Which is what I wrote only with displacement instead of position.Arioch wrote: In that case, just use:
S = ½at² + vt
where v is initial velocity.
One may be slightly more efficient than the other in some situations, but only slightly.
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Which is what I wrote only with displacement instead of position.Arioch wrote: In that case, just use:
S = ½at² + vt
where v is initial velocity.
I don't currently have any plans for characters that are twins. I think that Loroi twins would be even more rare than Human twins, and most would be identical rather than fraternal. I do like the idea of a set of male twins making lots of trouble; I can see that being an interesting historical or mythical reference.Grayhome wrote:Quick question for Arioch, will we seen any Loroi twins in this comic?
Okay, that makes sense. As I am sure has been discussed before, the war is mainly a naval one. Even pivotal naval battles with major losses tend to have small losses of life when compared to contempory ground battles. Ships tend to either have most of the crew make it home (even if the ship doesn't), or almost the entire crew get wiped out.Arioch wrote:The Loroi had large reserves of military personnel during peacetime; for every warrior standing on the deck of an actual starship there were probably two or three more at desk jobs training and competing for the opportunity to take her place. Once that pool was exhausted, they would use warriors retrained from other specialties. There was also a small number of new warrior graduates every year -- population growth would have been low in peacetime, but never at zero. And finally, when that bucket was empty, they would have to use civilians for some positions. I think for the majority of the war, the critical shortage would have been ships rather than people, but in 2140-41, things were probably pretty bad.
Okay, I think there are some better questions that would explain the reasons.Arioch wrote:The Loroi military has low ranks, but they don't have a class distinction between enlisted and officer; even the lowest-ranking Loroi warrior has been through a training regimen that gives her significant social status. There are always menial tasks required in any combat unit, and wherever these can't be pawned off to some civilian contractors, they will be performed by the lower-ranking warriors (or those who have pissed off their commander in some way). These won't be popular duties, but warriors shouldn't be afraid to get their hands dirty.
The rank list provided concentrates on shipboard titles; ground-based infantry will probably have a greater variety of low-ranking titles, and many menial functions may be provided by civilian personnel. On board a starship, however, civilians are not allowed, and the cost of operating such a unit is so extreme that it doesn't make much sense to put anyone but your best available people at every position. Sometimes this will mean that a person with the equivalent of a college education is turning a wrench or cleaning a toilet, but you don't have to look any farther than our own space program to see that principle already in action today.
Also, at this technology level there is a significant amount of automation, so there will be some non-humanoid robots to help with some of the most difficult and menial tasks.
In peacetime fleet units, groups or individuals would compete for available slots during workups, with the best-performing group earning the right to deploy, but then that group would normally have to sit out a tour afterwards before it could be deployed again.Random Person wrote: Before the war, did the Loroi regularly rotate crews between line and staff positions? Not as punishment but as a way to get as many experienced and trained crews (and staff) as they could. For example, in the US military, officers basically do a tour in a line position, then a tour in a staff position, then a tour in a line position, and so on and so forth.
Ideally, they would rotate people home for time off the line and to better facilitate training, but that can be difficult in some units, particularly the interdiction groups. The main "battle lines" that stay in friendly territory are often near base and have some downtime between attacks, but the interdiction groups frequently go long periods in between visits to base, during which they are resupplied in the field. It's tough to send your best people home with the supply convoy when you have to return immediately to combat and you're already short on experiened crewmembers as it is.Random Person wrote: Do the Loroi pull successful people off the line to train replacements? You can't really do this at the upper levels (flag officers and such) since the turnover rate is pretty low with them, but at the mid or lower levels this is crucially important. In some areas it seems the Loroi are on the edge of an attritional death spiral, where experienced people are lost, so replacements don't get training and shared wisdom they need and are then lost before they can gain and spread experience.
Getting mass into orbit is relatively cheap at this tech level; what's more significant is the cost of moving it from one star system to another. The chief recurring cost associated with a crewwoman is going to be the cost of keeping her (and the ship carrying her) supplied.Random Person wrote: How expensive (in terms of percentage of GDP per unit of mass, anything without a boatload of decimal places counts) is it to get things into orbit? If it's expensive as hell you'll only pay to put your best and brightest up there. However, Outsider being rather soft it is probably not that much of an expense for them. How expensive are spaceships to build and maintain in terms of GDP? This is actually rather unimportant compared to the next one.
In our system, the civilian economy is paramount and individual workers are free agents; the military has a difficult time competing salary-wise with the private sector for educated workers. So a large number of military recruits are poorly educated, and the civilian class division between educated and uneducated workers is mirrored in the military division between officer and enlisted ranks. This has worked reasonably well for us, but there is a (largely artificial) barrier between enlisted personnel and officers; it’s very common that a junior officer has far less experience, training, and skill than the senior NCO who is his subordinate.Random Person wrote:How large is the pool of willing applicants compared to the need? If you have dozens or hundreds of people qualified and eager for every slot, then you can afford to pick and choose (example, astronauts and to a lesser extent very competative universities).
The space program is an extreme example, but it’s the same basic principle. If there are a limited number of available spots, and every position is important (especially on a warship, which has large crews for the purpose of redundancy, it’s important to be able to do more than just mop floors) and very expensive to supply, and highly coveted, then it makes sense to fill that spot with the best available people. And for the Loroi, who have to pay for their warriors’ cost of living whether they are sitting at a desk or toiling aboard a starship, the crew’s “salary” is not really a significant concern. As we just discussed, in peacetime the Loroi maintained several extra crews for each starship.Random Person wrote: The example you use of the space program isn't that applicable, since there aren't enough people up there to warrent or even enable that kind of specialisation. If we were to put a base on the moon with hundreds or more people on it, I guarantee you that there will be a few janitors. They would be highly skilled tradesmen or technicions though, rather than licensed engineers and doctors.
VictorValor wrote:Do the Loroi have paratroopers?
For that matter, if you have flying APCs, then those are your parachute troops. The main reason for paratroopers is the inconvenience of moving basically anything else by air.Arioch wrote:VictorValor wrote:Do the Loroi have paratroopers?
Possibly, but with flying APC's I think there's limited use for parachute troops.
That's essentially what I meant. Air cav is used instead of paratroops.Absalom wrote:For that matter, if you have flying APCs, then those are your parachute troops. The main reason for paratroopers is the inconvenience of moving basically anything else by air.
Since Loroi have a taboo against casual touching, I think you can probably guess that they don't kiss in public.sunphoenix wrote:The Loroi being a mostly telepathic race as their personal communications are usually non-verbal... do they kiss as a sign of affection?
Interesting. I was not certain that loroi would ever see the need to socially develop such a type of contact 'as kissing' - seeing as they can far more intimately contact each other's mind directly without the clumsiness of physical contact. Of course, other than the need for such physical contact as in procreation.Arioch wrote:Since Loroi have a taboo against casual touching, I think you can probably guess that they don't kiss in public.sunphoenix wrote:The Loroi being a mostly telepathic race as their personal communications are usually non-verbal... do they kiss as a sign of affection?
Kissing would be one element of sexual contact between male and female, done in private.
For the same reason that the Western democracies conquered Germany and Japan: the other guys started it first. The only war (against aliens) that the Loroi ever started was the Third Mannadi War, which was essentially just a continuation of the first two wars, started by the Mannadi.Grayhome wrote:So why do Loroi not like aliens to be around? Why conquer them at all in the first place then.
If it was anything like that, it wasn't nearly as simple as that. It also seems very incongruous for an obviously weaker power to "start it" against an obviously stronger power. Let's look at WW2: there wasn't a very apparent strong side or weak side. Indeed, the Axis powers were at a very distinct tactical advantage at the outset, and it was only gross errors in strategy that prevented them from driving home that advantage into some wider victory. Wars tend to happen because of one of two scenarios - either both belligerents have reason to think that they're in a position that they can use to achieve victory, or a clearly stronger belligerent forces a clearly weaker power into a fight.Arioch wrote: For the same reason that the Western democracies conquered Germany and Japan: the other guys started it first.
:<?CJ Miller wrote:What are the average January and July temperatures (low and high) and rainfall in Torridas and Menelos? In that vein, what Earthican cities do the best job of trying to approximate their weather?
Can you tell us about the Philosophers? How many of them are named Bruce?
Also, perhaps the sister worlds page should be updated? How can the Listel hometown be named Upway when there's no <w> or <y> in Trade?
e: Also also, perhaps you could write an Insider page on Crossfire? :3