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Messages - Flare

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196
General Discussion / Re: What will terrestial combat look like?
« on: November 27, 2012, 06:15:21 am »
Quote from: TheBronzePickle on November 26, 2012, 07:43:55 pm
Actually, walker bots would be perfectly fine in the rugged terrain on mountains, where they'd have a massive advantage over wheeled and tracked vehicles. Although they'd probably be neither giant nor bipedal: just swarms of small mechspider tanks.

I don't know about this, due to the square cube law, the foot print to weight is going to increase exponentially faster than it's area. Walking around a mountain where loose ground, high inclines, and generally unstable ground incapable of supporting a dozen tonne footstep doesn't seem like a good idea to send an incredibly expensive and delicate piece of machinery.

Quote from: Kogan Loloklam on November 27, 2012, 05:45:29 am
However, the laws of physics say that recoil on a railgun doesn't matter to ground-based firing platforms (from human rifleman to megamecha) thanks to friction.

This is mostly true, but the main issue with recoil for large caliber guns is balance and generally the robustness of the chassis to take the force without messing up the precision instruments. For tanks and other armored vehicles with large armaments, as far as I know the guns are always placed in the center so shooting the cannon doesn't displace the aim of the gun. I think the aluminum tanks used by the US in Vietnam encountered this problem when they stuffed missiles into the turret.

Does anyone know if spider like legs scale up? From the way they're attached to the bottom of the body to the shape and contact with the ground, would the square cube law mess with this design? I don't see this sort of design being around past the tarantula size, and there's probably some sort of reason for this.  Is it due to the increased mass of the leg relevant to the area and the strength of the materials for the joints involved past a certain point in size?

Most large animals seem to go for the straight legs directly under the main body like elephants and rhinoceroses.

197
Other Games / Re: Mount and Blade
« on: November 27, 2012, 01:44:55 am »
Do note that the character who has the trainer skill needs to be of equal level to or above the troop being trained to be able to train that troop.

198
General Discussion / Re: How would space combat really work?
« on: November 27, 2012, 12:11:50 am »
Quote from: Cthulhu on November 26, 2012, 11:47:57 pm
It's just styrofoam isn't very cool.

Wiping out a metropolis because someone threw out a Styrofoam coffee cup during high-speed running-battle can be quite humorous.

Quote from: Cthulhu on November 26, 2012, 11:47:57 pm
Can the gun not be terrestrial?  You might be talking earthquakes and shit from the recoil, maybe even disrupting the orbit if it's small enough, but judging by our solar system uninhabited planets with no atmosphere aren't exactly a commodity.

Well, when we're talking about massive construction, I think a viable alternative to the giant ass railgun would be a sabot-type energy or projectile missile powered by it's own explosion. For the projectile thing, I guess it would be like an Orion star ship depending on the number of charges it has.

Edit: I actually have a better idea. Instead of using charges, why not just install single use railguns on giant asteroids? The weight of the rock, the railgun, and likely dead weight to stabilize the thing ought to give it enough omph when the projectile is activated. Since it's a single use weapon, there would be no need to have any weight dedicated to keeping the thing in one piece for a second shot. The power that you can shove into the projectile would likely be astronomically higher than something that's designed to shoot multiple rounds, allowing the mechanics of the machine much more leeway in transmitting that power to the projectile itself. A asteroid, missile, or even something thrown at the enemy as cruising speed of the vessel can be powered by an explosion that power a one use generator that powers the one use rails. Not only would it give the projectile a lot of kick, it would also look spectacular.

199
General Discussion / Re: How would space combat really work?
« on: November 26, 2012, 10:13:57 pm »
Quote from: Helgoland on November 26, 2012, 06:10:17 pm
Active (that is sending something out) sensors don't stand a chance at spotting something coming at them at a significant portion of light speed - there's basically no time left after the sensor is done detecting, because while the radar is travelling back, so is the blob.

We're obviously operating with a different sense of scale here. The projectile travelling at 0.75c is still not 1c. If we have a sensor net a light month away, and additional sensor spheres inside of this one light-month, detection and the planning of counter measures would have enough time to take place.

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And tungsten is only because it was mentioned before - something less dense would of course be harder to spot via radar, but necessarily need to be larger to carry the same amount of energy at a given speed.
What's that about antimatter? Aren't you confusing some stuff there?

Something less dense would also make it incredibly HUGE when it weighs 100 tons compared to something like lead or zirconium. Radar close-in would only fail because it has to bounce back after the waves hit the projectile meaning at best. Without factoring in the time it take to compute, the detection speed moves at roughly half the speed of light, but it's message once sent will move faster than the projectile itself. Detection in space is incredibly easy. We can spot stars hundreds of light years away, their planets and moons, and give a picture of what's inside of the galactic core from this end of the galaxy.

As for the anti-matter, it's a measurement of how much energy is produced when the object hits something that stops it. One gram of anti-matter annihilating itself is the equivalent of around 3 Hiroshima bombs. When something goes above 0.75c, the weight of the hull hitting the atmosphere, or anything that stops it hard, is going to produce a significant portion of its own weight converted into anti-matter. It is at ~86% the speed of light that the mass of the projectile at rest might as well all be anti-matter. It doesn't really matter what you make this material out of, it just needs to be nominally solid. Heck, a sizeable glob of playdough travelling at 0.75c and hitting earth would be catastrophic. Even a one hundred ton Styrofoam block will create a more or less indistinguishable explosion going that those speeds give or take a few hydrogens bombs here and there.

200
General Discussion / Re: How would space combat really work?
« on: November 26, 2012, 05:22:33 pm »
Quote from: Helgoland on November 26, 2012, 04:35:37 pm
There seems to be agreement that the biggest problem is that anything that's been shot at the enemy will be shot at by the enemy.

The solution: Cool that shite!
A hundred-ton tungsten slug at 4 K, covered in black paint and coming at you with 0.5 c - no way you'll stop that. While it's still far away you won't spot it, and when you spot it, it's too late.

Radar can easily pick it up, never mind what other detection systems we dream up in the future. As for moving so fast that it can't be detected or intercepted within a time frame, I think this is what remote sensors and probes are for. When you have space capability and industrial capacity on a solar system scale, I think throwing a few spheres of probes around your system isn't all that much of a big deal. In most cases, this hundred ton slug can't move, and even if it can and is a missile, moving at 0.5c doesn't particularly help out its maneuverability, especially when you get it into a spin.

Making it out of tungsten is a bit strange to me, having something move at 0.1c already converts a significant portion of the projectile's weight to anti-matter. It could be a piece of ice and it would still carry much of the same payload as tungsten. At the point that molecules obliterate themselves upon impact with something solid, the difference between tungsten and other hardish terrestrial materials won't be all that pronounced.

201
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: My first game was ... fun. A little help?
« on: November 26, 2012, 12:40:07 am »
On top of what Rafatio said about cooking your plump helmets, were you also cooking your seeds?

If food becomes scarce at any time, remember that you generally have access to herbalism. IE the job that enables your dwarfs to pick the shrubs on the surface and underground for quick food. Most of these plants can be brewed, and some of the can be eaten raw, especially the ones from the surface.

202
General Discussion / Re: How would space combat really work?
« on: November 25, 2012, 05:36:18 pm »
Quote from: Eagleon on November 25, 2012, 03:37:16 pm
Quote from: greatorder on November 25, 2012, 03:24:52 pm
Stealth is space is pretty much impossible. Withhold your heat, you appear too cold, release your heat, you appear too hot. Both times you stand out. Then there's the fact you'd have to be stealthed for a large range of wavelengths, the energy costs would probably be phenomenal etc.
If we get to the point where we're fighting it out between space, we're going to have put a lot of money into this. That means things like metamaterials, hull design, and post-burn maneuvering techniques (including solar sails, which we can ditch if they present a large radar profile) are going to be advanced to the degree that an entirely new set of tactical options are available for us to exploit on both sides. This is -if- we're fighting - I maintain that larger, non-stealthy ships are not an option, because you have the infrastructure of entire nations (or even just colonies, would be formidable) to shove defenses into place and take them out before they could ever be in range. So right now it's pretty much a moot point IMO if it's between two established populations. Stealth would be the only thing to enable it, if we don't want to be seen building relativistic weapons.

I think what eagle is saying isn't the benefits of stealth being moot, but realistic stealth in space is pretty much impossible as per the question of th OP, or at least impractical given the constraints.  What he's pointing out isn't EMC, but avoiding simple detection. We don't really need radar in any case most probably becaus3 we can see a great distance in space alreary. We can frack the maneuvering jets from the shuttles from several planets down iirc. With current off the shelf civilian tech, we can have an entire scan of th3 entire sky in a few hours.

The tempurature difference he's talking about is also a pretty huge problem. Unless there's a way around thermal dynamics,  anything with a power aource in sppace 8s going to light up like a Christmas tree to IR sensors.

Quote from: TheBronzePickle on November 25, 2012, 05:20:20 pm
Explosive weapons by themselves will be mostly useless with the exception of nukes, which explode into energy mostly. Most explosive weapons used will be like the modern bunker-buster, burying themselves into the enemy ship and detonating inside to tear the armor open and destroy internal structure.

I thinks they'll still be useful, most of the killing power of HE rounds do are from the explosive shockwave and the shrapnel it throws around. While the first would be moot, the second one still does a pretty good amount of damage to things inside of its armor ratings.  If you can't get a lock onto a target, but know the general direction it's in, sending in q couple of huge HE rounds would be good.

As for nukes, I thino they'll probably be used frequently,  but I don't recall that they have much destructive power beyonda hundred metres or so in a vacuum. Inside of that range it varies in deg4ees of vaporization.

203
General Discussion / Re: How would space combat really work?
« on: November 25, 2012, 04:11:42 pm »
Quote from: alway
No missiles (way too slow). No Mass Drivers (too slow or too much recoil).

Missiles have an almost infinite range with a great finite guided capability on top of that. All you need to do is either shoot a lot of missiles at the target, or let them have a nice run up. Preferably both. Missiles if given enough space can accelerate fast enough to give point defences a hard time.

As for lasers, unless you have some immense power source, the effective range is quite limited.

204
Other Games / Re: A Question on Pirating Games
« on: November 25, 2012, 05:04:44 am »
Quote from: 10ebbor10 on November 25, 2012, 04:30:57 am
I can't remember the quote exactly, but it went like this:
Quote
Steam's build in DRM has proven itself tremendously for us. The game was cracked ten days later then normal, bringing it on five days before release.

Bringing it 5 days before release? Is this a typo? Wouldn't this mean that's it's worse off with steam?

205
Other Games / Re: Starfarer [TopDown Sandbox RPG on Space]
« on: November 25, 2012, 04:56:36 am »
Quote from: Trollheiming on November 24, 2012, 04:33:10 pm
My character isn't personally installing these mods! He's just the damned pilot! You don't need to study automotive design in order to pimp your ride with gold hubcaps.

This depends on the setting I think. All of the ships in the game are frigates and up. The player's character isn't a pilot but a captain that has to train and manage the crew. In such a setting, I think it's justified that there be a little build up before a person in-universe gets to know all the ins and outs of a star ship, particularly in doing some stuff that the ship might not be designed for a la the hull mods.

In any case, you kinda do need some instruction to pimp your car with hubcaps, much less a space worthy military vessel that has to meet the standards of war.

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You like RPG games, do you? Well, there's a way to make the RPG-side of the game feel less like a tacked-on impediment to the other areas, and that's what you should rooting for, rather than acting like a butthurt fanboy.

I know the person who replied to you wasn't very nice about it, but I don't think calling him names back is all that necessary here.

Tacking on inteuniso said, I think he's mostly right about the RPG being designed around something else. Alex has said quite early in the beginning that the combat is the centre piece of the game, everything else is subservient to that and I think character skills being one of them fits quite well in that model. That being said, if the game is all about the combat and if players don't actually enjoy said combat, that might be a problem. On this, I think it mostly depends on how people react to the revised command system.

206
Other Games / Re: A Question on Pirating Games
« on: November 24, 2012, 04:25:27 am »
Quote from: Neyvn on November 24, 2012, 04:22:40 am
Last checked the general rule on this is thus.

As long as you own a physical and true copy of the game in question. You are fully allowed to emulate it. Its only when you dont where it becomes piracy...

Only in Canada where games, movies, and music are categorized as a service where emulation when you'v bought a copy is permitted. Pretty sure it's counted as a good in the US and Britain.

207
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Whips: Please explain
« on: November 22, 2012, 10:12:06 pm »
Quote from: Findulidas on November 22, 2012, 12:30:51 pm
Quote from: terko on November 22, 2012, 12:18:51 pm
And, this whole discussion starts to remind me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhlHzYt4xRM

Why? Because marksdwarves are op as hell as well? To be fair the crossbow is extremely inaccurate irl unlike dwarf fortress

I think that depends on the user and the quality of the make more than something fundamentally inherent in the design though. Maybe a more accurate description would be that crossbows are a little harder to make accurate like bows due to the addition of more parts that need to be crafted into an acceptable standard. If the crossbows were being mass produced to be fired in volleys or en mass, it might be the case that accuracy not matter so much as the other factors, but I do recall that some western medieval armies kept in stock some crossbows that were high quality, accurate, and powerful for special purposes like operating during a siege.

208
General Discussion / Re: Terrible Jokes
« on: November 21, 2012, 06:04:56 am »
Why are people so eager to pandas?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

209
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: DF 2012v0.34 question and answer thread
« on: November 21, 2012, 02:40:53 am »
If I make a stockpile that takes everything and then I make a second stockpile that only takes wood and in which I toggle to take from the first pile that takes everything, will dwarves actively take from that first pile and put it into the second stockpile without disabling wood in the first stockpile?

And what does this passage mean?

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Your track might not be built correctly. Make sure all connected tracks between destinations are not one-way tracks.
This can be especially confusing with ramps. To carve a two-way track on a (natural) ramp, you must designate the ramp and one square beyond in the direction you want the track to go.
Ramps must have a solid block on the side opposite to the track, or they will neither work nor be marked as "unusable". The solid block can be natural or constructed.

Can you show me an example that would work and an example that wouldn't work that the paragraph is talking about?

210
Other Games / Re: Mount and Blade
« on: November 20, 2012, 07:54:58 pm »
Nord Invasion is quite nice. Despite it bbeing a multiplayer mod, being pVe makes it pretty laid back in terms of competitiveness.

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