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 morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


Orks can terraform it and put organic matter back down if a Rokk hits it. Hence why the Orks and Tyranids are a perfect match as symbiotic civilizations, or at least the perfect fitting puzzle piece that enables stability for both factions. Tyranids are the farmers that reap what the Orks sow.

It's a damned shame that the Imperium isn't made up of Orks then aint it?

Also, I'd kind of argue against Orks being able to do that. I mean Tyranids leave -nothing- behind. No precious metals, no water, no atmosphere, no dirt, no nothing. There's literally just rock; they take everything else.

Orks are hardy, but I'm skeptical of their ability to ekk out a living on literally rock alone. At absolute best they'd be able to salvage and re-use what they came to the planet with, but the fact that they have nothing on the planet to use means that they'd eventually just be stuck there bashing eachothers heads in whilst running around butt naked.

Basically they wouldn't be common Orkish low tech, they'd be no tech. Not even rock weapons; just rocks.

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


Orks can terraform it and put organic matter back down if a Rokk hits it. Hence why the Orks and Tyranids are a perfect match as symbiotic civilizations, or at least the perfect fitting puzzle piece that enables stability for both factions. Tyranids are the farmers that reap what the Orks sow.

It's a damned shame that the Imperium isn't made up of Orks then aint it?

Also, I'd kind of argue against Orks being able to do that. I mean Tyranids leave -nothing- behind. No precious metals, no water, no atmosphere, no dirt, no nothing. There's literally just rock; they take everything else.

Orks are hardy, but I'm skeptical of their ability to ekk out a living on literally rock alone. At absolute best they'd be able to salvage and re-use what they came to the planet with, but the fact that they have nothing on the planet to use means that they'd eventually just be stuck there bashing eachothers heads in whilst running around butt naked.

Basically they wouldn't be common Orkish low tech, they'd be no tech. Not even rock weapons; just rocks.

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Tyranids and Orks both throw spores onto the planet and begin their process of evolution. Tyranids take all bio-mass, Orks take all metals leaving nothing but a hollowed out rock for a planet. Great teamwork tbh

To make a Carnifex requires a lot of energy. For that Carnifex to moves around requires a lot of energy. To process it back into Tyranid goo requires a lot of energy. You won't even get all, or perhaps most, of the energy back that the Carnifex has.

The act of consumption results in a loss of energy. Ripper swarms have already burnt off some (Or, more likely, most) of the energy in the biomass they consume just because they've eaten it. Then when those things get liquified that results in energy loss. Then when that goo is processed back into something else that will result in even more energy loss. This is just how the laws of Thermodynamics work and why I personally believe biotechnology as used by the Tyranids is all kinds of stupid.

And this brings us back to the size of potential whole of the Tyranid race. Because so much energy is being burned as their fuel source is being repeatedly converted into one form or another and by... everything they own they'll have to consume a lot of biomass of which your average galaxy only has so much of. Not even to expand their race. Just to survive. At some point the amount of biomass they need to eat to live and how much the usual galaxy they encounter contains will equal out and their growth will stop. Before then their growth will have slowed down to a near crawl as the surplus biomatter gets smaller and smaller. This is what I mean by "diminishing returns". And then this huge Tyranid fleet will encounter a galaxy that doesn't have enough biomass to sustain their numbers and they shrink down. Hence the bell curve for their size potential.

So, how big are they? This depends on several factors. 1) How much Biomass does the average galaxy have? 2) How energy efficient is the Tyranid race? 3) How many "Average", "Above Average" or "Below Average" galaxies have they been to? 4) How much energy do the Hive Fleets consume as they travel? 5) Did they encounter a race that threw them back recently?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
To make a Carnifex requires a lot of energy. For that Carnifex to moves around requires a lot of energy. To process it back into Tyranid goo requires a lot of energy. You won't even get all, or perhaps most, of the energy back that the Carnifex has.

The act of consumption results in a loss of energy. Ripper swarms have already burnt off some (Or, more likely, most) of the energy in the biomass they consume just because they've eaten it. Then when those things get liquified that results in energy loss. Then when that goo is processed back into something else that will result in even more energy loss. This is just how the laws of Thermodynamics work and why I personally believe biotechnology as used by the Tyranids is all kinds of stupid.

And this brings us back to the size of potential whole of the Tyranid race. Because so much energy is being burned as their fuel source is being repeatedly converted into one form or another and by... everything they own they'll have to consume a lot of biomass of which your average galaxy only has so much of. Not even to expand their race. Just to survive. At some point the amount of biomass they need to eat to live and how much the usual galaxy they encounter contains will equal out and their growth will stop. Before then their growth will have slowed down to a near crawl as the surplus biomatter gets smaller and smaller. This is what I mean by "diminishing returns". And then this huge Tyranid fleet will encounter a galaxy that doesn't have enough biomass to sustain their numbers and they shrink down. Hence the bell curve for their size potential.

So, how big are they? This depends on several factors. 1) How much Biomass does the average galaxy have? 2) How energy efficient is the Tyranid race? 3) How many "Average", "Above Average" or "Below Average" galaxies have they been to? 4) How much energy do the Hive Fleets consume as they travel? 5) Did they encounter a race that threw them back recently?

Again, you are bringing modern day science to a futuristic universe and relating it to a vastly unknown species. You have no way of knowing they are not 100% or how much energy they use or need to consume in order to move around. Nobody has seen them eat, so how do you know they need to consume fuel in order to move? Nobody has ever seen them become exhausted which is a clear sign that energy is low. In fact, according to the lore, the Tyranid have never been expressed as anything but an ever forward moving army that is nigh on unstoppable, similar to the Orks as a matter of fact. Their numbers are quickly replenished with seemingly no effort at all.

Also, all of your questions, are unanswerable for the most part as nothing is yet know of the rest of the Tyranid species, only the tendrils that have come into our galaxy.

Trillions at the bare minimum

 Lobomalo wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
To make a Carnifex requires a lot of energy. For that Carnifex to moves around requires a lot of energy. To process it back into Tyranid goo requires a lot of energy. You won't even get all, or perhaps most, of the energy back that the Carnifex has.

The act of consumption results in a loss of energy. Ripper swarms have already burnt off some (Or, more likely, most) of the energy in the biomass they consume just because they've eaten it. Then when those things get liquified that results in energy loss. Then when that goo is processed back into something else that will result in even more energy loss. This is just how the laws of Thermodynamics work and why I personally believe biotechnology as used by the Tyranids is all kinds of stupid.

And this brings us back to the size of potential whole of the Tyranid race. Because so much energy is being burned as their fuel source is being repeatedly converted into one form or another and by... everything they own they'll have to consume a lot of biomass of which your average galaxy only has so much of. Not even to expand their race. Just to survive. At some point the amount of biomass they need to eat to live and how much the usual galaxy they encounter contains will equal out and their growth will stop. Before then their growth will have slowed down to a near crawl as the surplus biomatter gets smaller and smaller. This is what I mean by "diminishing returns". And then this huge Tyranid fleet will encounter a galaxy that doesn't have enough biomass to sustain their numbers and they shrink down. Hence the bell curve for their size potential.

So, how big are they? This depends on several factors. 1) How much Biomass does the average galaxy have? 2) How energy efficient is the Tyranid race? 3) How many "Average", "Above Average" or "Below Average" galaxies have they been to? 4) How much energy do the Hive Fleets consume as they travel? 5) Did they encounter a race that threw them back recently?

Again, you are bringing modern day science to a futuristic universe and relating it to a vastly unknown species. You have no way of knowing they are not 100% or how much energy they use or need to consume in order to move around. Nobody has seen them eat, so how do you know they need to consume fuel in order to move? Nobody has ever seen them become exhausted which is a clear sign that energy is low. In fact, according to the lore, the Tyranid have never been expressed as anything but an ever forward moving army that is nigh on unstoppable, similar to the Orks as a matter of fact. Their numbers are quickly replenished with seemingly no effort at all.

Also, all of your questions, are unanswerable for the most part as nothing is yet know of the rest of the Tyranid species, only the tendrils that have come into our galaxy.

We know they consume fuel in order to move because they HAVE to, it's not something they can get around, it's a basic rule of the universe that you cannot create energy from nowhere. And we've never seen waste because your basic war 'nid does't have anything other than organs and system designed solely to fight, and it's what comes after that does the processing and consumption of the planet. And nobody's ever seen them exhausted because they're designed to either die on the field of battle and be eaten afterwards, or eat as much as they can and then crawl into essentially a giant stomach. They don't live long enough to become exhausted.

 Lobomalo wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
To make a Carnifex requires a lot of energy. For that Carnifex to moves around requires a lot of energy. To process it back into Tyranid goo requires a lot of energy. You won't even get all, or perhaps most, of the energy back that the Carnifex has.

The act of consumption results in a loss of energy. Ripper swarms have already burnt off some (Or, more likely, most) of the energy in the biomass they consume just because they've eaten it. Then when those things get liquified that results in energy loss. Then when that goo is processed back into something else that will result in even more energy loss. This is just how the laws of Thermodynamics work and why I personally believe biotechnology as used by the Tyranids is all kinds of stupid.

And this brings us back to the size of potential whole of the Tyranid race. Because so much energy is being burned as their fuel source is being repeatedly converted into one form or another and by... everything they own they'll have to consume a lot of biomass of which your average galaxy only has so much of. Not even to expand their race. Just to survive. At some point the amount of biomass they need to eat to live and how much the usual galaxy they encounter contains will equal out and their growth will stop. Before then their growth will have slowed down to a near crawl as the surplus biomatter gets smaller and smaller. This is what I mean by "diminishing returns". And then this huge Tyranid fleet will encounter a galaxy that doesn't have enough biomass to sustain their numbers and they shrink down. Hence the bell curve for their size potential.

So, how big are they? This depends on several factors. 1) How much Biomass does the average galaxy have? 2) How energy efficient is the Tyranid race? 3) How many "Average", "Above Average" or "Below Average" galaxies have they been to? 4) How much energy do the Hive Fleets consume as they travel? 5) Did they encounter a race that threw them back recently?

Again, you are bringing modern day science to a futuristic universe and relating it to a vastly unknown species. You have no way of knowing they are not 100% or how much energy they use or need to consume in order to move around. Nobody has seen them eat, so how do you know they need to consume fuel in order to move? Nobody has ever seen them become exhausted which is a clear sign that energy is low. In fact, according to the lore, the Tyranid have never been expressed as anything but an ever forward moving army that is nigh on unstoppable, similar to the Orks as a matter of fact. Their numbers are quickly replenished with seemingly no effort at all.

Also, all of your questions, are unanswerable for the most part as nothing is yet know of the rest of the Tyranid species, only the tendrils that have come into our galaxy.

Again, you're assuming that uncertainty supports your side of the argument (I assume that is what you intend. If not I appologize) more than it does mine. It's just as likely that I am spot on, perhaps more likely, than I am wrong because I applied modern day ideas to the Nids.

I wish that counterpoint would be dropped, TBH. Just because we don't know if our scientific principles will hold up doesn't mean we can't apply them nor does it make the side that used that defense any more correct that it does the side that's arguing using it science. Since it is an uncertainty that can go either way it shouldn't be used because the concept equally supports either side.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Again, you're assuming that uncertainty supports your side of the argument (I assume that is what you intend. If not I appologize) more than it does mine. It's just as likely that I am spot on, perhaps more likely, than I am wrong because I applied modern day ideas to the Nids.

But that's it isn't it? Modern day ideas are unlikely to be the case as to how the tyranids process materials, because if we can find a way for it to work logically, then it would be viable. If modern day ideas can be applied to the tyranids, we'd know how create biological organisms and use them as weapons. Or more likely, if we applied modern day ideas to the tyranids, we'd find out every way possible for the tyranids not to exist. Which we already know they don't, and that they're a work of fiction, which we know they are.

Then just say "It runs on the power of handwavium" rather than use the possibly of current day science of being outdated as a defense. Not you specifically but other people.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Then just say "It runs on the power of handwavium" rather than use the possibly of current day science of being outdated as a defense. Not you specifically but other people.

Well, no, we want to use our imaginations.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
It runs on the power of handwavium

 LumenPraebeo wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Then just say "It runs on the power of handwavium" rather than use the possibly of current day science of being outdated as a defense. Not you specifically but other people.

Well, no, we want to use our imaginations.

This right here.

Let's be honest, if mankind has advanced enough to have faster than light travel, the ability to engineer the perfect killing machine and the technology to jump through other dimensions. Modern day science has been left behind so far that in comparison, Thermodynamics as we know it today was the first rock that was turned into a wheel.

And every race has mastered the power of the greatest element known to man: Handwavium.

Thus we don't know how large the Hive Fleets really are since Handwavium is a fickle element.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Tyranids strip a planet of everything which which can be used in the creation of organisms; this includes metal. Various metals are an essential part of life, even if only in small amounts.

Tyranids strip a planet of everything short of basically bedrock, which has no real organic (or even industrial uses).

If they only took Bio-mass, they wouldn't take a planet's atmosphere. Oxygen, nitrogen, and various other gases are not organics. Neither is water, as it is merely a liquid.

If the Tyranids only consumed straight-up Biomass, they wouldn't be NEARLY as threatening because they wouldn't leave unusable planets in their wake. They'd also be.. well, way crappier. Because they'd only be getting the required metals, gasses, and liquids to support life from breaking down living things; not harvesting the sources.

Ergo, the nids most certainly do consume metals. If they did not, they wouldn't consume atmospheres as well. Oceans -might- get consumed simply because there's so many micro-organisms in them that it'd be easier to drain all sources of water and filter out organics in transit.

Tyranids are explicitly stated as consuming metals and other materials, and incorporating them into Tyranid organisms:

Curving tusks of adamantium-laced chitin sprout from the Tyranid's head, allowing it to effect a devastating charge.

p. 33, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

Strangle-vines tightened their grip on the ruins of an Imperial outpost, rendering steel and plastic down to their constituent parts ready for absorption.

p. 42, 3rd edition Tyranid Codex

 Toastaster wrote:
That makes things clearer, but for me it's raised more questions. Does this mean the Hive mind only sends forces to places where it knows it can gain more energy than it expended in troops. I mean whilst of course some troops are going to survive and be reclaimed, taking a whole world is going to require unimaginable amounts of resources and even if they do take everything and strip the planet bare of even it's atmosphere, can they really consume enough organic rich planets to thrive? And I suppose for that matter, why waste resources on horde troops like 'gaunts? Mass production seems ineffective if you're a race focused on consumption.

one would assume that the bigger guants are successively more difficult to make. The message from the fluff is that the behemonths take thousands of worlds to build while you can probably grow a few million guants out of the forest from 1 continent.


Same thing with the IoM, Why have foot troops, why not build nothing but titans? Because the titans cost a lot more per firepower than the foot sloggers. Titans are for when you need force concentration to break hardened targets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Tyranids strip a planet of everything short of basically bedrock, which has no real organic (or even industrial uses).

Bedrock is made of largely silicon and oxygen by volume, with a lot of iron in the inner core which is more masive

wikipedia wrote:
The mass of the Earth is approximately 5.98×1024 kg. It is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Tyranids strip a planet of everything which which can be used in the creation of organisms; this includes metal. Various metals are an essential part of life, even if only in small amounts.

Tyranids strip a planet of everything short of basically bedrock, which has no real organic (or even industrial uses).

If they only took Bio-mass, they wouldn't take a planet's atmosphere. Oxygen, nitrogen, and various other gases are not organics. Neither is water, as it is merely a liquid.

If the Tyranids only consumed straight-up Biomass, they wouldn't be NEARLY as threatening because they wouldn't leave unusable planets in their wake. They'd also be.. well, way crappier. Because they'd only be getting the required metals, gasses, and liquids to support life from breaking down living things; not harvesting the sources.

Ergo, the nids most certainly do consume metals. If they did not, they wouldn't consume atmospheres as well. Oceans -might- get consumed simply because there's so many micro-organisms in them that it'd be easier to drain all sources of water and filter out organics in transit.

One... Since the rest are eaten remade with what ever the hive mind wants.

 Exergy wrote:
left with the feeling that the writers of the 'nid fluff have no clue about science when they write science fiction.

No arguments here.

My main point was that Tyranids don't just take "biomass", they take anything and everything which can be useful for life.

If I want to be generous (which I don't), I'd explain away the un-even quantities of things taken by just saying it's all broken down to extreme levels. Turned into some bio-organic gruel-paste-food-like-substance which somehow is extremely health, stupid efficient, and just all around everything anyone could possibly every want to be born in because it's bloody fantastic, and that's that.

Or there's the carbon theory.

 morganfreeman wrote:
No arguments here.

My main point was that Tyranids don't just take "biomass", they take anything and everything which can be useful for life.

If I want to be generous (which I don't), I'd explain away the un-even quantities of things taken by just saying it's all broken down to extreme levels. Turned into some bio-organic gruel-paste-food-like-substance which somehow is extremely health, stupid efficient, and just all around everything anyone could possibly every want to be born in because it's bloody fantastic, and that's that.

Or there's the carbon theory.

I don't think it's that simple. I don't think you can just strip down the elements and turn it into one type of substance and build anything you want with it. A living organism here on earth, such as a human, is very complex, one of the most complex compared to anything else on the chart of evolution. Can you imagine a living organism that can travel in space and combat every other species in the universe by adapting its body/bodies to resist and conquer them?

 Lobomalo wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Then just say "It runs on the power of handwavium" rather than use the possibly of current day science of being outdated as a defense. Not you specifically but other people.

Well, no, we want to use our imaginations.

This right here.

Let's be honest, if mankind has advanced enough to have faster than light travel, the ability to engineer the perfect killing machine and the technology to jump through other dimensions. Modern day science has been left behind so far that in comparison, Thermodynamics as we know it today was the first rock that was turned into a wheel.

No, it wouldn't because it's an absolute law of the fething universe that hasn't changed in around two hundred years now (I forget the exact date where it "truly" began) from a field of physics that has been around for a good four hundred years, and yet the laws haven't been completely changed around the subject of "no, you cannot be a hundred percent efficient". Let me reiterate, STARS are not even a hundred percent efficient, and are the greatest examples we know of fusion power. Hell an antimatter reactor, the greatest means of developing whopping amounts of energy that even surpasses fusion power, would still not be a hundred percent efficient by the energy needed to create said animatter in the first place. Simply saying "Well it may be different in the future that I have no idea of what it will even be!" means gak in an argument regarding science and you might as well plead the Matrix Defense.

Plus modern day science doesn't even have to change for FTL, because we're working out the math on one right now. It's pretty much the warp drive straight out of Star Trek and doesn't break the Theory of Relativity by not actually moving at FTL speeds at all which would increase your mass exponentially. Instead it warps space time to cause the ship to move by effectively surfing it. Jumping through dimensions isn't really possible, yeaaah. Dimensions aren't like what science fiction would have you believe, they're literal other dimensions, like the second, third, fourth (which we live in), fifth, etc. Universes maybe, but you'd need a fething huge amount of energy to blow your way into another universe that's near ours, and that's only if the multiverse theory is true.... which also kinda lacks any evidence to support it at all. More of a hypothesis really.

But if you think Tyranids, or anything else in W40K is the ultimate killing machine, you need to read more Sci Fi. The Culture immediately jumps to mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
No arguments here.

My main point was that Tyranids don't just take "biomass", they take anything and everything which can be useful for life.

If I want to be generous (which I don't), I'd explain away the un-even quantities of things taken by just saying it's all broken down to extreme levels. Turned into some bio-organic gruel-paste-food-like-substance which somehow is extremely health, stupid efficient, and just all around everything anyone could possibly every want to be born in because it's bloody fantastic, and that's that.

Or there's the carbon theory.

I don't think it's that simple. I don't think you can just strip down the elements and turn it into one type of substance and build anything you want with it. A living organism here on earth, such as a human, is very complex, one of the most complex compared to anything else on the chart of evolution. Can you imagine a living organism that can travel in space and combat every other species in the universe by adapting its body/bodies to resist and conquer them?

Of course you can, and we're capable of doing it right now. It just takes an exorbitant amount of energy to strip atoms from an element to reduce its number and turn it into a lower element. We're also capable of stitching the atom back as well.

And also, of course we can imagine it. Bacteria fit your parameters completely, we just need to launch them into space.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Bacteria fit your parameters completely, we just need to launch them into space.

Bacteria arent tyranids

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


Orks can terraform it and put organic matter back down if a Rokk hits it. Hence why the Orks and Tyranids are a perfect match as symbiotic civilizations, or at least the perfect fitting puzzle piece that enables stability for both factions. Tyranids are the farmers that reap what the Orks sow.

It's a damned shame that the Imperium isn't made up of Orks then aint it?

Also, I'd kind of argue against Orks being able to do that. I mean Tyranids leave -nothing- behind. No precious metals, no water, no atmosphere, no dirt, no nothing. There's literally just rock; they take everything else.

Orks are hardy, but I'm skeptical of their ability to ekk out a living on literally rock alone. At absolute best they'd be able to salvage and re-use what they came to the planet with, but the fact that they have nothing on the planet to use means that they'd eventually just be stuck there bashing eachothers heads in whilst running around butt naked.

Basically they wouldn't be common Orkish low tech, they'd be no tech. Not even rock weapons; just rocks.

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Oh, yes they do.

Tyranids consume *everything*. That's what Ripper Swarms are for. They will devour a planet down to its bare bedrock, and might even eat that, too. Just as the human body has need for metals like iron in its diet, so too does the Tyranid. This is also the means by which they get adamantium-laced claws, talons, armor-plate and similar biomorphs, by devouring it from the worlds of the Milky Way.

A world cleansed of all life by a Tyranid Invasion is rendered utterly valueless to any species... excepting maybe the Necrons, who have no need for atmospheres or biospheres.

The Necrons have no need for barren worlds full stop. They can remain in space indefinitely until a more interesting and Eldar-teeming world comes along as far as I know.

Oh, no argument there, simply pointing out that, of all the races in the galaxy, the Necrons alone are the ones who could "live" on an airless, lifeless rock.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


Orks can terraform it and put organic matter back down if a Rokk hits it. Hence why the Orks and Tyranids are a perfect match as symbiotic civilizations, or at least the perfect fitting puzzle piece that enables stability for both factions. Tyranids are the farmers that reap what the Orks sow.

It's a damned shame that the Imperium isn't made up of Orks then aint it?

Also, I'd kind of argue against Orks being able to do that. I mean Tyranids leave -nothing- behind. No precious metals, no water, no atmosphere, no dirt, no nothing. There's literally just rock; they take everything else.

Orks are hardy, but I'm skeptical of their ability to ekk out a living on literally rock alone. At absolute best they'd be able to salvage and re-use what they came to the planet with, but the fact that they have nothing on the planet to use means that they'd eventually just be stuck there bashing eachothers heads in whilst running around butt naked.

Basically they wouldn't be common Orkish low tech, they'd be no tech. Not even rock weapons; just rocks.

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

Tyranids most definitely do consume metals, and minerals too.

Pyrovores are known to devour metal and stone. Digestion Pools liquefy absolutely everything, to the point that when the Tyranids are done with a world almost every part of the surface is either part of the ocean-sized digestion pools or the foundations of a Capillary Tower that reaches up into space.

Speaking of which, I would imagine that said Capillary Towers are mostly minerals; like giant bones reaching up off of a planet.

Finally, Tyranids have been known to lace their armour with resilient metal. Carnifexes are especially known to include adamantium within their claws, tusks and carapace.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Of course Tyranids can die out by overpopulation! .......So, if the Nids gorged themselves on a galaxy that just happened to have a lot of biomass and came upon a galaxy that didn't... then that would be bad. Life forms need constant energy input to sustain themselves. If they came upon a galaxy that completely lacked biomass then they would go extinct.

In fact, I would say that is the ultimate fate of the Nids. Once they happen to run into a lifeless galaxy (Or run out galaxies they can reach without expending all of their biomass) then they will wither and die out.

But of course, the Nids aren't that dumb.

They came to the Milky Way because they saw the light of the Astronomican. They knew that there was a lot of sentient life because of the psychic output of said sentient life. And of course with said sentient life there should also be a lot of biomass.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

Tyranids do not consume precious metals, or any metals in fact.
Infrastructure would remain, buildings, machinery, war materiel in fact, weapons and such, anything non-biological would remain on the planet as long as it was not destroyed during the initial assault.

As the others have said, this isn't correct. The larger (non-Ripper) feeder creatures are both described as being able to consume anything and everything.

So powerful are the acidic fluids inside a Pyrovore that they even feast on metals and rocks, any mineral the Hive Fleet may require.

- 5th edition codex, page 49

And from the 2014 January White Dwarf:

We know that creatures such as Rippers and Pyrovores harvest the biomass of a planet and giant capillary towers hoover it up to be used by the ships of the Hive Fleet. I wanted to develop this family with a larger monster whose role would be to crunch through the very biggest and toughest stuff on the planet and render it down into manageable chunks and usable compounds. The Haruspex is a grinder, a giant bio-blender. Just like the other Tyranids in the feeder family, it doesn't eat its prey, it just breaks it down and spews it out. That's why it has no stomach, it simply grabs things with its tongue, draws it into its maw and starts chomping away - dissolving armour, rocks, and ceramite before heaving it all back out.

- Page 144 and 145

As for the matter of Tyranid energy consumption, the way I read the fluff is that Tyranids do not invade worlds primarily for sustenance, but rather for the raw materials needed to create more Tyranids (comparable to how mosquitoes require protein from blood in order to create eggs but do not use blood as their main sustenance). Now granted, I have no idea what would be their primary energy source if such were the case, but given that they can somehow generate plasma with biological processes they probably have some sort of organism designed for such a task.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Of course Tyranids can die out by overpopulation! .......So, if the Nids gorged themselves on a galaxy that just happened to have a lot of biomass and came upon a galaxy that didn't... then that would be bad. Life forms need constant energy input to sustain themselves. If they came upon a galaxy that completely lacked biomass then they would go extinct.

In fact, I would say that is the ultimate fate of the Nids. Once they happen to run into a lifeless galaxy (Or run out galaxies they can reach without expending all of their biomass) then they will wither and die out.

But of course, the Nids aren't that dumb.

They came to the Milky Way because they saw the light of the Astronomican. They knew that there was a lot of sentient life because of the psychic output of said sentient life. And of course with said sentient life there should also be a lot of biomass.

It could also have been a race that made a psychic beacon to expand their small Empire over a barren Galaxy.

Current fluff from Gw about Tyranids has been very dumbed down of late, the last two codexes were rather dodgy in this area. A Carnifex eating biomass to then be absorbed by the swarm is nonsense!

The rate at which Tyranids use their energy is only when it's needed, the races of the galaxy are very wasteful. Biological forms store and use energy far more efficiently than mechanical counterparts. Tyranids will of refined this further.

Their actual numbers would be huge and likely impossible for anyone to actually estimate in any way.

They have consumed at least twelve galaxies. The size of a galaxy can vary enormously, the Milky Way doesn't stand out as being a big one though. Worlds in the Milky Way that are populated are a tiny amount of the galaxy's actual bio-mass. Humans and other so-called sentient races are a tiny near worthless amount of the food Tyranids desire. The food sources of these races is far greater and desirable, it is just these species are in the way. Humans and other also have almost no genetic variety to speak of, making them of no use in that area.

Tyranids don't only eat biomass, they eat all that can be used in or as biomass. They also have highly alien forms and abilities which mean metals, highly toxic chemicals etc can easily be viewed as food by Tyranids. This means the term biomass meaning what the Tyranids eat is a very loose term, well beyond human science to know how loose.

How many Tyranids are there. A Tyranid can be a single micro-bacteria. Countless trillions of these can exist on one being alone. From our point of view they may not count. However from a planet eating monster's point of view the tiny things (humans) on the surface count, though only to a limited degree. In this regard they Tyranids could outnumber all the living things in the galaxy, less than 0 add infintum . 1 are sentient.

 Leech wrote:

The rate at which Tyranids use their energy is only when it's needed, the races of the galaxy are very wasteful. Biological forms store and use energy far more efficiently than mechanical counterparts. Tyranids will of refined this further.

Except even today, mechanical devices are more energy efficient than biological ones that have evolved over hundreds of millions of years.



So muscles are ~20-25% efficient while electric motors are ~85% efficient
and Photosynthesis is 6% while photovotaic cells are 15-20% efficient
Your claims are just plain made up.

 Leech wrote:

Tyranids don't only eat biomass, they eat all that can be used in or as biomass. They also have highly alien forms and abilities which mean metals, highly toxic chemicals etc can easily be viewed as food by Tyranids. This means the term biomass meaning what the Tyranids eat is a very loose term, well beyond human science to know how loose.

Perhaps you should re-examine the foolish human science you seem to know nothing about. With our primitive understanding we have been able to make biomass out of all matter in the galaxy 60 years ago. Perhaps tyranids are the primative ones, unable to create biomass out of rocks and stars like 20th century humans can.