Well Senor Herp has an interesting way of writing things... I've been reading countless books, and roleplaying for years and I've never seen anything described the way he did. He should get a medal for non-friendly, obtuse, technical term filled paragraphs of eye plague. Mind you this is referring to his first post describing his faction which I think I would have to go through again to catch everything that was said exactly. But I understood most of it XD.
Anyways I want to roll in as an minor faction just wondering if there is a slot open?
Also just wanted to comment on the Rp's system a little bit. These are suggestions so take them as you may.
-Please define the FTL EVERYONE will be using. How far it can travel, travel time, energy cost. What is the mode of travel this FTL tech uses? How often can it be used, once in a blue moon? Only outside the influence of an star system? Or can you use it ALL the time rendering sublight useless prematurely?
-A few things with the Tech tree, firstly their should be an added consideration for Sub-light tech. However as with the other techs remain vague as to allow the users to describe their nation's unique drive systems and travel methods.
Examples include, Orion systems IE throwing nukes out the back door(Senor Herp's mode of transport I think), NERVA(Fission rocket), Fission Fragment drives(Slower than Nerva more efficient), Fusion(Alot of methods including types similair to Orion), VASMIR, ION engines(Really slow who wants to use that when we have FTL?).
The list can go on forever not to mention fictional methodology. So for lamens terms on the techs heres what we can have. Chemical(Hyrdrogen+Oxygen, Kerosene+Oxygene stuff like that used today), Plasma IE-VASMIR(Plasma electric drive alot more Delta-V but longer burn times), Fission(Includes all methodologies, great thing about Fission is the reactor cores if built right can last for hundreds of years, when you get into recycling systems that have accompanying breeder reactors it can go on, and on but its heavier altogether.), Fusion(All methodologies, great thing about Fusion is light fuel, lighter engine cores ALOT of Delta-V potentail, problems include Huge fuel tanks, Deadly radiation thats not to friendly to passerbys(Think neutron rays).
Thats the top off of my head for Engines really sorry if the techno babble gets to anybody right now I'm just sitting here enjoying myself feeling all smart, when in reality to most people I'm just shooting words out of my mouth. XD
-Finally some issues with existing properties in the tech tree.
-Biological Weapons are a big weird science hand wavy thing. Like first of all, Plasma? What type of plasma? Plasma for blood? Thats biological.. but not harmful. What I think you are referring to is, a large ball of heated particles. Plasma weapons exist IRL in HEAT(High Explosive Anti Tank) that shoot a shaped charge of copper plasma to penetrate large amounts of armour. Also in space, Nuclear detonation's effective kill radius is greatly reduced to two things, the force of the blast including the plasma ball(if the said nuke isn't a shaped warhead) and all that nasty NASTY radiation.
The point is Plasma balls IE heated particle death thingies shot out of a cannon are really energy inefficient and cool too quickly to be accurate or effective. Especially when referring to distances seen in vacuum. Yes plasma will definitely BE in the future, but in the form of shaped charges and nukes. There is probably a few other inventive ways it'll be used in warfare too when it comes to it.
Also acid is weird too, being able to bypass ALL types of Armour is silly. Even STRONG acids would have problems getting through a warships hull if it had the LIGHTEST type of armour plating available. Plastic,steel, ceramic all easily defeat acids. Soft targets, IE civilians might have problems in their economically minded freighters and transports, say hull breaches chewed up wires and stuff like that after a few minutes of exposure to REALLY REALLY nasty acid.
Other than that I LIKE the idea of Biological/kill the ships crews weapons. X-ray beams have the nice effect of Neutron activation on metal plating which will give the crew a nasty case of radiaton sickness. Some particle beams may have effects similar; or you can just use Gamma rays and the other ships crew will fry within a minute or two after seeing the Cherenkov effect. Neutron bombs are great too, hmm not much else to think of but their is alot of possibilities their for fun weapons.
-Gauss is an uneeded category. As all the weapons included(exluding Mass Driver since that may as well be an Propulsion system for cargo rather than an weapon. But definitely can be used as an said weapon.) are in fact KINETIC in nature. They throw things at high velocities to hit other things and put big holes in them.
So maybe rename the category to Electric Kinetic systems, or Electrically propulsed Projectile Weapon Systems, or something of that nature. Since the over arching theme is Electric+Magnetic throwing of ferrous slugs around space. Also Gauss systems are highly unfeasible IRL but could be MAYBE be a thing in the future, if you have a butt loads of power and not a care in the world Gauss might be for you. Although Gauss does have the GREAT plus of an non-wearing barrel so less maintenance. Whilst Railguns have way shorter barrel lifes, require highly durable/costly materials and still eat up quite a bit of electricity even though it may be less than Gauss guns ROFL.
-One last thing I saw in the bonus techs something called stealth. Check out the laws of thermo-dynamics. THERE is no stealth in space. Any ship in vacuum is easy to pick out 99% of the time through passive(cameras/infared) sensors. Active sensors may have a problem such as LIDAR, Radar, etc. IF the vessel is built to conteract detection through those very signals.
However Stealth in space is FEASIBLE, but it require alot of ingenuity and you are never invisible ever, the distances traveled are so long when in sublight that if you are doing an planetary transfer the simplilest telescopes that we have on earth would pick you up in no time before you reached earth.
This is not to say surprise is not possible to, since FTL is a thing you could jump into an blind spot if you are lucky and avoid sensors long enough to get the first shot off at somebody.
Wow ehhh thats all I have to say for now. I think I just pulled an Senor Herp. Sorry. ^_^
Member
Fetzen