WIP Discussion (Part 1!)

[Ithekro]

Also most of the war seems to be in space. Once you have space superiority, you can drop much, much bigger things on a planet if you want large scale death and destruction. If you want to occupy it, there are probably better things to use. Assuming you want the civilian population alive as a labor force anyway. If you don't, the question is if you want the infrastructure? If that doesn't matter....glass the place and move on.

[Arioch]

Also most of the war seems to be in space. Once you have space superiority, you can drop much, much bigger things on a planet if you want large scale death and destruction. If you want to occupy it, there are probably better things to use. Assuming you want the civilian population alive as a labor force anyway. If you don't, the question is if you want the infrastructure? If that doesn't matter....glass the place and move on.

Right. To leave a large ground force on a planet your star fleet can't hold is to essentially throw them away. Neither the fatalistic Loroi nor the "we have reserves" Umiak think this is a good use of ground forces. So the invasions of planets are serious and common, but they're mopping up operations against scattered opposition. Poison gas is useless in such a situation; even partisans like on Seren that have little access to modern CBW equipment will be dispersed and/or underground, and if you do have a fix on a large concentration of them, there are much better options to deploy than something as antiquated as poison gas.

[Jagged]

Considering that many if not most of the combatants are going to be wearing armor that can be sealed, poison gas doesn't seem like it would even get anyone's attention in the Loroi-Umiak conflict. There are just so many much more dangerous things you could drop on enemy troops.

Limited to stealth attacks on civilian targets then, which given the Loroi's telepathic detection system would have been difficult in the past. In the future?

[Arioch]

Considering that many if not most of the combatants are going to be wearing armor that can be sealed, poison gas doesn't seem like it would even get anyone's attention in the Loroi-Umiak conflict. There are just so many much more dangerous things you could drop on enemy troops.

Limited to stealth attacks on civilian targets then, which given the Loroi's telepathic detection system would have been difficult in the past. In the future?

If you're close enough to drop gas, you're close enough to drop something much more lethal. Like an antimatter bomb or just an ultra-high-velocity kinetic weapon. Either of which would be both more targeted and more effective than some kind of unreliable chemical agent.

As a tactical battlefield weapon, poison gas was tried briefly in WWI and never tried again. There's a reason for that. Since then gas has been used only as a terror weapon by dictators, and almost exclusively against their own population.

[Werra]

Gas might be useful in edge cases where Loroi and Umiak are vulnerable to different types of gas. If one side can force the other to remain in sealed suits the whole battle, that might be worth considering. Or a type of gas that is hard to deal with for the life support on a space ship might be useful if it forces difficult repairs after the boarding attempt has been thwarted.
But otherwise gas doesn't seem like a very useful thing.

[tpkc_klick]

If one side can force the other to remain in sealed suits the whole battle, that might be worth considering.

I'd had this thought too. I think the Loroi would definitely be susceptible to this; the Fireblade and Spiral are both pretty quick to take off the armor layers of their outfits when everyone is settling in for the night aboard the shuttle, which suggests to me that Loroi equipment likely starts to get uncomfortable in worn for too long a period of time. Using poison gas, or even hard vacuum to force troops to stay in their environment suits for extended periods of time will slowly but surely wear away at their morale and combat effectiveness, especially if they have to sleep in the suits.

I don't know how effective this would be against the Umiak, since we haven't really gotten a chance to look at any of their ground troops yet.

[Sweforce]

If one side can force the other to remain in sealed suits the whole battle, that might be worth considering.

I'd had this thought too. I think the Loroi would definitely be susceptible to this; the Fireblade and Spiral are both pretty quick to take off the armor layers of their outfits when everyone is settling in for the night aboard the shuttle, which suggests to me that Loroi equipment likely starts to get uncomfortable in worn for too long a period of time. Using poison gas, or even hard vacuum to force troops to stay in their environment suits for extended periods of time will slowly but surely wear away at their morale and combat effectiveness, especially if they have to sleep in the suits.

I don't know how effective this would be against the Umiak, since we haven't really gotten a chance to look at any of their ground troops yet.

It would be silly of them to wear those armors if they didn't bring any benifical effects. Like proper Stormtrooper armour in Star Wars they probably function as environmental suits as well and to an extent as spacesuit if a helmet and an oxygen supply are provided. Just the kind of thing that can be stored in numerioues lockers onboard a spaceship for easy acess in case of a hull breach. As such I suspect thst a damaged vessel can keep fighting even after loosing all internal atmosphere to the hard vacuum of space. Btw, in Star Wars this is standard procedure for tie fighter pilots. Their crafts by design typically are not even sealed.

[Mk_C]

Gas might be useful in edge cases where Loroi and Umiak are vulnerable to different types of gas.

That doesn't alleviate the absolute majority of it's downsides. You don't want the gas to hit your positions even if it's harmless to you, since if it's flooding your positions then it's not doing anything useful to the enemy positions - and you can't just flood an entire battlefield with the stuff up to effective concentrations, as that would take mind-boggling quantities of even the most potent agents. Volume is one cubic bitch.

Or a type of gas that is hard to deal with for the life support on a space ship might be useful if it forces difficult repairs after the boarding attempt has been thwarted.

Coooome to think of it, boarding operations would be a potential application where chemical weapons would be really, really good, as a great deal of their downsides are alleviated - as long as a few conditions are met:
1. Crews don't typically don hermetically sealed suits under combat conditions. True for Outsider - even Loroi prefer to face vacuum with dignity rather than ruin their gorgeous hairdos with helmets, aside from small craft pilots.
2. It can be efficiently distributed through an average ship's ventilation system. Not true in Outsider - even a deathbox like Bella could maintain atmosphere in the damage control center even after the tragic breakup affair between the ship's halves. Meaning there's either independent atmo units for each section, or the circuit can automatically seal it's compromised sections off. Loroi and Umiak ships would probably be even better in that regard. Oh well.

God I hope we'll get to see us some hot boarding action eventually, even if it's typically quite rare due to how combat is conducted.

As a tactical battlefield weapon, poison gas was tried briefly in WWI and never tried again.

I positively remember that it was used damn eagerly during the Interbellum - in Russia during the civil war by both sides, in Ethiopia by Italy and in China by Japan. Each time with rather disappointing outcomes - this experience is a major part of what served to discredit chemical weapons as a worthwhile WMD in the eyes of those forces.

[Werra]

It would be silly of them to wear those armors if they didn't bring any benifical effects.

The immediate effect of armor is protection, for which comfort is often sacrificed. Making the enemy troopers stay in their sealed armor 24/7 in a protracted ground battle does wear on them. When you're cowering in a foxhole, you can still have a bite to eat or defecate without soiling your pants that much. All that is a lot more complicated if you have poison gas to deal with. Doubly so if the gas can potentially be absorbed through your skin.

[Krulle]

One issue the Germans and the British had with the gas, was that the gas they sued effectively hindered their own advances. The war machines became so fast, they'd be running into the gas when advancing, as the gas moves with the speed of wind. And with strong winds teh gas is not effective, but with slower winds it moves too slow for you to advance effectively.

Tactically, the use of gas was problematic if you wanted fast advancing troops, and psychologically it was also bad for your own troops.

The one fight where it was most effective (used by Germans vs. the French; 2nd battle of Ypres), it lost it's tactical advantage for two reasons: the German soldiers have not expected it to be so successful, and second they took too long to check the trenches, because the "unmained/unshot" bodies spooked them, and they busied themselves making sure the French soldiers were really dead, or plain out refused to go into the French trenches after having seen a soldier lying there.

By the time the Germans noted that they could make decisive advantages, the gas had dissolved sufficiently for the French to reform and lay fire against advancing troops.

[kclcmdr]

Sorry to be a bother.

Is there any plans to show a WIP for #190?

One wonders what the two Loroi survivors that were head-labelled soo fearful off with the mind-presence of Alec in the scene...

[Krulle]

You could try having a look at his Patreon... ;)

Last post there is from 1 December.

[QuakeIV]

Any chance of a subscribestar?

[Arent]

You could try having a look at his Patreon...

Last post there is from 1 December.

As I said earlier, I would have no problem to pay 100$ - 200$ for a five year/lifetime access. But entering some continuous payment is just not up my alley

[boldilocks]

You could try having a look at his Patreon...

Last post there is from 1 December.

As I said earlier, I would have no problem to pay 100$ - 200$ for a five year/lifetime access. But entering some continuous payment is just not up my alley

$100-$200 is actually ridiculously low compared to what the pay-per-page model offers, even at its lowest fee.
But aren't there already annual subscription payment options in patreon?
Of course, that wouldn't work for Arioch because he's paid per page, and there's not set amount of pages per month.

[Arioch]

The last time I looked at Subscribestar it didn't look like it would work for me. I think it was because it only had monthly payment options. I didn't want to have people paying monthly when I wasn't always updating monthly. Now that I'm updating more often, a monthly subscription might make more sense. At some point I'll take another serious look at adding other options, as I know some folks would rather not do business through Patreon and I can understand why.

I haven't posted WIP's for 190 because there's nothing I can post that isn't a massive spoiler. But it should be up on Monday.

[Arent]

$100-$200 is actually ridiculously low compared to what the pay-per-page model offers, even at its lowest fee.

At 1$ per page this would be 200 pages. At 5$ per page it would still be 40 pages. Considering the quickness of updates, 200 pages in 5 years would be 3 pages a month.

[Arent]

But aren't there already annual subscription payment options in patreon?

Is this automatically extended or is there an option that the subscription ends after one year?

[Krulle]

Doesn't patreon have an option to cap your total payments?
So if one of your supported artists suddenly becomes very productive, you're not pushed into debts?

You could therefore theoretically calculate (yourdonationfor5years)/(5year*12months/year), and put that as your monthly cap.

[Arent]

Doesn't patreon have an option to cap your total payments?
So if one of your supported artists suddenly becomes very productive, you're not pushed into debts?

You could therefore theoretically calculate (yourdonationfor5years)/(5year*12months/year), and put that as your monthly cap.

Yes, something like that. Apparently, you can also subscribe for a year and immediately cancel after the payment has been done.