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epronovost wrote:
@EmpNortonII

Sorry, my bad. I tend to be brisk when it comes to these kind of comparison. I have my apologies. I see far to often people trying to rationalise the Imperium by drawing comparision with modern western world, forgetting that the Imperium has more in common with absolutist France of the 18th century than modern country.

It's true thought that the main issue of the Imperium is not the number or even the quality of it's soldiers but it's capacity to deploy them in numbers where and when it counts. Their numerous ennemies aren't helping either.

All forgiven, friend.

The Warp doesn't help. A billion Stormtroopers don't get you very far when the ships carrying most of their ammunition and food show up 10 years too late.

... or if the Imperial bureaucracy loses the papers for the supplies. Or if they get send to the wrong world. Or a dozen other things that could (and often do) go wrong.

Players who are super gung-ho about the imperium often forget that stuff like that happens frequently.. it just doesn't get written about in the Black Library because no one wants to read about the IG Infantry Regiment that dropped to a world, fired off their ammunition, and were then clubbed to death by Orks or eaten alive by Tyranids... or the IG Tank Regiment that dropped to a Tau world without the infantry they were supposed to receive that were taken apart by Fire Warriors hiding in the terrain... or the Titan legion tasked with turning back a Chaos warband that never left its world because the Warp ate their transport ship.

The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

 Desubot wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

Until it does become a problem

Thats the grimdark part of this setting. its not 100% supposed to be realistic.
DAoT allowed for some crazy gak and AI systems that turned and feth everyone up the bumb.
so a culture of protecting and preventing rampant techonoligcal growth happened
that became a cult
and now all da things HAVE to be sanctioned by techowizards otherwise bad things happen. and if you are found doing techoheresy bad things will happen to you. so who do you think would be willing to deal with that?

Players who are super gung-ho about the imperium often forget that stuff like that happens frequently.. it just doesn't get written about in the Black Library because no one wants to read about the IG Infantry Regiment that dropped to a world, fired off their ammunition, and were then clubbed to death by Orks or eaten alive by Tyranids... or the IG Tank Regiment that dropped to a Tau world without the infantry they were supposed to receive that were taken apart by Fire Warriors hiding in the terrain... or the Titan legion tasked with turning back a Chaos warband that never left its world because the Warp ate their transport ship.

You forgot all those who died of dysentery, various pox, flu and fevers they catch on different worlds, in the squalid condition of their campment or while waiting for their next drop of food and resources. The story of a mighty Space Marine company who all dies of thirst in the middle of a desert wasteland because their supplies don't come has it's perks, but it's not the kind of things that GW writes.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.

Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.

Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.

And that is the issue. They have Land Speeder plans but they.don't really.understand them,not to the level to realize how to take a part of it and do something else with it, even.if that somethimg has proven safe in the past.

It's also worth noting that the only tech that has Daemon possession issues is human. Not Tau, not Eldar/DE, not Necron. Just human.

The most likely thing to happen is that such a grave, unprecedented heresy as Astartes defecting to xenos would bring a very harsh response from the Inquisition. Normally, when a SM chapter turns renegade, they seek refuge in the Warp or keep running around to escape the wrath of the Inquisition. The Tau Empire would not be able to provide a safe refuge for the renegade Marines.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.

Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.

... and production decreased why? Because without the STC and a magic factory to pump them out, the Imperium... can't... build.... anti-grav... tech. All they can do is follow the already-made instructions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The most likely thing to happen is that such a grave, unprecedented heresy as Astartes defecting to xenos would bring a very harsh response from the Inquisition. Normally, when a SM chapter turns renegade, they seek refuge in the Warp or keep running around to escape the wrath of the Inquisition. The Tau Empire would not be able to provide a safe refuge for the renegade Marines.

Of course, it could take centuries for the Inquisition to hear about, assign resources to deal with it, and then actually send those resources out to deal with it.

Besides, I imagine a renegade SM Chapter isn't a big deal compared to, say, Cadia being swallowed by the Eye of Terror if Abaddon takes it. I can't imagine one renegade Chapter of marines is a big deal compared to the 13th Black Crusade.

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

It's entirely possible that the particular design was lost, and that there was, post-Heresy, no desire to try and revive production of Jetbikes from whatever scraps they had left. As mentioned:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.

Many of the FWs that specialized in Jetbike manufacture sided with Horus. As such, there's a couple of things that are likely to have occurred:

1) Jetbikes may have become stigmatized as being a "Traitor" preference.
2) As the Heresy closed and the Scouring began and ended, these FWs were likely sabotaged by the Traitor forces. Whatever scraps are left isn't enough to put together complete, mass-producible patterns.
3) There may in fact be no tactical necessity or desire for Jetbikes in Marine forces. Post-Heresy and post-Scouring eras, the Astartes were organized in an entirely different fashion, so Jetbikes may actually no longer fit doctrinal requirements.

Remember, the "better is the enemy of good enough". If more traditional, rubber-to-the-road bikes are good enough for the Marines, then that's what they're going to get, as Jetbikes then become a superfluous expense to supply a force that is already expensive to support.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.

Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.

LordBlades wrote:
And that is the issue. They have Land Speeder plans but they.don't really.understand them,not to the level to realize how to take a part of it and do something else with it, even.if that somethimg has proven safe in the past.

It's also worth noting that the only tech that has Daemon possession issues is human. Not Tau, not Eldar/DE, not Necron. Just human.

As mentioned, there's nothing that says that they don't understand Land Speeder technology. They can presumably manufacture "new-build" Land Speeders, as well as even innovate a bit and deploy newer designs, like the Land Speeder Storm or the Land Speeder Vengeance- neither of which existed during the Heresy or Scouring. As such, it's more likely that the specific derivatives necessary to produce Jetbikes are either lost entirely, incomplete, or deemed unreliable/untrustworthy.

Or simply unnecessary, when it seems that the Astartes chapters appear to be perfectly happy with their old school rubber-to-the-road bikes.

It's also worth noting that:

Necrons were never warp-sensitive, and mostly rely on weird hyperspace-pocket-dimension kit; roughly speaking, there's very little in the Tau armory that could not be replicated by the Imperium... and potentially there's quite a bit that's already been independently developed during the DAoT, and subsequently lost/rediscovered/deemed unfit. Necron tech is itself on a whole other level from the Imperium.

As far as the Eldar- they have been demonstrated as having a much more significant mastery of Warp-based technologies and the applications thereof, not to mention that the majority of their equipment is basically psycho-sensitive super-plastics that are then attuned to the Eldar, who are themselves very psychically attuned (as opposed to the "Warp-sensitive as a brick" Tau).

For the DE, they've got a pretty much deathly fear of daemons and the Warp, so quite obviously they're going to work very hard to make sure that none of their kit is susceptible. Remember, most human technology that seemed to have this problem (Iron Men, for example) is strictly DAoT- when the Imperium didn't exist and humanity as a whole was more like the Tau, in that they were very optimistic and relatively naive.

Fast forward to the Great Crusade through the Heresy and Scouring to the "present day" of 40K, and you've got the hyper-conservative Imperium that fully understands- on a grand strategical scale at least- that you do not take chances with things that could, even if only remotely possible, taint one or more persons just from using it. Or get possessed by homicidal, genocidal daemons intent on consuming the souls of all the things.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
... and production decreased why? Because without the STC and a magic factory to pump them out, the Imperium... can't... build.... anti-grav... tech. All they can do is follow the already-made instructions.

Or it could have been any of the reasons I've just listed. They might have lost the plans entirely, and deemed it uneconomical to start from scratch. They may have only fragments that they've deemed to be unreliable or untrustworthy for whatever reason.

Hell, they might even have multiple complete STCs for jetbikes, but they don't dare use them because of the significant risk that the STCs were very comprehensively corrupted during the time that the Traitor Legions were in possession of the relevant FWs that were the major suppliers of Jetbikes to the Astartes Legions.

The funny thing about lost SM stuff is that, going by IA2, it is not so much that the Imperium cant make a lot of this stuff as it is that they do not want to. The Fellblade being a good example of this. They are still making the bloody things just not in any significant numbers. It is implied that the reason being that there isnt much demand for a huge tank from the 40k marines.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.

Many of the FWs that specialized in Jetbike manufacture sided with Horus. As such, there's a couple of things that are likely to have occurred:
1) Jetbikes may have become stigmatized as being a "Traitor" preference.
2) As the Heresy closed and the Scouring began and ended, these FWs were likely sabotaged by the Traitor forces. Whatever scraps are left isn't enough to put together complete, mass-producible patterns.
3) There may in fact be no tactical necessity or desire for Jetbikes in Marine forces. Post-Heresy and post-Scouring eras, the Astartes were organized in an entirely different fashion, so Jetbikes may actually no longer fit doctrinal requirements.

1) No, jetbikes were used even after the heresy.
2) More likely the Forge Worlds that sided with Horus destroyed all production lines to cripple the loyalists.
3) Doctrinial role of bikes remained the same; to offer fast relocation of small units. Anti-Grav would be better for this job than standard tires. (Tires are slowed down by rough/soft terrain. AG isn't).

The use just started to shift away as the jetbikes began to get older and older, and no replacement units could be produced. That's why Imperial jetbikes are considered relics in 41st millenium.

Whiskey144 wrote:
Or it could have been any of the reasons I've just listed. They might have lost the plans entirely, and deemed it uneconomical to start from scratch. They may have only fragments that they've deemed to be unreliable or untrustworthy for whatever reason.
Hell, they might even have multiple complete STCs for jetbikes, but they don't dare use them because of the significant risk that the STCs were very comprehensively corrupted during the time that the Traitor Legions were in possession of the relevant FWs that were the major suppliers of Jetbikes to the Astartes Legions.

There is also the small issue of building huge production lines from nothing.

TheCustomLime wrote:
The funny thing about lost SM stuff is that, going by IA2, it is not so much that the Imperium cant make a lot of this stuff as it is that they do not want to. The Fellblade being a good example of this. They are still making the bloody things just not in any significant numbers. It is implied that the reason being that there isnt much demand for a huge tank from the 40k marines.

Well, there are no longer Astartes Armoured Brigades, so, yeah...

EmpNortonII wrote: ... and production decreased why? Because without the STC and a magic factory to pump them out, the Imperium... can't... build.... anti-grav... tech. All they can do is follow the already-made instructions.

If they couldn't build AG, they couldn't build Land Speeders. The Anti-Grav plates don't appear out of thin air. Imperium has the understanding of how to build Anti-Grav. It's just the fact that due to the enormous size of the Imperium's Armed Forces, the supply demands are just ginormous. And putting up new production lines isn't cheap. It's cheaper to replace one missing thing with one already in production, if it fills the same niche.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
And putting up new production lines isn't cheap. It's cheaper to replace one missing thing with one already in production, if it fills the same niche.

[Emphasis mine]

That's the point I'm making about why the Imperium no longer manufactures and deploys jetbikes- traditional bikes are good enough. Jetbikes would certainly be better, but traditional bikes get the job done just fine, so they have instead chosen to discontinue deployment of jetbikes.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Imperium has the understanding of how to build Anti-Grav.

No, the Imperium has the understanding of how to follow the directions to build anti-grav. They don't understand how it works, they're just mindlessly following "insert part A into hole B" directions to assemble the existing designs according to the blueprints created by people who did understand the technology. That's why they can't adapt anti-grav technology for other vehicles that don't already have complete instructions for building them. For example, an engineer who understands anti-grav technology would be able to use the same principles that make the X" by Y" squares of anti-grav plates for a land speeder to make A" by B" anti-grav plates for a LRBT. A mindless Imperial factory worker, on the other hand, can't make that change because they don't understand how the things they're assembling work.

1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
Probably not, although we might see more integrated heavy weapon, such as burst cannons and such, as well as upgrades to the bolter (maybe tunring it into a coil gun meaning more space for exposives?)
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
No, the size difference it too great
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
I doubt it, they are made for tau, who are supposed to be slightly shorter then humans, although the rihno might too some grav upgrades.
4) having stealth suit marines?
That's a definite possibility

5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
If the tau could learn from studding the space marine, maybe, although they probebly wouldn't sucseed
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
I doubt it
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
no
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
A chapter would be a great asset, and fully willing space marines would be great allies

Space Marines in stealth suits would be pretty scary.

You have gigantic high-tech supersoldiers, and now they are invisible too?

They would be hilariously powerful.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Imperium has the understanding of how to build Anti-Grav.

No, the Imperium has the understanding of how to follow the directions to build anti-grav. They don't understand how it works, they're just mindlessly following "insert part A into hole B" directions to assemble the existing designs according to the blueprints created by people who did understand the technology. That's why they can't adapt anti-grav technology for other vehicles that don't already have complete instructions for building them. For example, an engineer who understands anti-grav technology would be able to use the same principles that make the X" by Y" squares of anti-grav plates for a land speeder to make A" by B" anti-grav plates for a LRBT. A mindless Imperial factory worker, on the other hand, can't make that change because they don't understand how the things they're assembling work.

So it's entirely and utterly necessary for every worker on the factory floor to have an intimate, thorough, and detailed understanding of high-energy laser physics in order to build lasguns? Because that's kind of what you're saying, by attempting to equivocate an engineer and a floor worker. The requirements for those two different jobs are entirely different; the engineer, certainly, would benefit from an understanding of the underlying principles of the technologies they work with. But a factory floor worker? All he needs to know is how to work whatever part of the line he's on.

You're also making an enormous assumption that the Imperium can't do this because they don't understand it, rather than the much simpler solution that it's not economically viable to do so. Remember, the Imperium is sort of like Russia, in that they pretty much religiously adhere to the idea that "better is the enemy of good enough"; if a tried-and-trusted, old-school tracked design for a vehicle works, and is economically simple to manufacture in the quantities necessary, then it's a lot more likely that they'll just stick with that rather than stick anti-grav plates onto it because then it will be "better" for whatever reason.

I'm not going to dispute the idea that anti-grav Russes would be absolutely badass; but I will dispute that they'd be economically viable.

LordBlades wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.

Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.

less we forget the lessons of the past.

Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...

To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.

Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.

And that is the issue. They have Land Speeder plans but they.don't really.understand them,not to the level to realize how to take a part of it and do something else with it, even.if that somethimg has proven safe in the past.

It's also worth noting that the only tech that has Daemon possession issues is human. Not Tau, not Eldar/DE, not Necron. Just human.

There are plenty of daemonically-possessed Xeno artifacts, usually from cultures that went extinct because of drawing said attention from the Warp.

I could see Marines and the Enclaves working out, not so much the empire thanks to Ethereals.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
Probably not, although we might see more integrated heavy weapon, such as burst cannons and such, as well as upgrades to the bolter (maybe tunring it into a coil gun meaning more space for exposives?)
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
No, the size difference it too great
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
I doubt it, they are made for tau, who are supposed to be slightly shorter then humans, although the rihno might too some grav upgrades.
4) having stealth suit marines?
That's a definite possibility

5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
If the tau could learn from studding the space marine, maybe, although they probebly wouldn't sucseed
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
I doubt it
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
no
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
A chapter would be a great asset, and fully willing space marines would be great allies

they could indeed fly like crisis suits, Stealth suits "fly" and they are roughly the same size if not a little bigger than marines.
They would likely engineer new power weapons. Pulse rifles and carbines could be modified with bigger grips for the marines, so this would be a good transition over the inferior bolter. But I could see them using a variant of the Rail Rifle before pulse weapons(Rail rifles are undergoing field testing to replace the Pulse rifle as per the Rail rifles munitorum book page thing)


They would likely strictly deploy them in heat via Orca or some other newer transport.

Stealth suit marines would mean adding the stealth field nodes to power armour. Space marines (smallest I've ever heard is 7ftt) could not fit in a crisis suits or riptide. They could, of course, get special suits, but those would not be crisis suits or riptides.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Stealth suit marines would mean adding the stealth field nodes to power armour. Space marines (smallest I've ever heard is 7ftt) could not fit in a crisis suits or riptide. They could, of course, get special suits, but those would not be crisis suits or riptides.

They could fit in a Crisis Suit. Just gut all of the motors that actually make it move and the Astartes could probably just wear it..

Yeah you might be able, that wouldn't be a very good idea. Be better to just design a whole new exo-suit thing for them. It would be like big bulky armour with assisted movement and a jet pack, plus stuff like mounted weapons.

Im pretty sure a lot of the "hard" wiring that is required to pilot those things as a tau probably wont be cross compatible with humans.

IIRC some one did get fried trying to interface with some xeno tech

If by some miracle the space marines son married the ethereal's daughter to the point they will actually share high level tech. you will probably seeing haywire grenades at minimal. probably some flavor of pulse -> rail carbine weapons. and possibly sharing stealth nodes and connect to the markerlight drone system.

Best case scenario they get integrated and are allowed to recruiter from one of the hume planets that are potentially compatible to keep with recruitment. the etherals will probably ask they stick to the codex to "keep em in check" size wise, upgrade basic equipment and allow them to be used as area defense and shock attack units.

But a mass explosion of fandom scratchbuilds? probably not.

IIRC that particular frying was the suit's self defense system killing an organism that it didn't recognize.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Imperium has the understanding of how to build Anti-Grav.

No, the Imperium has the understanding of how to follow the directions to build anti-grav. They don't understand how it works, they're just mindlessly following "insert part A into hole B" directions to assemble the existing designs according to the blueprints created by people who did understand the technology. That's why they can't adapt anti-grav technology for other vehicles that don't already have complete instructions for building them. For example, an engineer who understands anti-grav technology would be able to use the same principles that make the X" by Y" squares of anti-grav plates for a land speeder to make A" by B" anti-grav plates for a LRBT. A mindless Imperial factory worker, on the other hand, can't make that change because they don't understand how the things they're assembling work.

So it's entirely and utterly necessary for every worker on the factory floor to have an intimate, thorough, and detailed understanding of high-energy laser physics in order to build lasguns? Because that's kind of what you're saying, by attempting to equivocate an engineer and a floor worker. The requirements for those two different jobs are entirely different; the engineer, certainly, would benefit from an understanding of the underlying principles of the technologies they work with. But a factory floor worker? All he needs to know is how to work whatever part of the line he's on.

What we're saying is there are NO engineers of the sort you described in the Imperium of Man. There is NO ONE who actually understands how these things work. The Mechanicum hordes forgotten tech, they don't try to understand it so they can improve on it. Period.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Whiskey144 wrote:


Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.

Let's start here.

Tau supply lines are tiny because each Sept is capable of manufacturing the equipment it needs. There is no Empire-wide bureaucracy responsible for organizing resources- there is a complete, self-contained bureaucracy that governs maybe a dozen systems that are capable of resupplying their forces independent from the Empire's central government.

The Tau, therefore, will continue to be able to supply their forces almost as well as they do now no matter how large the Empire grows because of this.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
What we're saying is there are NO engineers of the sort you described in the Imperium of Man. There is NO ONE who actually understands how these things work. The Mechanicum hordes forgotten tech, they don't try to understand it so they can improve on it. Period.

Then you'll need to provide some proof, because they obviously do have people who understand it, otherwise the laundry list of hardware that didn't exist during the Heresy and Scouring would not exist in 'modern' 40K.

Things like:

Thunderfire Cannons
Razorbacks
Land Raider Crusaders
Land Raider Redeemers
Land Raider Prometheus
Land Raider Ares
Land Raider Terminus Ultra
Land Raider Helios
Stalkers
Stormravens
Storm Talons
Centurion Warsuits
Predator Annihilators
Repressors
Immolators
Exorcists
Land Speeder Tempests
Land Speeder Storms
Macharius Heavy Tanks
Macharius Vanquishers
Macharius Vulcans
Macharius Omegas
Leman Russ Punishers
CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORTS
Praetor Armored Assault Launchers
Dominus Armored Siege Bombards
Gorgon Assault Carriers
Taurox APCs
Taurox Primes
Tauros Assault Vehicles
Tauros Venators
Dragonfire Bolt Shells
Hellfire Bolt Shells
Metal Storm Bolt Shells
Vengeance Bolt Shells
Stalker "Silenced" Bolt Shells
Inferno Bolt Shells (the Imperial incendiary-charge one, not the magic Thousand Sons one)
Psycannon/Psybolt Shells

All that stuff sure seems like a lot of innovation and development and understanding of the hardware involved to me. I mean sure, all that stuff just had to be laying around during the Heresy and nobody used it because it couldn't possibly have been useful!

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:
Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.

Let's start here.

Tau supply lines are tiny because each Sept is capable of manufacturing the equipment it needs. There is no Empire-wide bureaucracy responsible for organizing resources- there is a complete, self-contained bureaucracy that governs maybe a dozen systems that are capable of resupplying their forces independent from the Empire's central government.

The Tau, therefore, will continue to be able to supply their forces almost as well as they do now no matter how large the Empire grows because of this.

So, Tau supply lines aren't small because the Tau Empire is just really small? I mean, it couldn't possibly be that Tau supply lines are short on account of them having, say, a very small slice of territory compared to the XBAWKSEHUEG galactic-scale territory of the Imperium?

No? You're sure that the Empire is just 'super efficient'?

Because resources have to come from somewhere, and eventually worlds are mined out- the Imperium is a fair example of this, considering that there are worlds that exist simply to export people, on account of that being the only useful resource that they have left, or that they can produce; the Tau Empire doesn't include many deathworlds from which only manpower can be drawn. Nor does the Tau Empire consist of a symbiotic relationship between two separate institutions, both of which are legally considered semi-sovereign entities, with their own attendant territories.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
What we're saying is there are NO engineers of the sort you described in the Imperium of Man. There is NO ONE who actually understands how these things work. The Mechanicum hordes forgotten tech, they don't try to understand it so they can improve on it. Period.

Then you'll need to provide some proof, because they obviously do have people who understand it, otherwise the laundry list of hardware that didn't exist during the Heresy and Scouring would not exist in 'modern' 40K.

Things like:

Thunderfire Cannons
Razorbacks
Land Raider Crusaders
Land Raider Redeemers
Land Raider Prometheus
Land Raider Ares
Land Raider Terminus Ultra
Land Raider Helios
Stalkers
Stormravens
Storm Talons
Centurion Warsuits
Predator Annihilators
Repressors
Immolators
Exorcists
Land Speeder Tempests
Land Speeder Storms
Macharius Heavy Tanks
Macharius Vanquishers
Macharius Vulcans
Macharius Omegas
Leman Russ Punishers
CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORTS
Praetor Armored Assault Launchers
Dominus Armored Siege Bombards
Gorgon Assault Carriers
Taurox APCs
Taurox Primes
Tauros Assault Vehicles
Tauros Venators
Dragonfire Bolt Shells
Hellfire Bolt Shells
Metal Storm Bolt Shells
Vengeance Bolt Shells
Stalker "Silenced" Bolt Shells
Inferno Bolt Shells (the Imperial incendiary-charge one, not the magic Thousand Sons one)
Psycannon/Psybolt Shells

All that stuff sure seems like a lot of innovation and development and understanding of the hardware involved to me. I mean sure, all that stuff just had to be laying around during the Heresy and nobody used it because it couldn't possibly have been useful!

That's apparently because you don't read anything about the setting... like what an STC is, and why the Mechanicum gets a hard-on every time someone so much as says the letters.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/STC

The Standard Template Construct (STC) systems were complex analytical and processing systems created during the Dark Age of Technology (M21 - M23). They are said to have contained the entirety of human technological knowledge up to that point. Following the Age of Technology, the systems became increasingly rare, until becoming lost entirely. In the current Age of the Imperium, the ancient technological knowledge survives only because it was preserved in STC hard copies.

Hell, go to the 2nd entry on your list, the Razorback.

A variant of the Predator Battle Tank designed to carry troops is believed to be the first precursor to the modern Razorback. However, the STC template for the Razorback was first rediscovered in M36 by Chief Artisan Tilvius while he was exploring the Southern Rim of the galaxy. When he returned to Mars, the Adeptus Mechanicus recognized it from earlier records and commenced work on its production. Within two hundred years the first Razorbacks were field-tested and began seeing service to the Adeptus Astartes soon after.

In other words, humanity is so incompetent that soldering an lascannon to the top of a Rhino is beyond their technological grasp... and pretty much everything on your list is the same way, my favorite example being the Stalker, of course, because it is explicitly stated that humanity tried and FAILED to create something like it for thousands of years before the STC was recovered.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Whiskey144 wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:
Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.

Let's start here.

Tau supply lines are tiny because each Sept is capable of manufacturing the equipment it needs. There is no Empire-wide bureaucracy responsible for organizing resources- there is a complete, self-contained bureaucracy that governs maybe a dozen systems that are capable of resupplying their forces independent from the Empire's central government.

The Tau, therefore, will continue to be able to supply their forces almost as well as they do now no matter how large the Empire grows because of this.

So, Tau supply lines aren't small because the Tau Empire is just really small? I mean, it couldn't possibly be that Tau supply lines are short on account of them having, say, a very small slice of territory compared to the XBAWKSEHUEG galactic-scale territory of the Imperium?

No? You're sure that the Empire is just 'super efficient'?

Because resources have to come from somewhere, and eventually worlds are mined out- the Imperium is a fair example of this, considering that there are worlds that exist simply to export people, on account of that being the only useful resource that they have left, or that they can produce; the Tau Empire doesn't include many deathworlds from which only manpower can be drawn. Nor does the Tau Empire consist of a symbiotic relationship between two separate institutions, both of which are legally considered semi-sovereign entities, with their own attendant territories.

They're shipping equipment across dozens of light-years of space. They would be shipping over many times that, except that all Hammerheads aren't made on one single world.

You seem to be saying the Imperium is awesome because it does things like dedicate a single world to building tanks when that's a stupid thing to do.

It's more efficient to build locally when you can. If humanity had organized itself in a more reasonable fashion, many of said problems you listed wouldn't be problems.

They also might be able to give their front line troops weapons that are more than marginally superior to flashlights.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
That's apparently because you don't read anything about the setting... like what an STC is, and why the Mechanicum gets a hard-on every time someone so much as says the letters.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/STC

The Standard Template Construct (STC) systems were complex analytical and processing systems created during the Dark Age of Technology (M21 - M23). They are said to have contained the entirety of human technological knowledge up to that point. Following the Age of Technology, the systems became increasingly rare, until becoming lost entirely. In the current Age of the Imperium, the ancient technological knowledge survives only because it was preserved in STC hard copies.

So, in other words, an STC is a record of the entirety of human knowledge as recorded during the DAoT. The entry even says that the STC could supply plans for things using only locally available materials. As in, you could theoretically build a Rhino out of rocks and trees if you had a complete, fully-functional STC.

Obviously that's probably not going to work as well as using more traditional materials, but the point is that STCs aren't just instructions- though they certainly contain such- they're a holistic device that really only stops short of actually putting things together... and even then, there's a few that do that too!

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Hell, go to the 2nd entry on your list, the Razorback.

A variant of the Predator Battle Tank designed to carry troops is believed to be the first precursor to the modern Razorback. However, the STC template for the Razorback was first rediscovered in M36 by Chief Artisan Tilvius while he was exploring the Southern Rim of the galaxy. When he returned to Mars, the Adeptus Mechanicus recognized it from earlier records and commenced work on its production. Within two hundred years the first Razorbacks were field-tested and began seeing service to the Adeptus Astartes soon after.

In other words, humanity is so incompetent that soldering an lascannon to the top of a Rhino is beyond their technological grasp... and pretty much everything on your list is the same way, my favorite example being the Stalker, of course, because it is explicitly stated that humanity tried and FAILED to create something like it for thousands of years before the STC was recovered.

Or maybe there's more to it than "soldering a lascannon to the top of a Rhino"? I mean, you make it sound like it's so simple to do that, but that is not how that works. In fact, your own argument could be turned around, to claim that the Tau are all terminally stupid and barely intelligent on account of their premier battle tank being the equivalent of a Devilfish with "a railgun soldered to the top".

I'm certain that you would vehemently reject that as being the case- why is it true for the Imperium but not the Tau? Do you just hate the Imperium for whatever reason? Is it that you cannot accept the possibility that the Imperium is actually full of people who are far more intelligent than your supposedly amazing Earth Caste scientists?

Oh, and Predator Annihilators have no STC equivalent. Some Marines just up and decided to slap some lascannons into the turret to make it a better tank killer, and that's that.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
They're shipping equipment across dozens of light-years of space. They would be shipping over many times that, except that all Hammerheads aren't made on one single world.

You seem to be saying the Imperium is awesome because it does things like dedicate a single world to building tanks when that's a stupid thing to do.

It's more efficient to build locally when you can. If humanity had organized itself in a more reasonable fashion, many of said problems you listed wouldn't be problems.

They also might be able to give their front line troops weapons that are more than marginally superior to flashlights.

So it doesn't occur to you that the Imperium is leveraging an absolutely insane amount of economy of scale by having Forge Worlds (which are themselves the sovereign domains of what is technically a separate nation, BTW), and that the Imperium is technologically capable of, compared to the Tau, extreme-range Warp travel?

Part of the problem that the Tau are having, even now, is that their FTL is too slow for them to expand much beyond what they've currently got while remaining as heavily centralized as they are. Remember, the Tau Empire is not like the Imperium- for all your claims about Imperial administration being heavily centralized, in practice the Imperium is built around what is essentially a feudal system- the various Sector/Subsector/Planetary Governors are all responsible for rulership, and when it comes down to it the Imperium really only requires the following things:

1) Loyalty to the Imperium/God-Emperor; mostly by not allowing mutants/heretics/xenos to run around unchecked
2) Paying taxes/tithes of money, men, and materials

You could even simplify it a bit further to claim that the Imperium really only requires that a world pay their taxes. The Tau Empire, OTOH, demands absolute loyalty and rules with an authoritarian bent of such pervasiveness that if I ever had the choice... well, I think I'd rather live free and in squalor than be in luxury and constantly worrying that the slightest word "out of line" would send me to 'reeducation' or 'attitude adjustment'.

It's also worth noting that lasguns are quite lethal weapons- it's just that the really big nasty dangerous things are of such big, nasty, dangerous quality that lasguns fail to impress. Considering that Lasguns are easily eclipsing modern-day infantry weapons for firepower... I'm inclined to say that lasguns are quite lethal, and the only real issue is that the "big deal" threats of such lethality and durability that it makes lasguns look bad in comparison.

Of course, pulse weapons have their gakky showings- IIRC it's one of the Last Chancers novels that has a Space Marine in power armor end up with a heavily beat up- but still intact- breastplate after taking continuous fire from a burst cannon. Oh, and said Marine? Yeah, he stabbed the Crisis suit that shot at him. To death, in fact.