A mass accelerator propels a solid metal slug using precisely-controlled electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. The slug is designed to squash or shatter on impact, increasing the energy it transfers to the target. If this were not the case, it would simply punch a hole right through, doing minimal damage.

Accelerator design was revolutionized by element zero. A slug lightened by a mass effect field can be accelerated to greater speeds, permitting projectile velocities that were previously unattainable. If accelerated to a high enough velocity, a simple paint chip can impact with the same destructive force as a nuclear weapon. However, mass accelerators produce recoil equal to their impact energy. This is mitigated by the mass effect fields that rounds are suspended within, but weapon recoil is still the prime limiting factor on slug velocity.

All modern infantry weapons from pistols to assault rifles use micro-scaled mass accelerator technology. Projectiles consist of tiny metal slugs suspended within a mass-reducing field, accelerated by magnetic force to speeds that inflict kinetic damage.

The ammo magazine is a simple block of metal. The gun's internal computer calculates the mass needed to reach the target based on distance, gravity, and atmospheric pressure, then shears off an appropriately sized slug from the block. A single block can supply thousands of rounds, making ammo a non-issue during any engagement.

Top-line weapons also feature smart targeting that allows them to correct for weather and environment. Firing on a target in a howling gale feels the same as it does on a calm day on a practice range. Smart targeting does not mean a bullet will automatically find the mark every time the trigger is pulled; it only makes it easier for the marksman to aim.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, in terms of technology, looking at the descriptions of things... the standard Mass Effect personal firearm is basically a shuriken catapult, so that actually gives us a frame of reference suddenly.

Not really, ME uses what amounts to grains of sand launched at hypersonic speeds from a railgun.... which actually impinges on the damage. The writers clearly didn't really think things out, as a grain of sand at those speeds would cause less damage and rather disintegrate upon impact.There's a reason why actual railguns use fist-sized slugs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Counter-measures work great against things that can be jammed, like radios or auxpes. A device as simple as a seismograph or a high-powered directional microphone can't be jammed, though.

If you don't move (wating in ambush) then the seismograph can't detect anything.

Maybe Titans can make their void fields vibrate at the exactly correct frequency to prevent significant sound radiation.

Titans might have plasma reactors, but maybe their shielding can also prevent any external emissions. Maybe they carry tonnes of passive coolant that they can use to absorb heat, rather than discharging it to atmosphere. Maybe they can just dump all their emissions and stuff that might be detected into the warp for a while. This being uber-magic science tech land if you can think of it, you can prove it to be true...

The practical upshot is that any argument one can come up with as to why Titan melee is unfeasible can be countered by a reference to something I just made up that can't be proven to be untrue.

I'm unaware of the Tau having any trouble locating Titans during the Damocles Crusade.

Again- the Tau were able to handle Titans well enough. Why would ME have any more trouble than they did?

Do you even have any idea of the kind of firepower all factions in 40k put out, including Tau? Yields for 40K in space generally start in the high gigatons, getting up into the terratons. One shot from that kind of power would instantly destroy the entire continent of Australia, and getting up into teratons would wreck all of north america and more. Titans meanwhile have weapon yields in around the megatons and regularly use weapons that would completely ignore kinetic barriers. None of ME's weapons would even have the damage potential to break the Void Shields unless they had a hilariously greater force to outnumber the titan to a point that their combined fire could drop a large titan.

Also, Tau are by no means realistic at all. Along with titans, mechs don't work. The only thing in good design the Tau have going for them are their tanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
And a Titan's void-shield doesn't care how much molten metal you throw at it, it just sends it into the Warp...

... and then it tears the Reaper a new b-hole (several of them, in fact) with its Megabolter, which fires *massive* armor-piercing, mass-reactive explosive shells.

Or it just ends the Reaper with its Volcano Cannon, which shears through it like a hot knife through butter.

Basically, while many other sci-fi/sci-fantasy settings might be more advanced than 40K, it bears to remember that most-complex computer in the universe can be rendered useless by liberal application of the common hammer.

The Imperium often makes up for its lack of technology with sheer, unrelenting, unforgiving brutality.

The Tau have no problems killing Titans with railguns and missiles. Heck- the Tiger Shark AX-1-0 is probably the best anti-Titan weapon in the galaxy, given its relative immunity to the targeting systems of Titans (and ease of construction), and it seems to use mostly Mass Effect-level technology.

You can of course cite multiple sources to back up this claim that the AX 1-0 has confirmed kills of Warlord Titans, and not Wardhounds which aren't impressive at all, considering even a basic squad of space marines with a land raider can kill a warlord?

 Gogsnik wrote:
I think the main problem is not with the size of things but in how it is portrayed. They write about these things as if they are small (space ships for example) or as if they are walking mountains (Titans) when the reality is quite different. Hives are another thing that aren't portrayed very well. They are supposed to be so big you can wander for days without seeing another soul and yet, look at the size of Hive Primus, it's only about eight miles across at its widest part, it wouldn't take days to walk anywhere, especially with giant empty domes. I had the idea for a hive on my DIY Chapter's homeworld that was hundreds if not a thousand or more miles across, a literal man-made mountain range. Same thing with spaceships really, you see them get boarded and within a short span of time the invaders have reached the engines, the ship et cetera when it should take hours and hours, maybe even days to get to these places; accurate boarding torpedoes not-withstanding but for expediency within a novel these things are often overlooked.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Conversely, Titan weaponry is described as being on a megaton level, which makes me wonder a bit. Look at the image above. Now image a Reaper that is 12 times as tall as the one shown. The Titan supposedly outguns this Reaper.

...How?

 Ashiraya wrote:
That is not entirely equivalent, though. Size is never an outright advantage for a computer whereas it may well be for a super-heavy walker.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Actually, unlike 40K, Mass Effect recognises these problems exist and there's in-universe explanations for it.

For the weight, the Mass Effect setting has something called, unsurprisingly, mass effect.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Field

To sum it up, when Reapers land on a planet, they use mass effect fields to manipulate space-time, greatly reducing their own mass.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
It's a Titan. It's meters thick of space-metal "adamantium". What is adamantium? Who the feth knows, it's fictional!

We do know it's a naturally occurring element, so it also breaks physics. Either the periodic table needs to be reworked or adamantanium would somehow be stable despite having a hundred and nineteen protons. It should be crazy radioactive and decaying the instant it comes into existence.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Oh, you just reminded me of that quite funny comic by Akward Zombie :
http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=082211

I am now officially answering every question with “Mass effect” . I also officially change my answer to your first quote from “The Power of Imagination Liberated from the Constraint of Reality” to “Mass Effect” .

 Chaos Rising wrote:
Actually there is some debate about the actual size of an Imperator titan. Some authors claim them to be 170m tall while others claim them to be around about 40m tall. It's all about which author you believe.

 Cult of Slaanesh wrote:
I think it is worth mentioning that Commander Shepard has taken down a number of smaller reapers by himself using on hand equipment and ship cannons on occasion.

The Titan has all of that on a much larger scale, and so very probable that they can take on a reaper mono o mono.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Cult of Slaanesh wrote:
I think it is worth mentioning that Commander Shepard has taken down a number of smaller reapers by himself using on hand equipment and ship cannons on occasion.

The Titan has all of that on a much larger scale, and so very probable that they can take on a reaper mono o mono.

Shepard has faced Destroyers four times.

The first time she lured a colossal Thresher Maw named Kalros into bursting from the sands to attack the Destroyer and pulling it under the surface.

The second time she used a target-lock device to help starships in orbit fire accurate shots at it, eventually disabling it.

The third time she used a M-920 Cain, a 'nuke gun', to fire into the barrel of an artillery-specialised Destroyer.

The fourth time she set off a Thanix missile battery to take one down.

It was not like she ever downed a Destroyer in a firefight. I mean, Wazdakka has downed a Warlord solo, but he was similarly in an advantageous situation.

 Psienesis wrote:
Lone Wanderer?

 Ciciro wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Lone Wanderer?

What, never played Fallout 3?

Spoiler:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Ciciro wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Lone Wanderer?

What, never played Fallout 3?

Did you? I specifically mentioned Liberty Prime.

Spoiler:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Conversely, Titan weaponry is described as being on a megaton level, which makes me wonder a bit. Look at the image above. Now image a Reaper that is 12 times as tall as the one shown. The Titan supposedly outguns this Reaper.

...How?

I would like to call that The Power of Imagination Liberated from the Constraint of Reality.

 Ashiraya wrote:
That is not entirely equivalent, though. Size is never an outright advantage for a computer whereas it may well be for a super-heavy walker.

Actually, if we are to look at the development of super-heavy tanks, it seems there are few advantages outside of the “cool” factor. If your tank is bigger, it will be a bigger concentration of resources, so you would want it to at least be more resilient. So more armored. So it will take even more resources. Not to mention that the power furnished by the motor will not scale right with the size of the whole tank/walker. Just like ants can carry many, many times their weight around, humans have trouble carrying charge of two time their own weight, and I am not sure an elephant could carry a charge of its own weight.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Actually, unlike 40K, Mass Effect recognises these problems exist and there's in-universe explanations for it.

For the weight, the Mass Effect setting has something called, unsurprisingly, mass effect.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Field

To sum it up, when Reapers land on a planet, they use mass effect fields to manipulate space-time, greatly reducing their own mass.

Oh, you just reminded me of that quite funny comic by Akward Zombie :
http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=082211

I am now officially answering every question with “Mass effect” . I also officially change my answer to your first quote from “The Power of Imagination Liberated from the Constraint of Reality” to “Mass Effect” .

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
It's a Titan. It's meters thick of space-metal "adamantium". What is adamantium? Who the feth knows, it's fictional!

We do know it's a naturally occurring element, so it also breaks physics. Either the periodic table needs to be reworked or adamantanium would somehow be stable despite having a hundred and nineteen protons. It should be crazy radioactive and decaying the instant it comes into existence.

Do we know adamantium is naturally occurring? Could be some somehow crafted by esoteric means material, that is mined like normal natural because it was made a long, long time ago and would not destroyed but rocks and stuff would form around it.

lliu wrote:
Well... The GW design team likes to be realistic......

Knockagh wrote:

lliu wrote:
Well... The GW design team likes to be realistic......

You what!!???? Realistic? Come on. I love 40k but not for it's realism!

 Wyzilla wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
And a Titan's void-shield doesn't care how much molten metal you throw at it, it just sends it into the Warp...

... and then it tears the Reaper a new b-hole (several of them, in fact) with its Megabolter, which fires *massive* armor-piercing, mass-reactive explosive shells.

Or it just ends the Reaper with its Volcano Cannon, which shears through it like a hot knife through butter.

Basically, while many other sci-fi/sci-fantasy settings might be more advanced than 40K, it bears to remember that most-complex computer in the universe can be rendered useless by liberal application of the common hammer.

The Imperium often makes up for its lack of technology with sheer, unrelenting, unforgiving brutality.

The Tau have no problems killing Titans with railguns and missiles. Heck- the Tiger Shark AX-1-0 is probably the best anti-Titan weapon in the galaxy, given its relative immunity to the targeting systems of Titans (and ease of construction), and it seems to use mostly Mass Effect-level technology.

You can of course cite multiple sources to back up this claim that the AX 1-0 has confirmed kills of Warlord Titans, and not Wardhounds which aren't impressive at all, considering even a basic squad of space marines with a land raider can kill a warlord?