Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on February 05, 2014, 02:50:39 pm

"Why not?"

"Oh, hi Calvin! How are you doing?"

Kyle goes over to a computer and pulls up youtube and then turns on a song (I'm not okay).
"The title of this chorus of this song describes you."

Quote from: Projeck37 on February 05, 2014, 02:39:19 pm

Enki nods at Noam.

Noam smiles, Wanna join?""

Kyle raises an eyebrow at Will.

[To: William] <Please access the visual feeds and check if either of the angel' hosts have phones on them and the numbers of them.>

@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.

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

Ground batteries are useless because they're static.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on February 05, 2014, 12:46:37 pm

Why not argue on your own behalf?

Where's the fun in that?

I'd rather get some more interaction in that is fairly different from her usual conversations.

Kyle raises an eyebrow at Will.

((also dibs on Kyles loot drops))