Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've always wondered how the IOM fuels its war machine, surely after how many of Thousands of years they would bleed the planets they use for resources dry? Even when they find new/lost planets they must strip them dry like nobodies business.

I just wanted to know if anyone knows anything lost in the fluff or your theories on the matter.

Thanks

There's a reason artillery shells are valued higher than soldier lives in the Imperium. See the Master of Ordnance entry in C:IG as an example.

IIRC, the engines for the russ and chimeria can be run on bio matter, as well the battery packs for the humble lasgun can be renewablly recharged.

They probably have some way of making edible paste from bio matter as well im sure.

That is the reason the lasgun is the standard issue of the IG. If they used bullets they would bleed planets dry in a single Armageddon.

Also keep in mind they have dead suns and asteroid belts they can mine. The amount of metals in these dwarfs that you could think of if you think of an earth like planet.

We also have no idea what plastisteel actually is? Is it 10% iron and 90% carbon or 90% iron and 10% carbon? If it is almost all carbon then it would be plentiful and cheap. Considering it is "plasti"steel that wouldn't be unreasonable. Heck it could be like a brand name instead of an indication of content.

There are probably loads of desolate planets, asteroid belts and scrap yards that can provide war material to the IoM.

Imperium has enormous amounts of resources. They dedicate entire worlds to war material production, and many of these kinds of worlds exist.

It's why the Imperium would sacrifice millions of men just to take one empty barren world rather than exterminatus the place.

The big hive worlds don't really have any resources left in the planet, the big thing they do is manufacturing. All the raw materials from other worlds get shipped to them, they stick it together to make the millions of lasguns and leman russes, and then it gets shipped off at the same time as all the regiments of guardsmen that are simultaneously 'recruited'.

It's why the Imperium goes for a highly specialized system of colonizing and structuring the planets it controls. Agri-worlds do nothing but produce foodstuffs with the minimum level of population buildup, they want everything focused on that one task.
There's a whole heck of a lot more worlds out there that can't sustain life, and those are the ones the Imperium eats whole for resources. Remember that despite the technological stagnation, there's still a lot of extremely advanced systems in place for the express purpose of adapting worlds for use, and I'd imagine the level of efficiency is very high in terms of resource gathering.

 Badablack wrote:
There's a whole heck of a lot more worlds out there that can't sustain life, and those are the ones the Imperium eats whole for resources.

Not to mention asteroid fields. While the heaviest elements usually settle in planets there's a whole lot of lighter elements easily available to anyone capable of space operations. Mining on planets means you have to dig in and carry stuff out and also get it into orbit and ship it off - either before or after refining and manufacturing something out of it. Surface-to-orbit is a very expensive haul for us, and probably for the IoM too when compared to not having to do it.

Though I could see IoM busting a planet open and hauling chunk of it off to mine. They do have weapons entirely capable of it and what better way to ensure no necron tombs awaken?

Considering we have held onto Earth for a really long time and have not run out of metals and things (yet, but Im not here for that).
The imperium may be faster at mining and such then we are but a Planet generally is a very large thing and contains ALOT of resources. multiply that by an unknown millions then you have plenty of resources. Plus including the dead stars and asteroids mentioned above.

Plus the Imperium has a very effective recycling program.
The Ad Mech more often then not will try to reuse tanks, guns etc when they can or send them off to be torn into their component materials to be made anew into something else. There is mention in the Angel of Fire IG novel where after a heavy fight a large group of Ad Mech and their Servitors walk around analyzing wrecked tanks and marking them with paint for which ones could be recovered and those who would be sent for scrap, the largest ones, like the Baneblades were especially cared for and would have a lot of time invested in refurbishing one (its easier to fix one then build another from scratch apparently)

As for Bio stuff..... there is supposedly a ration that is made from all sorts of biological things.... including people. (Grim darks!) So when they can the Imperium will recycle... They will even recycle YOU should it become necessary to keep the war machines of the Imperium rolling. I wouldn't put it past them to have a derivative of the People made ration that works as a fuel for tanks....

It's actually a little curious as to why the Imperium doesn't have (that I'm aware of) massive mobile production facilities. Given the highly unstable nature of warp travel having a ship or two in fleet dedicated to food/ammunition/mining of asteroids etc would extend operational range and viability.

Realistically organising any sort of supply chain would be an immense headache when you can't reliably determine how long your supply ships will take. Sure, they *should* take a month but if that food shipment *doesn't* show up for a month your army is done for. And from the fiction I've read a months delay wouldn't be so extraordinary as to shock anyone. Unsupplied armies don't last long for a multitude of reasons.

mmmmmmmm soylant green

 Kojiro wrote:
It's actually a little curious as to why the Imperium doesn't have (that I'm aware of) massive mobile production facilities. Given the highly unstable nature of warp travel having a ship or two in fleet dedicated to food/ammunition/mining of asteroids etc would extend operational range and viability.

Realistically organising any sort of supply chain would be an immense headache when you can't reliably determine how long your supply ships will take. Sure, they *should* take a month but if that food shipment *doesn't* show up for a month your army is done for. And from the fiction I've read a months delay wouldn't be so extraordinary as to shock anyone. Unsupplied armies don't last long for a multitude of reasons.

I've heard of Manufatorum Ships.

Giant Ad Mech run ships that are essentially space borne factories. able to build anything from Baneblades to lasguns and everything in between.
I don't know when and where they are deployed. There is a bit about one at the end of "Baneblade" that builds a brands new Baneblade (its mentioned its a non-mars pattern that is inferior to the Mar Pattern Baneblade that the main character was in through most of the book) but otherwise its built in space for him.

I would imagine if the space is clear they could use them but I have personally never read about them else where.

ansacs wrote:We also have no idea what plastisteel actually is? Is it 10% iron and 90% carbon or 90% iron and 10% carbon? If it is almost all carbon then it would be plentiful and cheap. Considering it is "plasti"steel that wouldn't be unreasonable. Heck it could be like a brand name instead of an indication of content.

Any steel with a carbon content over 4% is brittle and useless (known as pig iron), most steel has a carbon content of around 0.4%

I'd always assumed that plasteel was something like a sintering powder of steel particles and a polymer binder that could be cast at low temperatures and then fired, or even some ceramic composite whose exact composition is known only to the Mechanicus (Its like plastic, buts its also like steel, hmmm...)

soupfly wrote:mmmmmmmm soylant green

Its explicitly referred to as soylens veridiens in the Caiphas Cain novels, and described as reconstituted protein

The amount of raw materials in the galaxy is insanely, stupidly high.

There will never, ever be a shortage of materials in the universe, no matter how often they wage wars.

 Engine of War wrote:

Plus the Imperium has a very effective recycling program.
The Ad Mech more often then not will try to reuse tanks, guns etc when they can or send them off to be torn into their component materials to be made anew into something else.

People talk about an almost religious attitude to recycling and being green. This is literally a religious issue. Parts of a mechanical device are holy artifacts. I imagine that mining waste dumps every few hundred years and going over battle fields would prove a fruitful source of raw material. Don't forget it is only in the last 100 years that we have become poor at recycling as material extraction became easy. Look up Gong Farming and Toshers.

 Kojiro wrote:
It's actually a little curious as to why the Imperium doesn't have (that I'm aware of) massive mobile production facilities. Given the highly unstable nature of warp travel having a ship or two in fleet dedicated to food/ammunition/mining of asteroids etc would extend operational range and viability.

40K fluff rarely interests itself in the minutia of life. If there is no fighting it tends to avoid it. I see no reason there would not be manufactorum ships as part of any IG regiment.

 Senden wrote:

soupfly wrote:mmmmmmmm soylant green

Its explicitly referred to as soylens veridiens in the Caiphas Cain novels, and described as reconstituted protein

"soylens veridiens" Subtle...

ROFL @ Soylens veridiens hahaha

FYI soylent is a thing now:

Remember there are millions of inhabited worlds in the IOM. Think what the ratio of habitable worlds is to uninhabitable worlds, asteroid belts, and so forth and how much they can be processed.

On a similar note though, an agriworld, wouldn't it cease being an agriworld after a significant amount of time. Think about it, all the minerals and nutrients are pulled from the soil in the form of crops which get sent in bulk off world. Where are they getting replenished from? Sure field can lay fallow to to give the soil a break but, you cant make something from nothing so where is the replenishing minerals coming from since they were sent off world? Note we are talking on a continental scale here.

Col. Dash wrote:
Remember there are millions of inhabited worlds in the IOM. Think what the ratio of habitable worlds is to uninhabitable worlds, asteroid belts, and so forth and how much they can be processed.

On a similar note though, an agriworld, wouldn't it cease being an agriworld after a significant amount of time. Think about it, all the minerals and nutrients are pulled from the soil in the form of crops which get sent in bulk off world. Where are they getting replenished from? Sure field can lay fallow to to give the soil a break but, you cant make something from nothing so where is the replenishing minerals coming from since they were sent off world? Note we are talking on a continental scale here.

I'd presume they'd ship in fertilizers and water. I'd imagine that some (most?) hive worlds have some kind of processing system set up to transform the biological waste that's generated into fertilizer that's sent to the agriworlds on the return trips rather than just sending empty ships.

 Engine of War wrote:
Considering we have held onto Earth for a really long time and have not run out of metals and things (yet, but Im not here for that).
The imperium may be faster at mining and such then we are but a Planet generally is a very large thing and contains ALOT of resources. multiply that by an unknown millions then you have plenty of resources. Plus including the dead stars and asteroids mentioned above.

Plus the Imperium has a very effective recycling program.
The Ad Mech more often then not will try to reuse tanks, guns etc when they can or send them off to be torn into their component materials to be made anew into something else. There is mention in the Angel of Fire IG novel where after a heavy fight a large group of Ad Mech and their Servitors walk around analyzing wrecked tanks and marking them with paint for which ones could be recovered and those who would be sent for scrap, the largest ones, like the Baneblades were especially cared for and would have a lot of time invested in refurbishing one (its easier to fix one then build another from scratch apparently)

As for Bio stuff..... there is supposedly a ration that is made from all sorts of biological things.... including people. (Grim darks!) So when they can the Imperium will recycle... They will even recycle YOU should it become necessary to keep the war machines of the Imperium rolling. I wouldn't put it past them to have a derivative of the People made ration that works as a fuel for tanks....

Taking oil as a single resource, old thought generally went that you could only recover 20-30% of the oil in a reservoir. New technologies that have been invented mean fields that were considered 'depleted' are now highly productive fields again (fracking, steam injection, water injection, hydraulic pumps, and others). We'll still end up only pulling out a fraction of a reservoir even with these new technologies, but as we advance it means more can be pulled.

Take the Imperium that doesn't care about it's people or the environment, and it's a hell of a lot easier to strip mine and pump for whatever you want. So, plenty of more common resources to go around.

Senden wrote:Any steel with a carbon content over 4% is brittle and useless (known as pig iron), most steel has a carbon content of around 0.4%

I'd always assumed that plasteel was something like a sintering powder of steel particles and a polymer binder that could be cast at low temperatures and then fired, or even some ceramic composite whose exact composition is known only to the Mechanicus (Its like plastic, buts its also like steel, hmmm...)

Plastic is and polymers are both mostly carbon in content. I never said that they would use the same process as steel. For all we know it is diamond like carbon with iron seeding to increase the tensile strength.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond-like_carbon
Or it could be amorphous metal which is similar in working with and properties to plastic. No telling.

There are FAR more planets and asteroids in the galaxy than even a trillion humans could go through.

For each "habitable" planet in the 40k universe, and there are lots, you are likely to have the equivalent of 10,000 others that are worth nothing more than the materials they are made of.

The funny thing is that steel is a plastic material. Oh those wacky fun loving materials scientists and their technical terms

No steel is a crystalline structure. It has plasticity it is not a plastic structure (which tend to be amorphous).

I said it was a plastic material, not that it had a plastic structure.

It doesn't fullfill any of the definitions of a "plastic material" it is a material with plasticity though.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_(disambiguation)

Plastic refers to

Any material that has plasticity

its the first result in wikipedia's alternate definitions list.

You sure you didn't mean a credit card? That is a horrifically broad definition of plastic. Heck even heated iron or stone is a plastic according to that definition. Fair enough though as it doesn't actually matter.

 ansacs wrote:
You sure you didn't mean a credit card? That is a horrifically broad definition of plastic. Heck even heated iron or stone is a plastic according to that definition. Fair enough though as it doesn't actually matter.

Plasticity is the physical property of matter wherby when deformed or shaped, it retains that new shape. In the late 19th and early 20th century the newly introduced natural and later synthetic hydrocarbon polymer compounds were described under the blanket term 'plastic' due to their ability to be formed and shaped, compared to previous mainstays like brass (a relatively soft and easily machined metal), pewter (a low melting temperature alloy of tin and lead) and wood (which must be heated in steam to retain a formed shape).

 Engine of War wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:
It's actually a little curious as to why the Imperium doesn't have (that I'm aware of) massive mobile production facilities. Given the highly unstable nature of warp travel having a ship or two in fleet dedicated to food/ammunition/mining of asteroids etc would extend operational range and viability.

Realistically organising any sort of supply chain would be an immense headache when you can't reliably determine how long your supply ships will take. Sure, they *should* take a month but if that food shipment *doesn't* show up for a month your army is done for. And from the fiction I've read a months delay wouldn't be so extraordinary as to shock anyone. Unsupplied armies don't last long for a multitude of reasons.

I've heard of Manufatorum Ships.

Giant Ad Mech run ships that are essentially space borne factories. able to build anything from Baneblades to lasguns and everything in between.
I don't know when and where they are deployed. There is a bit about one at the end of "Baneblade" that builds a brands new Baneblade (its mentioned its a non-mars pattern that is inferior to the Mar Pattern Baneblade that the main character was in through most of the book) but otherwise its built in space for him.

I would imagine if the space is clear they could use them but I have personally never read about them else where.

The astartes apparently have 'forge ships' as well. At least the salamanders do, I believe one of the forge ships was one of Vulkan's relics. I imagine many/nearly all chapters have at least one, although probably not as many or as nice of ships as the Salamanders do. I assume that these forge ships produce war material, although that isn't explicitly stated.