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Sterling191 wrote:
The real secret behind astartes pattern combat stims.

You just made me think of the line from Starcraft, when you hit the stim. Laughed out loud a work. Got a glare from a co-worker. worth it.

Not heresy, but carelessness caused by failure to heed the Codex Astartes. Or so says the Ultramarine sergeant.

My 40k alter-ego's response as a Death Company Chaplain of the Blood Angels is, "Brothers! We have a target-rich environment! For the Emperor and Sanguinius, Death!" <buzz of chainswords and hum of power weapons>

The Newman wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, anyone else think outside of the Ghostbusters, it's a dumb idea to put a nuke on the back of something designed to get shot at?

Not really, space marines should never be showing their backs to the enemy. Such an act is cowardly and beneath the Emperor's Angels of Death.

And being so careless as to be ambushed is heresy.

 Melissia wrote:
The backpack is part of the power source and nutrient recycling center. Because yes, space marines eat their own (heavily recycled) poop.

The poop will be Space Marine absorbably nutrient free. At "best" it would be used to cultivate a fungus based nutrient gruel as Fungus are like guardsmen - you keep them in the dark, feed them (insert impolite term for fecal mater), and then you can them. Most likely they dump out a waste container, and add a gruel container when they pick up new ammo drops.

The batteries in the backpack might explode.

nareik wrote:
It contains a pop up banner pole with appropriate heraldry.

True, true.

 John Prins wrote:
The batteries in the backpack might explode.

Somehow I can envision Space Marine backpacks containing 10 or more Samsung Galaxies batteries because the tech-priests found them “laying around, unused”.

I'm picturing the batteries from T2: Deleted scenes. where Arnold throws one of his leaking batteries out the window and it causes a small (relative) nuclear explosion.

 Stormonu wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
The batteries in the backpack might explode.

Somehow I can envision Space Marine backpacks containing 10 or more Samsung Galaxies batteries because the tech-priests found them “laying around, unused”.

Impossible. They would have already exploded at least 37,984 years ago.

On a side note, rumor has it that it was an industrial sabotage (probably by you-know-who) that caused the faulty batteries.

It is cold fusion. Air supply for , you know vacuum, the necessary chemicals for the auto meds spare space for dice, sammiches and snacks. Also a cooler for the hot planets and beers

If the powerplant in the pack is badly damaged (but dosent explode) are marines left immobile/powerless/useless?

Not useless, but the built-in suit’s exoskeleton doesn’t offset the suit’s weight, so it’ll slow the marine down. And he better be in an atmosphere he can endure as the life support won’t be working.

It does mean no more shoulder rolls without the power, and a powerfist is just a massive paperweight.

In the good olden days of rogue trader the backpacks could be used in zero gravity to propel the user like the reaction jets on a lunar lander

 Charistoph wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Dispite what Micheal A Stackpole thinks, fusion reactors don't explode if you poke em too hard

In defense of Stackpole, we don't know how those reactors are made and there were rules for such explosions in the game it was based on.
.

actually the in universe science in Battletech is explained pretty well these days and they admit fusion reactors blowing up wouldn't work that way but rule of cool. my comment was entirely meant as a tongue in cheek joke. that said one of the Battletech sourcebooks actually notes power armor in THAT franchise is powered by a battery due to the inherant dangers of mounting a fusion generator in a backpack

Not well enough to reproduce the tech.

As it is, it was always easier to make a Vehicle blow up in 40K than it was in Battletech (before 8th Edition, anyway). In Battletech, you either had to completely eliminate the central structure of a 'Mech or perform 3 critical hits to the engine (depending on version) in a single turn in order to cause the destruction. 40K just needed to roll the right number on the Vehicle Damage Chart, and they weren't all fusion-powered.

To be fair, tanks did and do brew up spectacularly fairly often though, in the absence of HP bars, the enemy tank on fire and exploding is one of the more sure ways to know it's dead, so even tanks that are "dead" often wound up being shot unit they burn/explode. In addition to the engine, which is flammable, there's the ammunition racks, which also tend to explode violently when struck.



As for having a fusion generator on your back, this is probably fairly safe in the grand scheme of things. At the very least, you're more worried about radiation exposure from carrying it around than whatever will happen from someone shooting it.




Also, if it's damaged, it's a -20 Strength test to do anything, so the Marine [or Sister, or Rogue Trader, or sufficiently influential Acolyte] does become effectively useless.

 skchsan wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
The batteries in the backpack might explode.

Somehow I can envision Space Marine backpacks containing 10 or more Samsung Galaxies batteries because the tech-priests found them “laying around, unused”.

Impossible. They would have already exploded at least 37,984 years ago.

On a side note, rumor has it that it was an industrial sabotage (probably by you-know-who) that caused the faulty batteries.

Nah, there's no such rumor. The actual and much more reasonable explanation is that Li-Ion batteries are really fiddly beasts, and when you're making them at that scale, if anything in the process is out of whack, you're going to see it happen multiple times. If there'd been any hint of actual sabotage, it'd be major news. Based on the _actual_ investigation, the initial battery had a design flaw in the terminals that made them susceptible to damage and then thermal runaway as all the power tried to escape at once. Then Samsung switch manufacturers, and the second company massively ramped up production to meet demand, pretty much throwing QC out the window, because THAT could never possibly end poorly.

And just note, of reported incidents, that gave the whole line a failure rate of like, 50 out of a million+ units sold worldwide.

Li-Ion tech is pretty cool to begin with, just look at how much working life and power we get out of such small packs. Which means the energy density of those little batteries is pretty huge, so when something fails, it's pretty spectacular. The batteries are made by laying down a thin anode, separator, and cathode layer, and folding it many times. And having those multiple, thin layers, can make them kind of vulnerable. I believe that was the problem with those hoverboards tending to burst into flames. I don't know what kind of lab testing they did, but when out in public getting jumped on by kids and zoomed around, the amount of flex that was putting on the batteries could break the layer separation, and once that happened, booof!

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Dispite what Micheal A Stackpole thinks, fusion reactors don't explode if you poke em too hard

In defense of Stackpole, we don't know how those reactors are made and there were rules for such explosions in the game it was based on.
.

actually the in universe science in Battletech is explained pretty well these days and they admit fusion reactors blowing up wouldn't work that way but rule of cool. my comment was entirely meant as a tongue in cheek joke. that said one of the Battletech sourcebooks actually notes power armor in THAT franchise is powered by a battery due to the inherant dangers of mounting a fusion generator in a backpack

Not well enough to reproduce the tech.

As it is, it was always easier to make a Vehicle blow up in 40K than it was in Battletech (before 8th Edition, anyway). In Battletech, you either had to completely eliminate the central structure of a 'Mech or perform 3 critical hits to the engine (depending on version) in a single turn in order to cause the destruction. 40K just needed to roll the right number on the Vehicle Damage Chart, and they weren't all fusion-powered.

To be fair, tanks did and do brew up spectacularly fairly often though, in the absence of HP bars, the enemy tank on fire and exploding is one of the more sure ways to know it's dead, so even tanks that are "dead" often wound up being shot unit they burn/explode. In addition to the engine, which is flammable, there's the ammunition racks, which also tend to explode violently when struck.

In Battletech, to get a tank (or 'Mech) to brew up you literally had to make a crit on the ammo box itself (or in a couple specific examples, the weapon could, too). In actual damage tracking, Battletech has always been more precise (but does take a lot longer to process). This was still difficult as it required several consistent rolls on a 2D6 rather than a single 1D6 roll. However, the brew ups usually didn't cause the fusion engine to fail. Not to mention, I'm not sure how many of 40K's Vehicles actually operate with fusion plants.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
As for having a fusion generator on your back, this is probably fairly safe in the grand scheme of things. At the very least, you're more worried about radiation exposure from carrying it around than whatever will happen from someone shooting it.

I'd be equally concerned about pressure regulation as well as radiation. Radiation is a slow killer, while pressure can slice you in half. Again, it depends on how the tech operates. Many different fusion engines operate at incredibly high pressures to say nothing of overloading the heart of a star causing it to expand more than the containment measures can handle.