Outsider Ground War

[Trantor]

Heh, Mao.

Great Leap Forward, not really working. But after that the chinese learned better.

[Dragoon]

Easy fix. As mass reducing device is kicked out, kinetic energy divides by mass, projectile slows way down and the impact is limited to the kinetic energy his launcher put in. Trying to put enough kinetic energy into a very small mass would likely melt the projectile. Ergo mass reducing device

It was a case of making it fit into a game world and mechanics of a game, Unfortunately my physics is limited to Two semesters of College...and what I've picked up on my own. So I made a call to make it fairly effective, allowing a good portion of the impact to be delivered to the target before it slowed due to returning mass.

This would take the same amount of energy as compressing that plasma using other means.

The use of gravity was to explain why there was no physical container for the projectile. The technology, which is a method of causing Alterations in the quantum level of space. It allows creation of very intense points of gravity for a few seconds at most.
Lesser gravity alterations can be sustained longer before you threaten to melt down the system.
The weapons are power hogs, requiring a lot of electricity per second to fire at any sort of effective rate, which limits the endurance of the ships in question.
technology given to Humans and several other races by a MUCH more advanced culture, then turned into a weapon By Younger races)

Magnets only affect ferromagnetic materials or charged particles, and I'm pretty sure that plasma is neither.

Plasma is charged gas, since it has an electric charge it can be propelled by electromagnetic means. ( i'd love any suggestions on that one. I considered using gravitic to propel them but that seemed like a bad idea, one gravity field interacting with another int he barrel of the weapon.

When plasma expands it also cools, and most of the explosive force would go in the direction of least resistance - away from the target.

Which is why it;s not the same as setting off a pinpoint nuke in someones face, even if the plasma is cooling as it expands having it forced into you at several times the speed of sound. then explosively decompress( while in direct contact with the target) is enough to justify a pretty potent explosive force.

Actually plasma is hot gas so it would act more like a flame thrower, transferring some of its heat to the surface of the ship. If you do manage to accelerate it to high velocity, it could have an effect similar to a particle beam.

The plasma weapons were intended ( by me) as a mid range limited penetration weapon. they are supposed to deal most of their damage through flash vaporizing surface material and explosive force setting up a pressure wave inside an object.
Experimental versions using different velocities and different compositions of plasma are out there with radically different effect. Including one that does act like a particle beam

If you want some hard scifi in your game worlds, check out:

Conventional Space Weapons

Exotic Space Weapons

I'd love more science in my Sci-fi.... as it stands I am more space opera than Hard Science fiction. The problem is when dealing with people with little knowledge of Science, or absolutely no interest in the background of the weapon. It can be tricky...

ANYONE who has some good ideas for the justifications of some of my stuff Is more than welcome to add their two cents

[Arioch]

For those who desire uber effective mass drivers in outsider-like universes there is a glimmer of hope in the form of 3 named future technologies:

1. Inertial Dampers
2. Artificial Gravity
3. Reactionless Drives

Insider mentions these technologies existing, (the probably of having a common underlying piece of new physics,) and sketches their requirements/limitations from the perspective of vessel manoeuvrability but does not seem to mention their weapon potential.

Simply this new piece of physics must change the rules regarding the acceleration of masses in some undefined way and so is a potential game changer in terms of mass drivers.

On the other hand, as no race in the outsider universe has apparently done so, it can presumably be inferred that it is not possible to do so in the official outsider universe.

You could use the effects of an inertial damper to counter the local stress on the projectile, but that I think requires the projectile to be large enough to carry its own damper, which makes it larger than a fighter. You could use the the inertial damping effects in reverse to give added mass to the projectile, and perhaps use some kind of field to continue to accelerate the projectile after it's left the physical launcher; these together might reduce the need for a many-kilometer-long launcher, but I don't think they'll get you anywhere near the 75%+ of lightspeed that you'd need in the Outsider system for a mass driver to be effective in ship-to-ship combat.

Rather than excessive hand-waving, I think the way to make mass drivers viable is to change the rules of the tactical system, by dramatically reducing engagement range and maximum ship acceleration. Naturally I'm not going to do that in Outsider.

It was just Hitler. His reputation of hindering progress is legendary. Type21 Uboats, Me262, rockets, nukes. Everything. As i said, stupid infantryman, who still clinged to his limited experiences from WW1.

I think the Me262 is an example that might have been a game-changer if it had gone straight into production without Hitler's interference. If jet fighters had appeared in early 1943 when Germany still had the resources to produce them in quantity and before the P-51D was deployed in numbers, that could have had quite an impact. If Germany had been able to establish air dominance prior to the Normandy invasion, or even just prior to the Ardennes offensive, it could have been a different ball game.

But it's also true that Germany wasted a lot of valuable effort and resources chasing dozens of different wonder weapons that had no chance of being viable, and that wasn't just Hitler.

[fredgiblet]

Me-262
Stg 44
No resources wasted on super tanks
No resources wasted on V weapons
The war could have been VERY different

[Trantor]

It was just Hitler. His reputation of hindering progress is legendary. Type21 Uboats, Me262, rockets, nukes. Everything. As i said, stupid infantryman, who still clinged to his limited experiences from WW1.

I think the Me262 is an example that might have been a game-changer if it had gone straight into production without Hitler's interference. If jet fighters had appeared in early 1943 when Germany still had the resources to produce them in quantity and before the P-51D was deployed in numbers, that could have had quite an impact. If Germany had been able to establish air dominance prior to the Normandy invasion, or even just prior to the Ardennes offensive, it could have been a different ball game.

But it's also true that Germany wasted a lot of valuable effort and resources chasing dozens of different wonder weapons that had no chance of being viable, and that wasn't just Hitler.

There are shades of grey, sure. But Hitler had the last word on everything with a budget.
And still, without oil AND the Bomb there would have been no hope anyway (luckily, since i would have made a pretty worse Hitlerjunge).
And the 262, well, as we say in germany "one swallow doesn´t make summer".
The summer ended exactly Juli 16. 1945, 5:29:45 (MST).
The tide even turned in June ´44, since then it was practically over.

Me-262
Stg 44
No resources wasted on super tanks
No resources wasted on V weapons
The war could have been VERY different

No bigger naval (surface) units than pocketbattleships.
Then type 21 Uboats in large numbers to effectively cut off british supply-lines.

Working long-range bombers with FritzX or Henschel Hs 293 guided bombs to destroy russian dams and powerplants behind Ural.
Better, more powerful engines for the bombers.

More, waaay more R4M for the Me.

More King Tiger tanks. With better engines.


On the tactical side at least no "Miracle of Dunkirk" for the brits.
No resources for that Mussolini-Moron.
Securing oil-wells.


And all other possible resources on the bomb. Heck, we were the first with nuclear fission...


But then we would have had WW3 by 1955. At the latest.



...

Better for us would have been no war at all. With all our developements and patents we would have coined sh*tloads of money, and we would have simply bought the planet by 1970. Maybe except the states, but the rest pretty much.

[Dragoon]

Rather than excessive hand-waving, I think the way to make mass drivers viable is to change the rules of the tactical system, by dramatically reducing engagement range and maximum ship acceleration. Naturally I'm not going to do that in Outsider.

when i set out to work up a starship engagement rules set for my games. I wanted the mechanics to serve game/story not be a simulation of real world physics and weapons ( thus the reason i call it a space opera instead of science fiction.)
Part of the system and rules I use for my games was based on what I wanted to happen in combat. I wanted ships to engage at closer ranges, with weapons and armor about equivalent to WWII era warships. a spinal mount weapon has more punch than the 18 inch guns of the Yamato, ( but you have to point the ship fairly close to target and fly at a predictable path for several seconds while you line up your shot.
Most weapons are roughly equivalent to 5, 10, or 15 inch guns ( the rule set I used is fairly easy to guesstimate the damage of those weapons based on some of their published works.) the range and effectiveness of weapons means combat has a lot more of an action movie/anime feel to it, with as much science background as i could come up with without needing a physics degree.

This is basically what I decided to do with my game, rules system. Moved most combat out of real space into hyperspace which is a physical dimension ships enter as a shortcut. ( If I am right Outsider Hyperjumps are a sort of Skip, where you leave one point, and appear shortly after in another. )

By moving combat over to a cluttered dusty and gas filled region where engagement distances were usually measured at less than 100km and sensors, lasers were blocked by dust and debris it made the super velocity rail guns less vital. and who wants to fight where you have nothing to hide behind or block an enemies movement when you can step sideways and force the guy to come right into your guns if your good enough.

Adding the limits of how close you can safely emerge from hyperspace also gave the defenders a bit more of an advantage. since the enemy could be detected far enough away for local defenses to respond.

In a all of my play tests, it seems that the side that's outmatched can escape combat by jumping back to hyperspace or dropping out of hyperspace into real space where it can evade combat long enough to break contact with a superior force.
In short forces only engage in combat when they were ambushed, or chose to do so. Making small fast ships practical since they could get in close and unload a truckload of missiles and torpedoes before the enemy force could escape.
Fleet battles would usually occur when an enemy unit had no choice but to engage the defenders. usually in a location that restricted their movements and limited engagement ranges to something shorter than a forty or fifty kilometers where sensors, and weapons were not plagued by lag time.
Since I set up the mechanics of the Hyperspace real space interface so that a few kilometers can equal many hundred of kilometers in real space ( the great advantage of being the creator of a world) So unless you were close enough to jump at the exact same point as an enemy ship odds are you would not be able to maintain contact with the enemy after they jumped into or out of hyperspace.
Of course jumping into hyperspace at an uncharted location is risky since you might jump in in the same location as a floating reef or island of debris...which is bad, very bad.


I think that when you try to make a fictional world fit real world physics you can really lose track of one fact, it's supposed to be entertaining and fun. I try to seal as many plot/physics holes as possible in most circumstances.( Unless someone has a lot more knowledge of physics and weapons than the average reader/player. ) Of course i have to hope for at leat a bit of suspension of disbelief.

Now when it comes to ground combat the real world rules are a bit easier to follow. Limits on how big, a weapon can be and still be portable by your average soldier, how much energy it takes to kill a typical human/alien..and the basic limits on movement and maneuver are a bit more solidly known.

A soldier basically needs a weapon that can reliably incapacitate or kill his enemy, and can be manufactured at a cost that allows hundreds of thousands if not millions of the weapons to be produced.
An armored vehicle has the same needs, although it must be well enough armored to protect from the most common forms of attack directed against it and still maintain it's maneuverability, and keep cost of production down...If it is also easy to work on and repair that's a plus.

[discord]

dragoon: and you are missing that some people just love to tangle with 'real world physics' and try to do the best within those confines...

and for the record, outsider is a pretty hard scifi.

[daelyte]

It was a case of making it fit into a game world and mechanics of a game, Unfortunately my physics is limited to Two semesters of College...and what I've picked up on my own. So I made a call to make it fairly effective, allowing a good portion of the impact to be delivered to the target before it slowed due to returning mass.

That's ok. It took me a while to figure out how to break it. Kept banging my head on the wall because the mass reduction would make most of the usual problems go away. Then it occurred to me that maybe it doesn't.

6th grade dropout, but I like to read and dad is a mad scientist (rockets, biochemistry, computers), so I picked up some stuff. Anytime I'm really unsure I can just ask him.

The use of gravity was to explain why there was no physical container for the projectile.

Ah, I see. That makes sense.

Plasma is charged gas, since it has an electric charge it can be propelled by electromagnetic means. ( i'd love any suggestions on that one. I considered using gravitic to propel them but that seemed like a bad idea, one gravity field interacting with another in the barrel of the weapon.

Well, plasma contains both positive ions and negative electrons or ions. They could be separated, but if the result has only one charge all that gets you is a rube goldberg particle beam, with all the limitations of that.

Simply using gravitic fields to propel neutral particles rather than try to contain them would get around a lot of the problems of particle beams. Like charged particle beams, a gravitic neutron beam would have decent armor penetration, and a somewhat longer range - supposedly thermal bloom would still limit the effective range to somewhere around 10,000 km. It could probably be deflected using a gravitic defensive shield, but any race without gravitic technology would be vulnerable to it, so a gravitic neutron beam could be a game changer at first and still useful against unshielded targets later on.

Which is why it;s not the same as setting off a pinpoint nuke in someones face, even if the plasma is cooling as it expands having it forced into you at several times the speed of sound. then explosively decompress( while in direct contact with the target) is enough to justify a pretty potent explosive force.

Even if the plasma expands rather quickly, most of that energy would be wasted in directions that don't affect the target. At best the effect would be comparable to a gravitic particle beam.

The plasma weapons were intended ( by me) as a mid range limited penetration weapon. they are supposed to deal most of their damage through flash vaporizing surface material and explosive force setting up a pressure wave inside an object.

Not sure you'd get much of a pressure wave that way, but the rest would work as intended.

If the gravitic containment field could keep the plasma in contact with the target for a moment instead of dissipating into vacuum, the heat effect would be magnified considerably. See Nuclear Shaped Charges for ideas about what that could do.

I'd love more science in my Sci-fi.... as it stands I am more space opera than Hard Science fiction. The problem is when dealing with people with little knowledge of Science, or absolutely no interest in the background of the weapon. It can be tricky...

MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness

Personally so long as the rules are known, consistent and reasonably balanced I'm happy. In a Star Trek setting, if someone teleports through the ship's shields when it's been established that you can't do that, an explanation is required.

The players don't have to get into the scientific details if they don't want to, at most they just need to know how it works, what the limitations are, and in what circumstances they can get around them.

Look at battletech, they have a variety of weapons with predefined operating parameters. They consider basic stuff like heat, armor penetration, limited ammo and energy supply, guidance. Speed of the vehicle is affected by mass, etc. Players don't need to know all the scientific details, they can just use the lookup tables and know that their ammo compartment has a 1/20 chance to blow up for every turn that they are over 24 heat points, how much heat that boomstick of doom produces when firing, and how many heat sinks they need to fire for 12 turns before they need to cool down. Oh and also that if their mecha is hip deep in water, any heat sinks in the legs will reduce heat by an extra X points per turn so they can fire all their weapons at once continuously, or whatever.

ANYONE who has some good ideas for the justifications of some of my stuff Is more than welcome to add their two cents

I'm enjoying this a lot. Send more!

[daelyte]

@Arioch:
The size increase of putting an inertial damper on a projectile would be a problem for ship-based mass drivers, but orbital mass drivers would be more concerned with the manufacturing cost per projectile.

I still don't think you need to get to 75% of lightspeed for a mass driver to be effective at the current speed and range of Outsider ships, so long as they have some guidance and you toss out a lot of them. Reducing ship acceleration and range would imply a reduction in energy consumption, so any mass driver would have to be scaled down in acceleration as well. The size of the ships relative to the tech level is the main obstacle I see to putting mass drivers on them as primary weapons, and there are perfectly reasonable in-world explanations for that.

and for the record, outsider is a pretty hard scifi.

I'd put Outsider in the "World Of Phlebotinum" category, which is pretty soft scifi.

1. Psionic abilities (especially telekinesis and long-ranged farseers)
2. FTL (forgivable; it's the most common fictional science)
3. Inertial Dampers
4. Artificial Gravity
5. Reactionless Drives
6. Plasma weapons
7. Neutral particle beams
8. Where's the heat from all those high energy systems?
9. Advanced AI in a small container
10. Some questionable biochemistry and biology

[Dragoon]

dragoon: and you are missing that some people just love to tangle with 'real world physics' and try to do the best within those confines...

and for the record, outsider is a pretty hard scifi.

Actually sort of counting on it. If it takes less than a minute to break one of my justifications/wizzy words...I need to refine it. So people who love to do the crunchy numbers and hard physics are a great resource.

And so far I am enjoying everything said. It makes me think about how things work in my fictional playgrounds.. So you guys keep it up

@daelyte

That's ok. It took me a while to figure out how to break it. Kept banging my head on the wall because the mass reduction would make most of the usual problems go away. Then it occurred to me that maybe it doesn't.

Good, that's what I am going for. to make my explanations take some effort to break down

Well, plasma contains both positive ions and negative electrons or ions. They could be separated, but if the result has only one charge all that gets you is a rube goldberg particle beam, with all the limitations of that.

My adjustment would have to be some sort of Electromagnetic device that separates positive from negatively charge particles and routes them to different holding chambers. It sores he plasma and feeds it into the proper "barrel" of the weapon firing them in bolts with alternating charges.... the benefit is that one "barrel" cools down while the other one fires.

.

Simply using gravitic fields to propel neutral particles rather than try to contain them would get around a lot of the problems of particle beams. Like charged particle beams, a gravitic neutron beam would have decent armor penetration, and a somewhat longer range - supposedly thermal bloom would still limit the effective range to somewhere around 10,000 km. It could probably be deflected using a gravitic defensive shield, but any race without gravitic technology would be vulnerable to it, so a gravitic neutron beam could be a game changer at first and still useful against unshielded targets later on.

Hehehe, Thanks Now I have a weapon for the more advanced races in my world.

supposedly thermal bloom would still limit the effective range to somewhere around 10,000 km.

Oddly that's the limit My advanced race (in charge of the region My games/work are based in) put on Weapons in real/hyperspace...any weapon with a range longer than that has to have some sort of self destruct device.

Personally so long as the rules are known, consistent and reasonably balanced I'm happy. In a Star Trek setting, if someone teleports through the ship's shields when it's been established that you can't do that, an explanation is required.

I try to manage that , but I'm happier when there is some science behind my decisions and "special effects"

I'm enjoying this a lot. Send more!

If you saw the notes and ideas laying around my desk computer you'd wish you never said that.

[Suederwind]

@Trantor

The tide even turned in June ´44, since then it was practically over.

The tide turned much earlier, winter 42/43 I would say. There was no chance of winning this war after Stalingrad. A draw might have been reached at best, but no victory.

There were so many mistakes made by these fools back then, just to name a few:
-No long range strategic bombers, instead focusing on that Bomber-B fiasco.
-Way to complicated (and therefore slower to build/repair) tanks.
-Holding back useful weapons (Stg 44 could have been in productionas early as late 42, the same with the Me 262)
-Useless Wonderweapons (aka Propaganda Toys) like the Me 163, V1-V3, Maus Tank, Dora Guns, H-Class Battleships, ... that only diverted resources and manpower.
-That morphine addicted clown called "Reichsmarschall Meier"
-...

[Arioch]

And still, without oil AND the Bomb there would have been no hope anyway (luckily, since i would have made a pretty worse Hitlerjunge).

I don't think almost any circumstance would have allowed Axis to win after 1942, but German air superiority could certainly have changed how the endgame played out, and over what timescale.

[fredgiblet]

The tide even turned in June ´44, since then it was practically over.

That may have been when the last glimmer of hope died, but the war was over long before.

*snip*

Other than the King Tiger I agree. You don't need the King Tiger to kill a T-34 or a Sherman. I think that having a heavy tank was a good idea for assault phases, but having more and better Panthers would have served better everywhere else so I would have transitioned from the Tiger to the King Tiger but kept production relatively low.

[Suederwind]

@Dragoon:
Your games/work sound very interesting from what you are writing here.
Taking a short break from worldbuilding and outlining the story for some kind of space opera I´m working on, I just want to share some thoughts and ask some questions.
I hope you don´t mind? Especially, since I´am not a physicist.

My adjustment would have to be some sort of Electromagnetic device that separates positive from negatively charge particles and routes them to different holding chambers. It sores he plasma and feeds it into the proper "barrel" of the weapon firing them in bolts with alternating charges.... the benefit is that one "barrel" cools down while the other one fires.

That sounds clever, I have to say. How is the beam focused? With some kind of electro-magnetic field or containment? I really have no idea how such a blast of plasma behaves in vacuum, but it could be just some kind of huge flamethrower in space from what I understand and that doesn´t sound very useful to me. I´m searching some kind of explanation for that problem.

Moved most combat out of real space into hyperspace which is a physical dimension ships enter as a shortcut.

Hm... I see your point here, getting the ships closer, but I was never a fan of hyperspace or however it is called. Maybe I just shouldn´t have watched Event Horizon, back then...
Anyway: how did the dust, gas and the debris get into hyperspace? Vaporised spaceships?

[Trantor]

The tide even turned in June ´44, since then it was practically over.

The tide turned much earlier, winter 42/43 I would say. There was no chance of winning this war after Stalingrad. A draw might have been reached at best, but no victory.

That may have been when the last glimmer of hope died, but the war was over long before.

I don't think almost any circumstance would have allowed Axis to win after 1942, but German air superiority could certainly have changed how the endgame played out, and over what timescale.

Yes, we agree on the actual history. My phrase "turning tide" for summer 44 is not accurate, since the Nazis had no strategy anymore after Stalingrad. Even a victory at Kursk wouldn´t have been a lasting relief.

That´s why i say the bomb would have made a difference (Or Loroi Teidars*). Maybe/Very likely to an even more gruesome outcome, since the US had a bomb, too.


*Hm, wait one. Could a powerful Teidar "manipulate"/kill an incoming warhead, e.g. with Amps? I´d say yes?
So, what´s the Loroi word for "Brunhilda"? And are there blue-eyed blonde Loroi?
Well, really, that idea sounds too good, where are the downsides? Availability of Teidar? Exhaustion due to use of Amps?
Edit: Wait another one: We´re OnT again!! Hooray Threaddrift!!

Other than the King Tiger I agree. You don't need the King Tiger to kill a T-34 or a Sherman.

But it is easier with it than without. Or at least a vehicle with the 43 L/71 gun. And don´t forget the upcoming IS-2.

-That morphine addicted clown called "Reichsmarschall Meier"

Heh, yeah. Same problem as with Mr Schicklgruber - clinging to the patterns of WW1. And he wasn´t the only one. The whole staff was a horror-cabinet.

As i said, the best would have been no war at all.

[daelyte]

a spinal mount weapon has more punch than the 18 inch guns of the Yamato, ( but you have to point the ship fairly close to target and fly at a predictable path for several seconds while you line up your shot.

Only while accelerating, and that's if your thrusters aren't ridiculously mobile. In space you can build up momentum in one direction, then turn and fire sideways or backwards while still moving in the direction you were going. Babylon 5 had some very good examples of that.

In a all of my play tests, it seems that the side that's outmatched can escape combat by jumping back to hyperspace or dropping out of hyperspace into real space where it can evade combat long enough to break contact with a superior force.

Anything preventing hyperspace torpedoes?

A few ways to limit quickly jumping in and out if you want to:

1. Add a delay before a jump. Maybe going into hyperspace requires setting up a field that takes time to build up either because of massive energy requirements, or some stability issue that can't be rushed without the risk of having to start over.

2. Add a delay after a jump. Entering or leaving hyperspace could cause instabilities in the fabric of space/hyperspace that take minutes, hours, or days to dissipate. These could even affect both sides.

3. Add weather. Hyperspace storms could force ships to stay in real space until the storm is past. Hyperspace currents could also provide uncertainty in where a ship (or torpedo) would actually come out into real space and maybe vice versa.

Fleet battles would usually occur when an enemy unit had no choice but to engage the defenders. usually in a location that restricted their movements and limited engagement ranges to something shorter than a forty or fifty kilometers where sensors, and weapons were not plagued by lag time.

40-50 km is really really short in space terms. At that range energy weapons would be really powerful and would never miss. You could boil your opponents alive inside their ship.

Of course jumping into hyperspace at an uncharted location is risky since you might jump in in the same location as a floating reef or island of debris...which is bad, very bad.

Is it explosive? Can dropping a rock out of hyperspace blow up a planet?

Now when it comes to ground combat the real world rules are a bit easier to follow. Limits on how big, a weapon can be and still be portable by your average soldier, how much energy it takes to kill a typical human/alien..and the basic limits on movement and maneuver are a bit more solidly known.

The limits are similar in space, even though the terrain is different.

A ship has to have enough weapons and armor and life support to do its job, enough propulsion to move its mass, and power and heat dissipation to keep all that running.

Most of the details come down to mass, energy, heat, and momentum.

It stores the plasma and feeds it into the proper "barrel" of the weapon firing them in bolts with alternating charges.... the benefit is that one "barrel" cools down while the other one fires.

Not bad, but if the mass is low the charged plasma can be deflected by a charged field.

If the mass of your plasma bolts is high enough to avoid that, I think you could have similar results with a normal coilgun accelerating as much mass to the same speed. High speed impact turns mass into plasma anyway.

Oddly that's the limit My advanced race (in charge of the region My games/work are based in) put on Weapons in real/hyperspace...any weapon with a range longer than that has to have some sort of self destruct device.

Without friction to slow things down, missiles and kinetic weapons have an infinite potential range.

If you saw the notes and ideas laying around my desk computer you'd wish you never said that.

I used to have several inches thick of notes on multiple desks for just one rpg world I was building when I was about 8.

[fredgiblet]

But it is easier with it than without.

If all we're worried about is ease then we should be talking about the Maus or the Ratte. Cost-effectiveness leans heavily towards the Panther.

And don´t forget the upcoming IS-2.

Two points.

1. That's what Stukas are for.
2. If the Soviets have the ability to field any significant number of IS-2s then the Germans have probably already lost.

That being said that's why I wouldn't axe the program entirely, heavy tanks have uses as assault leaders and defensive bulwarks (though Stugs are probably better for defense).

[Dragoon]

I really never meant to get this detailed in my own version of things. I don;t want to hijack the thread, or steal away from Outsider...which I am afraid I'm getting close to here.

so to keep Fireblade from showing up at my door..I'll keep it brief...Of course if Someone wants to lend me a thread I'd be happy to go to that corner of the room so we can get back to ground war Here

That sounds clever, I have to say. How is the beam focused? With some kind of electro-magnetic field or containment? I really have no idea how such a blast of plasma behaves in vacuum, but it could be just some kind of huge flamethrower in space from what I understand and that doesn´t sound very useful to me. I´m searching some kind of explanation for that problem.
.

Basically you cheat..... using a small intense point of gravity to serve as a bottle for the plasma until it smacks into something solid, or thinks it has...

Hm... I see your point here, getting the ships closer, but I was never a fan of hyperspace or however it is called. Maybe I just shouldn´t have watched Event Horizon, back then...
Anyway: how did the dust, gas and the debris get into hyperspace? Vaporised spaceships?

hyperspace, Unlike in outsider where it's not a physical realm..is a self contained Mini-universe with its own physics, matter, and life forms...much smaller, contorted and twisted, but solid and tangible if you can get there....( Via use of a McGuffin called Quantumn Resonance)
I'll save space here, and give you this....

http://pax-belum.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Hyperspace

Only while accelerating, and that's if your thrusters aren't ridiculously mobile. In space you can build up momentum in one direction, then turn and fire sideways or backwards while still moving in the direction you were going. Babylon 5 had some very good examples of that.

the limiting factor here is how fast and how accurately you can direct several hundred thousands pounds of metal that is firing weapons, being hit by incoming fire, and trying to adjust for the maneuvers of it's target.

From what I've read and seen Outsider ships are so far apart that even a slight mistake in lining up the shot would result in the round ending up Wayyyy off target.
to get around the lack of accuracy and devaation over distance you'd have to add a self guidance and limited propulsion to the round. ( active and passivce radar, as well as thermal imaging sensors to guide it)"they is dumber than a box of rocks" , but a self guided round removes the problem of only being able to fire a spinal mount where the nose of the weapon is pointed.

Even if the ship is pointed offline by a few degrees it can still fire it's spinal mounts and hit a target.maybe, hopefully...Oh for the love of.... <shoots the gunner in frustration>. It might take a few rounds to hit the target but they are cheap ( despite what the bean counters say)

Anything preventing hyperspace torpedoes?

No, not at all.... actually these little puppies might even work for Loroi
http://wbyrd.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5jssmy

A few ways to limit quickly jumping in and out if you want to:

1. Add a delay before a jump. Maybe going into hyperspace requires setting up a field that takes time to build up either because of massive energy requirements, or some stability issue that can't be rushed without the risk of having to start over.

2. Add a delay after a jump. Entering or leaving hyperspace could cause instabilities in the fabric of space/hyperspace that take minutes, hours, or days to dissipate. These could even affect both sides.

3. Add weather. Hyperspace storms could force ships to stay in real space until the storm is past. Hyperspace currents could also provide uncertainty in where a ship (or torpedo) would actually come out into real space and maybe vice versa.

1) done... creating a stable hyperspace transit "window" Burns up a lot of power. larger ships have reserve systems to allow a "combat Jump" but civilian and older smaller ships would need to recharge.

2) not really something I had considered...hmmmmm.

3) not only weather but large bits of floating debris ( the size of Manhattan) that might just drift into where you thought was clear. Hyperspace scouts and accurate surveys are a must try to jump INTO hyperspace blind and you could end up in deep trouble...les chance of dropping back into real space to close to a massive body though. since their gravity shadow tends to collect junk in hyperspace and mark them nicely..although other ships, small bjects, even a small moon might be there waiting on you to pop out...which is why charts, navigation bouys, drones, and scouts are so vital.

I've noticed that Outsider jumps are risky as heck themselves. from a couple of posts and the "Hyperspace Jumps Gone Bad " pic I saw somewhere. In either situation a force needs tome to reorganize and form up before it can be combat ready. No star wars style fleets jumping in combat formation and arriving with pinpoint accuracy I am guessing.

Of course with a transit to hyperspace system you can cheat by forming a transit point and holding it for the smaller escort craft to use. Assuring escorts are in position when the big ships move into real space.

Is it explosive? Can dropping a rock out of hyperspace blow up a planet?

Yes some of it is, extremely so, its a common source of power for ships and large installations...of course you try to weaponize it you could end up a drooling idiot or simply vanish off the face of creation. ( there's a group of Highly advanced watch/attack dogs backed up by at least one HIGHLY advanced HIGHLY Psionic race out there to stop that sort of thing. )
In hyperspace there is an atmosphere, although thin in some places, and lots of dust and debris so you can waive the limits on your weapons for hyperspace combat.

Not bad, but if the mass is low the charged plasma can be deflected by a charged field.

If the mass of your plasma bolts is high enough to avoid that, I think you could have similar results with a normal coilgun accelerating as much mass to the same speed. High speed impact turns mass into plasma anyway.

charged plasma weapons would be deflected by a stong electromagnetic field. In this case you take such a field created by the ships drives and pump it full of cool plasma or particles of slighl charged "sand" ad the bolt has to not only power through the magnetic distortion but avoid being detonated prematurely by impacting the barriers contents
A plasma/sand barrier would also blunt lasers slightly to moderately, and particle beams if the sand plasma had the right properties.
You would either have to strip off the "barriers/shields" or use Kinetic weapons, missiles and torpedoes to punch through the shield/barrier and get at the ship inside.
Sad side effect, is that a barrier tends to be a HUGE sensor target, thermally, EM Noise, and reflected radar/sensor pulses. You cant sneak around with your shields up, and it would take time to pump them up to full strength. Also your shield also blunt your own energy weapons, so no shields and energy weapons fire at the same time.
The tactic would have to be use your shields for the approach run, using your missiles and kinetic weapons at longer ranges. Maneuver to keep yourself at Long rang fire if that's your strong point. Or close to use heavy energy weapons at mid to close range if that's what your ship is best at.

Without friction to slow things down, missiles and kinetic weapons have an infinite potential range.

well that's why the O'sahdii...the uber-ish race mandated self destruct devices on anything that has a technically unlimited rang, and enough impact to seriously damage a ship or vessel. If you cant fit it with one you have to lock it out in real space....and yes they do monitor and enforce that rule...you might get away with it once or twice but if you make a habit of it they will send their .... People out to get ya.



[quote"Trantor"]*Hm, wait one. Could a powerful Teidar "manipulate"/kill an incoming warhead, e.g. with Amps? I´d say yes?
So, what´s the Loroi word for "Brunhilda"? And are there blue-eyed blonde Loroi?
Well, really, that idea sounds too good, where are the downsides? Availability of Teidar? Exhaustion due to use of Amps?
Edit: Wait another one: We´re OnT again!! Hooray Threaddrift!![/quote]

can you imagine how effective a Pointman for a patrol or combat team a Good telpath would be...."They're close I can feel them"

Snipers would really hate them... "wait a minute"<mental flash of her head in a set of cross hairs> *ducks behind cover spoiling the shot*

Of course landmines, tripwires and IEDs would really spoil their day..no mind to read.

There I said something on topic ...I really do try to be good but I drift so easily

[bunnyboy]

so to keep Fireblade from showing up at my door..

What? Why wouldn't you wan't that?

[Dragoon]

<in a stage whisper> She scares me....besides my place isn't exactly a chick magnet ... still have bits of dead pizza all over the roof from the last gaming session.