a horse.  However, looking at these stats, it would make a very effective high-altitude drone, IF cutting lasers are effective at long range.  That's the only place I see it being cost effective.

Spoiler: Same again (click to show/hide)

1. You seem to be arguing that gravity-affected weapons are horribly inaccurate at range. And this is true, once you get far enough. But really, are you going to claim that your lovely little quadcoptor is harder to hit than a human head, which people with firearms and training have hit at ranges of well over a mile? And don't get me started on the presence of mechanically-aimed weapons...
2. I never said the equine design was more mobile, I said it was also mobile.
3. That's hardly excusable, given the sheer detail Sean put into the design (or conceptualization, whatever) which you proposed radical alterations to.
4. You keep saying that ballistic weapons are so horribly inaccurate, but people are still using them on smaller targets which are just as mobile, today. And if they were so horrible at hitting airborne drones, why wouldn't everyone have upgraded to laser weaponry? Why have ballistic weapons at all? Basically, I'm saying that you're right, if you put the weapons in situations they were never intended for (e.g, pistols at 300 yards).
5. The rotors of an assault helicopter are rather more resistant to damage. Not to mention that they cover a much wider arc, are much much farther away than your proposed copter would be, are literally the only target worth aiming at on the modern helicopters (unless you want to try killing the pilot), and are accompanied by more effective shooting-dissuaders.
6. You'd think that it would be hard to kill someone over a mile away, but people have done it, repeatedly, with modern technology. Imagine what combat robots, or even well-trained sods, could do. And of course if ballistic weapons were as unspeakably inaccurate as you're claiming, everyone would have abandoned them for lasers long ago anyways.
7. Again, it's perfectly fine to have a quadcoptor for the roles it's good at. The RT is intended for a completely different set of roles, but you suggested using a quadcopter design anyways.
8. Why didn't you mention it, then?
9. Didn't the Artee design mention having armored panels? I'm sure it did.

Yes, I've said a RT has advantages over it.  I just think flight and mobility outweigh those advantages.  It's not universally better, I've never said that, it's just more effective in a wider variety of situations.  And probably cheaper.

And I'm rather certain of the opposite. Look at Sean's suggestions for all the ways it could be used. Your design includes no medical ability, minimal to no ability to help carry supplies, one solitary weapon (as opposed to several of multiple types)...

[Sean Mirrsen]

Like I said, a quadrotor gunship is a great weapons platform, but not a support unit. To use a RL-applicable example, having a Comanche as air cover is cold comfort when you're stuck lugging three wounded through enemy territory and the nearest field hospital is three miles across a mountain range. Sure, it'll get those enemies for you, but it's incapable of helping with anything else - simply not equipped for it.

Really, we should stop arguing. Comparing apples to oranges here. Entirely different units, entirely different roles. An RT is less mobile, a QC is less versatile. Pros and cons.

(what would you call a quadrotor RT? A "cutie"? )

[Tavik Toth]

Define "played".

I mucked about in it for some time, but its gameplay was as bland as its interface. And this was some rather long time ago. Not to mention the author still stalwartly refuses to support x768 resolutions.

You can now download a version that lets you play it in laptops!

Good thing too or I wouldn't be able to play it. Yay of reduced height windows!

[Taricus]

@GWG:
The lasers themselves have to realign after every destroyed projectile, this does take time, and that is time that another projectile in that sector will have to hit their target. More dakka does work if the enemy is only trying to shoot the munitions out. PR, is something that can be shifted onto the rebels breaking out a bunch of deranged, dangerous and insane prisoners, and the resulting damage onto the majority of the facilities was caused by that..

Ground batteries are useless because they're static. You Can literally destroy them from orbit at your leisure, especially before they can detect you entering the system. The projectiles being impeded depends on the composition of the projectile, and the velocity of it at the time of entrance into the atmosphere.

[GreatWyrmGold]

@GWG:
The lasers themselves have to realign after every destroyed projectile, this does take time, and that is time that another projectile in that sector will have to hit their target.

That depends entirely on how many lasers are in a given area and how big the fleet is. Without specific numbers on subjects like that, I'll resort to a simple defense: If you could easily bypass the laser batteries by shooting fast, the people who designed the laser battery systems would be fired and new people hired to make it work.
Just saying.

PR, is something that can be shifted onto the rebels breaking out a bunch of deranged, dangerous and insane prisoners,

Which they don't know yet, so they wouldn't plan on it.

Ground batteries are useless because they're static.

Again: If they're useless, why were they built? Pirates aren't nearly obvious or powerful enough to be worth the effort.

[Radio Controlled]

I'm not talking about the defense fleet though. And honestly, I'm just assuming the defenses are there just to keep anything like small-time pirates away: Not meant to go up against a full-scale invasion force as anything other than a speedbump.

@ Taricus: a whole lot of your points and questions have been addressed already. Look up Miyamoto's talk with Steve in the combat thread. Basically, we can shoot down ships, nukes and kinetic weapons, while their lasers aren't powerful enough to penetrate the surface. And if the UWM would go full planetcrackin' every time they think there's a little worker rebellion, they would run out of planets quite fast.

Have we asked Steve what they're armed with?  He sent the ships out that were ostensibly his ships, so he should know what's on them.

Yes we did. Miyamoto did a whole bunch of research already, go read that, it helps form a clearer picture.

@ coptertalk: I think remote controlled drones with turbofans would have a good use, but not as small fire support. Either make it small and let it scout, give it suicide explosives or a few small rockets (a good way to pack a lot of punch in a small package, if expensive).
If you want mobile fire support/attack choppa, I'd make it bigger, like a gunship. So basically a (bit smaller) helicopter.
Also, it seems like you guys are directly comparing two things which are intended for a vastly different purpose.

Thanks for the special mention, although NAV and SS did waaay more than me.  I'll try to put more work in in the future.

Hey, if everybody put in half the work you and the others already did, the wiki would be finished.   

We'll need our own version of a battle tank if the enemy makes ground-fall with tanks or if they get fortified. Any suggestions?

I have thought of a pretty detailed design for a tank, I'll have to put it down sometime. Should be relatively 'cheap'.

@Sean: when can you give me your final cost for the ships? Once I have that, I can finalize the budget and divide the teams.

Since the Sods we'll be facing are largely genetically identical and the Doc will screw with ours, can we engineer a nerve agent that will specifically target theirs?

That's a pretty cool idea actually (if using weapons outlawed by Geneva can be considered 'cool' that is) and shouldn't be too hard to do: just change a few vital proteins so your agent can't bind them in our own sods, and blamo (not that easy, of course, but easy for the Doc). If they have spacesuits though... Yeah. But if not, awesome idea, you could ask Steve for a cost of a few chemical/bioweapons like that (I don't think altering our sods to be immune will add to their cost).

When you get an Avatar you can choose it's loadout. You have three "slots" for weapons that come with the Avatar. IIRC Miyamoto got a heavy laser, a Universal Manip, and either some other weapon, or he gave up the slot to get the Universal Manip.

Indeed. There are several things that you can get for the AoW that aren't listed, but usually you pick something from the armory and you get the Avatar-sized version (e.g. drone pallet becomes massive drone swarm attached to avatar, cutting laser becomes heavy laser that cuts through buildings, gauss cannon becomes rapid fire gauss cannon, ... The universal manip took two 'equipment slots'.

@ tank discussion: well, this is right up my alley. Important thing to remember: combined arms. A tank doesn't need to have weapons against every possible situation because it should always be supported by (mechanized) infantry. Also, remember: quantity is a quality! Case in point: 'merican Shermans were inferior to several German tanks, but since those tanks cost much more to build and required more extensive and complicated supply lines, one could certainly argue the Sherman was the superior tank.

Want to know the reason anti-tank rifles aren't commonly employed anymore? Armor. More armor was the response, and it worked. Quite well. Even modern anti-materiel rifles can't really hurt tanks (stationed enemy aircraft, small watercraft, communications equipment, radar equipment, crew served weapons and similar targets, on the other hand...).

to be fair, in today's world of asymmetrical warfare, tanks are also losing much or their allure. And you don't need to completely destroy a tank to cripple it (a good hit to the threads with even improvised explosives can stop armor dead in its tracks). And tanks like the Abrams have good armor for their speed and firepower, but wooo boy that fuel consumption. Though not really a problem in ER due to handwaving problems like that.

Good idea:
Get scout eye.  Get cutting laser.  Fly scout eye around corner, video enemies.  Shoot through walls.
Why has nobody done this?

Cause on anything but a five/four, the scout eye violently and enthusiastically smacks itself into a wall.

fully-automatic gauss machineguns

Probably better to go for rapid fire rocket rifle contraptions for that.

[Tavik Toth]

Spoiler: Adventures of the Alliance in Aurora 4x (click to show/hide)

well, that happened. I just finished my first battle with what I presume to be precursors. It took a while.