Bay 12 Games Forum

The problem with treads and wheels are that they have trouble with going over rubble. Legs, on the other hand, can go over lots of things a lot easier. There's some back-of-the-napkin physics we could go over, but simple experience works just as well.

That said, I doubt we'll have anything more interesting looking than spider-tanks for a long, long time. (In fact, insects are made of linear motors and armor plates. A few design tweaks to add guns and such would be relatively easy, though the movement system would be difficult to come up with.)

And yes, Aqizzar, that's a big problem. Actually, that's my problem with any prediction of a singularity event anytime within the next hundred years. On top of that, we take about 5 years learning how to use our body. What makes us think that we can just plug in to a new one, even if the architecture is there?

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!

Damn your trendiness, Cthulhu! Damn it!

Also, I'm going to make a gun that fires hammers. Which, themselves, fire bullets.

Toady: Possibly shuffling people to and from places would have a small negative thought associated with it. Maybe doing it enough would give them a personality tag, like "doesn't feel like s/he has a home anymore," which would stop the negative thoughts. Possibly this tag could be removed after some time in one burrow/bed, with a positive thought like "was happy to finally have a home." But this is low-priority, and should probably wait for the next release you work on burrows.

Also, as for the attacking dwarves in the fortress, there should be set of revolutionary counter-actions that your fortress would go through, possibly based around a small core of dissidents that would throw "parties" to plot and scheme and generally be revolutionary. I'd think that they'd be out of your control, and that you could later play the fortress as the revolutionary people if their coup succeeds. But this should probably be put off, as well as attacking dwarves.

Furthermore, all these updates are AWESOME. I cannot express how awesome. No, Chuck Norris and Mr. T don't compare. Possibly with Bill Nye, though.

I saw it more as a list of desirable qualities.

Armok: I'd have to see some of the theoretical tech behind this to make a call. It is suitable for a "space fighter" but... I dunno, something about those arms makes me hesitant. They look vulnerable.

Sean: I've heard that theory (no war or total obliteration) many times before, and I'm very reluctant to believe it. People have been making that prediction about "the next war" since WWI, and we've had plenty of wars since then. And we've progressed technologically. All this does is change "the next war" for "eventually." Really, I just don't see any evidence for it besides back-of-the-napkin figures and broad estimations.

Later is Now!

The main advantage of a LEO space station is its positioning--right on the brink of space, it could send light drones to "tow" asteroids in for mining. Since it will have earth-like gravity to be sustainable, manufacturing can take place in 1g or micro g environments, which allow a lot of manufacturing possibilities. In war, it's got the high position.

The main disadvantages in war would be its very vulnerable structure. There will be a point when the entire structure fails.

Against the earth, some of its best weapons would be asteroids, coated with something heat resistant. With little modification, you could use asteroids as a delivery system for material and manpower. (The engineering problems are kinda complex here--the best I've been able to come up with is a hang-glider type system. That way, you can land where the asteroids hit with some precision. The problem? You're vulnerable to AA fire.) Since the station would be a manufacturing center, the people here would have plenty of manufacturing experience, which means that you could drop vehicles as parts, and, if modular enough, each part could be used on its own.

Note that these could be launched from the space station long before they become active, save for the troops. Those would probably have a timer on the scale of about a week before they'd have to be dropped.

The fact that they'd be dropping vehicles as parts means that they'd have no heavy armor. If the earth had these, they'd be in a good position to take back cities (which is where a good commander would position these "para" troops.)

The fun thing to design for me was the vehicles. I tried to make them modular enough so that everything had multiple functions, but I could only really do that with the jeep. The turret was easy enough. The body should be able to double as a bunker, if covered with rubble, the engine could double as a winch, and the seats as armor plating or riot shields. I tried to come up with a spider tank in much the same way, but I ended up just saying that it could be dropped whole.

As before, the earth could simply launch missiles. Which is why the space station would have to strike first, possibly while moving the space station into a higher, different orbit.

The world will soon have nuclear missiles all over, waiting to be launched, non-proliferation treaties be damned. So, barring the timely intervention of a reliable, fast missile defense system, nuclear ICBMs will be the ultimate say in warfare.

Bombers, carriers, tanks, etc. will all be for show. The infantry regiments, though, will have a different purpose.

Taking and holding territory will become prohibitively expensive, both in capital and world politics, and be impossible without a nuclear strike. Since noone wants this, an alternate route would be to use political strikes to take out the members of government that are against certain policies. Yes, I'm talking about spies, selected from the military regiments. However, I predict the emergence of a new type of spy, one that enters the country and starts a terrorist movement to carry out whatever orders his/her commander gives. This way, terrorism can take the blame for black ops.

This gives the commanders pseudo strike teams that can be anywhere they need them without drawing attention to themselves, difficult to capture, and very disposable.

Naturally, there will be lots of tech associated with this.

This does not work if a long-term civilian LEO space station is built in the meantime, though, as that would change the ICBM dynamic.

I do have a problem with some of these assumptions--there may be one person crazy enough to pull the trigger on a nuke, and I have no clue how that endgame might work out.