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 Desubot wrote:
That's quite a leap in conclusion

Whats wrong with a predator?

Standardized chassis for easy replacement
good armament with standard sized rounds that are simple to make?
decent firepower for what it is

Realizing it was made to combat orks which doesn't give that much time for prep and can spout out anywhere.

seems like a great idea for accessibility rather than having to overhall EVERy manucatorium to build a brand new hover chassis for some sort of benefit..

We also don't know it's original purpose. It could have been a light scout tank for all we know.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 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/

Then the FW is not the median, and is thus not eligible for use as a point of comparison to the median.

I'm not sure that's a smart thing to say, since the median human in the Imperium is probably at the same tech level as Earth right now. There's a crap ton of worlds in the Imperium in the stone, bronze, and iron ages. (Fenris comes readily to mind)

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Feudal_World http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Feral_World

In the Tau Empire, everyone has access to drones. Every soldier has access to pulse rifles. Every one of all castes have access to computers. In the Imperium, sections of the population (large enough to get mention in the core rulebook) lack access to electricity.

The Tau Empire is archeotech now?

Fine, let the mechanicum dig the remnants of this Empire ( which was either overrun by orks or nids, wholly enslaved by evil space elfs, dragged into the warp, cleansed off by Crons or just suffered a Mon'Tau ) out so we get to look at another failure that wanted to compete with the Realms of the god-Emporer. Am ok with that.


So maybe if I show some patience and wait for another month, someone is going to define " best" and "archeotech" ? Maybe?

 Desubot wrote:
That's quite a leap in conclusion

Whats wrong with a predator?

Standardized chassis for easy replacement
good armament with standard sized rounds that are simple to make?
decent firepower for what it is

Realizing it was made to combat orks which doesn't give that much time for prep and can spout out anywhere.

seems like a great idea for accessibility rather than having to overhall EVERy manucatorium to build a brand new hover chassis for some sort of benefit..

The only thing wrong with a predator is that it's mediocre. It's armament isn't great, it isn't truly amphibious, it gets held up by terrain... you can't throw it out of an aerial transport and trust it'll be just fine when it gets to the ground. Compared to its counterpart in the Tau Empire, Eldar Craftworlds, or Necron armies, it's just not that good... and it's what humanity came up with during its highest period of development.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
That's quite a leap in conclusion

Whats wrong with a predator?

Standardized chassis for easy replacement
good armament with standard sized rounds that are simple to make?
decent firepower for what it is

Realizing it was made to combat orks which doesn't give that much time for prep and can spout out anywhere.

seems like a great idea for accessibility rather than having to overhall EVERy manucatorium to build a brand new hover chassis for some sort of benefit..

We also don't know it's original purpose. It could have been a light scout tank for all we know.

Actually, we do. The Predator was a tank built from a rhino chassis to fight the orks when humanity first encountered them. Given that humanity needed tank to fight the orks, and didn't have something better in place, it was probably humanity's MBT during that timeframe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 1hadhq wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 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/

Then the FW is not the median, and is thus not eligible for use as a point of comparison to the median.

I'm not sure that's a smart thing to say, since the median human in the Imperium is probably at the same tech level as Earth right now. There's a crap ton of worlds in the Imperium in the stone, bronze, and iron ages. (Fenris comes readily to mind)

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Feudal_World http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Feral_World

In the Tau Empire, everyone has access to drones. Every soldier has access to pulse rifles. Every one of all castes have access to computers. In the Imperium, sections of the population (large enough to get mention in the core rulebook) lack access to electricity.

The Tau Empire is archeotech now?

Fine, let the mechanicum dig the remnants of this Empire ( which was either overrun by orks or nids, wholly enslaved by evil space elfs, dragged into the warp, cleansed off by Crons or just suffered a Mon'Tau ) out so we get to look at another failure that wanted to compete with the Realms of the god-Emporer. Am ok with that.


So maybe if I show some patience and wait for another month, someone is going to define " best" and "archeotech" ? Maybe?

I hate to break this to you, but the conversation got sidetracked. I'm started at the latest pages and working backwards.

At any rate, the Tau will survive the Imperium. The Imperium is beset on all fronts by enemies. Abaddon has sacked Cadia, and is preparing to rip open the Eye of Terror much, MUCH wider than it is now. When it does, the daemons that flood through are heading into the Imperium. The Tau will be safely on the other side of the galaxy while the IoM burns from predation by the tyranids, necrons, and Chaos.

I also can't help but notice that your only response to my point- that large expanses of the Imperium are inhabited by people less advanced than IRL- is to change the subject.

How are the Tau masters of plasma?

They use what, one plasma weapon in the traditional sense and then an energy packet version. MEanwhile the Imperium has pistols, rifles, man portable plasma cannon, executioner plasma cannon, plasma destructors on titans and tanks....

You can't seriously argue that somehow Tau have "mastered" plasma.

The tau have some technology that is better than some imperial technology, rail guns being the most obvious. They also have no social hang ups on AI (though this does not mean that makes them more advanced nor does it put them ahead of DAOT humans)

While Imperials have an equivelent for everything tau field, there are plenty of areas when the Imperium has items the tau have no answer for. Power weapons of all varieties are not something the tau can produce.

The entire median issue isn't really valid. The problem boils down to will. If the Imperium wanted to equip a like number of soldiers, it could slap them in power armor and give them plasma guns. They don't need to. The process works.

And if you wanted a true median, you would look at the mid level Imperial soldier. Guard are the bottom, scion are the middle, space marine are the top. You have the ultra low on the very bottom, conscripts, and the ultra high as well, Deathwatch, Grey Knights, and assassins.

So a real median Imperial is a scion with hot shot las guns (basically the equal to pulse rifles as a whole), a couple specialist squad weapons, and carapace armor. Really the same.

In terms of top level technology, the Imperium buries the Tau. Any argument to the contrary is made along that tired line "fastest to plasma technology" which has no real validity since humanity didn't get the benefit of a warp storm to protect it, and didn't have a friendly alien race drop off etherals to pull them together.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
That's quite a leap in conclusion

Whats wrong with a predator?

Standardized chassis for easy replacement
good armament with standard sized rounds that are simple to make?
decent firepower for what it is

Realizing it was made to combat orks which doesn't give that much time for prep and can spout out anywhere.

seems like a great idea for accessibility rather than having to overhall EVERy manucatorium to build a brand new hover chassis for some sort of benefit..

The only thing wrong with a predator is that it's mediocre. It's armament isn't great, it isn't truly amphibious, it gets held up by terrain... you can't throw it out of an aerial transport and trust it'll be just fine when it gets to the ground. Compared to its counterpart in the Tau Empire, Eldar Craftworlds, or Necron armies, it's just not that good... and it's what humanity came up with during its highest period of development.

Mediocre but in a rediculus amounts and quick to make is a quality of its own. and realizing that Tau and Eldar do not fight the same way as the imperium as they cannot afford to hold ground with there numbers and speed.

there is no reason for the imperium to fly and drop kick preditors out of the sky because they should have 20 manufactorums within a 500 mile radius of where its needed.

They also came up with grav tech during that time to. but a little blerb from at least the land speeder section shows that the technology is sound but requires a dumb amount of specialized material and maintenance to keep them actually operational. including plasma tech iirc. you can see how that would be a problem when resources has to be shuttled across the entire galaxy rather than a few star systems or through webway cheat holes.

 1hadhq wrote:


So maybe if I show some patience and wait for another month, someone is going to define " best" and "archeotech" ? Maybe?

 EmpNortonII wrote:

I hate to break this to you, but the conversation got sidetracked. I'm started at the latest pages and working backwards.

See the thread title ?
Includes "best" "archeotech" and human. Does not include Tau.

I don't think I missed the derailment, but still kept to the original subject.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

At any rate, the Tau will survive the Imperium. The Imperium is beset on all fronts by enemies.

Very very unlikely. All they got is a)peta-tons of plot-armor and b) the specialization "survivalist" is a Human one.
Take the Etherals away and re-boot the timeline. No artificially added ruling caste - no Tau.
Take the High Lords away and re-boot and you get.....lots of Humans. Just a different management then.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

I also can't help but notice that your only response to my point- that large expanses of the Imperium are inhabited by people less advanced than IRL- is to change the subject.

Human worlds aren't clones.
Xeno worlds (aka the playable faction who would be the red-shirts in ST ) are ...
Its pretty obvious we have a range of Human worlds to built all imaginable storys on, and we have some 08/15 clones for the non-Humans.
So your point is: Humans = variety , xenos = copies. Right ?


How about the possibility to find archeotech:
- at densly populated highly indistrialized worlds
- at lowly populated stone age worlds
??

Maybe its better to have some "barbaric" worlds, where the locals won't find everything before somebody who knowns what it is does ?

Predators were not the peak of human tech in their greatest period. It is easily sustained in numbers and repairedAlso, a predator has greater armament than a hammer head.

During the great crusade, there were hover rhinos and landraiders. But you can't produce enough of them to run a real empire. IF you only have 25 systems, sure. They could have chosen that path.

[quote=EmpNortonII 616665 7241941 c6f5cc472b8f659245fda2c98f374dfa.jp

Actually, we do. The Predator was a tank built from a rhino chassis to fight the orks when humanity first encountered them. Given that humanity needed tank to fight the orks, and didn't have something better in place, it was probably humanity's MBT during that timeframe.

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

thing about STC tech is it wasn't designed to nesscarily produce the most advanced tech acheivable nesscarily. rather it was to porovide something that any human colony world could produce. the predator was basicly the "cheap milita tank" it was the TECHNICAL of the DAOT.

It's a bit like if we had today's technology, but still gave our soldiers guns from WWI or II because it's all we can afford. It's a bit like that with the imperium now too, they are definitely high tech, but you wouldn't see it most of the time.

Whats kinda funny is that lots of WW2 and WW1 weapons are functionally little different from modern weapons in effectiveness.

M-16 is more accurate, but has less killing power than M1-Garands and Thompsons which fired a much larger round. Its basically trading stopping power for armor penetration and accuracy. Which is beneficial when you are fighting at range and/or facing opponents with body armor(not necessarily common) At the range most firefights occur, accuracy over distance isn't as big a concern.

We're still using the M2 .50cal, literally unchanged since it was first introduced.

If anything the finer tolerances of some of the more modern weapons are actually a little poorer because you have to keep them cleaner.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Whats kinda funny is that lots of WW2 and WW1 weapons are functionally little different from modern weapons in effectiveness.

M-16 is more accurate, but has less killing power than M1-Garands and Thompsons which fired a much larger round. Its basically trading stopping power for armor penetration and accuracy. Which is beneficial when you are fighting at range and/or facing opponents with body armor(not necessarily common) At the range most firefights occur, accuracy over distance isn't as big a concern.

We're still using the M2 .50cal, literally unchanged since it was first introduced.

If anything the finer tolerances of some of the more modern weapons are actually a little poorer because you have to keep them cleaner.

Although, the M-16 is actually incredibly lethal if it scores a chest cavity shot. 5.56 is designed to ping around the chest cavity of some unlucky sod on the receiving end like a ping pong ball, tearing up organs as it exits from a completely different angle.

Otherwise though, probably wouldn't change much. The only thing I can think of that would be a major boon for whoever got it is scopes and grenade launchers especially. Rifles themselves don't do much in any war and are largely used just for suppression. IIRC something like 99% of all small arms fails to even hit the enemy. The main casualty producers are artillery, mortars, grenades, cannons, bombs, etc. Pretty much anything that produces shrapnel upon impact.

Yup. IIRC someone did a calculation of approximate combat casualties vs the approximate number of bullets fired in WW2 and it was many thousands of rounds per casualty inflicted. And that was just total casualties caused in combat. They didn't take away casualties potentially caused by artillery or bombs so the figure would actually be higher.

I think the casualties to bullets fired ratio was actually smaller when people stood in lines and fired smoothbore's at each other

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yup. IIRC someone did a calculation of approximate combat casualties vs the approximate number of bullets fired in WW2 and it was many thousands of rounds per casualty inflicted. And that was just total casualties caused in combat. They didn't take away casualties potentially caused by artillery or bombs so the figure would actually be higher.

I think the casualties to bullets fired ratio was actually smaller when people stood in lines and fired smoothbore's at each other

Actually those were drastically lower. While muskets were a lot nastier then modern day bullets (save up to the fifty range), they were horrendously inaccurate, and bayonet charges actually reduced casualties. It was around the time of the American Civil War where people stopped charging into melee and just kept shooting that the death toll skyrocketed.

Bayonet charges weren't really about casualties anyway though. They were push tactics to finish a demoralized enemy.

Going back to it, this has morphed back into modern 40k when the original question was about archeotech.

To answer that, no, it was human produced and far ahead of all but Eldar and Necron (and really, other than psyker attunment, it probably slightly surpassed the Eldar).

Even now, the Imperium is capable of fielding technology beyond the other races, other than Necron and Eldar. They have modified their technology to produce huge quantities of munitions and have automated the process to the point where wars can be fought inside factories with munitions being used straight off the line. The system was established to produce huge quantity of battle ready and effective soldiers quickly.

Unfortunately some people see the clean design of the model line and equate that to higher tech.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yup. IIRC someone did a calculation of approximate combat casualties vs the approximate number of bullets fired in WW2 and it was many thousands of rounds per casualty inflicted. And that was just total casualties caused in combat. They didn't take away casualties potentially caused by artillery or bombs so the figure would actually be higher.

I think the casualties to bullets fired ratio was actually smaller when people stood in lines and fired smoothbore's at each other

Actually those were drastically lower. While muskets were a lot nastier then modern day bullets (save up to the fifty range), they were horrendously inaccurate, and bayonet charges actually reduced casualties. It was around the time of the American Civil War where people stopped charging into melee and just kept shooting that the death toll skyrocketed.

Bayonet charges were about breaking the enemy, not killing them. But once you broke them, you entered the pursuit phase of the battle and proceeded to cut down the enemy. Those who ran slowly were killed, those who ran fast lived a few days and then either starved or were killed while trying to steal some food.

In the early 19th centry and before, melee was not about causing causualties but breaking the enemy. Once you broke them you had what you wanted, but you could also elect to kill them. Around the time of the napoleonic+crimean wars charging into melee became a high risk action, but it also came with a high reward, as once you broke the enemy you could virtually annihilate them.

Taking a look at WWI, casualties in battle were up, but no one could ever get to the pursuit phase. Battles overall were less deadly. That the battle basically lasted for months on end, as part of a constant war that lasted 4 years, with the largest armies ever concieved, made the overall war much more deadly.

 PhillyT wrote:
Bayonet charges weren't really about casualties anyway though. They were push tactics to finish a demoralized enemy.

Going back to it, this has morphed back into modern 40k when the original question was about archeotech.

To answer that, no, it was human produced and far ahead of all but Eldar and Necron (and really, other than psyker attunment, it probably slightly surpassed the Eldar).

Even now, the Imperium is capable of fielding technology beyond the other races, other than Necron and Eldar. They have modified their technology to produce huge quantities of munitions and have automated the process to the point where wars can be fought inside factories with munitions being used straight off the line. The system was established to produce huge quantity of battle ready and effective soldiers quickly.

Unfortunately some people see the clean design of the model line and equate that to higher tech.

Is there anyone (other than nortall) who is arguing that?

Edit: damn ninjas

Sort of, but certainly mostly him!

It should also be noted that, with both the American Civil War and WW1, weapons technology had surpassed military tactics of the day. In the case of the ACW, Napoleonic tactics were the rule of the day, designed for blocks of infantry using smooth-bore muskets... but the M1861 Springfield (and all of its contemporaries) were rifled, providing accuracy out to hundreds of yards.

Again, in WW1, we saw the first mass deployment of machine guns and man-portable explosives. While the ACW of fifty-some years prior had the Gatling gun, that was not developed until very late in the war, and had a very limited ammunition supply... not a belt or magazine-fed weapon like we would see in WW1 that could cut down blocks of infantry (or mounted cavalry) like wheat before a scythe. The tactics of war were forced to change, and a whole fethload of people died in that process.

The problem with the Imperium and archotech is that due to the age of strife people became so fearful of the awesome power of their own technology that if suddenly the admech decided to start producing it again half the Imperium would either rebel and/or slaughter any admech they could find, seethe iron men. Hence why when emps came back there was massive advancements, partially due to retrieved archotech, but also because under the emps direct influence the admech was able to re enlighten itself. On some worlds its not a problem such as the ones that aren't mentioned in most fluff or really represented in game because its not grimdarky enough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would also like to point out that during the American civil war there was also breach loading rifles and msrtini action weapons like the henry repeater, all bought at the soldiers expense but they massacred whole regiments

IT WAS AN EXAMPLE DAMMIT!

You people are so entertain .

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
IT WAS AN EXAMPLE DAMMIT!

You people are so entertain .

Confused?

 cyphersbootlick wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
IT WAS AN EXAMPLE DAMMIT!

You people are so entertain .

Confused?

It's entertaining how people will dissemble tiny things, even though it was obviously just an example.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 cyphersbootlick wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
IT WAS AN EXAMPLE DAMMIT!

You people are so entertain .

Confused?

It's entertaining how people will dissemble tiny things, even though it was obviously just an example.

Still none the wiser.

 cyphersbootlick wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 cyphersbootlick wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
IT WAS AN EXAMPLE DAMMIT!

You people are so entertain .

Confused?

It's entertaining how people will dissemble tiny things, even though it was obviously just an example.

Still none the wiser.

Oh, I see the problem here. I was't talking at you, I was talking to the guys above you who were dissecting my quote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a bit like if we had today's technology, but still gave our soldiers guns from WWI or II because it's all we can afford. It's a bit like that with the imperium now too, they are definitely high tech, but you wouldn't see it most of the time.

yeah I see that now.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
That's quite a leap in conclusion

Whats wrong with a predator?

Standardized chassis for easy replacement
good armament with standard sized rounds that are simple to make?
decent firepower for what it is

Realizing it was made to combat orks which doesn't give that much time for prep and can spout out anywhere.

seems like a great idea for accessibility rather than having to overhall EVERy manucatorium to build a brand new hover chassis for some sort of benefit..

The only thing wrong with a predator is that it's mediocre. It's armament isn't great, it isn't truly amphibious, it gets held up by terrain... you can't throw it out of an aerial transport and trust it'll be just fine when it gets to the ground. Compared to its counterpart in the Tau Empire, Eldar Craftworlds, or Necron armies, it's just not that good... and it's what humanity came up with during its highest period of development.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
That's quite a leap in conclusion

Whats wrong with a predator?

Standardized chassis for easy replacement
good armament with standard sized rounds that are simple to make?
decent firepower for what it is

Realizing it was made to combat orks which doesn't give that much time for prep and can spout out anywhere.

seems like a great idea for accessibility rather than having to overhall EVERy manucatorium to build a brand new hover chassis for some sort of benefit..

We also don't know it's original purpose. It could have been a light scout tank for all we know.

Actually, we do. The Predator was a tank built from a rhino chassis to fight the orks when humanity first encountered them. Given that humanity needed tank to fight the orks, and didn't have something better in place, it was probably humanity's MBT during that timeframe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 1hadhq wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 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/

Then the FW is not the median, and is thus not eligible for use as a point of comparison to the median.

I'm not sure that's a smart thing to say, since the median human in the Imperium is probably at the same tech level as Earth right now. There's a crap ton of worlds in the Imperium in the stone, bronze, and iron ages. (Fenris comes readily to mind)

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Feudal_World http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Feral_World

In the Tau Empire, everyone has access to drones. Every soldier has access to pulse rifles. Every one of all castes have access to computers. In the Imperium, sections of the population (large enough to get mention in the core rulebook) lack access to electricity.

The Tau Empire is archeotech now?

Fine, let the mechanicum dig the remnants of this Empire ( which was either overrun by orks or nids, wholly enslaved by evil space elfs, dragged into the warp, cleansed off by Crons or just suffered a Mon'Tau ) out so we get to look at another failure that wanted to compete with the Realms of the god-Emporer. Am ok with that.


So maybe if I show some patience and wait for another month, someone is going to define " best" and "archeotech" ? Maybe?

I hate to break this to you, but the conversation got sidetracked. I'm started at the latest pages and working backwards.

At any rate, the Tau will survive the Imperium. The Imperium is beset on all fronts by enemies. Abaddon has sacked Cadia, and is preparing to rip open the Eye of Terror much, MUCH wider than it is now. When it does, the daemons that flood through are heading into the Imperium. The Tau will be safely on the other side of the galaxy while the IoM burns from predation by the tyranids, necrons, and Chaos.

I also can't help but notice that your only response to my point- that large expanses of the Imperium are inhabited by people less advanced than IRL- is to change the subject.

So, instead of looking at the Predator, please take a look at the Sicarian. That was the real Battle Tank for the peak of humanity's technological advancement, and it is one hell of a tank.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

So, instead of looking at the Predator, please take a look at the Sicarian. That was the real Battle Tank for the peak of humanity's technological advancement, and it is one hell of a tank.

Don't have the book containing its rules, but I still see tracks.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

So, instead of looking at the Predator, please take a look at the Sicarian. That was the real Battle Tank for the peak of humanity's technological advancement, and it is one hell of a tank.

Don't have the book containing its rules, but I still see tracks.

And still nothing wrong with tracks. Still the same issue of large amounts of maintenance and rare materials to build which is incredibly impractical. or are we going to ignore that?


Edit: Sicarian is a Relic Tank with 13 all around and a main battle cannon that is a auto cannon that shoots a bit faster (6 shots) also advanced targeting systems that denies jinking. (rending as well)