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[Devastator]

Ooh, semi-random idea. Use bomb-pumped FEL XASERS as missiles. Of sorts. Launch them out, give them some halfway decent targeting, guidance, and thrusters, have them attack from odd angles. The UWM won't know what hit them.

"Casaba Howitzer"

And, for the record, Syvarris, 'gun that shoots mindfuck' is an easier challenge than 'handheld x-ray laser.'  ;-)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Ooh, semi-random idea. Use bomb-pumped FEL XASERS as missiles. Of sorts. Launch them out, give them some halfway decent targeting, guidance, and thrusters, have them attack from odd angles. The UWM won't know what hit them.

"Casaba Howitzer"

And, for the record, Syvarris, 'gun that shoots mindfuck' is an easier challenge than 'handheld x-ray laser.'  ;-)

How about "Gun that shoots tunnels"? I mean, I know we normally call it the "High Energy Projector", but in my mind it's always the tunnel gun. *ZZAP* - tunnel. *ZZAP* - tunnel. It's practically my favorite gun in the armory. There are guns that are more powerful, more efficient, more cost-effective, more adaptable, and/or more versatile - but only one gun that can dig a tunnel with one pull of the trigger.

[syvarris]

The mindfucker was actually the first thing to pop into my mind, but it has an excuse: the fabric of reality is breaking down.  This is also why I didn't mention the lavalamp cannon, because it uses space magic.  The PSL, on the other hand, doesn't seem to use any broken reality cheats or space magic- it's just technology, as far as we can tell.  Therefore, it's a larger exception to reality than a weaponized FEL, because it has no explanation aside from "Really cool crystals that are super sharp and hard and tough and explode after they stop moving", whereas the FEL is based on an actual scientific fact.

Also, the FEL is less OP than the PSL.  That helps too.

@Sean

The lavalamp cannon can also dig tunnels.  Oddly enough, it's far less energy efficient, which is somewhat interesting...

[Parisbre56]

What if instead of FELs you used Phased Array Lasers?

The lavalamp cannon can also dig tunnels.  Oddly enough, it's far less energy efficient, which is somewhat interesting...

Yeah it has limited ammo, but it can go through almost anything, barring hexplate or some other really strong armour. A ball of plasma will go through a battlesuit or even something larger than a battlesuit, which is why the plasma ship Sean made was so effective in defending Hephaestus.
And it can fire without waiting to reload, so you have a chance if they gang up on you.

[Nikitian]

I don't think I ever responded to the glowworm gun research cause no one asked me for the results.

So the gun itself seems to be a hive of sorts for some sort of atomic level matter eating...somethings. Lab boys call them termites. The consciousness in the gun controls them, and they invade the body and control it. The problem is that they can't seem to inhabit inorganic hosts without degrading destroying them eventually. The other problem is that, while we can replicate the "effect" of the beam which implants the targets with what amount to soldiers ants designed to eat away their opponents, controlling them without the group consciousness is difficult. Impossible, actually. We had to drop the test chamber into a matter annihilator.

So, we're kinda at a "Gray goo" level with them right now. More research is necessary.

Ideas so far (repost from OOC thread):

• Maybe ask Doctor to make a surrogate control organ for a user
• A doomsday device
• A ship weapon - range test required, and we'll probably finally have organic ships

Also, check if the termites are resistant to heat - might be useful for 'damage control' and other things.

ADD: Also, now to think of it - even if the range is too small for space battles, can't we make fighters around this weapon? One of the main drawbacks of a fighter, IIRC, is that they don't nearly have enough punch even when employed en masse. Now, with this sort of a weapon (especially if it'd be cheaper and easier to produce than an automanip), it might be fine to mount on fighters - even one hit, given enough time and a bit of negligience, can cripple an enemy warship.

[renegadelobster]

I would be up for testing that organ and the gun. Especially if the gun could be made more compact

[Radio Controlled]

You know, I think we should ask Steve/think about what kind of engagements we can expect to be facing. I suspect, for example, that most space battles will involve either holding or breaking through a FTL point blockade, and beyond that, I suspect most of the times our enemies will either be coming from the jump point, or coming from/staying at the main planet. So, battle at range seem to be the main part.


However, I once asked aresteve about it, and he told me this:

Protecting against fleets eh? Well, depends on the make up of the fleet. They bring a capital ship through and you're probably screwed unless you can put several "Hammer" rounds into it; and it's got enough automanips to make that sort of thing hard. Assuming they don't do that; which they probably won't, the nuclear landmines and lasers should deal with most things; or at least cripple part of the fleet. At that point they'd probably either retreat or head for the planet, if they're really gungho. Because the route they'd take is unknown, we'd have a hard time placing defenses along it, meaning we would need to either place them around heph, or create them to be mobile enough to go out and take down the fleet before it reached it's destination. We could do that the traditional way: ie we build ships of our own and have them head out and get in a slugging match; or we can use the fact that we're in control of an extremely powerful ai and create a huge swarm of modified steve bots with built in entanglement communications that would attack and disable the ships.

So, this seems to indicate that there’ll be close quarters combat, somehow. But when?
Well, as a fleet materialize and punches through a point blockade, they’lll be going… rather fast. And then they’ll spend most of their time braking and repositioning themselves. If we can predict at what position a fleet will be going slow enough to make using stevebot- like contraptions a thing, we could place stealthed containers floating there, to release their cargo when their ships get near (and yes, Sean, this also implies small fighter-like things might be appropriate in that situation  

However, Pw himself says it's difficult to predict that, so... yeah, we'll have to look into it. Business as usual!

[Sean Mirrsen]

You know, I think we should ask Steve/think about what kind of engagements we can expect to be facing. I suspect, for example, that most space battles will involve either holding or breaking through a FTL point blockade, and beyond that, I suspect most of the times our enemies will either be coming from the jump point, or coming from/staying at the main planet. So, battle at range seem to be the main part.


However, I once asked aresteve about it, and he told me this:

Protecting against fleets eh? Well, depends on the make up of the fleet. They bring a capital ship through and you're probably screwed unless you can put several "Hammer" rounds into it; and it's got enough automanips to make that sort of thing hard. Assuming they don't do that; which they probably won't, the nuclear landmines and lasers should deal with most things; or at least cripple part of the fleet. At that point they'd probably either retreat or head for the planet, if they're really gungho. Because the route they'd take is unknown, we'd have a hard time placing defenses along it, meaning we would need to either place them around heph, or create them to be mobile enough to go out and take down the fleet before it reached it's destination. We could do that the traditional way: ie we build ships of our own and have them head out and get in a slugging match; or we can use the fact that we're in control of an extremely powerful ai and create a huge swarm of modified steve bots with built in entanglement communications that would attack and disable the ships.

So, this seems to indicate that there’ll be close quarters combat, somehow. But when?
Well, as a fleet materialize and punches through a point blockade, they’lll be going… rather fast. And then they’ll spend most of their time braking and repositioning themselves. If we can predict at what position a fleet will be going slow enough to make using stevebot- like contraptions a thing, we could place stealthed containers floating there, to release their cargo when their ships get near (and yes, Sean, this also implies small fighter-like things might be appropriate in that situation  

However, Pw himself says it's difficult to predict that, so... yeah, we'll have to look into it. Business as usual!

Better stupider different idea, for handling Capital ships. Kinetic kill ramships. A ramship in conventional combat has the disadvantage that it doesn't have enough time to accelerate to sufficient speed and get close to the enemy. However it might be a different story when the target starts out at ridiculous speed and plows ahead, with the ramship catching up.

When a ship exits FTL, it spends a long time decelerating from the trans-jump velocity to regular orbital velocity. Another ship may use that long time to accelerate from the jumppoint towards the ship - a ship with FTL-rated propulsion will basically catch up to the target at about the same time as it reaches sane orbital speed. Relative to the target, the ramship will be travelling at the trans-jump velocity at that point, which is a significant fraction of lightspeed. Shooting it down will be equivalent to shooting down a Hammer slug, in terms of aiming. And depending on how expensive FTL-rated propulsion systems are (not FTL systems themselves), such ramships could be a somewhat cost-effective (accounting for lower effectiveness and higher miss chance) alternative to building permanent Hammer installations.

I know it's a ludicrous idea. But could it work?

[Radio Controlled]

When a ship exits FTL, it spends a long time decelerating from the trans-jump velocity to regular orbital velocity. Another ship may use that long time to accelerate from the jumppoint towards the ship - a ship with FTL-rated propulsion will basically catch up to the target at about the same time as it reaches sane orbital speed. Relative to the target, the ramship will be travelling at the trans-jump velocity at that point, which is a significant fraction of lightspeed. Shooting it down will be equivalent to shooting down a Hammer slug, in terms of aiming. And depending on how expensive FTL-rated propulsion systems are (not FTL systems themselves), such ramships could be a somewhat cost-effective (accounting for lower effectiveness and higher miss chance) alternative to building permanent Hammer installations.
I know it's a ludicrous idea. But could it work?

Wouldn't it be easier to take a hammer shell and slap an engine behind it? We know those shells can already track their target.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Wouldn't it be easier to take a hammer shell and slap an engine behind it? We know those shells can already track their target.

Well, a shell with engines and a control mechanism is already technically a (drone) ship, so... yes?

Okay, perhaps calling them something like "torpedoes" would have been more fitting, but I was rather drawing parallels to FTL-capable ships. So, besides the ship/torpedo duality issue, how likely would this be to work?

[Radio Controlled]

Wouldn't it be easier to take a hammer shell and slap an engine behind it? We know those shells can already track their target.

Well, a shell with engines and a control mechanism is already technically a (drone) ship, so... yes?

Okay, perhaps calling them something like "torpedoes" would have been more fitting, but I was rather drawing parallels to FTL-capable ships. So, besides the ship/torpedo duality issue, how likely would this be to work?

I think it would? It's basically a better Hammer cannon shell, and pw has said those work like a charm.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It's a Hammer shell without a Hammer. It's basically a self-driving nail. It's a significant deviation from the concept, which is why I'm asking. Would keeping a stockpile of these hammerpedoes around the jumppoint, to be dispensed if an enemy fleet arrives as needed, be a practical replacement for an actual Hammer installation? I'm assuming the propulsion systems for FTL-transit accelerations are not quite dirt cheap.

[Radio Controlled]

It's a Hammer shell without a Hammer. It's basically a self-driving nail. It's a significant deviation from the concept, which is why I'm asking. Would keeping a stockpile of these hammerpedoes around the jumppoint, to be dispensed if an enemy fleet arrives as needed, be a practical replacement for an actual Hammer installation? I'm assuming the propulsion systems for FTL-transit accelerations are not quite dirt cheap.

Perhaps they would. But I'm kinda thinking that mines are a better option at the jump points themselves. Though I guess these could be used as a 'second line of defense', so yeah, it's not a bad idea.

By the way, remember we can build space-based Hammer cannons. In case you want to add a little extra punch.

[Nikitian]

On topic of extra science crew (from Heph thread): what about upgrading our propulsion methods/fuels? I recall that being one of RC-approved ideas sometime ago, but I don't think it ever got developed.

[Radio Controlled]

On topic of extra science crew (from Heph thread): what about upgrading our propulsion methods/fuels? I recall that being one of RC-approved ideas sometime ago, but I don't think it ever got developed.

The project for upgraded generators and fuel mixtures was done a while ago, yes. Was that what you had in mind?


Anyways, my idea for the science crew was to see if they couldn't interrogate the headless dude. Or if not, try to establish a mode of communicating with him, and maybe a few non-invasive medical scans to see how that guy works. Maybe he can help us figure out a way to decode the data from the egg shaped machines?


@ syv: my original intention for those research projects was to get upgrades to a battlesuit's major components, then design a wholly new suit to replace it, rather than switch out a few parts. So battlesuit 2.0 instead of 1.5. But I'd be amenable to the alternative as well, should that be a better option. Any thoughts?