Willy Vereb

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

I'm not going to keep arguing this, so now I need some ideas!

My military is supposed to be made up of heavy cavalry (Night Mares, which hopefully you guys allow), a decent navy (albeit one that is as likely to rebel than to follow orders), a limited supply of quite good fighter planes, some big guns, and ranks of infantry with powerful guns.

Obviously I don't have any tanks, or anything noticeable anti-tank wise, that's where my Reactor Rifles were going to make me even slightly competitive seeing as you all have militaries bigger than my entire population, so now I need ideas as to what technology is available to make powerful enough rifles to be strategically valuable. Any and all ideas are welcome!

EDIT: Railguns maybe?

@Romero

Railguns are very unlikely as personal weapon, especially this early. Electronic weapons in general only "slightly" better than chemical ones even with sufficient power source. Their usefulness is in other qualities.
As for advanced but small military the problem with these is often that how would you prevent people from taking your technology?

That's fair enough, the amount of electricity you'd need would be huge. I'm still trying to go for the crazy scientist weapon type feel, so my final suggestion for a type of rifle before I scrap the entire nation and start over, the Tesla Gun, albeit not invented by Tesla.

There's all kinds of theories that he was within reaching distance of achieving it, and I mean some guy managed to effectively build one in his basement! Bear in mind that my army is absolutely tiny compared to everyone else in the game, so I wouldn't be able to conquer the world solo, tesla guns or not

@Romero

Tesla weapons can work. Others are referring more to the "Red Alert" kind of Tesla variety (big-ass lightning guns) but I suppose you mean his actual designs?
Yeah, if you give it sufficient amount of tech limitations so they don't just become "super guns" which everyone should have I can see this work.
Tesla's original idea was basically to accelerate a stream of tungsten atoms at massive velocities using something akin to a coilgun. The damage of this weapon system was supposed to be thanks to its concentrated beams being sustained. So you could carve neat and thin holes in stuff.
You can make these into mighty good defense turrets and there'd be perhaps rumors of you magically destroying trespassing aircraft which would make most nations wary of you.
Making mobile versions of this weapon would be more difficult since power storage and generation is kind of primitive at this time. That being said you'd have such weapons, just they won't maintain their "beam" for that long and would be overall weaker.

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

I have nothing against his nation, either. I just feel atom guns and nuclear reactors would inevitably lead to a massive tech creep.
Clock jokes about my 15m wide jet exhaust mounted on watercrafts but that's just one-off exaggeration made for fluff madness. I deliberately tried to make my vehicles to center on pre-war themes in general. Case in point in me being probably the only nation who uses cavalry tanks as my main force instead of using the mid-WW2 style light, medium, heavy tank mix most nations have in the RP.

It's true that nuclear research was far from anything new. America also had an experimental nuclear reactor before even the war. But that's different from having atompunk/fallout style tiny nuclear reactors put into everything.
At this stage I may as well just declare I arm my elves with portable weapons grade lasers and nobody could say a word. That was the issue.
That and these reactors being a ridiculously huge hazard. Shielding these things would be near-impossible, scaling down the mechanism is a nightmare and the recoil generated by these nuke-pumped guns would be too big for a humanoid to bear. I made calculations before with artillery using nuclear detonations to launch shells. This would be worse.

I really don't wish to impede Romero's creativity but his concept was too much for the setting. I wish he could return with new ideas.

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

@RomeroI see you try to make something unique but honestly using nuclear propulsion for your guns is both dangerous and too OP.
And this is assuming it were possible with fissive material which is of course near-impossible due to being far below the critical mass.
There are means to get around this but either way we're talking about atompunk futuristic setting rather than WW2.
Similarly nuclear reactors are way too good for what we currently have.
I suggest dropping this entirely.
Also it may worth noting that the "big bad nazi empire" concept is technically taken by Cyclone's Moravia already. I may have to give it another lookover but it seems similar in that aspect. Not like two similar themes can't exist but you may not want this.

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

<Snipped quote by Combo move>

Thanks! It's more just a stick of uranium stuck in the rifle to make it go boom more! Hopefully it's not too much as the whole idea of Sophia being a brilliant nuclear scientist is kind of my nations feel!

@Romero

That makes absolutely no sense. Also rifle sized micro nukes are beyond even modern technology. Why the hell you even want them?

A medieval fantasy, or fantasy post-apocalyptic?

11th century development is a bit too early. It's good for people who are obsessed with this period but for the casual player it lacks many of the classical elements.

A medieval fantasy, or fantasy post-apocalyptic?

I am far from averse to a medieval fantasy... matter of fact, I've been hunting for one for a while. Closest I've gotten to so far is an as of yet not started greek era Rp.

@ArenaSnow

There's the Brimstone which is also goes on a borderline Game of Thrones route but yeah, we need the good ol' medieval fantasy NRPs back.

@End HereAnd for that purpose I think you may wish to clarify a few points.

1.) Medieval fantasy. How advanced is the average? What is the maximum acceptable technology?
2.) Magic. How common is magic. How powerful it could be?
3.) Races. Elves, dwarves and lizardmen are allowed, right?
4.) Fantasy metals. Mithril and similar fantasy elements are allowed? How much?
5.) Fantasy creatures? Can people ride on griffs, meet dragons or be scared away by man-eating giants?

That's about it. Your opinion on these points would determine the face of this NRP.
Thank you in advance!

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

@Willy Vereb

The only map I could find was the one on the first page, detailing existing nations.

If the placement is not an issue then yes, I'd love ideas thrown my way.

I mean, I've went on that pirate pad three times now and no one is ever there to work out history...

@Combo move

I suggest making a PM discussion between you, me, Isotope and Serpentine88.
That's the surest method.

Anyways, basically Yllendthyr had a rivalry with Verendes and didn't mind giving up some of their areas in order to weaken their enemy even worse. Thus the elves supported your war of independence which was also a proxy war between Yllendthyr and Verendes.
In the end you became an independent nation while Verendes grew weaker and this eventually resulted in Ceresia similarly becoming independent and Verendes losing its old status as one of the largest powers on Earth.

All of this hinges on the nation being accepted though.

@Combo move

Read between the lines. You are practically accepted already. Only need to work out some details.

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

Forgot to add this. I am using the color pink

@Combo move

Seems like you can choose between Ceresia, Verendes and my Yllenthyr as your former "owners".
Alternatively your lands were divided between all 3 of these powers and somehow you fought out your independence from all of us at once.
I actually have more than a few ideas how to fit your nation's history but I also respect your freedom to come up with something on your own.

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

<Snipped quote by Combo move>

As much as I hate to criticize another socialist nation, some of this technology seems too advanced. Your population is rather high, but that's appropriate as long as you're a relatively undeveloped nation. First of all, tilt-rotor aircraft were invented in the 70s or 80s if I recall, and if you have aircraft you should probably only have comparatively few of them, and your tanks appear very modern even if you don't have any death walkers or things like that.

However, this is Willy's area of expertise, so I would invite him to suggest a more compatible technological level. The idea is that the other continents are "colonial", at least somewhat less developed areas and your nation seems to be both large, populated and of comparable tech. I'm not asking you to revert to biplanes and those treaded monstrosities we call WW1 tanks, but just some sort of meaningful step backwards in the level of military tech and industrial development.

<Snipped quote by Louis Dabout>

As long as you're not as well developed as the other nations (as I enumerated to combo move) it seems perfectly fine.

@Mihndar

I take it as the appearance of his tanks is more of an aesthetic than implying he has MBTs this early. Same with the Osprey lookalike.
From what I read his tanks would look much more like this:

BT Tank

Maybe with a slightly larger build,less crowded crew compartment, bigger gun and the unreliable Chrissie suspension replaced with torsion bars.
Basically a true "cavalry tank" or at best the idealized T-34s as popular media makes them out to be (which they never were, T-34 and reliability are two different terms).

As for tiltrotor compared to all the weird technologies those are hardly anything big. And as the wiki link Combo Move showed they were technically a possible vehicle even in the 30s. They just never were interested in it and the reason is somewhat obvious. They have harsher weight limits, engineering demands and poorer aerodynamics. Besides you need at least two engines which makes them big compared to what they needed as the "compact ship launchable aircraft" so yeah, it didn't really catch on. Albeit in this setting where you can put aircraft engines on your legs I think they could be made much more viable. Still, the complexity makes them more expensive than comparative aircraft.

@Combo moveMy only problem is that you never mention under whose colonial rule you were. That'd be pretty important history wise and similarly with the culture.
Also I may be just slightly blind because I can't see your map claim anywhere.
On the other hand, yeah. Being a nerfed USA of this settting can make sense. But again, who was your "Britain"?

The Sun Will Never Set (Reboot)

Is there still time for me to jump in and join this?

@Romero

Just try to find an empty spot somewhere.
You'll be most likely a former colony who declared independence so check the major colony holders and pick whoever is the most "sympathetic" to you.
Then contact the nation's player about your idea.
You can be easily Mexico or America here so yeah, nothing is lost.
Also the southermost part of the main continent is still free because one of the players regretfully quit.
Now that I think about it you can also use that.
Also check the nations here and try to figure out a fun backstory for your nation.
We also have a piratepad for discussions about shared history:
http://piratepad.net/GCX0ckPYGq