Modding Discussion Avali 1.0 Reboot Discussion

They might not be quite there, Tau are quite advanced. But they're probably farther along than the Imperium, what with them actually forgetting how to make a knife for a while.

 

I'm aware of the difficulties of 'disappearing' into space. It's why the Avali don't attempt to hide their presence, but instead mask their position with signal chaff and similar devices.

However, what I was pointing out is that even if I were orbiting from somewhere around the distance of Mars and bombarding Earth, I would have something like ten minutes (varying depending on exact distance between the planets at the moment) in which to dodge even a laser weapon.

What it boils down to is that without a fleet to defend, the planet can be bombarded at leisure.

Of course, this is a complete hypothetical. No advanced civilization is going to attempt to defend without any ships at all--and a smaller fleet acting cooperatively with the support of the manufacturing and repair capacity of an inhabited planet will be able to punch significantly above its weight class.

In summary: planets are important strategic considerations, but their tactical value in combat is not enough to outweigh the value of a fleet in orbit.

Kinetic weapons are effective at a combat range in space most effectively described as a "knife-fight." Further, the operation of energetic drives and weapons systems in combat has the side-effect of producing significant amounts of heat that must be disposed of. Part of the effectiveness from lasers comes from that consideration that even a laser hit that does not penetrate the armor will impart significant amounts of heat to the enemy ship, reducing the duration that they can continue to operate at full combat capacity. Now, depending on how much a stickler you are for the definition of 'kinetic,' missiles can definitely pack a much weightier punch than most lasers at equivalent distance--however, missiles also can be disabled with point defense.

So really what it turns out is that there's specialties for everything. For purposes of this summary, "Range" represents how likely a weapon is to actually hit its target at any given distance. A railgun from Earth could hypothetically hit a ship over by Neptune, but it would be exceedingly unlikely, and we'd have to wait years to find out.

Railguns/Conventional Kinetic Munitions: Best weapons for orbital bombardment. Cheap, don't lose much power going through an atmosphere. Extremely limited range.

Lasers/Relativistic Weaponry: Best weapons for ship-to-ship combat. Longest range possible (not counting the fridge logic approaches of FTL-drive torpedoes, railgun shells with built-in transporters, lasers fired through wormholes, etc.). Wastes less energy on armor, focuses more damage on systems. Somewhat less cool than railguns (unless you get to bomb-pumped lasers, those are badass). Badly disrupted by atmospheres. Ineffective against very large targets (say a base built into a hollowed-out asteroid, something with plenty of mass to act as a heatsink).

Missiles: High-risk, high-reward weapons. Fairly long-ranged. Closest plausible system to "relativistic kinetics;" if you hit, it's spectacular. Expensive. Vulnerable to point-defense systems. Honestly, if I were building planetary defenses, this is what I'd use; millions of kinetic-kill missiles fired in volleys in hope of overwhelming enemy defenses. But that's really expensive.

No.

The whole point of a bullet is to be dense and armor-piercing. That's why you hear about depleted uranium shells, but not aluminum rounds. Aerogel is not dense; it's actually most easily compared to the density of styrofoam. A light bullet such as that would hold the same amount of kinetic energy, but be significantly less accurate due to environmental factors (a heavy bullet won't be pushed very far by a crosswind or other atmospheric disturbance, for instance). Further, because aerogel has a honeycombed structure, it would 'crush' on impact, losing almost all of its energy into deformation of the bullet instead of wounding the target.

People seem to think of aerogel as this kind of magical Avali material that can do anything. It's not. It's basically very rigid load-bearing styrofoam.

 

The issue is less sharp fragments and more that lead is toxic and can have unpleasant effects if ingested, even without injury. It'd also cause lead poisoning in wild animals as well. Ironically, copper is also toxic, but only in a very specific context; cooking with acidic foods.

As for aerogel slivers, maybe they have a solution or 'microwave' of sorts that can dissolve or break down the aerogel in their meat to harmless levels? I figure they'd have a way to dissolve aerogel (likely not as instantly, but gradually) as a way to treat victims of aerogel injury.

 

I'm not sure where the assumption that aerogel shatters easily came from.

My recollection was that the Avali melee weapons were purposefully designed to discard old blade fragments, much like a box cutter. I cannot speak first-hand about the fragility of aerogel, but my own reading on the subject leads me to assume it would deform more readily than it would shatter, and I highly doubt a solid aerogel object would shatter at all. The sponge-like internal structure of an aerogel would act to absorb the energy of the impact by deforming instead.

I welcome fact-checking on this, as always.

 

Yes, convinently dissolvable hyper sharp styrofoam (according to J_Mourne) blades. Nope I don't think that's going to work.

 

According to the wiki, aerogel blades break easily. They work off of the principle that as you slice through flesh, part of the blade breaks off only to reveal a jagged even sharper edge.

 

Of course that's weak areogel made purposefully to break. The areogel you use in platforms and such is probably of the impact absorbant variety because else then your avali would just step it and then fall down in a mess of deadly shards. Like, seriously, I do not want to get killed by my interior decoration.

 

That's sounds...pleasant.

 

Correct. Also people keep describing the self forging crystalline blades as "aerogel" too which is wrong, they just have some similar properties in that the blade is mostly air.

To set the records straight, Aerogel is relatively fragile in it's 'purest' form, though adding moisture back in makes it more pliant, but also denser. Aerogel always has very high tensile strength for it's mass; but keep in mind that aerogel weighs almost nothing - it's not a substitute for structural reinforcing, it's an ultra-lightweight material that isn't made of cotton batting.

 

so the blades are aerogel-crystalline substance? I need some time to compute this, you're saying like aerogel it contains alot of air or empty spaces between the molecule structure of the blade but it forms a glass like structure/crystalline(actually the more correct word here is amorphous) with the spaces in between, correct?

 

also, for that planet side deference discussions earlier on,

Imagine that but with electromagnetic railing......actually that would just made a Stonehenge Turret Network

 

Only problem with a Stonehenge Turret Network (besides being taken out by surface fighters attacking at low altitude) is that, unless it can fire at targets in orbit, the sheer size of the thing would render it ridiculously vulnerable to orbital bombardment.

 

that's why I discontinued my statement as a bad idea, but yeah didnt expect anyone here to get that reference. But they did failed the first airattack by Yellow squadron, the second because plot armor Mobius 1. But if we follow the infinity version of the Stonehenge(Build all around the globe), it might have a fighting change as it's not all in one place

 

Cover a planet or moon entirely with guns, then strap a few engines on and you now have a 'MPGP' Mobile Planetary Gun Platform, anything that gets within range is encased in shells, energy, or whatever is being fired.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/984/245/ec5.png

 

That rate of fire though.

...just "a few engines" huh?

 

Just a few 'World Engines.'

 

Mourne, I thought you're the smart one here, even with the slow fire rate there's gotta be several batteries of them firing in sequence to maintain a constant firerate, the german also got a big ass gun(80cm) but there's only one of themit firing at once that's why they fail the war.

Also here's a good areal view of the Stonehenge turret network

couple that with the Infinity universe's plan(having several of these turret network on each continent) theyna pretty well defended planet if they have the range, beside these were build to shoot down a shotgun blast of several dozen asteroids

pretty good on my book atleast

 

I tease because a good autoloader could do the job of half those guys (the ones lugging around the heavy shells and taking a long time to do it), and probably faster. The emplacement is from an older generation of warfare, and it shows.

As for planetary defense schemata, I've pretty well said all I want to say on the matter and I don't know how the Stonehenge Turret Network was proposed to work, and so I cannot comment.

 

Well then! (opens wiki and puts on reading glasses over the goggles) Ahem, Stonehenge was a battery of 8 massive railguns purpose-built to destroy incoming asteroids. The guns had a firing range encompassing a radius of 1,200 kilometers and used a hybrid propulsion system, with gunpowder initially propelling the shells, and then accelerating them to maximum velocity with electromagnetic energy. So technically they were "electromagnetic launchers" rather than true railguns. Afterwards, the guns used high explosive airburst ammunition to be exceptionally effective long-range anti-air artillery.