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Author Topic: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...  (Read 11871 times)

Errol

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #60 on: June 20, 2009, 08:42:29 am »

First of all, lasers are a rather bad idea in my opinion. The only use I'd see for them would be long range, like sniper rifles or orbital laser cannons. The primary advantage is that you don't see them coming.
This leads me to extra-long range sniperbots that will probably be a hard counter to infantry. Have the thing auto-target opponents and the operator sinply push 'Fire' or something. It will obviously have to have some absurd range.
The hard counter for these would be armored units. Since there are probably going to be helmets for infantry due to that the lasers will need some serious punch, therefore you really should need to get some Juggernaut Armor, closer to a mobile bunker really. As for ammo for these monstrosities, I'm proposing explosives, homing missiles, a lot of guns, all the good stuff. I'll also think the part that should be armored the most would be the top, as to counteract artillery. The thing must have some good speed just in case however.
Artillery would be more like orbital space sats, and come in two varieties - the laser variant is more for precision strikes and actually doesn't suffer from ammo problems like the metal rod variant does. Simply drop a metal rod on the target. These satellites will probably be dirt cheap. And then there will be satellite-to-satellite satellites armed with lasers, probably, or missiles. In this case, have the laser variant also shoot anti-satellite lasers or something. Counter? Other satellites usually, and perhaps an stationary heat-seeking rocket launcher.
I am also predicting the end of the traditional human infantry. Instead, we will have drones or semi-sentient combatbots, armed with a variety of weapons and leaning more towards a zerg-rush style tactic. Anti-tank weapons, anti-air, anti-person or kamikaze, everything goes.
My pet peeve here really are humanoid robots tho, human size and all. It's impractical, but wayy more awesome than the rest here.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #61 on: June 20, 2009, 09:11:46 am »

Shooting lasers through copious amounts of atmosphere is more problematic than you think. Light beam gets scattered as it travels some dense medium(air) and the more powerful the beam, the more "blooming" it causes(ionizing air particles on it's path, which tend to block even more of the original beam).

And "dropping a metal rod" from a satelite is silly. It would burn in the atmosphere before hitting the target, not to mention how hard it would be to aim such a thing, given the orbital speed of any given sat and the chaotic, uncomputable nature of atmospheric reentry.
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Baughn

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #62 on: June 20, 2009, 09:43:55 am »

There's that, and then there's the fact that dropping anything from orbit actually takes quite a lot of energy.

You can't just detach it from the satellite; you have to give it a serious kick. It would take quite a *large* kick to get it out of orbit at all, which would also wreck the satellite's orbit if it does the kicking, so in practice you need to mount a rocket engine on the rod.

At that point, you might as well just use a missile. Preferably ground-launched, since that's less noticeable.

Funny thing, though. Assuming your satellite *is* in orbit, the closer it is to the ground, the higher its orbital velocity and the more kick you need to get it *out* of orbit.

So.. yes, the higher your orbit, the easier it would be to hit the ground.

Better yet, put it in one of the lagrange points, where its velocity vs. the ground is (more or less) zero and you really *can* just gently push the rod off and have gravity accelerate it. You'll still want ion thrusters to adjust its (de-)orbit, and preferably some in-atmosphere guidance, but it would be considerably cheaper.

And, yes, getting the satellite to a lagrange point is easier than getting it into a low orbit, too. For that matter, high orbits are cheaper to get to than low orbits. ^^;
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #63 on: June 20, 2009, 09:54:04 am »

You just need a little push from LEO and let the airbraking do the rest. No chances of aiming at anything this way, though.
Aiming at anything from Lagrange is equally impossible.
And how is it easier to launch a sat to Lagrange(earth-moon, I assume) point than LEO?
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bjlong

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #64 on: June 20, 2009, 10:08:15 am »

Getting to LEO is prohibitively expensive now. Getting to a Lagrange point is not horribly worse.

The best bet for a LEO "dropping rocks" scheme is if one is able to make a cheap, one-use heat sheild to deal with the reentry phase, as well as small rockets to direct its path. Again, this is still too expensive to just smash things for no reason, but as a breakaway shield for delivering material, you get two things in one: bombardment and delivery of material. As long as your men get down there, you'll have a good deployment scheme.

Sadly, a little push would only destabilize a LEO, which would take too much time to degenerate to be useful for the military.

Baughn: the destabilization would only take place if the satellite is roughly as massive as the rod. For a large satellite, the kick could come from the large satellite without much problem. Of course, it'd have to correct its orbit before firing again.

Also, I'm still thinking "I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)" by Meatloaf when I read your tag.
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Baughn

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #65 on: June 20, 2009, 10:08:22 am »

Note that I suggested using ion thrusters on a payload launched from a lagrange point. They can be made very small and cheap. Now...


I don't know about launching - as in with a rocket - but the physics involved set lower limits for energy use..

There are two components involved in getting something into orbit.

First, you need to provide the potential energy for getting it up there in the first place. That's equal to the amount of energy it'd get from dropping back down; this is (mostly) your payload, unless you're actually launching from the moon, which could be a good idea. This energy increases with distance from earth, but the increase slows down as you get farther out; going to an infinite distance takes a finite amount of energy, never mind time.

However, this energy, being the payload, can be disregarded. You can get the same payload at any orbital altitude by adjusting your mass.

Second, you need to provide the orbital velocity to make it stay up there. For standard orbits this depends on the distance from the earth, with lower orbits requiring higher speeds and thus more energy. The lagrange points require especially little energy to get to.

But here's the trick. This energy is wasted, as far as payload goes. If you still have any when you hit the ground, you'll hit the ground at an angle; not necessarily a good thing. Mostly, orbital velocity is removed by air-braking long before you hit said ground, which will also make your bullet highly visible if you need to get rid of a lot of it.

Yes, some of it can be used, but mostly not. Meanwhile, all the altitude-based *potential* energy can be used, or close enough. Certainly a lot more.

So by and large, it's better to place your weapons satellite farther from earth.
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Baughn

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #66 on: June 20, 2009, 10:13:18 am »

And yes, I'm envisioning these satellites as being a bunch of girders wrapping kinetic rocket-less (but not thruster-less) missiles. Most of its mass would be in the missiles.

There's really no need for the satellite to give the missiles any kick anyway; you want their kinetic energy to come from dropping from a high altitude.

Oh, and when it comes to Yuno, think "I'd do anything for love. Including tying you up in an abandoned building so you can't escape me. Or slitting the throats of your enemies."
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Baughn

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #67 on: June 20, 2009, 10:17:02 am »

Oh, and to all of you who are at all interested in orbital mechanics, I can suggest playing the freeware game Orbiter to get a kind of intuitive feel for it.

It really helps.
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bjlong

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #68 on: June 20, 2009, 10:22:52 am »

However, if you fire before the people on the ground understand what's happening, strike many places at once, and take out some of the communications structure, then you've got an effective, if not perfect, strategy.

Rockets, as I understand it, are pretty inefficient. But they're fast enough to accelerate the thing off the ground, versus the current designs of the ion drives. I predict that ion drives won't become feasible for getting to orbit for a long time. That said, ion drives certainly would be suited for Lagrange pt. launching, rockets for closer to earth. 

Also, if I remember correctly, if you're in orbit, you need to decelerate to drop out of orbit. The old "down is forward, forward is up, up is back, and back is down" saying. This means that if you do put rockets on a LEO falling rock, then it'd be a good thing to lose more of the forward velocity. So we agree on that point.

My point is: It's better to place your satellite far from earth, but if you can't and have plenty of manufacturing capability, you can get by in an LEO orbit. Which leaves some hope for my vision of a LEO space station fighting earth.

Also. I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF A 200+ LBS MAN BEING VULNERABLE TO PIANO MUSIC!
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Grek

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #69 on: June 20, 2009, 10:23:43 am »

What's more likely is firing something into space and letting the planet rotate your target into the line of fire. It's still stupidly inaccurate, but it a six foot, one inch diameter tungstun rod dropped from orbit hits like an atomic bomb and it can't be shot down with a missle because the target is half a square foot and the radar isn't even going to pick that up.

If you are a terrorist and target area is the size of a country and you don't really care who gets hit in that country as long as someone gets hit, then an orbital rod starts to look alot more appealing.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #70 on: June 20, 2009, 10:51:45 am »

If you're a terrorist, you usually don't have enough funds and technology to fire a rocket into space just so that it can drop a tungsten rod.

baughn:
Quote
And, yes, getting the satellite to a lagrange point is easier than getting it into a low orbit, too. For that matter, high orbits are cheaper to get to than low orbits. ^^;
Quote
Oh, and to all of you who are at all interested in orbital mechanics, I can suggest playing the freeware game Orbiter to get a kind of intuitive feel for it.
You've probably not played this enough. Following your line of thought, it'd cost next to nothing to launch something into an orbit infinitely large. And the reason why ISS is in LEO and not half way to the moon is probably because it is cheaper to get there, don't you think?
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Baughn

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #71 on: June 20, 2009, 11:16:09 am »

No, I didn't say that. There's still a significant cost to getting to that altitude in the first place, you just don't need energy for orbital velocity then. (since, well, you'll be out past andromeda somewhere).

Besides that, the equation is somewhat different for the ISS. There are many reasons to be close to earth, not least so you can put cameras on it and look downwards..

But more to the point, the energy cost for getting to a high altitude is, in fact, higher than the cost of achieving orbital velocity. It's just that your missile launcher is going to get that energy back as payload, while the ISS isn't.
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Muz

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #72 on: June 20, 2009, 11:36:47 am »

Orbital rod is a lame idea. You CAN miss a country with that kind of thing.

That's why I support giant robots wielding large metal rods. Why drop a big chunk of metal from the sky when you can have a few robots bashing up a building and knocking around tanks Hulk-style with a large metal rod?
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Strife26

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #73 on: June 20, 2009, 11:40:24 am »

If you do it right, rods from god can be perfectly accurate.
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Virex

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Re: Giant robots are a terrible idea so...
« Reply #74 on: June 20, 2009, 12:13:49 pm »

I wouldn't write off armoured ground units just yet. We're not that far in understanding and synthesising materials with properties on the nanoscale. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some very interesting materials coming out in the next decade, mainly in the form of nanocomposits and perhaps exotic glasses or uncommon crystaline ceramics. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting quite close to the limits of the explosive power we can realisticly get out of a gram of explosive. This means that soon we might be at a point where armour starts to catch up with weapons again because heavier weapons just become unwieldy for direct combat.
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