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Made in gb
Keeper of the Holy Orb of Antioch





avoiding the lorax on Crion

At last, too many tanks look like they came from ww1 and the trench's. So much slab sided armour, I know casting and all but a bit more sloping could not kill them.

Sloping armour is naturally thicker and more likely to deflect energy from penetration and critical kill to a lesser hit.

Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.

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Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
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FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.  
   
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Trazyn's Museum Curator





on the forum. Obviously

 Kain wrote:


The Leman Russ is also slower and lacks the round slopes of the T-72 I drove (which is CLASSIFIED mms thick with REDACTED composites and DATA EXPUNGED)
.


To be fair, it is packing a lot of firepower.

It has two high calibre, rapid fire rocket launchers, a laser cannon, a howitzer and a heavy machine gun to boot.

The T72, on the other hand, has a 125mm cannon, 1 coaxial machine gun and 1 AA gun. Well, according to wikipedia anyway.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/03/14 00:22:27


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Snivelling Workbot




NoVA

 Kain wrote:
The design and usual description of a lascannon makes me think more of a particle beam than a laser weapon to be perfectly honest. But honestly I think it's really just better to assume that the Imperial (and Eldar) term for "laser" is really just a grab bag designation for various kinds of beam or "energy" bolt emitters. My head hurts trying to fathom why lascannons need a barrel you can shove your fist into if they're actually lasers. I'd guess that it may be lots of emitters placed together, but I've never read any descriptions of the weapons that paints them as such.


Let me assuage you, then: it's quite reasonable for all the things they refer to as lasers to be lasers. The problem with lascannon barrels isn't that they're so big, it's actually that they're barely big enough to accommodate the needed optics! The (still short) length of the barrel in las weapons provides both a heat transfer surface and a protective shroud for the terminal mirror.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that ships' lances are atom beams (or at least heavy ion beams). I'm not sure about plasma weapons, but I'm increasingly favoring a laser-assisted electron beam (I prefer the blinding ray of doom model for how plasma weapons look over the pew pew model). Thing with particle beams is that they require not only high energy but also fantastically high current. You can get this with:

A) Very big power infrastructure (like on a ship)
B) Hyper-efficient and power-dense archeotech (handheld plasma weapons)
   
Made in gb
Tough Traitorous Guardsman





Liverpool Hive

This is all very fascinating stuff Scipio, I like the graphics you've designed.

However I'm going to have to defend the poor old Leman Russ from some of the folks on aesthetic grounds. It is ugly but that's what I love about the Guard, its brutalist, dieselpunk ham forged in plasteel. I wouldn't have it any other way... though they could make the turret a little bigger.

I commend you Scipio. Throwing real world physics into 40k is like throwing a hand grenade into a nunnery.

Oh What a Lovely War. 
   
Made in jp
Fixture of Dakka





Japan

The Tanks in 40K are so in WWI style and functionality to try to modify them to a modern style would completely change the "feel" of the tank and against las weaponry? Diamond laced chrome paint!

Squidbot;
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Snivelling Workbot




NoVA

 Jape wrote:
This is all very fascinating stuff Scipio, I like the graphics you've designed.


Thanks.

 Jape wrote:
However I'm going to have to defend the poor old Leman Russ from some of the folks on aesthetic grounds. It is ugly but that's what I love about the Guard, its brutalist, dieselpunk ham forged in plasteel. I wouldn't have it any other way... though they could make the turret a little bigger.


To be honest, I agree. That's why I'm after trying to keep those aesthetics as much as possible.

 Jape wrote:
I commend you Scipio. Throwing real world physics into 40k is like throwing a hand grenade into a nunnery.


Imagining that line delivered by your avatar gave me quite a chuckle. Seriously, though, you'd be surprised how little is needed to make it work at times. A lot of things are plain dumb and need fiddling, but others end up being almost suspiciously well thought out once you engage in a little analysis.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/03/14 02:20:48


 
   
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Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





Personally, I like this Baneblade/Leman Russ hybrid design:

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Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

 AtoMaki wrote:
Personally, I like this Baneblade/Leman Russ hybrid design:


How big is that? Looks bigger than a regular russ...
   
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Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 AtoMaki wrote:
Personally, I like this Baneblade/Leman Russ hybrid design:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/celestialcrusader/LRtestbuild1.jpg


How big is that? Looks bigger than a regular russ...


The turret is a normal LR turret so I guess it is just a little bit wider and that's all.

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Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

 AtoMaki wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 AtoMaki wrote:
Personally, I like this Baneblade/Leman Russ hybrid design:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/celestialcrusader/LRtestbuild1.jpg


How big is that? Looks bigger than a regular russ...


The turret is a normal LR turret so I guess it is just a little bit wider and that's all.


I don't think it's the same turret. In fact, I know it isn't, because it lacks the vision port on the top of the front.
   
Made in gb
Tough Traitorous Guardsman





Liverpool Hive

 Scipio Americanus wrote:
Seriously, though, you'd be surprised how little is needed to make it work at times. A lot of things are plain dumb and need fiddling, but others end up being almost suspiciously well thought out once you engage in a little analysis.


Its very interesting stuff.

Now I want someone with a deep knowledge of pseudosciences like telekinesis to explain the Ork's engineering skills and I'm a happy bunny.

Oh What a Lovely War. 
   
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Dakka Veteran




 Scipio Americanus wrote:
I can really get into the nitty-gritty of how high-power lasers interact with materials if you guys want me to (it's one of my specialties), but suffice to say that for the way I've chosen to model lascannons the primary damage mechanism is pulsed supersonic drilling/ablation. This is the most efficient way of going through hard stuff and it also produces a beam with all the characteristics typically attributed to lascannons in the fluff. Effectively, each shot is a train of pulses (far too short and closely space together in time to distinctly percieve) and they explosively drill their way through the armor, one after another, until it's fully penetrated. Putting more armor in front of it is advantageous both because it increases the amount of energy needed to drill through and because it adversely affects the aspect ratio of the hole - the deeper and skinnier the hole the more likely that energy will be wasted heating up the sides or splashing out of it entirely due to the relative motion of target and weapon.


It might just be easier to refrence atomic rockets and/or Luke Campbell's death ray site, since they describe something along the lines of what you mention. Although how plausible IRL that is has been disputed amongst hard-scifi circles (for whatever that is worth) but it does fit with tidbits bout how lasweapons work as presented in the fluff.

Although one consequence of that I've noticed is that laser weapons would have ridiculous penetration against conventional materials, and this may/may not fit with las weapon designs depending on how efficient (vs brute force) you figure they are.

 Frazzled wrote:
The Leman is unrealistic in several ways that can't be explained away, but could be converted modelwise.
1. Ground clearance. It effectively has almost none.


Is this based on the model? Because based on the fluff stats it has a greound clearance of 45 cm, which is roughly that of a modern tank. Forge world is the obvious example but the stats predate that (from the GW website IIRC and Chapter approved. This is from one of the earlier 3rd edition Chapter apporveds I know.



2. Bolted hull. Bolts are bad in any kinetic environment.


May or may not be bolts. They have things called 'molecular bonding studs' that Space Marine armour uses and look like bolts (from early fluff but still around AFAIK) Given that starships also can have that 'bolted' appearance despite being many kilometres long and enduring hypervelocity impacts I think its safe to say its a bit more complex than 'it looks bolted'. Also only some designs use the bolt - as already mentioned its not exactly as if the Imperium has a standardized tech base at all, is it? They have steam powered Leman Russes after all.


4. Did I mention gun barrels so wide it would make a battleship blanch?


It's also stated to be 120mm smoothbore with the capability of carrying 36 shells (or 40 in the case of Forge World.) Again it comes down to how much stock you put in the artwork/visuals (which also depict overly blocky, chunky space marines with gigantic and improbably thick pauldrons shooting boltguns ejecting casings. and lasguns ejecting propellant from equally huge, blocky looking guns. Nevermind how improbably huge chainswords look.)

Alternately the huge muzzle diameter may only be for some guns, designed for a specific purpose. Some weapons a larger diameter is desirable. The Leman Russ barrels (at least in some variants) are quite similar to the gun/missile launchers used on the American M551 Sheridan and M60A2 patton tanks, for example.


 Jape wrote:
 Scipio Americanus wrote:
Seriously, though, you'd be surprised how little is needed to make it work at times. A lot of things are plain dumb and need fiddling, but others end up being almost suspiciously well thought out once you engage in a little analysis.


Its very interesting stuff.

Now I want someone with a deep knowledge of pseudosciences like telekinesis to explain the Ork's engineering skills and I'm a happy bunny.


If you can accept that magic space shields can exist in a setting its not that weird to figure that Ork Tech might work on magic warp-based forcefields (telekinesis if you prefer.) Heck, Star Trek had its 'structural integrity field', and lots of other sci fi has had similar devices to make 'stronger' hulls (even 40K, by at least some sources.) It only differs by the kind of magic you're invoking.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/03/14 20:09:40


 
   
Made in gb
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Papua New Guinea

On orks, I will reiterate again that it is the in-universe theory of one man that suggests ork technology works because they think it should. It is a blatantly silly idea.

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Seattle

Orks are genetically wired to have an innate understanding of technology, most commonly expressed in the Ork variant referred to as a "Mek Boy".

Ork technology works just fine. It is simply not human in design or principle, which means that the humanocentric AdMech takes apart an Ork gun, finds that it doesn't resemble a human gun, and proclaims that it must be "Xeno magic!" that permits it to function.

As for Red Paint Job and similar effects? Who knows? Maybe the Orks believe that the red ones go faster because those who drive red vehicles put the pedal down.

It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. 
   
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Dakka Veteran




One might argue that 40K technology literally does rely on 'magic' to run, but there's nothing wrong with that neccesarily. Just because it may be 'magic' does not mean it is arbitrary. It's largely a perspective thing.

I mean when you think about it wraithbone probably involves magic forcefields just to become some magically created super-strong yet super light materials (different kinds of bonding than what real life materials do.) I imagine most 40K super-materials rely on similar (magic metals, in a literal sense!)
   
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Egad, typed a long reply and lost it to an Opera shortcut that helpfully closed my browser.
Not happy.

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Nasty Nob






 Psienesis wrote:
As for Red Paint Job and similar effects? Who knows? Maybe the Orks believe that the red ones go faster because those who drive red vehicles put the pedal down.


I like the fan-theory I saw once that said ork paint was mostly made from some kind of squig or fungus which left living spores in the final product. The spores act as some kind of 'amplifier' for certain types of Waaagh! energy, which produces a telekinetic effect on the vehicle.

A more plausible explanation is that Mekboys are more likely to paint their fastest vehicles red, because that's the favourite colour of orks who are especially keen on speed.

   
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 Perfect Organism wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:
As for Red Paint Job and similar effects? Who knows? Maybe the Orks believe that the red ones go faster because those who drive red vehicles put the pedal down.


I like the fan-theory I saw once that said ork paint was mostly made from some kind of squig or fungus which left living spores in the final product. The spores act as some kind of 'amplifier' for certain types of Waaagh! energy, which produces a telekinetic effect on the vehicle.

A more plausible explanation is that Mekboys are more likely to paint their fastest vehicles red, because that's the favourite colour of orks who are especially keen on speed.


Except we do know that Orks species-wide are all reality warpers. It's much more likely that the implausible parts of their tech work simply because they believe it will (which would explain some of their planes which have no right to fly). They're all latent psykers and lead to funny things like Orks dying when they realize they should be dead and IIRC, some of their guns not having firing mechanisms. The reason why the Techpriest cracked open the gun and declared it magic was due to it being an empty box with no actual mechanism of firing the shells last I recalled. Not that he didn't understand it, just that the gun have no right to work in the first place.

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
 
   
Made in se
Regular Dakkanaut



Cividale del Friuli (UD) Italy

Yep, Orks are ALL psychers and their technology relies on that, A human could use ork stuff, but it wouldn't work or explode in his hand just because it doesn't have the Ork's powers.

But this is going OT.

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NoVA

Connor MacLeod wrote:
It might just be easier to refrence atomic rockets and/or Luke Campbell's death ray site, since they describe something along the lines of what you mention. Although how plausible IRL that is has been disputed amongst hard-scifi circles (for whatever that is worth) but it does fit with tidbits bout how lasweapons work as presented in the fluff.


Two of my favorite sites on the web. Finding Atomic Rockets in high school was one of the contributing factors to my becoming a physicist (and spending a year professionally shooting things with giant lasers).

Connor MacLeod wrote:
Although one consequence of that I've noticed is that laser weapons would have ridiculous penetration against conventional materials, and this may/may not fit with las weapon designs depending on how efficient (vs brute force) you figure they are.


Laser weapons of sufficiently high energy and power can cut (blast really) their way very effectively through materials, but a beam train that is efficient at cutting through armor often won't go through other materials (flesh, concrete) very well. I figure lasrifles are calibrated for shooting people with a little armor in the way, while the opposite is true for lascannons (with other weapons, like multilasers, somewhere on that spectrum). Of course, a lascannon has so much power that it'll blast a human body in half, but it won't have the useful effects of things like HE, and the range is limited by atmospheric conditions for lower powered las-weapons while it's limited by the filamentization/self-focusing distance for higher powered ones. Suffice to say, they have a role but it's different from that of projectile or explosive weapons. The big advantage they have (for infantry-carried ones) is logistical simplicity. Powerpacks (in my interpretation at least) are low temp molten salt batteries and can be recharged by any vehicle or standard power system. Not having to ship kilotons of infantry ammo to the FEBA lets the Munitorum focus on food, heavy weapons ammo, and POL (Petroleum, Oil, Lubricants).

Connor MacLeod wrote:
 Frazzled wrote:
The Leman is unrealistic in several ways that can't be explained away, but could be converted modelwise.
1. Ground clearance. It effectively has almost none.


Is this based on the model? Because based on the fluff stats it has a greound clearance of 45 cm, which is roughly that of a modern tank. Forge world is the obvious example but the stats predate that (from the GW website IIRC and Chapter approved. This is from one of the earlier 3rd edition Chapter apporveds I know.

etc., etc., etc...


There are lots of inconsistencies between lore and art, not to mention within those categories. I tend to resolve in favor of reasonability wherever possible.

Connor MacLeod wrote:
If you can accept that magic space shields can exist in a setting its not that weird to figure that Ork Tech might work on magic warp-based forcefields (telekinesis if you prefer.) Heck, Star Trek had its 'structural integrity field', and lots of other sci fi has had similar devices to make 'stronger' hulls (even 40K, by at least some sources.) It only differs by the kind of magic you're invoking.


The shields are one of the wildcard technologies I'm granting the Universe, on the basis of being developed by the AI superbrains of the Dark Age. They could conceive of the laws of physics on a level human minds, even augmented ones, can never match, and the bits of what they created that remain in STC fragments are the source of the holdovers into the Imperium. My shortlist is:

Grav Plating
Warp drives and Gellar Fields
Void Shields
Room temperature electrical superconductors
Thermal superconductors
Superstrong structural materials

Now some of those (the last three) might be things that humans can understand with sufficiently advanced science, but I think the Imperium's level of understanding of science and engineering is in most areas somewhat ahead of ours and in a few rather behind. How these are employed for various applications is influenced by the cartel/guild nature of the AdMech, their theological/procedural rather than scientific/systemic understanding of technologies, and the fact that they're perfectly willing to use lower tech wherever it's more reliable or more reasonable. Despite literally being techno-fetishists they are in some ways less technofetishistic than many moderns.

I don't have any problem with the Ork gestalt psyker powers, as the presence of the Warp introduces a number of metaphysical changes to the Universe that shift the rules. There's an intimate connection between this semantic space and intentionality and the like.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/03/16 00:28:29


 
   
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Seattle

(which would explain some of their planes which have no right to fly


According to the AdMech, anyway.

The AdMech scorns non-human technology, and they scorn invention. They believe that the greatest things ever to be created, ever possible to be created, lie in Humanity's past. This is why they keep searching for STC, and keep trying to excavate Mars, throwing away thousands upon thousands of lives every year in the process.

It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. 
   
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NoVA

 Psienesis wrote:


According to the AdMech, anyway.


True, but also the laws of aerodynamics, I'm afraid

 Psienesis wrote:
The AdMech scorns non-human technology, and they scorn invention. They believe that the greatest things ever to be created, ever possible to be created, lie in Humanity's past. This is why they keep searching for STC, and keep trying to excavate Mars, throwing away thousands upon thousands of lives every year in the process.


All true. The problem (and fun) is that... well, they're right, at least about the greatest technologies ever to be created lying in their past. Unless humanity hyper-augments itself into another transhuman holocaust they'll never equal (or even understand, in many cases) the technology of the Dark Age of Technology.
   
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 Psienesis wrote:
(which would explain some of their planes which have no right to fly


According to the AdMech, anyway.

The AdMech scorns non-human technology, and they scorn invention. They believe that the greatest things ever to be created, ever possible to be created, lie in Humanity's past. This is why they keep searching for STC, and keep trying to excavate Mars, throwing away thousands upon thousands of lives every year in the process.


To be fair, the only race capable of rivaling humanity's DAOT tech is the Necrons, as cannons that fire black holes before they've been fired are pretty damn impressive.

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
 
   
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Fixture of Dakka




Temple Prime

 Gogsnik wrote:
On orks, I will reiterate again that it is the in-universe theory of one man that suggests ork technology works because they think it should. It is a blatantly silly idea.

Ork tech certainly receives some benefit from widely held Ork beliefs.

How much Ork tech benefits from the psychic gesalt field depends on the author, sometimes it just makes the Ork tech somewhat more efficient than it should or it's even proposed that the Orks subconsciously make things follow their superstition, other times it turns completely nonfunctional piles of scrap in the rough shape of a gun into a shoota in ork hands.

As for the AdMech, the Adeptus Mechanicus are demonstrably competent scientists and engineers who have a sound grasp on most any principles you'd find in modern engineering or science classes, and many that are beyond our current fields of STEM knowledge.

The difference is that the Techpriests are staunchly conservative, often even reactionary with regards to innovation and function in a huge, highly diverse, and wide spread polity where safe, fast, and easy travel is a luxury neither the Imperium nor the Adeptus Mechanicus rarely possess which makes the logistics of applying upgrades across the polity a nightmare even if they were progress oriented.

Beyond that, the Adeptus Mechanicus is itself prone to factionalism and packrat mentality, with many factions of the Machine Cult refusing to share what they have discovered and hoarding priceless relics they believe ony the AdMech is worthy of having mass produced for them, lest the rest of the Imperium dirty their discoveries of fruits of reverse engineering with their grubby, uninitiated hands. Furthermore, the Adeptus mechanicus is very independent of the Imperium Proper. It has it's own infrastructure, military, political and religious system, the only thing that really binds the two is that their economies are intertwined.

The Adeptus Mechanicus needs the Imperium for resources (and cannon fodder when they feel that their legions of machines and cyborgs are too precious to be committed to a fight), and the Imperium needs the mechanicus for high-skilled labor and production.

 Wyzilla wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:
(which would explain some of their planes which have no right to fly


According to the AdMech, anyway.

The AdMech scorns non-human technology, and they scorn invention. They believe that the greatest things ever to be created, ever possible to be created, lie in Humanity's past. This is why they keep searching for STC, and keep trying to excavate Mars, throwing away thousands upon thousands of lives every year in the process.


To be fair, the only race capable of rivaling humanity's DAOT tech is the Necrons, as cannons that fire black holes before they've been fired are pretty damn impressive.

The pre-fall Eldar were also very impressive, a lot of the technology the Eldar Empire once used casually is now largely beyond the industrial ability of the modern Eldar, not scientific mind you, they know how it works to a T, but the difference in manufacturing ability between a unified galactic hegemony and four fragmented factions with a fraction of the former population and many limitations on once casually used psychic abilities is vast. But it seems they weren't actually being hyperbolic when they said that the Stars were born and killed on their whims.

The War in Heaven era Necrons and Old Ones are quite probably simply beyond anything seen afterwards in the galaxy, with even the Eldar and Orks at their height being a pale shadow of the Old Ones. A war between two pantheons of gods, with mortals being left to gaze upon the detritus of the war in awe.

But I think that in time, had the age of strife and the fall of the Eldar never occured, eventually history would have repeated itself and the Humans and Eldar would have engaged in a watered down re-enactment of the war in heaven.

 Midnightdeathblade wrote:
Think of a daemon incursion like a fart you don't quite trust... you could either toot a little puff of air, bellow a great effluvium, or utterly sh*t your pants and cry as it floods down your leg.



 
   
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 Scipio Americanus wrote:
Two of my favorite sites on the web. Finding Atomic Rockets in high school was one of the contributing factors to my becoming a physicist (and spending a year professionally shooting things with giant lasers).


Interesting. How well do you find Schilling (the guy mentioned on Atomic Rockets who first proposed 'their' model for laser weapons) and Luke Campbell's ideas to hold up?


Laser weapons of sufficiently high energy and power can cut (blast really) their way very effectively through materials, but a beam train that is efficient at cutting through armor often won't go through other materials (flesh, concrete) very well. I figure lasrifles are calibrated for shooting people with a little armor in the way, while the opposite is true for lascannons (with other weapons, like multilasers, somewhere on that spectrum).


Laser effects being target dependent (and needing optimization) is certainly a factor as I recall, and I've heard Luke say the same re: his laser models because meat is harder to burn through than other materials (See here for refrence.) although this again gets into how you think lasweapons in 40K work (or how consistently they are designed.) For all we know they need the AdMech to 're-optimize' them for certain threats (Orks vs humans, for example, or Orks vs Tyranids.. esp given the properties ascribed to Tyranid carapace.) And with space marines it wouldn't even matter if you can penetrate, since their pain resistance and ability to coagulate make them harder to stop unless you place the shots in the right place (or happen to have a hotshot pack on hand.)

More advanced lasers probably feature 'machine spirits' and scopes that could 'optimize' themselves.


Of course, a lascannon has so much power that it'll blast a human body in half, but it won't have the useful effects of things like HE, and the range is limited by atmospheric conditions for lower powered las-weapons while it's limited by the filamentization/self-focusing distance for higher powered ones.


Near as I can tell lasers can cause explosions (hell so can asteroid impacts - at least of sufficient yield) - the only thing is they're not as efficient at it as HE (because of the way the 'explosion' is created). Of course, neither are nukes, due to the mechanisms involved (at least with cratering.) The real problem is the atmospheric conditions, and that seems to be a place where slugthrowers still can outperform lasers, I think.

And lascannons, at least in the fluff, generally have the power to completely vaporized/blown apart (whether literal, or simply meaning 'blasting apart') a person, or at least the upper body, if not the entire person. And by 'person' that can include 'power armored space marines' and I believe Orks.


Suffice to say, they have a role but it's different from that of projectile or explosive weapons. The big advantage they have (for infantry-carried ones) is logistical simplicity. Powerpacks (in my interpretation at least) are low temp molten salt batteries and can be recharged by any vehicle or standard power system. Not having to ship kilotons of infantry ammo to the FEBA lets the Munitorum focus on food, heavy weapons ammo, and POL (Petroleum, Oil, Lubricants).


Well no, a laser isn't going to be useful in EVERY role. They'd never replace indirect fire artillery or missiles, for example.



There are lots of inconsistencies between lore and art, not to mention within those categories. I tend to resolve in favor of reasonability wherever possible.


I think most people go by what is 'reasonable' - the problem being not everyone will agree on a single definition of 'reasonable.' Most sci fi arguments/debates generally center around the interpretation of data and what is perceived to make 'sense' as opposed to the actual evidence. And in cases like 40K where there is no real canon structure you tend to get people who take different attitudes towards the different sources of material. There's no real simple, unified way to handle it.

When it comes to text vs visuals, there's advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.


The shields are one of the wildcard technologies I'm granting the Universe, on the basis of being developed by the AI superbrains of the Dark Age. They could conceive of the laws of physics on a level human minds, even augmented ones, can never match, and the bits of what they created that remain in STC fragments are the source of the holdovers into the Imperium. My shortlist is:

Grav Plating
Warp drives and Gellar Fields
Void Shields
Room temperature electrical superconductors
Thermal superconductors
Superstrong structural materials.


I apologize - perhaps I wasn't explaining myself clearly. What I was getting at with the 'magic' allusions is the same as 'handwave' - we don't quite know all the science behind it (or maybe not even any of it) but we have a general idea how it works (EG its not 'arbitrary' despite being 'magic'.) One of the things I've liked about 40K (at least since the early days) is that they do try to be internally consistent about these things - even the Warp (often thought of as 'REALITY HAX') has rules and internal consistency by how it works and how things happen, and the warp has a fundamental impact in the way things in realspace work. When it comes to 40K Materials science, for example, we know you can create solid matter out of the 'warp' (EG wraithbone or what Chaos does), and we know the warp can 'enhance' the properties of solid materials (Daemons making engines out of brass or iron, but being far more durable than those materials.)

The relevance of this, of course, can depend on how advanced/powerful you think the Imperium and other factions are, at least in quantitative terms, and that like most things is open to debate (or argument.)


Now some of those (the last three) might be things that humans can understand with sufficiently advanced science, but I think the Imperium's level of understanding of science and engineering is in most areas somewhat ahead of ours and in a few rather behind. How these are employed for various applications is influenced by the cartel/guild nature of the AdMech, their theological/procedural rather than scientific/systemic understanding of technologies, and the fact that they're perfectly willing to use lower tech wherever it's more reliable or more reasonable. Despite literally being techno-fetishists they are in some ways less technofetishistic than many moderns.


I think it's actually less a matter of who is more or less 'advanced' than it is of standardization. In sci fi to me it seems sometimes we treat technology as if it were some singular, monolithic entity, and that an 'advanced' race must be advanced in every single way... even though logically any 'race/culture/empire' is going to face the same 'finite resources/infinite needs' situation we ourselves face. It's quite likely to be advanced in some areas but not others for various reasons and to various degrees, even in real life. The Imperium, with its probelms with FTL travel and communications, its decentralized political and economic structure, is much less standardized than we are (the tau are probably closer to us in that regard.) Those tend to be huge factors that lead to the disparities in tech level and the various implications (EG having steam powered tanks with mind impulse links, to draw on an Imperial armour example.)

To this we can also factor in general cultural and political factors, such as the 'puritan vs radical' dynamic. Radicals are more likely to push for progress and innovation/research (not without risks, of course - this is 40K.) whilst puritans will be more conservative and oppose such progress (sometimes with reason, sometimes not.) But the tensions between that dynamic will further exacerbate the variations in technological levels - regions more tolerant of a 'radical' bent - especially to technology, may experience greater progress and tech levels than a region that is more conservative. And you could have both occuring in 40K (within the same sector, for example) It could even change over time (radicals getting overthrown by puritans, and vice versa.)


I don't have any problem with the Ork gestalt psyker powers, as the presence of the Warp introduces a number of metaphysical changes to the Universe that shift the rules. There's an intimate connection between this semantic space and intentionality and the like.


I don't have a problem with it either pretty much for the same reason. If anything it shows an underlying pattern towards such things (stuff
   
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Connor MacLeod wrote:
Interesting. How well do you find Schilling (the guy mentioned on Atomic Rockets who first proposed 'their' model for laser weapons) and Luke Campbell's ideas to hold up?


Campbell's estimates tend to be over-optimistic. Where they disagree, I find Schilling to usually be more on point. Also, the general lack of discussion of semiconductor diode stack/fibre lasers, one of the most promising and near-term possible technologies for making these kind of weapons, is a little curious to me. That may just be a figment of most of the discussions having taken place back in 2006/07 before the big increase in their power started being realized.

Connor MacLeod wrote:
Laser effects being target dependent (and needing optimization) is certainly a factor as I recall, and I've heard Luke say the same re: his laser models because meat is harder to burn through than other materials (See here for refrence.) although this again gets into how you think lasweapons in 40K work (or how consistently they are designed.) For all we know they need the AdMech to 're-optimize' them for certain threats (Orks vs humans, for example, or Orks vs Tyranids.. esp given the properties ascribed to Tyranid carapace.) And with space marines it wouldn't even matter if you can penetrate, since their pain resistance and ability to coagulate make them harder to stop unless you place the shots in the right place (or happen to have a hotshot pack on hand.)


Sure, if you're burning through by brute force. If you're doing it the smart (timed pulses) way then flesh becomes much easier to burn through than armor. I can believe the Admech going around before a campaign and adjusting the pulse timings and powers to suit the most common enemies that will be faced. I also think that adaptive optic stabilization is one of the reasons why the Imperium can have a levee-en-masse type army that still maintains relatively high effectiveness.

Connor MacLeod wrote:
And lascannons, at least in the fluff, generally have the power to completely vaporized/blown apart (whether literal, or simply meaning 'blasting apart') a person, or at least the upper body, if not the entire person. And by 'person' that can include 'power armored space marines' and I believe Orks.


By my calculations at least, Lascannons are sufficiently powerful that the beam self-focuses quite tightly until a kilometer or so out, then diverges outward into uselessness over the course of only a few hundred meters. That means that if it hits something like a person, it will blow them apart but the chunks will be relatively big (halves, etc.). In order to vaporize a significant part of their body the energy would have to be distributed over it evenly, not all dumped into a few cubic centimeters instantaneously.

Admittedly, I think that's a reasonable explanation for what they're talking about when they say "blasting apart" or the like. There's a danger in taking descriptions too literally that crops up from time to time. The worst example of that I've ever seen was someone in a forum thread with a long and mathematically laborious analysis of the energies for various 40K weapons. It came up with ridiculous numbers because he took a statement like "the bolt-round vaporized so-and-so's head" to mean it literally added the full vaporization energy to every cubic mm of material in the target's head.




   
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Cividale del Friuli (UD) Italy

Yeah folks...

There's just one simple thing that we have to take into considerations when reading/interpreting fluff.
The person that wrote it isn't a scientist/physicist/technician. They have maybe barely any actual knowledge on what they are talking about and often don't care that much about realism or veracity.
It just has to sound kind of logical and plausible, an most importantly ENTERTAINING.

And always remember the Rule of Cool folks!!!!

Professional armourer, artist, blacksmith.

http://www.magisterarmorum.com
 
   
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 Scipio Americanus wrote:
Campbell's estimates tend to be over-optimistic. Where they disagree, I find Schilling to usually be more on point. Also, the general lack of discussion of semiconductor diode stack/fibre lasers, one of the most promising and near-term possible technologies for making these kind of weapons, is a little curious to me.


I haven't seen Schilling post anything that wasn't on the old usenet boards (where they seemed to evolve from 'heat ray' to 'single pulse' to 'pulse train' ideas over time) Nyrath drew his data from previously, and most of that I've seen ended up on atomic rockets. Best as I can tell the 'pulse train' stuff developed gradually over time, and was still focused mostly on microsecond rather than nanosecond duration pulses. If anything I'd have interpreted it as the opposite - Luke seems to think lasers will be more brute force in needing more energy/fewer pulses (at least by his more recent stuff) than Schilling did, unless there is more info I've missed (always possible. I don't always know the places to look and google searches are hit and miss at best.)

Of course prior to discovering those guys the best 'sources' I ever found was extrapolation from surgical lasers (not exactly the best, since they're more concerned with limiting collateral damage rather than inflicting it, but its the best on tissue-laser interactions I found prior to that.)


That may just be a figment of most of the discussions having taken place back in 2006/07 before the big increase in their power started being realized.


The most recent stuff I've seen from Luke was 2010 off SFConsim, which Nyrath posted on Atomic Rockets on the sidearms page.




Sure, if you're burning through by brute force. If you're doing it the smart (timed pulses) way then flesh becomes much easier to burn through than armor. I can believe the Admech going around before a campaign and adjusting the pulse timings and powers to suit the most common enemies that will be faced. I also think that adaptive optic stabilization is one of the reasons why the Imperium can have a levee-en-masse type army that still maintains relatively high effectiveness.


I could be wrong but I don't think he meant 'burn' literally. The post I mentioned was, IIRC about pulsed lasers, not CW - his idea for continous lasers is pretty consistently a 'flamethrower' type weapon rather than literally burning a hole through (its debatable whether people stand still long enough to allow that.) Given the context of the post I mentioned, it seems to be contingent on the 'type/variety' (to use his words) of laser. Whether he means wavelength or any other paramters, I dunno, but it does seem conditional. Also, looking it over again it wasn't nearly as absolute as I thought (and presented this above.) My bad.

Connor MacLeod wrote:
By my calculations at least, Lascannons are sufficiently powerful that the beam self-focuses quite tightly until a kilometer or so out, then diverges outward into uselessness over the course of only a few hundred meters. That means that if it hits something like a person, it will blow them apart but the chunks will be relatively big (halves, etc.). In order to vaporize a significant part of their body the energy would have to be distributed over it evenly, not all dumped into a few cubic centimeters instantaneously.


They do have wide-beam settings (at least they did in the HH series, as per certain novels like Legion) so it may be. Then again they may just not be real lasers, there's always that issue depending on your sources (one of the earliest 1st edition sources I recall had a lasgun blast punching a fist-wide hole completely through the target AND cauterizing it. I still havne't figured that one out.)


Admittedly, I think that's a reasonable explanation for what they're talking about when they say "blasting apart" or the like. There's a danger in taking descriptions too literally that crops up from time to time. The worst example of that I've ever seen was someone in a forum thread with a long and mathematically laborious analysis of the energies for various 40K weapons. It came up with ridiculous numbers because he took a statement like "the bolt-round vaporized so-and-so's head" to mean it literally added the full vaporization energy to every cubic mm of material in the target's head.


That's going to be true pretty much of any fluff in my experience, though, and it can cut both ways. We generally aren't graced with any insight into the actual meaning attached to the words we read, so we're left to figure it out on our own (interpretation and inference) and we may be right or wrong in how we do it. Sometimes its easy, sometimes its not. Sometimes people will agree, and sometimes they'll attach different meanings to different words. And in 40K sometimes vaporization is literal (based on the context I've read, at least) and sometimes its not. (Same way with incinerate, cremate, melt, burn, slag, evaporate, boil, shred, lacerate, or anything really descriptive.) 40K doesn't seem to be made for absolute generalizations, but more case by case basis (which is hard, tedious and generally time consuming.. but there you go.)

I suppose if it were easy and straightforward, there wouldn't be so much argument over what is 'sensible' in 40K to begin with

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/03/19 03:02:32


 
   
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