Distraction thread

[Count Casimir]

Guys, it's been a month and a half... there have been plenty of delays that long between pages. I wouldn't start standing on the corner and declaring the End Times yet...

Not so much the comic as the guy himself. He'll usually hop in to post even if there's no comic page inbound.

[Absalom]

Didn't he post a few days ago in the Empire-RPG thread? I think there probably just isn't enough going on for him to post anything.

[Arioch]

I'm here. Just not much to say on the current discussions.

[NOMAD]

I'm here. Just not much to say on the current discussions.

smack to face ( of course). well looking forward to seeing the new designs

personally I thought the hanger would be bigger, oh well, its is a command cruiser. but now I see why Light interceptors are roughtly the same size as standard shuttles.

[Fotiadis_110]

I foresee great utility in small designs in the fleet, yet a tendency to restrict the likely designs to perhaps three for various tasks for maintenance reasons (although fighters are likely to see semi-regular upgrade or replacement) I'd have a cargo shuttle with utility as a transport, the regular fighter for general point defence, and probably a cargo manipulator that is mostly clamps and engines for the purpose of pushing around and relocating medium to large lumps of cargo rather delicately into the parent ships of the fleet, as well as serving tasks such as allowing replacement of main guns and such while in dock, or perhaps literally removing an unstable weapon from the ship while far from home during combat deployments.

Casimir bring up any topic that you are interested in, for i am taking notes about what Arioch likes to reply to, because we like seeing him talk for it reminds us he hasn't gotten bored and forgotten about us :p
Some people have so little hope.
I've followed the comic since about page 38 (Ever get the feeling you're being herded into an airlock for disposal?), so I know and understand the waits.

Speaking of which, it appears that Arioch has to settle for a nice 3d design for the hanger bay (which seems the most likely appearance and setting for the comic to flow to) fortunately such a bay is large, and typically vastly empty space (to accommodate movement for travel, maintenance, loading/unloading and similar) and is a hazard as they have to be able to open into hard vacuum to allow fast deployment of things like fighters, so won't have many features like doors, and probably things like windows as well. The real question is, do Loroi leave reloading and re-arming, and maintenance in large units in the middle of the bay like they do on an Aircraft carrier (fixed to the floor of course, but by spreading out the maintenance equipment in this manner they can service many craft at once without having to walk to the side wall every time you want a different spanner, leaving the rest of the hanger for storage) or do they only haul out such equipment when actually doing such tasks?
Without such complexities, the hanger is a large clear space with one or two large access-ways to allow the moving of large cargo lumps out of the hanger quickly, to allow the departure of transports more quickly, probably only one primary doorway to help reduce the requirement for opening the big doors to allow small teams (say pilots) access to the hanger, and the hanger walls.
On the other hand, the Loroi might utilise a Air-dock for their hanger system, using say magnetic clamps and a airlock... fly to the clamps, it grabs you and drags you through the Air-dock into the hanger (which would automatically remove/collect the air as you move on through, if you make the dock equal to the hanger size, you lose only 50% of the air into the dock, evacuate the dock and you can recover more, while evacuating the hanger in the first place sounds good, it could well take too long if in combat, but maintaining fighters in hard vacuum is difficult at best, so you need some form of airlock system installed to help reduce the penalty of emergencies.), and exit with the clamps dragging you back out the same way you came in.
If they DID use an Air dock, then the Tempest would need it wide enough for two mag clamps to deploy the fighters quickly (both at once), and also have the ability to lift in and out the Highlander shuttle, because it is WIDE


The scary thing is, if we change the setting away from the hangerbay into the shuttle, Arioch will have to develop and design the layout within the shuttle AS WELL, and if we travel anywhere new, we can expect even more ship/station/building design previews.
These developments are either WOOT or *sad puppy face* depending on peoples desire for comic pages, or awesome racial design work with a greater insight into Loroi construction design.

[NOMAD]

I foresee great utility in small designs in the fleet, yet a tendency to restrict the likely designs to perhaps three for various tasks for maintenance reasons (although fighters are likely to see semi-regular upgrade or replacement) I'd have a cargo shuttle with utility as a transport, the regular fighter for general point defence, and probably a cargo manipulator that is mostly clamps and engines for the purpose of pushing around and relocating medium to large lumps of cargo rather delicately into the parent ships of the fleet, as well as serving tasks such as allowing replacement of main guns and such while in dock, or perhaps literally removing an unstable weapon from the ship while far from home during combat deployments.

so now cargo ships to bring supplies ? make sense with large fleet tender and supply ships ( and cargo haulers could speed up the process)

Speaking of which, it appears that Arioch has to settle for a nice 3d design for the hanger bay (which seems the most likely appearance and setting for the comic to flow to) fortunately such a bay is large, and typically vastly empty space (to accommodate movement for travel, maintenance, loading/unloading and similar) and is a hazard as they have to be able to open into hard vacuum to allow fast deployment of things like fighters, so won't have many features like doors, and probably things like windows as well. The real question is, do Loroi leave reloading and re-arming, and maintenance in large units in the middle of the bay like they do on an Aircraft carrier (fixed to the floor of course, but by spreading out the maintenance equipment in this manner they can service many craft at once without having to walk to the side wall every time you want a different spanner, leaving the rest of the hanger for storage) or do they only haul out such equipment when actually doing such tasks?

Without such complexities, the hanger is a large clear space with one or two large access-ways to allow the moving of large cargo lumps out of the hanger quickly, to allow the departure of transports more quickly, probably only one primary doorway to help reduce the requirement for opening the big doors to allow small teams (say pilots) access to the hanger, and the hanger walls.
On the other hand, the Loroi might utilise a Air-dock for their hanger system, using say magnetic clamps and a airlock... fly to the clamps, it grabs you and drags you through the Air-dock into the hanger (which would automatically remove/collect the air as you move on through, if you make the dock equal to the hanger size, you lose only 50% of the air into the dock, evacuate the dock and you can recover more, while evacuating the hanger in the first place sounds good, it could well take too long if in combat, but maintaining fighters in hard vacuum is difficult at best, so you need some form of airlock system installed to help reduce the penalty of emergencies.), and exit with the clamps dragging you back out the same way you came in.
If they DID use an Air dock, then the Tempest would need it wide enough for two mag clamps to deploy the fighters quickly (both at once), and also have the ability to lift in and out the Highlander shuttle, because it is WIDE

hehe, sorta remind me of the homeworld interior concept/cinematic art with various berts for various ships. the large opening hanger idea reminds of of the higarran mothership, captail launching doc ( although your idea of opening doors would be better idea, i keep seeing the enemy trying to knock the large door frame out of the way). but wouldn't that mean you would have to armour or reinforce the open bays against enemy attack?

The scary thing is, if we change the setting away from the hangerbay into the shuttle, Arioch will have to develop and design the layout within the shuttle AS WELL, and if we travel anywhere new, we can expect even more ship/station/building design previews.
These developments are either WOOT or *sad puppy face* depending on peoples desire for comic pages, or awesome racial design work with a greater insight into Loroi construction design.

station design, that would be fun to see but I'm interested on seeing if we see a few interior shots ( which give the level of detail of aroich work, might not be as many as the readers want). although I will WOOT with you Fotiadis for eihter offical and concept art ( at the artist inclination.

[Mikk]

Just a nitpick on something posted a while ago: ion engines are more of a pre-fusion era reality of regular space technology. Depending on the weapons an orbital combat vehicle would be threatened by I think whipple shields and ablative armor agianst projectiles and lasers are more likely than magnetic stuff.

Overall I think it would take quite a bit of insight into space systems design to have much of a clue about the mass ratios of such thingies.
________________

A new additional favourite author's trilogy of military sci fi novels have given me new angles to think about the whole space superiority assumption in planetary siege warfare. (Unfortunately the works of that author will not be available to the English speakers for the foreseeable future).

In the Outsiderverse type of situation, where for one planet based civilisation might be more of a relic than a requirement for prosperity and for two the worth of (presumably plentyful) habitable planets can be considered to be low enough for them to be found disposable on occasion, the assumption that a space force can overpower a planetary garnison by basically more or less scrapping the planet is quite reasonable.

However I'm thinking that if the planetside folk are numerous and have a long time to prepare (having decided that they need to defend themselves well enough), discarding the aspect of comparative infrastructure investment requirement, I think there are numerous advantages a planet based force has over a tactical space force siegin them. I mention tactical because a strategic scale siege could obviously try and deploy local system space based infrastructure to supply the siege effort.

The prerequisites for the planetary defence could very likely mean serious tunnelling and submarine type developments, but whatever the architecture of a large scale anti-space warfare infrastructure would be like, planet based weapons not being rockets can have significant advantages in "armor" and heat disposal possibilities and capabilities. Basically the fact that in orbital terms the firing ports of a planetary "fortress" are immobile, the sensors and guns firing from them themselves could be more powerful and numerous than the enemy's, which have to be either interplanetar or interstellar spacecraft cargoes.

The setting of the trilogy I mentioned in the introduction pretty much considers wrecking planetary ecosystems war crimes, and the use of higher level landscaping capable infantry AM warheads has to be authorized by higher command than the platoon/company level, I forget how that bit went. In fact using fallout-causing traditional thermonuclear warheads was one of the final cards the planetary defenders pulled on the invaders before some level of cease-fire was forced on the invaders who had to focus their efforts on cleaning up some of the cumulative damages the invasion was causing on the planet's ecosystem. This was pretty much giving the defenders more time to enforce their other planet in a nearby star system from a possible follow-up invasion against the same military fully devoted to the invasion of that single planet.

Overall of course such and advantage in the defender's part assumes that the offenders have a reason to fight for/agianst the planet in the first place, as always. The asteroiding* the nag from afar is always the possible altarnative strategic move, but here again we could argue that the planetary defenders might have means of mitigating attempts of such doomsday attacks, if not just making it more of an effort on the attacker's part. (Without space superiority delivering a massive warhead to fragment an asteroid at medium-range** on a collision course for subsequently re-targeting by smaller warheads would be quite difficult and with it at short range would be pretty sketchy, but I'm sure someone stuck on a big rock in such a perilthey would give it their best shot).

*The activity of using asteroids as kinetic weapons.
**Beyond the most effective range of planet based anti-space weaponry.
________________

I had a third topic in mind before I began typing.. but I have forgotten it by now.

EDIT: found an unfinished sentence left unattended in there; and omitting a whole point entirely, so an extra final paragraph was added.

[discord]

i wonder how large a projectile you would need to survive entry into atmo, assuming flechete style metal/ceramic darts in a large shotgun style weapon...or simply fast fire rate....rain fire on'em...
sure it would be area denial weapon rather than a pinpoint accuracy hit a single person kind of thing...but it might get better precision compared to larger caliber ideas....

[GeoModder]

i wonder how large a projectile you would need to survive entry into atmo, assuming flechete style metal/ceramic darts in a large shotgun style weapon...or simply fast fire rate....rain fire on'em...
sure it would be area denial weapon rather than a pinpoint accuracy hit a single person kind of thing...but it might get better precision compared to larger caliber ideas....

And old(er) article, but it gives you an estimate.
Check the "rods of god" section.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/P ... 0oklkt.asp

[discord]

geo: good article but i was not exactly aiming at blowing up fortified bunkers more like anti-vehicle/anti-material/anti-infantry sized stuff.

[javcs]

geo: good article but i was not exactly aiming at blowing up fortified bunkers more like anti-vehicle/anti-material/anti-infantry sized stuff.

While a 'rod from god' weapon can be extremely accurate ... they're not very good against targets that are mobile, because it takes a while for the rods to impact. That means against stationary targets, one can pick out a particular drip of paint to land on top of, assuming one can adequately predict/compensate for atmospheric currents, but if the target is moving - especially if it's not moving in a readily predictable manner (ie, a train, or similar) ... it's all too easy for the target to have shifted its path out of where the rod is going to impact.


Also, you need a minimum size on the rod to not burn up/ablate away during atmospheric reentry. Don't know what that'd be for common materials, since it'd vary.

[Fotiadis_110]

one trick with those rods is to coat them with a high powered resistant coat with a nice heavy core which may not be so heat resistant.

Even melted iron dropped at that speed will deliver kinetic energy to gain a kinetic kill.
So one trick is to coat your projectile with the most common element you can get your hands on: silicon, in the form of glass.

In other news, I spent a while and came up with a system for magic utilising 4 base elements, building a full list of 16 XD

[Hālian]

Universal stillpoint rod.

</thread>

[Fotiadis_110]

*Googles*

Hmm apparently if one of those exists, the planet stops moving.
According to physics anything that exists has a momentum, and a vibration according to it's natural frequency.
If one of these things ever came into existence, it would either cease to exist, or implode reality around it, both means that such an object would no longer exist within our realm of space and time, so it's safe to say that such things do not exist.

On to another point I've considered: Immovable object and unstoppable force
Both are physics concepts based around the central question of 'what is the boundary of the system'
Within the context of the system, both things can be true at the same time (which seems counter-intuitive, as people feel an unstoppable force MUST make objects move) as that is how you DEFINED the system.

My personal opinion for how this becomes true, is that neither has any impact on the other within the bounds of the system boundaries.
In short: the unstoppable force acts with an equal and opposite reaction, this reaction MOVES THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE THAT SURROUNDS YOUR SYSTEM without moving the immovable object that exists within the system boundaries.
In this manner the unstoppable force remains unstoppable (it was allowed to act) and the immobile object didn't get moved within context of the question.
And the most fun part is, it confuses people who cannot see how an immovable object can be acted upon by an unstoppable force without actually moving.

by luck: this thread has 1337 views! (probably more by the time you read it)

[discord]

footsie: related to stillpoints we have the absolute restframe, the first is a practical impossibility but theoretically possible where all forces are negated, however as far as i can see it there must be a restframe.

why? simple, nothing can go faster than the speed of light, firing two beams of laser in opposite direction and the diverging speed is twice that of light, but if you fire a laser from something near the speed of light will that laser be faster than a nearby laser fired from a 'stationary' object? if yes then there is no effective light speed barrier, if no then there is a 'absolute restframe', we just can't measure it yet.

of course, this will draw out some annoying quantum theory guy saying that both are true at the same time....

[Fotiadis_110]

my understanding of light speed, it is that the measurement of it is based on the reference frame (ie system) you are using to measure it.

No matter how fast you are travelling the measurement will always appear the same, even though someone else who isn't travelling between star systems could peer through your window and notice that the measurements you are making match the ones they are doing on their own planet USING THE SAME LIGHT SOURCE, despite the fact that both devices are moving their own velocity.
Basically: the measurements made are system based, and thus seem illogical to people who are more used to firing bullets from their gun which are momentum based measurements, this confuses people because the light and sensors they are using to take their measurements have their own speed which you would expect to change the measurements.
Tbh? It confuses me whenever I first think about it, but when I sit down and take the time to UNDERSTAND rather than trying to make judgements based on assumptions, it makes more sense.

Also: the 'Absolute' reference frame contains the universe itself theoretically does it not?
this means that the action of the 'unstoppable' force on the 'immobile' object can act on all other components in the system and impart a momentum on this object of 'infinite' mass while failing to produce a measurable acceleration (1/infinity is very VERY close to 0, take a limit (which arguably is the only mathematically sound form of calculus) and it IS zero, and arguably so is any other finite number :p)

I must admit I am simplifying the system in both the lightspeed and other case but the fact of the matter is that the concepts of both are simplified constructs in the first place.
Almost no one I know has actually read the source material about evolution, nor relativity or even the history of time, yet so many seem to think they know what they actually say, and try to contradict them using their understanding of the rules.
The fact that we go through life teaching the simplifications rather than the actual understanding of things is somewhat worrying.

[discord]

footsie: more than merely a little imho.
but to return to things moving at the speed of light, if in fact measurable velocity of light is the same from two different frames of reference, that creates a interesting paradox.

if something moves at 50% light fires a laser and from the firing platform the laser travels 300 thousand km/s(or so) faster then platform is, and a 'stationary' measuring says it moves 50% faster compared to the platform, which is correct? this points to reality being VERY much dependent on perception to create and define reality....which means that both are correct....bah, i hate paradoxes, they don't add up(and as far as i have noticed in nature, do not exist).

[Mikk]

That's why physics is so weird. I personally consider the whole relativistic thing it seems to have going in it to be rather mind-twisting paradoxical.

[Absalom]

Note: the laser won't appear to have extra speed to anyone, not even whoever/whatever is firing it. The speed of light is the only known reliable measurement of speed/distance.

[javcs]

Note: the laser won't appear to have extra speed to anyone, not even whoever/whatever is firing it. The speed of light is the only known reliable measurement of speed/distance.

Yeah ... the speed of light seems to be a Universal Constant. Or at least, an absolutism, independent of the observer or projector.
At least ... regarding photons. However, one can (slightly) alter the velocity of photons, based upon the medium they are passing through, which is kinda screwy.

This is part of why I didn't go into lasers or optics.

I'm not sure, but if one could produce a particle driver that accelerated particles from rest to, say .9c, and put it aboard a platform moving in excess of .2c, and were then to fire the driver in the direction of the platform's motion, and one were to observe the accelerated particles, that would be an interesting experiment. The energy requirements for this would, of course, be downright obscene, which is why we're going to have to wait on actually being able to do so for quite some time, in addition to the other hardware difficulties.