950 replies to this topic

[Tamara Xiang]

there is one word, witch describes all of this: "Lostech" !

i play the p&p rgp, and everytime we get into a situation, when BT rules are against everything we actually know about technics... it´s just "Lostech" !

Maybe next time i get my Lostech Toaster, where i can warm up to 4 slices of Bread AT ONE TIME!!!

[Bloodweaver]

Melcyna, on 06 August 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

and incidentally in the case of aiming with 'lag' on their distance based on light speed, calculating the CORRECT LEAD to hit the target is TRIVIAL since the movement is predictable, all you need to know is how far exactly is he to calculate the correct offset.

That is what the original argument the poster had about 'random evasive movement' came for....

basically randomizing the pattern to ensure that no lead can be calculated on the firing solution to realistically hit the target... but to do this within a million kilometer at least require that the ship is capable of sufficient acceleration to move the entire bulk of the mass out of the way within seconds.

It wouldn't need a lot of acceleration, relatively speaking. Just enough to change its course slightly. Laser beams are pretty narrow. If you miss by an inch, you miss by a mile.

[PaintedWolf]

Bloodweaver, on 06 August 2012 - 12:01 AM, said:

Actually, the Black Plague was by far the major cause in the downfall of the feudal class system

Oh really, I thought it had a played a critical role in halting the Byzantine Invasions.

Bloodweaver, on 06 August 2012 - 12:06 AM, said:

Because history has shown, time and time again, that war vastly accelerates technological development.

Oh I see. So if we had a Nuclear War tomorrow, our technological progression would rapidly accelerate. Maybe the radiation will cause all our computers to mutate and develop super-powers.

Edited by PaintedWolf, 06 August 2012 - 12:22 AM.

[Melcyna]

Bloodweaver, on 06 August 2012 - 12:13 AM, said:

It wouldn't need a lot of acceleration, relatively speaking. Just enough to change its course slightly. Laser beams are pretty narrow. If you miss by an inch, you miss by a mile.

you are speaking of missing in terms of it's firing apparatus deviation, also known as firing dispersion depending on it's mechanism, that's not what it is here...

this is not the case of a weapon missing because of the weapon's inherent inaccuracy, this is missing because the target is NOT WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.

the two is drastically different because the first can be avoided, the second is harder to prevent and mitigate..

But in the second case, how much it miss depends ENTIRELY on how fast the target can accelerate and move out of the path.

if the laser will hit a spot on the ship's hull within 5 seconds, that ship have 5 seconds to accelerate enough to move at least the radius of it's size OUT OF THE projected path to completely evade it.

Edited by Melcyna, 06 August 2012 - 12:34 AM.

[Capt Cole 117]

PaintedWolf, on 06 August 2012 - 12:21 AM, said:

Oh I see. So if we had a Nuclear War tomorrow, our technological progression would rapidly accelerate. Maybe the radiation will cause all our computers to mutate and develop super-powers.

Ahem
http://en.wikipedia....nhattan_Project

[Immitem]

Theodor Kling, on 03 August 2012 - 11:49 PM, said:

Indeed shooting sraight with any weapon is lostech ( barrel o not) True about the flamer:D But vaccuum is fine. Heat sinks work just like real ones, sure there is a cooling liquid ciculating inside. But if it´s air or hard vacuum outside.. both work. Sure, vacuum is an even worse heat conductor then air. But the temperature difference between the heat sinks surface and the vacuum is so much higher, that it should make up for it. And covection is only needed in ari sicne air is already a bad conductor and just heatign up a different batch of air is better then waiting for the heat from your original batch to dissipate.

A vacuum conducts nothing because there is nothing to conduct. Space is not cold, matter in space is cold, the vacuum of space has no temperature. If you were standing in a space suit with no heating on the surface of Pluto with your feet insulated you will not die from the cold because there is no cold. The surface is cold (relative to your temperature) but not the space above it. Temperature is the jitter of atomic particles and thermal transfer (loss or accumulation of thermal energy) is achieved through physical contact. In a vacuum you do not contact anything so you lose little thermal energy. You do indeed cool down but it is a very, very slow process.

[PaintedWolf]

Capt Cole 117, on 06 August 2012 - 12:34 AM, said:

Ahem
http://en.wikipedia....nhattan_Project

*cough* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max

The link is just as relevant, and probably more fitting.

Edited by PaintedWolf, 06 August 2012 - 12:41 AM.

[Bloodweaver]

PaintedWolf, on 06 August 2012 - 12:21 AM, said:

Oh really, I thought it had a played a critical role in halting the Byzantine Invasions.



Oh I see. So if we had a Nuclear War tomorrow, our technological progression would rapidly accelerate. Maybe the radiation will cause all our computers to mutate and develop super-powers.

What are you referring to by "Byzantine Invasions"? A quick Google search only turns up the 11th- and 12th-century Norman-Byzantine wars as an obvious candidate, but the Black Plague (the big one, that is) was a 14th-century occurrence.

It's impossible to say what would happen if nuclear warfare were to break out, because we've never seen anything like it. It's anyone's guess, really. But it's also irrelevant, because the Succession Wars, destructive as they were, were nowhere near as debilitating to humanity as a whole as a nuclear war on Earth today would be. The Succession Wars were interstellar events; even if planets were turned to floating balls of lava, there were other planets that weren't. If a nuclear war were to break out on Earth, it would affect... all of Earth, presumably. In other words, ALL of humanity, at the same time. To make an appropriate comparison in the BT universe would require weaponry that could affect the entirety of the Inner Sphere at once. In the BT universe, planets are more correlative to countries or cities in the current world than they are to Earth as a whole, because there's more than one of them.

Melcyna, on 06 August 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

you are speaking of missing in terms of it's firing apparatus deviation, also known as firing dispersion depending on it's mechanism, that's not what it is here...

this is not the case of a weapon missing because of the weapon's inherent inaccuracy, this is missing because the target is NOT WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.

the two is drastically different because the first can be avoided, the second is harder to prevent and mitigate..

But in the second case, how much it miss depends ENTIRELY on how fast the target can accelerate and move out of the path.

if the laser will hit a spot on the ship's hull within 5 seconds, that ship have 5 seconds to accelerate enough to move at least the radius of it's size OUT OF THE projected path to completely evade it.

No, I'm talking about missing the target because it's not where it's supposed to be. I'm assuming the laser shoots exactly where it's pointed. The speed required of the target to get out of the way is dependent on its distance. If the distance is large enough that there is any discernible delay in firing the laser and seeing it hit -even one of a mere five seconds- the target would not have to bust *** and move its entire mass away from the laser's landing zone. It would only have to make sure it's direction of travel at the time the laser reaches it was different than it was at the time the laser was fired. The laser is already being fired with a lead, because the shooter can not see where the target currently is, only where it was five seconds ago. Every single shot is a guess, and the shooter is forced to assume the target hasn't changed course at all. If it has changed course, even by a few degrees, the shot misses.

EDIT: And furthermore, the shot would actually be delayed by TEN seconds by the time it lands - the shooter only sees where the target was five seconds ago, and the laser itself takes five more seconds to get to where he was aiming.

Edited by Bloodweaver, 06 August 2012 - 12:51 AM.

[Felix the Cat]

Theodor Kling, on 05 August 2012 - 11:35 PM, said:

I dont remember reading any clear wavelength meontined in BT. The visible aspect is jsut that no matter waht wvelength the laser got, from a ceatina energy density on ( somewhere in the TW/cm^2 regime) any laser beam is visible due to complete ionization of air in the beam path.

Energy density I understand (I have a background in nuclear power and am currently a power plant operator, but "ceatina energy density" is a new one on me (used to seeing energy density in terms of joules per volume, the watts actually threw me for sec 1 MJ = .28 kWh AFAIK). Also, I've seen highly ionized air (ie- atmospheric plasma), all it does is shimmer or distort, similar to air coming off asphalt or sand on a really hot day, it doesn't "glow" in visible wavelengths like other plasmatic materials. Unless you're making the assumption of the possiblity of Cherenkov radiation, which I suppose might be possible with those energy outputs thru atmosphere.

However, even without strict mention in canon, every BT picture showing laser beams is in some wonderfully bright primary color. If you really wanted destructive power from a laser, it'd be either high IR/microwave or X-Ray (yes, X-Ray appears in later canon, tho even X-Ray wouldn't be as efficient in terms of physically destructive as IR/Microwave except against biological material) which wouldn't be very visible.

[PaintedWolf]

Bloodweaver, on 06 August 2012 - 12:44 AM, said:

What are you referring to by "Byzantine Invasions"? A quick Google search only turns up the 11th- and 12th-century Norman-Byzantine wars as an obvious candidate, but the Black Plague (the big one, that is) was a 14th-century occurrence.

Quote

The Plague of Justinian (541–542 AD) was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), including its capital Constantinople. It was one of the greatest plagues in history. The most commonly accepted cause of the pandemic is bubonic plague, which later became notable as a cause or contributing to the Black Death of the 14th century.^[1]

http://en.wikipedia....ue_of_Justinian

Quote

As the disease spread to port cities around the Mediterranean, the struggling Goths gained an edge in their conflict with Constantinople. The plague weakened the Byzantine Empire at a critical point, when Justinian's armies had nearly wholly retaken Italy and the western Mediterranean coast; this evolving conquest could have credibly reformed the Western Roman Empire and united it with the Eastern under a single emperor for the first time since the year 395. The plague may also have contributed to the success of the Arabs a few generations later in the Byzantine-Arab Wars.^[1][8]

Edited by PaintedWolf, 06 August 2012 - 12:51 AM.

[Bloodweaver]

When people talk about the Black Plague, they are generally referring to the one that took place in the 14th century. There were several waves of plague, which obscures the terminology somewhat. But that was the one that (in)famously cut Europe's population down by a third, and it's the one I was referring to when I said it was responsible for the downfall of the feudal system.

[PaintedWolf]

Bloodweaver, on 06 August 2012 - 12:55 AM, said:

When people talk about the Black Plague, they are generally referring to the one that took place in the 14th century. There were several waves of plague, which obscures the terminology somewhat. But that was the one that (in)famously cut Europe's population down by a third, and it's the one I was referring to when I said it was responsible for the downfall of the feudal system.

Yeah, and it only took 400 years to work!

[Lyran Scout]

-theres S.R.Ms and L.R.Ms but what about M.R.Ms ?

[Bloodweaver]

What makes you think that? The feudal system had all but disappeared by the end of the 15th century, when discernible nation-states began to emerge. Military organization changed even more rapidly, with career men-at-arms replacing knights and unskilled peasantry.

[Elessar]

PURE EPICNESS, on 06 August 2012 - 12:58 AM, said:

-theres S.R.Ms and L.R.Ms but what about M.R.Ms ?

They are in ... at least in the expanded rulebooks
here one of them: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/MRM-40

Edited by Elessar, 06 August 2012 - 01:10 AM.

[Melcyna]

Bloodweaver, on 06 August 2012 - 12:44 AM, said:

No, I'm talking about missing the target because it's not where it's supposed to be. I'm assuming the laser shoots exactly where it's pointed. The speed required of the target to get out of the way is dependent on its distance. If the distance is large enough that there is any discernible delay in firing the laser and seeing it hit -even one of a mere five seconds- the target would not have to bust *** and move its entire mass away from the laser's landing zone. It would only have to make sure it's direction of travel at the time the laser reaches it was different than it was at the time the laser was fired. The laser is already being fired with a lead, because the shooter can not see where the target currently is, only where it was five seconds ago. Every single shot is a guess, and the shooter is forced to assume the target hasn't changed course at all. If it has changed course, even by a few degrees, the shot misses.

EDIT: And furthermore, the shot would actually be delayed by TEN seconds by the time it lands - the shooter only sees where the target was five seconds ago, and the laser itself takes five more seconds to get to where he was aiming.

Correct with one caveat, if the target changes course how much he can change still depends ENTIRELY on it's capability to accelerate.

you are forgetting that just like any other object their inertia ensures that the massive ship requires similarly massive acceleration force to move the ship's course perceptibly.

For example, let's say the ship is traveling at several thousand kilometers per second, if it deviates it's course by even a few degree as you say then yes his projected location in say 5 seconds to the future would be quite different than it was prior to acceleration.

What you are missing there however is that to DO THIS, you essentially have to produce sufficient force equivalent to the force needed to counter the component of the inertia of the ship within the same axis... for example if the ship is traveling westbound, then in order to deviate the course a few degree to the north, you effectively have to counter the inertia of the ship along the vertical axis assuming that up represent the north direction.

So you STILL need massive acceleration either way...

in order to be able to produce massive range deviation with minimal movement, your ship essentially have to be moving VERY VERY quickly which at the same time means you have to produce stronger acceleration to make ANY course adjustment.

the faster you go, the less effective your course adjustment gets as you have to counter even more inertia force.

So it's a catch 22...

if the target ship is moving VERY QUICKLY, then yes any minute deviation on it's course can cause a significant displacement that a laser firing at it from lightseconds away can miss it entirely assuming on a simple lead firing operation.

but at the same time, the vessel gradually loses it's ability to produce course correction the faster it goes (since it's thrusters have limited maximum output to compensate the inertia), so either way it's maximum deviation will have an upper limit and can be calculated.

Even more so when you consider that the human tolerance essentially puts an upper limit anyhow on how fast they can possibly accelerate, so you can narrow down the possible options the ship can take to make evasive maneuver.

This entire thing btw, plays out essentially like naval duel between surface vessels, particularly torpedo duel... essentially a duel where each sides attempt to plot and calculate the projected path or rather 'LIKELY' path taken by the opposing foe for the gunnery to get a firing solution.

Edited by Melcyna, 06 August 2012 - 01:19 AM.

[Felix the Cat]

PURE EPICNESS, on 06 August 2012 - 12:58 AM, said:

-theres S.R.Ms and L.R.Ms but what about M.R.Ms ?

MRMs didn't exist til 3058, later on there were also multi missle systems that could load either SRMs or LRMs IIRC. Current year is 3049.

Edited by Felix the Cat, 06 August 2012 - 01:16 AM.

[TWolf]

Theodor Kling, on 04 August 2012 - 11:15 PM, said:

Asteroid bombing is nasty

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.

[Melcyna]

hahahaha.. the old warhammer quotes never gets old i guess,

though technically it was ridden with faults, like why they needed a Titan warship in the first place if they intend to use an asteroid as a projectile which essentially means they don't need a Titan class arsenal since the rock is going to be the weapon anyway.

[SNAFUBAR]

sorry of the topic of the imperium..... just joined up and wanted to have a say on the screwed up facts of the game i love to hate , i find it helps of i just say "great its giant robots " and not think about physics and stuff my fav thought about BT is below

the most interesting somewhat Ridiculous thing is that with so many worlds explored , theres no trace of any other form of intelligent life , the odds are low yes , but really nothing at all , it wouldnt be the Battle tech i grew up with but i guess the expeditionary forces just killed them all and hide the evidence

Edited by SNAFUBAR, 06 August 2012 - 03:03 AM.