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Captain Roderick wrote:Well, let's think of it this way - Most planets in the Imperium evolved separately for at least a few thousands years during the Age of Strife. During that time, they had lasguns on many worlds, rhinos on many worlds. They also had local variations on such designs. When the Imperium reintegrated these worlds together, they found an STC for Rhinos, and started mass-producing these on forgeworlds for the Adeptus Astartes. Thus all Rhinos are standard. However, each world equips it's own infantry, up to a light-infantry standard, and certainly Tanith's lasguns were made on Tanith.

Variations, yes. Within limits.

"The Rhino became the standard transport vehicle of human armies across the galaxy, with different variants falling in and out of favour as the nature of Man's enemies and battlefields changed. The armies of Mankind spread throughout the galaxy, and many hundreds of worlds were brought within this growing galactic empire. As more enemies were encountered, the STC systems provided these early armies with many different variants of the Rhino such as the Predator, Immolator and Whirlwind."
- WD #269

The local adoptions took the form of different turrets etc, versions still (or rather, again) produced in M41 - however, incompatible chargepacks would be more akin to one variant of the Rhino suddenly using different bolts and rivets. Whilst this too is not impossible, I just can't come up with a good enough reason for why/how this should happen, and likewise why a power port should suddenly take a different shape (which would also render any and all lasguns produced locally before this new variant incompatible to the new model) or something like that. Unlike a Rhino-variant taking a new weapon on its turret, there's just no advantage I can see here.

To me, variations of lasguns are more likely to take the shape of different stocks, different lengths of barrels, integrated optics, or the popular adjustable charge capacitor of the Triplex-pattern. Or, yes, even power packs with a longer/shorter battery life - either due to the materials used in construction (just like modern day batteries) or by increasing their size downward. None of this has to make any part incompatible to another, so why do this?

I think that dependency on specialised ammunition would take a huge advantage away from the lasgun. Imperial Guard regiments are sent all over the galaxy, and a unit may find itself fighting on the other edge of the Imperium after ten years of faithful service. Good luck trying to get steady supplies from your homeworld there.
No... as per the Codex fluff, Guard regiments receive no support from their homeworld whatsoever. No spare parts, no reinforcements (which is why they get merged with other units, often regardless of origin, if they go understrength), and no ammunition. Once they're raised and tithed, all ties are cut (exceptions seem to exist, such as the Cadian Shock Troops rotating in and out of their homeworld's Interior Guard). The only thing that keeps a regiment supplied is the Adeptus Munitorum, and certainly it'd be much more efficient to send them supplies from a planet in close proximity to their deployment, rather than assigning a fleet of freighters criss-crossing the galaxy just to deliver their yearly allotment of non-standard power packs, non-standard spare parts and non-standard missiles etc. I don't think the latter is even doable.

Ammunition shortage would not be "rarely a problem", as the Inquisitor game attests, and certainly lasguns could not be recharged from a "standard power source", as Necromunda claims, if this standard does not exist.
And let's not even touch bolt weapon caliber here... all those heavy weapons need to be fed ammo as well, and more than the las weapons even.

But yes ... as you said: YMMV. I guess we just "grew up" on different things and have correspondingly different interpretations of the setting when it comes to details such as these. It's not a big deal, anyways, just different preferences.

 Lynata wrote:
Well, the PIKL was meant as a drone killer (if I remember correctly), so physical damage would've been a must-have. Of course it could just as well be that they didn't manage to get it done, which may be why they opted for the "lesser" version and rebranded it as a stunner.

It was designed for both anti-mateiral and anti-personnel roles, althought hey generalized that with either defeating reacitve armor or 'blunt trauma' whatever that meant (it could do blunt trauma to AM and AP tragets both.)

But ultimately, it's just a matter of how much energy you put through, isn't it? The more juice, the faster the target area heats up. Sooo, at some point, when you crank it up high enough using sci-fi spacetech, it would be just about instantaneous ...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHnaNctJ7r0

It depends entirely on how the laser is designed. I know that with modern surgical lasers there were the old type that would rely on heating the target (and were not very neat or tidy) whilst newer designs have focused more on pulsed lasers (less energy needed because you rely on mechanical damage mechanisms - eg explosions - to do the work.) The chief problem with a realistic 'heat ray' style laser, the 'burn stuff' type is that burning a narrow hole through someone doesn't really do a great deal of damage (especially if you cauterize the wound). And that assumes the person is dumb enough to stand still and get hit while the laser heats its way through - anyone who has had contact with anything hot will know that your body tells you when it is getting burnt. Heck think about how you feel after you get sunburned.


The only way a heat ray will burn something 'fast' is if you use it flamethrower or wide-beam style to burn large aprts of the body (literal flashlights, in other words) or its actually firing some sort of particle beam.

If its a pulse laser (which basically uses a pulse of energy to simulate an explosion.) a single large pulse could in theory do a lot of damage, but it would have absolutely no penetration (and things like intervening brush or branches would stop the shot.) A successive series of shots (which I've known to be described as a pulse train) seems to be the ideal desired means of doing damage - bullet level energies to do simulate bullet wound like damage on the target, more or less.

Of course there is. Standard Template Construct, anyone?
Of course this standardisation is extremely limited ... but not totally absent.

I mean, the Imperium has standardised Rhinos but not lasgun chargepacks? Nah, I won't buy that - not just because a single freelance author thought it'd make for a cool minor plot element in some random novel.

Are you saying the Imperium possesses only one kind of battery, one kind of laser, etc.? I find that hard to believe. I don't evne have to appeal to 'Non-GW' sources, since I know you absolutely loathe those, this is a simple fact of real life. Even allowing for a single 'kind' of battery or laser, there is tremendous amount of variation in construction and performance (the way the laser is generated, the way the battery functions, or effieincy levels, or whatever.) Much like they've 'standardized' slugthrowers that hardly means that there aren't variations in caliber and suchlike - it would literally be impossible to keep slughthrowers even remotely identical from world to world due to variances in tech level, resources, etc. Heck we know they have cased and caseless autoguns alone. Or what about the 2nd edition IG codex (for example) describing Chimeras? IIRC they had quite a diversity in powerplants. And many vehicles, including Rhinos, are designed to run on a variety of differnet fuels, be constructed from and repaired by a wide variety of materials depending on local conditions, etc. Differences in material quality alone will radically alter performance. We know for example that ceramite and adamantium are extremely durable - materials that allow various sorts of attack craft (such as thunderhawks) to endure repeated atmospheric reentry, something that common iron or steel or aluminum/titanium would not normally permit.

Connor MacLeod wrote:That's why the Guard can show up without ammo, as referenced in the IG 'dex - but one doesn't have to create additional logistical issues where they are unlikely to exist. I mean, for incompatible types of chargepacks to be in existence, somebody must have made a conscious decision to make them incompatible before coming up with a pattern, and then suceeding in pitching this to the Munitorum. And then the Munitorum has to decide that, yes, they actually will try running several different yet incompatible components alongside each other.

Sure it'd be possible to come up with some sort of backstory to it (industrial bribery?), but it'd be a stretch that - personally - I don't feel a need to bother with. The idea isn't cool enough to warrant an excuse, imho.

Are you suggesting that the Munitorum is capable of large scale, pan galactic coordination of the sort that the High Lords of terra themselves are explicitly stated to lack? Recall that the difficulties in astrotelepathy and warp travel make administration of the Imperium at the galactic level nigh-impossible, which is why they have to focus on the big picture and delegate authorities as the local levels (such as in how the Munitorum/Guard responds to the threat, as outlined in various Codexes.)

"A laser power pack will last for many shots and can be recharged from a standard power source or by exposing its thermal cells to heat or light."
- GW Necromunda

"Las weapons are the most common type of weaponry found in the Imperium, as they are cheap to manufacture and easy to maintain. They also benefit from being easy to recharge, and ammunition shortage is rarely a problem."
- GW Inquisitor RPG

As you are often fond of saying, the fluff is often variable/fond of contradicting itself.

I'll just skip over the disclaimer because I'm well familiar with your policy regarding fluff.

Some of those are probably just continuity issues where SW's canon policy elevates one source over another, whereas the TESB bits (what's "CF"?) sound like typical out-of-universe movie FX issues. I did not even notice those!

What little consistency remains in Star Wars' so called 'canon' policy, tends to be ridiculously all inclusive, as is evidenced by the approach taken on Wookieepedia (where even the toys and amusement park rides are considered to be 'in-universe' canon.) I doubt you could get away with just saying 'FX issues' and stay consistent with that sort of canon policy. Especially going by the whole GCSN thing (although since Disney bought Lucasfilm, it's anyones guess how canon might change yet again.)

Connor MacLeod wrote:If its a pulse laser (which basically uses a pulse of energy to simulate an explosion.) a single large pulse could in theory do a lot of damage, but it would have absolutely no penetration (and things like intervening brush or branches would stop the shot.)

From how I've understood GW's description of las weapon effects, the "penetration" would occur by the material in the target area itself exploding due to rapid expansion in response to the flash-heating beam, thus giving way for how many milliseconds of beam are left. It certainly isn't a penetration in the classical sense that it just punches through.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Are you saying the Imperium possesses only one kind of battery, one kind of laser, etc.?

No, as mentioned and explained in my last post above yours there is indeed room for different patterns. I just don't buy that they would be entirely incompatible and inexchangable for no good reason. For a real-life comparison, take the standard household AAA battery. There's ones made from zink-carbon, alkaline, lithium, nickel-cadmium, ... all performing differently in terms of capacity and other factors, yet magically you can fit 'em all into the same device. That's how I see lasgun chargepacks, although there is room for different shapes in my interpretation as well - as long as the shape stays compatible to the standard lasgun loading port.


Kinda like so.

Connor MacLeod wrote:I don't evne have to appeal to 'Non-GW' sources, since I know you absolutely loathe those, this is a simple fact of real life.

That's only half-true, actually. I dismiss most of them as the authors tend to go off on their own with their ideas, either without doing research or simply because they don't care - but there is a number of non-GW products in my possession which I have enjoyed a lot, have recommended to others (yes, that's 3 links), and in some cases even adopted aspects thereof into my own little vision of M41. I just don't tend to discuss the latter here as that's even less of a common ground than GW's own writings.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Much like they've 'standardized' slugthrowers that hardly means that there aren't variations in caliber and suchlike - it would literally be impossible to keep slughthrowers even remotely identical from world to world due to variances in tech level, resources, etc.

That sounds like you wouldn't even trust the Space Marines to have standardised bolt weapons/ammunition.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Heck we know they have cased and caseless autoguns alone.

And why not? The Imperium doesn't care much what some local weaponsmith tinkers together in his workshop. The Imperium cares for its armies, and those are armed with lasguns.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Or what about the 2nd edition IG codex (for example) describing Chimeras? IIRC they had quite a diversity in powerplants.

"The Chimera chassis provides the basis for countless specialised vehicles from fuel tankers to ambulances, munitions carriers, mobile communications vehicles, recovery vehicles and even military construction vehicles like bulldozers and cranes. It is the most versatile of all the vehicles produced for the Imperial Guard and it can be adapted to take almost any power plant, from sub-nuclear stacks to wood-burning steam turbines."
- 2E C:IG

"Can be adapted" isn't quite the same as "produced with". Ironically, what you were recalling actually speaks more in favour of a certain degree in standardisation - you couldn't fit so many different types engines into a tank chassis otherwise. Not to mention that the Chimera is itself a standard, and the basis for a wide range of vehicles all based on the same template.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Are you suggesting that the Munitorum is capable of large scale, pan galactic coordination of the sort that the High Lords of terra themselves are explicitly stated to lack?

No. Which is exactly why I think it's a bit daft to assume that the Munitorum can arrange the transportation of different sorts of ammunition halfway across the galaxy when it's much easier to just order "standard lasgun charge packs" from the world closest to the regiment's current position.

Connor MacLeod wrote:As you are often fond of saying, the fluff is often variable/fond of contradicting itself.

Which is why we sometimes have to pick between the GW-verse and the Abnettverse, for example.
Which we prefer and choose to go with is nobody's business but our own, as long as we realise the consequences of such a decision and the potentially resulting gap in source compatibility.

Connor MacLeod wrote:What little consistency remains in Star Wars' so called 'canon' policy, tends to be ridiculously all inclusive, as is evidenced by the approach taken on Wookieepedia (where even the toys and amusement park rides are considered to be 'in-universe' canon.) I doubt you could get away with just saying 'FX issues' and stay consistent with that sort of canon policy. Especially going by the whole GCSN thing (although since Disney bought Lucasfilm, it's anyones guess how canon might change yet again.)

I see polite requests for explanation regarding non-standard abbreviations don't work. Very well, it probably wasn't important anyways.
Doubt all you will, but I've never seen someone claim that, for example, TIE-Fighters have some sort of grey'ish cube of atmosphere around their hull just because in some scenes you could see the not-quite-as-dark-as-background-space square from the model shots the FX department didn't manage to remove until the respective scenes were revised decades later.
Even with an established canon there will always be arguments - stupid ones, too. But at least you've got a set of universal rules to point to, which means that everyone operates on a common ground. Here is the relevant article, by the way, as you seem to have misinterpreted something regarding "aumsement park rides" etc.

Ah-Ha!

Lyanata, I think we can finally come to an agreement...

you used AAA batteries as an example. Great! What about size D, size C, size AA? All standard, all different.

Dan Abnett wrote:
The clerk picked up the clip and looked at it.
We were instructed to issue ammunition. Eight hundred boxes. Standard pattern.'
'Standard size three,' said Varl patiently. That's standard size five.'
'Standard pattern, they said. I've got the docket.'
'I'm sure you have. And the Tanith First-and-Only have got boxes and boxes of ammo that they can't use.'
'It said standard pattern.'
Varl sighed. 'Everything's standard pattern! This is the Imperial fething Guard! Standard pattern boots, standard pattern mess-tins, standard pattern bodybags! I'm a standard pattern infantryman and you're a standard pattern no-neck, and any minute now my standard pattern fist is going to smack your nose bone back into your very sub-standard pattern brain!'

So the ghosts end up on a drogue that only has AA batteries, and their lasguns only take AAA.

I rest my case...

Captain Roderick wrote:Ah-Ha!
Lyanata, I think we can finally come to an agreement...
you used AAA batteries as an example. Great! What about size D, size C, size AA? All standard, all different.

They are incompatible, not standardised, so the comparison stops to apply once you broaden it to other types of batteries.
This was no mistake - I specifically picked a singular type of battery for a reason, to show that you can have different sub-types with differing performance without making stuff not fit together anymore.

I don't think we actually can come to an agreement on this (unless you manage to dig up something in a GW source, that'd be your joker due to my self-adopted policy) ... but we don't need to, either! I think it's really just a matter of what books (and hence fluff) we "grew up" with when it comes to 40k.

The quote was funny, though. I may not agree with Mr. Abnett's ideas (or at least not all of them; afaik he also invented the Blood Pact, and that was cool), but I won't discredit his writing style, though I only know a single short story he wrote.
(in context, doesn't that kind of mess with the idea that the Imperium doesn't do standardisation on this level? "size three vs size five" is rather remarkable on a galactic style also, and not so different than if you had only a single size for all)

 Lynata wrote:

I don't think we actually can come to an agreement on this (unless you manage to dig up something in a GW source, that'd be your joker due to my self-adopted policy) ... but we don't need to, either! I think it's really just a matter of what books (and hence fluff) we "grew up" with when it comes to 40k.

(in context, doesn't that kind of mess with the idea that the Imperium doesn't do standardisation on this level? "size three vs size five" is rather remarkable on a galactic style also, and not so different than if you had only a single size for all)

Yeah fine, let's not agree

And yes, my argument is constantly evolving, I have no idea what my original points were any more, I'm just trying to find some agreement with you... it's all over now

And I love most of Abnett's work, I also love the fact that a lot of the 'Abnettverse' became canon, since he started writing around the beginning of 3rd ed, and the background was getting a little stale then. It's the better parts of BL that have been folded into the mainstream that make the universe so much more addictive now than it was.