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Closest thing to mechs are exoskeletons not only for medical stuff but for soldiers and construction/industrial workers.
Just wait 5-10 years. This thing gonna be everywhere.
Power armor isn't mechs, it's power armor. Mechs are super complex compared to the most complicated of tanks, have more weak spots and a higher battlefield profile.
So we might see power loaders or construction mechs, but they'll be garbage platforms for combat units.
That still leaves us with possible Patlabor units, which I'd be okay with.
A big problem with power armor with our current tech level is that while your a walking target, you’re not indestructible, and won’t survive heavy fire without making a crazy bulky suit that may as well be a mech. Should we return to large scale wars, exosuits will probably arise as a way to making heavier weapons man-portable.
If the truth can destroy it, then it deserves to be destroyed.
A big problem with power armor with our current tech level is that while your a walking target, you’re not indestructible, and won’t survive heavy fire without making a crazy bulky suit that may as well be a mech. Should we return to large scale wars, exosuits will probably arise as a way to making heavier weapons man-portable.
Yes, this is pretty much the approach DARPA and such are looking at - exo-suits that raise the soldier's carrying capacity while lowering fatigue.
Flinty wrote: Meh, modern military would be taking lowest bidder.
This reminded me of another thing.
The Imperium has regiments that are bigger than the entirety of the Tau military. Now, keep in mind that the Tau are mostly in just a few little spots and not widespread like the Imperium is.
The fact that the Imperium manages to put one of these lasguns in the hands of BILLIONS of troops should be impressive, because mass-production is the key to a successful piece of military equipment.
You have a better gun you designed? Great. Now, make millions of them and ship them in bulk. Oh, and make it so they require as little maintenance as possible and can survive the most hellish environments out there. And make it so they can be modified to some degree for tank crews and snipers etc., and the "ammo" should be universal and easy to access, and I'm also gonna need to be sure I can beat an Ork over the head with repeatedly and still be able to shoot accurately up to about 500 meters at least.
That achievement alone makes the Lasgun more of a technological marvel than a bolter or plasma weapon.
KingGarland wrote: I remember reading in some Tau books that when first encountering the Imperium and discovering some of the lower tech used like the Lasgun they were rather unimpressed
Well that's funny, because iirc its a lot harder to make a lethal laser weapon than a rail gun, which is what tau pulse weapons are. Seriously, the ad mech must put like 3 nuclear power plants or something worth of energy in a single power pack. Turns out you need absurd amounts of energy to make a laser deal any significant amount of damage.
Pulse weapons are not railguns, they are plasma weapons.
Not quite. They use an electromagnetic field to propel a solid projectile along a pair of rails so fast it turns into plasma.
Nope, the slug gets turned into plasma prior to it being fired down the barrel.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/11/04 11:40:40
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
KingGarland wrote: I remember reading in some Tau books that when first encountering the Imperium and discovering some of the lower tech used like the Lasgun they were rather unimpressed
Well that's funny, because iirc its a lot harder to make a lethal laser weapon than a rail gun, which is what tau pulse weapons are. Seriously, the ad mech must put like 3 nuclear power plants or something worth of energy in a single power pack. Turns out you need absurd amounts of energy to make a laser deal any significant amount of damage.
Pulse weapons are not railguns, they are plasma weapons.
Not quite. They use an electromagnetic field to propel a solid projectile along a pair of rails so fast it turns into plasma.
Nope, the slug gets turned into plasma prior to it being fired down the barrel.
Fair enough. It still uses railgun tech and magnetic induction to turn the projectile into plasma and propel it. I mean, its a cool piece of tech, but its still not as hard to pull off as a laser weapon, which requires absurd amounts of power into make the beam actually deal damage. The Imperium are basically using cheat codes when it comes to las weapons. On vehicles its more plausible, but hand held energy weapons are basically space magic.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/11/04 12:51:24
What I have
~4100
~1660
Westwood lives in death!
Peace through power!
A longbeard when it comes to Necrons and WHFB. Grumble Grumble
CthuluIsSpy wrote: On vehicles its more plausible, but hand held energy weapons are basically space magic.
It's space magic only because we haven't developed a technology that can hold enough energy in a small enough space. Lithium Ion batteries would have been considered "space magic" as well. Whether it comes from Graphine or some yet undeveloped high temperature superconductor we will eventually manage to get the energy densities and efficiencies to man portable levels. It's just a matter of time (assuming we make it that far).
Or maybe we finally find that there is some sort of physical (as in, physics limited) barrier that means it's impossible to get X amount of energy in any space smaller than Y.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/11/04 13:01:03
CthuluIsSpy wrote: On vehicles its more plausible, but hand held energy weapons are basically space magic.
It's space magic only because we haven't developed a technology that can hold enough energy in a small enough space. Lithium Ion batteries would have been considered "space magic" as well. Whether it comes from Graphine or some yet undeveloped high temperature superconductor we will eventually manage to get the energy densities and efficiencies to man portable levels. It's just a matter of time (assuming we make it that far).
In theory, yes, advances in battery technology can do that. However, its not going to happen in the foreseeable future, or maybe ever due to economics. Why invest in laser weapons that might not even work if you can invest in things that do work? We're going to get railguns a lot sooner than laser weapons, because they are relatively easier to make.
That's actually a neat thing about Tau - their weapon systems and tactics are actually fairly plausible for a 40k army...well, until GW introduced the big dumb suits that is.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/11/04 13:14:12
What I have
~4100
~1660
Westwood lives in death!
Peace through power!
A longbeard when it comes to Necrons and WHFB. Grumble Grumble
Or maybe we finally find that there is some sort of physical (as in, physics limited) barrier that means it's impossible to get X amount of energy in any space smaller than Y.
We already know this. It's called the Pauli exclusion principle. You can only fit so many things (such as electrons) into a physical space due to quantum energy states.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
I mean, its a cool piece of tech, but its still not as hard to pull off as a laser weapon, which requires absurd amounts of power into make the beam actually deal damage.
You know, if we start looking at the actual science behind it, using plasma as a projectile is also very energy-hungry, on top of being technically complicated.
You're replacing a solid projectile with a ball of super heated almost-gas. If the point is to burn the target, you need to pump enough energy into the plasma to make it lethal, find some technomagical way to keep the plasma into a coherent mass after it's shot and prevent all that energy from dissipating before it hits the target. Even then, a lot of the energy will be lost heating the air and not what you're shooting, so the energy you started with needs to be enormous...
Lasers are impractical mostly because electromagnetic radiation is never fully absorbed by the target. Also, it's pretty easy to make a material that reflects whatever wavelength the laser is emitting. If you reflect 90% of the incoming radiation (which isn't even a very high ratio compared to what can be done with current technology) that means the remaining 10% is what's going to do damage so yeah, it's very inefficient.
Launching a hard piece of metal really fast is just way easier, cheaper and more effective. So if you want cool laser beams and chainsaw-swords, it's better to ignore the laws of physics for the most part...
I mean, its a cool piece of tech, but its still not as hard to pull off as a laser weapon, which requires absurd amounts of power into make the beam actually deal damage.
You know, if we start looking at the actual science behind it, using plasma as a projectile is also very energy-hungry, on top of being technically complicated.
You're replacing a solid projectile with a ball of super heated almost-gas. If the point is to burn the target, you need to pump enough energy into the plasma to make it lethal, find some technomagical way to keep the plasma into a coherent mass after it's shot and prevent all that energy from dissipating before it hits the target. Even then, a lot of the energy will be lost heating the air and not what you're shooting, so the energy you started with needs to be enormous...
Lasers are impractical mostly because electromagnetic radiation is never fully absorbed by the target. Also, it's pretty easy to make a material that reflects whatever wavelength the laser is emitting. If you reflect 90% of the incoming radiation (which isn't even a very high ratio compared to what can be done with current technology) that means the remaining 10% is what's going to do damage so yeah, it's very inefficient.
Launching a hard piece of metal really fast is just way easier, cheaper and more effective. So if you want cool laser beams and chainsaw-swords, it's better to ignore the laws of physics for the most part...
I find it best to ignore science over all in 40k. 40k is so far in the future chances are a lot of our scientific laws and theories may have been disproven. especially in a setting where "a wizard did it" or "the devil (deamons) made me do it" might actually be VALID
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/11/04 20:09:29
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
Or maybe we finally find that there is some sort of physical (as in, physics limited) barrier that means it's impossible to get X amount of energy in any space smaller than Y.
We already know this. It's called the Pauli exclusion principle. You can only fit so many things (such as electrons) into a physical space due to quantum energy states.
And at least one science fiction setting (the Xeelee sequence) I know of explicitely namechecks it as the thing they violate to produce the in-setting superdense armour (because it produces collapsed-but-not-quite-neutronium material). The list of scientific laws we know 40k violates is quite long.
But yes, plasma weapons - which are rare-but-not-unheard-of rare - are about on par with 'normal' tau tech; the plasma rifle doesn't explode, true, but thats because it (a) is set to a lower power level rather than being inherently 'better' and (b) is battlesuit mounted rather than easily hand-held by infantry (the ridiculous punch imperial non-archeotech 'elite' tech can put into a pistol-scale sidearm is ridiculous...)
Adeptus Doritos wrote: TAU: "Hahaha, silly Gue'la! Look how primitive this gun is, it's just a laser? Hahaha! And your Space Marine gun... just shoots a big bullet that explodes? Pathetic!"
AELDARI: "Uh, don't do that... you might wanna stop."
IMPERIUM: "I think I'mma do it..."
TAU: "Do what, send in your clunky Knights? Our Broadside battlesuits make a mockery of them! Primitive Gue'la! Your technology is nothing compared to that of the Tau Empire!"
NECRONS: "Tau, this is where you need to STFU."
IMPERIUM: *wipes dust off an old console and calls over some Tech-Priests*
TYRANIDS: *detours elsewhere*
TAU: "You Gue'la are nothing without your numbers, your fear of technology is just old superstition. You should join our empire, and we can make you a part of the Greater Good- forget your rotting Emperor on his throne."
ORK: "Oh, 'ere we go..."
TAU: "There is nothing that this filthy Gue-"
IMPERIUM: *pushes a few buttons and bends time to superimposes a variation of Tau from a microsecond before back onto himself, simultaneously destroying every molecule in his body in an instant and leaving behind a void.*
TAU DRONE: *catches the Scrap Code and runs nothing but Microsoft Edge while it yeets weaponized memes through all other Tau technology*
IMPERIUM: "Huh, I thought this was the recaf machine. I was just gonna splash hot coffee on him."
My sides! Good god that was hilarious, exalt for you sir!
Ishagu wrote: Tau were baffled by Imperial warp drive tech in the lore.
I wonder how they'll react to the new Primaris with their shiny hover tanks, long range firepower, etc
I remember the Tau created a sub warp drive that allowed them to skim the edges of the warp without actually going in to it. This was a little faster than the speed of light, but nowhere near true warp engine speed. Sometimes they used their conquered races ships to use the warp. Kroot psychers....?
~4100
~1660
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
4,000 
Word Bearers 1,500