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 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, Even their height, humanity never surpassed the eldar in all there glory. Maybe the eldar now, but i doubt it. What should be remembered is that for max tech the:scale is"
1. Necrons
2. Eldar
3. Imperium
4. Tau

But for median tech it is:
1. Necrons
2. Eldar
3. Tau
4. Imperium

I was referring to science based technology. Eldar science is linked and boosted inextricably by their immense psyker abilities.

And what constitutes medium tech? Pound for pound, space marines alone are equal to tau and surpass them in many ways.

Median tech. What does the middle individual have? I use medium because it is more fair than average for this purpose, but you would probably get what I was saying if Isaid average tech.

And no, space marines are not higherr tech than, I don't know, crisis suits. Riptides. Even stealth suits.

Power armor, terminator armor, artificer armor, centurion armor, dreadnaught armor.

As far as median technology, fire warriors are no more median than space marines.

 PhillyT wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, Even their height, humanity never surpassed the eldar in all there glory. Maybe the eldar now, but i doubt it. What should be remembered is that for max tech the:scale is"
1. Necrons
2. Eldar
3. Imperium
4. Tau

But for median tech it is:
1. Necrons
2. Eldar
3. Tau
4. Imperium

I was referring to science based technology. Eldar science is linked and boosted inextricably by their immense psyker abilities.

And what constitutes medium tech? Pound for pound, space marines alone are equal to tau and surpass them in many ways.

Median tech. What does the middle individual have? I use medium because it is more fair than average for this purpose, but you would probably get what I was saying if Isaid average tech.

And no, space marines are not higher tech than, I don't know, crisis suits. Riptides. Even stealth suits.

Power armor, terminator armor, artificer armor, centurion armor, dreadnaught armor.

As far as median technology, fire warriors are no more median than space marines.

A space marine is rare. Very rare. It is no where near the median tech level of the imperium. The medium tech level of the imperium is barley above us, if that. For their armed forces, IG are the median. For tau, they all have the high tech stuff.

Yeah, Space Marines are not the median. The median would be somewhere between Imperial Guard and the Schola.

I think Stormtroopers might be a good medium; they have affordable yet effective equipment, as opposed to the IG who have some cheap, easily manufactured stuff.

Keep in mind that the reason why the average Tau has better equipment is because the Tau is not as burdened by logistics as the IoM; the IoM has to quickly churn out enough equipment to arm several billion soldiers across several hundred sectors. They don't have time to give everyone carapace armor and hellguns, especially when it will most likely get lost on the battlefield.

The median technology of the imperium is far ahead of our tech levels.

You are talking about an empire that is at least passably capable of maintianing a million planet empire with the logisitical ability of feeding trillions of citizens, maintaining hive worlds, one of which alone is potentially equal to the entire Tau population, forge worlds pumping more munitions in a year than the entire Tau empire has used in its entire existence, and a system able to move many times the entire tau population around the galaxy.

Lets not get too crazy downplaying the basic capabilities of the imperium.

You appear to mis-understand. Median is the median person. The median person might have some stuff akin to a lasgun. but not much higher than that.

What does a median Tau have? A spanner?

Sonic screwdriver.

Techno shovels.

The tau median is about at the level of a fire warrior, all tau have the high-tech stuff, because it is not high-tech to them.

So you are arguing that the median technology for the tau is equal to their specific warrior caste?

Okay. Who is the Imperiums warrior caste?

Yeah, I don't think Tau civilians have access to military grade tech.

You mis-understand tau. There is no buying things, you are given it. You are given high-tech stuff that is for your job. The earth caste )which are the workers) use things like drones to help with their jobs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PhillyT wrote:
So you are arguing that the median technology for the tau is equal to their specific warrior caste?

Okay. Who is the Imperiums warrior caste?

No, I am arguing that all castes have the same level of tech. For tau, civilian tech is just as important as military tech.

So you don't equate garden world tech or forge world tech with earth caste technology?

Is that:
a. An indivudual's tech
b. median tech

 PhillyT wrote:
What does a median Tau have? A spanner?

a kroot hunting rifle

Another Tau.
They pick up the Tau closest to them and use them like a hammer.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Is that:
a. An indivudual's tech
b. median tech

So what your saying is if you put arbitrary limits on what tech you can include you come out with the result you want? The IoM as a society is structured very differently to the Tau Empire. Many things the Tau create are far inferior to IoM, some are superior. Limiting it to the tech a single person can carry, or even own, is just silly.

It's a good median. How about this, how advanced is the average tech, tau still win on that one.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a good median. How about this, how advanced is the average tech, tau still win on that one.

ok first of all sometimes it gets hard to describe something as nessscarily being more advanced. one needs to step back and look at the context. the IoM has lots of high tech, but doesn't nesscarily deploy it because lives are cheap. it's easier just to produce basic easy to make stuff in HUGE numbers, and bury their opponents under weight of numbers (space Marines represent the kind of equipment you could expect from the IoM if they took a "every life is precious let's equip our guys in the best way we can money is no object!" mentality)

the Tau and IoM have a VERY VERY VERY VERY differnt approuch to logistics. you IMHO can't really compare the two. the Tau basicly equip their troops with some of the best tech they have. the IoM equips their troops with the MOST RELIABLE tech they have.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a good median. How about this, how advanced is the average tech, tau still win on that one.

It's not. Like I said, it ignores the fact that the IoM is set up in a very different way. It uses much more mass labour and much more large, fixed machines. It's like comparing a wafer fab to an electrician and concluding that the electrician has more technologically advanced tools because he has a multi meter in his pocket and the worker at the wafer fab has nothing.

How do you define average? The IoM's biological and cybernetic equipment is far more advanced, their ships are far more advanced. They have much more advanced medicine, amour, many of the weapons are more advances. Tau have rail tech, but do they have any laser weapons? Their plasma is more reliable but not as powerful. I don't think Tau even have any weapons that are exterminatus level.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a good median. How about this, how advanced is the average tech, tau still win on that one.

ok first of all sometimes it gets hard to describe something as nessscarily being more advanced. one needs to step back and look at the context. the IoM has lots of high tech, but doesn't nesscarily deploy it because lives are cheap. it's easier just to produce basic easy to make stuff in HUGE numbers, and bury their opponents under weight of numbers (space Marines represent the kind of equipment you could expect from the IoM if they took a "every life is precious let's equip our guys in the best way we can money is no object!" mentality)

the Tau and IoM have a VERY VERY VERY VERY differnt approuch to logistics. you IMHO can't really compare the two. the Tau basicly equip their troops with some of the best tech they have. the IoM equips their troops with the MOST RELIABLE tech they have.

I agree, that's why I have two different lists, one for max tech (imp above tau) and one fore median or average tech (tau above imp). There is not question that the imperium has better tech than the tau, it's just that all the tau tech is (relatively) easily producible. It isn't something like a bolter, where a few clips of ammunition can be as expensive as the weapon itself.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a good median. How about this, how advanced is the average tech, tau still win on that one.

ok first of all sometimes it gets hard to describe something as nessscarily being more advanced. one needs to step back and look at the context. the IoM has lots of high tech, but doesn't nesscarily deploy it because lives are cheap. it's easier just to produce basic easy to make stuff in HUGE numbers, and bury their opponents under weight of numbers (space Marines represent the kind of equipment you could expect from the IoM if they took a "every life is precious let's equip our guys in the best way we can money is no object!" mentality)

the Tau and IoM have a VERY VERY VERY VERY differnt approuch to logistics. you IMHO can't really compare the two. the Tau basicly equip their troops with some of the best tech they have. the IoM equips their troops with the MOST RELIABLE tech they have.

Indeed. The closest real world equivalent I could think of is NATO and the USSR.

NATO gives it's soldiers the best tech they can acquire. The USSR gave their soldiers reliable but fairly basic armaments.

And the USSR had a lot of soldiers. Hey, this reminds me of something.

I don't think that is really valid though.

If you are trying to define median tech by what your average imperial has in their pockets, that isn't an accurate way to describe it.

Armageddon featured battles inside factories where chimera where being produced in an automated fashion, equipped with guns, and driven off the assembly line directly into combat INSIDE THE FACTORY THEY WERE MADE IN. During that conflict, the Imperium produced and deployed more on one forge world than the tau have probably ever produced in any iteration of their technology.

You can't restrict median tech to pockets when the job of your average forge world laborer is to push a button. They are different jobs. If the imperial method produces more vehicles of comparable ability at a much faster rate, how can that be lower tech? It just goes back to the lack of comparison.

What does it look like when the imperium equips its mid level soldiers, stormtroopers? A lot like how the tau equip their best soldiers. carapace armor and a hot shot lasgun, which is comparable to a tau rifle. Guardsmen are more akin to kroot in that they have what they need, but aren't really given enough to survive because it isn't really essential.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

I agree, that's why I have two different lists, one for max tech (imp above tau) and one fore median or average tech (tau above imp). There is not question that the imperium has better tech than the tau, it's just that all the tau tech is (relatively) easily producible. It isn't something like a bolter, where a few clips of ammunition can be as expensive as the weapon itself.

Tau tech is relatively easy to produce on the scale they have to do it. Produce on a hand full of worlds with easy supply lines and lots of control. Could they produce it on the scale of the las gun? Something that has been built by the billion, using whatever raw materials are available on the planet, can be field stripped and rebuilt by someone from a tribal world with a few weeks training, who's prior experience with technology was learning to use a flint and tinder or make a stone axe, and be re-loaded by chucking the power pack in a fire for a short while if needs be. Never mind the scale, is the Tau pulse rifle advanced enough to be that simple to use yet still effective? It's a different definition of advanced.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And the USSR had a lot of soldiers. Hey, this reminds me of something.

Yep.
The USSR is actually very similar to the IoM. The IoM even have a shrine to a preserved dead guy

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The tau median is about at the level of a fire warrior, all tau have the high-tech stuff, because it is not high-tech to them.

Citation needed. What's the percentage of Fire Warriors to, say, Earth Caste?

 Psienesis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The tau median is about at the level of a fire warrior, all tau have the high-tech stuff, because it is not high-tech to them.

Citation needed. What's the percentage of Fire Warriors to, say, Earth Caste?

A lot more earth caste, as the earth caste to all the production and design/

 PhillyT wrote:
The median technology of the imperium is far ahead of our tech levels.

You are talking about an empire that is at least passably capable of maintianing a million planet empire with the logisitical ability of feeding trillions of citizens, maintaining hive worlds, one of which alone is potentially equal to the entire Tau population, forge worlds pumping more munitions in a year than the entire Tau empire has used in its entire existence, and a system able to move many times the entire tau population around the galaxy.

Lets not get too crazy downplaying the basic capabilities of the imperium.

Not trillions of citizens. Quadrillions. I actually ran a calc somewhere of the calories the Imperium would need to ship daily to just a couple thousand Hive Worlds with a population of 100 billion or something.

It was frightening.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Indeed. The closest real world equivalent I could think of is NATO and the USSR.

NATO gives it's soldiers the best tech they can acquire. The USSR gave their soldiers reliable but fairly basic armaments.

This isn't really true. The various top level armaments and munitions for the USSR and NATO were roughly the same with only tactical goals defining a difference ie. Abrams were made to be fast and multi-roled while T80 were made for massed tank warfare on the European front.

The top level planes were similarly effective, though NATO often had more of the newest versions due to having a larger population.

On the soldier level, there was no difference in performance for infantry weapons. An M4 and an AK105 are about the same in terms of potential suppression and killing. M16 were about the same as AKM.