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[GreatWyrmGold]

Oh god why did I post in here.

Because you're awesome?

Also, Putnam posted after this had become the OOC thread.

...Or because you're insane.

[Xantalos]

Oh god why did I post in here.

Perhaps we should had locked this thread instead of continuing to use it. Well, too late now!

Agreed, its not like we cant make a new one.

Can't you turn off notifications for particular threads? Also, Putnam posted after this had become the OOC thread.

You can turn off notifications but you cant stop it appearing in unread replies and there are other non ER players here who may not appreciate having it constantly popping up.

Eh, it only clogs up the unread replies page, not that big a deal.

[Dorsidwarf]

Ms Paint strikes again!

[Xantalos]

Dorsidwarf you are best fan art.
Someone want to use that as the wiki banner?

[PyroDesu]

See my request.
Any input from our engineers?

Requesting cost of mining the jump point with:
1. Magnetic mines containing the nukes with the best price/yield ratio we have, enough to cause significant damage without destroying too many ships.
2. Missiles containing the nukes with the best price/yield ratio we have, enough to cause significant damage without destroying too many ships.
3. Magnetic mines containing all the spare heavy gauss cannon ammo and nukes/nuclear ammo we got.
4. Auto Gauss Cannon turrets containing all the spare heavy gauss cannon ammo we got.

5.Are their ships or the robots/mechs inside them vulnerable to EMP from nukes? Probably not, but it doesn't hurt to check.

6.Requesting cost of moving asteroids or other astronomical bodies in front of the jump point. Let's turn that jump point into a late 70s arcade game!

1. Damage but not destroy? Bro, they're nukes.  Even a 1/16th bomb will have a fireball radius of 90 ft. or 23,110 ft². A kiloton is about as much as you want to do unless you wanna part the thing out.  Anyways, individual mines would be cheap, maybe a token or two each, but magnetic mines are silly. we'd have to have millions or billions of them to coat space in a high enough number for them to actually manage to stick to the ship. Magnets are really weak.

2. About the same, plus a few tokens for the missile, but really missiles are probably a bad idea. They take too long to get to their target and the target has lasers.

3.See before.

4. Not sure thats viable either. We'd need to stick the cannons a good distance from the jump point so they don't just get smashed, and I feel like the shots wouldn't be fast enough to penetrate point defense.

5. To a degree, but vital systems will be shielded.

6. Well... that is a bit more practical in terms of actually killing ships (A big multimegaton nuke would work too but not if we want to use these ships.) but it would require building specialized ships to go up and plant materials and robots on the surface so they could build systems used to move the asteroids around. It would be pretty expensive and take the better part of a year at least to get them into place. Moving big shit in space is hard.

Radio wants an engineering inclined person to comment, here you go.

I have to say, Piecewise was not quite accurate.

• Nuclear weapons in space work quite differently than in an atmosphere. Biggest differences are the lack of fireball (caused by soft X-ray interaction with the atmosphere) and overpressure blast wave (caused by the high temperatures and radiation). In space, all you've got is the radiation flux to do damage with, with the bomb's energy being converted into about 80% soft X-ray, 10% Gamma ray, and 10% Neutron radiation. All of which follow the inverse-square law, so range is pretty pathetic. Call it... a kilometer, for a 1 megaton warhead. A ¹/₁₆ kiloton bomb ain't doing squat unless it's on the hull. And even then, it'll be pathetic.
  
  And making magnetic mines in space is pointless. In space, what would constitute a 'mine' would be a long-term missile launcher with detection gear aboard.
• This is an old debate, missiles vs. lasers. The Rocketpunk Manifesto has already explained it better than I can. As he says, severe geekitude follows.
• Yeah, no. Completely pointless, as I said above. One point I agree with PW on.
• Much more pointful, but don't bother with the nuclear munitions. A KKV would do well enough. Heck, dispense with the turret (which wouldn't be great anyways, there's no sitting something still in space. Insane orbital mechanics would come into play for something like that to work) and just launch a bucketful of rock dust, it'll do fine.
• Nukes in space don't do EMP, that's a phenomenon strictly for planets with an atmosphere (ionosphere, specifically, and the magnetic field that requires) And while you can make an EMP bomb that does work in space, it would be pointless against another craft, they're basically going to be giant Faraday cages. Might blind a few sensors temporarily, but you can do that with nukes too.
• NO.

[smurfingtonthethird]

Or we could just install a big ass orbital cannon facing the drop point.

[Radio Controlled]

Radio wants an engineering inclined person to comment, here you go.

Did you mean paris, or am I missing something?

Anyways, yeah PW's assessment might not be the most accurate (though I'd cut him some slack on that point), but I kinda doubt the initial idea of attacking the ships we wanna capture in the first place.

This is an old debate, missiles vs. lasers. The Rocketpunk Manifesto has already explained it better than I can. As he says, severe geekitude follows.

But manips can accelerate solid rounds to significant values of c, so the rocketpunk analysis isn't completely applicable.

build systems used to move the asteroids around.

NO

When using manips, I could see it happen. Not very practical or cost-efficient, perhaps, but maybe.

@ dorsi: nice work.

Or we could just install a big ass orbital cannon facing the drop point.

Better make sure the cannon is cloaked though, or the UWM can just shoot it out of the sky space.

[Yoink]

Or we could just uninstall the drop point.
They couldn't get us then.

[Taricus]

The missile thing would certainly depend on PD weaponry being present, since they do need to actively collide with the hull to do damage. But simply put, if they have point defence weapons, only a literal swarm would penetrate that net, and only a small fraction would survive. This applies to the shuttle idea as well, though the total size of the swarm would be lower. Just hope they don't target the ones carrying the teams on them first

For the kinetic weapons, they certainly would be good. Though I would assume it would need to be of a certain size before it could get through any deflectors or such, since space debris would certainly had to have been accounted for in designs right in the early days of space travel.

And for the asteroid idea, getting something of that mass to move at a high velocity would be difficult, but that's it. Once it's rolling, just sit back and sip a drink, any sort. You just killed a lot of people. Though whether it's in a month or 100,000 years is yet to be seen

@Smurf: Building a big cannon in orbit means giving the UWM one big, juicy target, especially if pointed at the ground. I'm pretty sure they would use that at full efficiency against you if you ever made though. But pleaswe, go ahead and build it though.

[Radio Controlled]

Just hope they don't target the ones carrying the teams on them first

We (ARM) has special coatings that negate lasers decently enough to allow us to ignore their laser defenses. These coatings are derived from alien 'tech', so the UWM doesn't have them, not does it know about them. This was discussed by Miya with Steve, by the way.

In general, remember FTL travel in ER revolves around specific points in space where ships enter and leave FTL travel. So defenses don't need to cover great (as in, usual space-level) distances, nor do any kinetic weapons (which can move really fast thanks to manips).

Also, i love how, even now that we have a tinker thread, technical discussions still rule the waves game just about everywhere.

[Xantalos]

Anyone on the team ever smoked bluesmokes?

[Taricus]

Just hope they don't target the ones carrying the teams on them first

We (ARM) has special coatings that negate lasers decently enough to allow us to ignore their laser defenses. These coatings are derived from alien 'tech', so the UWM doesn't have them, not does it know about them. This was discussed by Miya with Steve, by the way.

In general, remember FTL travel in ER revolves around specific points in space where ships enter and leave FTL travel. So defenses don't need to cover great (as in, usual space-level) distances, nor do any kinetic weapons (which can move really fast thanks to manips).

Also, i love how, even now that we have a tinker thread, technical discussions still rule the waves game just about everywhere.

That's not going to stop one crazy bastard getting a gauss weapon and running out onto the hull of the ship and start shooting at the shuttles from there. And I wouldn't put it past them to try it as a desperation tactic.

...Though now I have a hilarious image in my head that that's how orbital bombardment works: You get a company armed with heavy gausses and start shooting the planet

[PyroDesu]

Anyone on the team ever smoked bluesmokes?

Several, me included.

And guys, the No was a no as in, no, let's not be flinging asteroids about the system as massive KKVs.

Also, Radio, Paris was asking if missiles would be any good, and PW said that the point-defense lasers made it worthless. Relativistic cannons had nothing to do with it, so the analysis is still fine for that.

[BFEL]

Just hope they don't target the ones carrying the teams on them first

We (ARM) has special coatings that negate lasers decently enough to allow us to ignore their laser defenses. These coatings are derived from alien 'tech', so the UWM doesn't have them, not does it know about them. This was discussed by Miya with Steve, by the way.

In general, remember FTL travel in ER revolves around specific points in space where ships enter and leave FTL travel. So defenses don't need to cover great (as in, usual space-level) distances, nor do any kinetic weapons (which can move really fast thanks to manips).

Also, i love how, even now that we have a tinker thread, technical discussions still rule the waves game just about everywhere.

That's not going to stop one crazy bastard getting a gauss weapon and running out onto the hull of the ship and start shooting at the shuttles from there. And I wouldn't put it past them to try it as a desperation tactic.

...Though now I have a hilarious image in my head that that's how orbital bombardment works: You get a company armed with heavy gausses and start shooting the planet

Oh you think that image is crazy?

After STEPHEN HAWKING first demonstrated his ability to be in two places at once, I imagined a "ultimate move" wherein he grabs some nuke gun or such, multiplies himself around a planet in a miniature Dyson Sphere, and then launches a million billion artillery strikes from all angles.

PW shot it down in PMs of course, but it was an interesting image.

BTW, it woulda been called the "HAWKING Hellfire Holocaust"

[Xantalos]

Anyone on the team ever smoked bluesmokes?

Several, me included.

And guys, the No was a no as in, no, let's not be flinging asteroids about the system as massive KKVs.

Also, Radio, Paris was asking if missiles would be any good, and PW said that the point-defense lasers made it worthless. Relativistic cannons had nothing to do with it, so the analysis is still fine for that.

Hmm. What effects did it have?