Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

[Starhawk]

Yeah yeah I know doggie , I am working on my writing already I just got a little ticked and unfortunately when I do that I type as well as I talk

Eh no Problem El-Phil you are right about the fact that it's probobly so far in the future none of us will ever be right about what will be there.

[El_Phil]

A little.. Jesus or a tricycle.
Remind to steer clear if you ever get very ticked.

[Hunpecked]

Starhawk writes: "you are right about the fact that it's probobly so far in the future none of us will ever be right about what will be there."

Actually it COULD be happening right NOW just a few light years away.

Seriously, though, given the uncertainties of future technology it's probably better to confine ourselves to the fictional Space Empires game "universe"; those of us who enjoy using troops can try to rationalize the use of ground forces (actually air/land/sea forces) in that limited context.

Off the top of my head I can think of two possibilities to start:

1) Suppose most of the planetary population would rather be "red than dead", but government and/or military officials insist on "death before dishonor" (as, for example, the Nazis and Japan's military at the end of the Second World War). Suppose further that it's impossible to take out all the die-hards from orbit without taking most of the planet along with them, but ground troops can accomplish the mission.

2) Suppose that, for whatever reason, domestic politics requires a sincere attempt to minimize "collateral" casualties, as for example with the US in Iraq, 2005 (as opposed to Japan, 1945). If SE IV sensor/weapons technology makes space-based pacification excessively bloody, then politics, rather than military considerations, may dictate the use of ground troops instead. Obviously this isn't in the game itself, but players can role-play, and fiction based on game events can include it.

Game-based fiction can also include interstellar politics, e.g. neutral empires that would likely join the enemy out of fear if the player glasses too many worlds. A writer may also use a low-casualty policy to explain the relative ease of winning the loyalty of captured populations in the game: suppose the Terrans, for example, capture Pyrochette worlds with troops, but the Pyrochette AI nukes its own (former) people just to nail a few occupying Terrans. That might not convince every Pyrochette to love the Terrans, but it might produce enough Quislings to make planetary occupations a lot easier.

[Renegade 13]

Starhawk said:
Yeah yeah I know doggie , I am working on my writing already I just got a little ticked and unfortunately when I do that I type as well as I talk

If you ever need someone to proof read (and add appropriate punctuation where necessary), just let me know and I'd be happy to do so.

[Starhawk]

LOL thanks Renegade......I think

Anyway I sort of explain the use of ground troops in my story as a sort of "WE always have and always will" mentality on the part of the Icarans because afterall sometimes the way you fight wars can become just as much of a "tradition" as your music and other cultural tidbits.

Also given Icaran weapons not being uh "precise" enough you don't really want an SD firing it's guns in "surface support" because you'd likely blow a LOT of stuff up that you didn't want to. (not that their sensors are bad it's just they don't have the mega adjustable phasers of ST)

Yet another good reason they deploy troops is because on a domed colony you can't really take out targets on the ground without killing everyone off.

[kerensky]

to help with the orbital bombardment debat, I thing taht you should all go here

[El_Phil]

I was going to suggest url=http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20040308.html]This[/url] as decent on ships drives and silly accel, and why you need compensation.

Then I realised that the entire Schlock archives is so great that you should just read all of it.

[kerensky]

I'm currently trying to read the entire archive and have covered nearly a year snd a half in three days. Only three more years worth of archives to go!!!

[Starhawk]

Howdy folks new Tech questions:

Question 1: "Fusion Beam-AKA I-Laser" okay I was wondering if it is possible for an energy weapon to basically be so powerful that when it comes in contact with a physical material it is able to create an unstable fusion reaction (i.e a small fusion explosion).

Question 2: Okay so I know my shields are a little bizarre (I.e subspace wrapped around a ship) So how about this, a multi-layer shield system:

Layer one will be a "kinetic bubble" that pretty much uses the (gravity focusing generator) GFG to create a gravity field around the ship much like it does when it enters a warp point, except that this gravity field in normal space serves to slow down the incoming bullets to the point where they are no longer effective.

Layer two would consist of an energy field that renders what last kinetic force generated by the impact of a slug useless and provides protection against incoming energy fire.

Layer three is simple "rad shielding" to protect the ship from the high amounts of radiation that would no doubt be generated by space combat and energy weapons.



Okay now thanks to the nature of the energy shield when the energy of weapons and the shield collides you get a rather big "light show" basically as the two energies mix you get the occasional burn through that sends an errant strand of energy into the ships' hull causing damage.

[douglas]

Big rock vs stream of particles doesn't really matter. My point was that if you can get the stream going heavy and fast enough to penetrate the shield, it should be trivial to give it enough velocity over the minimum to do some major damage just from the impact. Adding the explosion from matter-antimatter annihilation is just extremely expensive overkill.