Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: DIO on April 17, 2004, 04:08:06 am
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why didn't GTA or GTVA used any Nuclear Weapons against shivans or vasduns?
why didn't they just blow up konososs with a hydrogen bomb
instead of that weird 150m long meson bomb?
why didn't they launch a full nuclear strike against sathanas fleet?
is there any answer to this?
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Yes, Meson warheads are more powerful than nuclear, hydrogen or atomic weaponry.
Welcome to the HLPBB :)
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well, you know, nuclear weapons are "planet killers" meaning if there's enough bombardment to a planet by nukes, the planet becomes unhabitable(to humans), so in their great wisdom, GTA prevented this by banning nuclear fission weapons
that's my theory
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Kal summed it up pretty nicely. :) You might note that the GTA did use nukes - the Harbinger is a combination of salted fission and fusion warheads.
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Nukes are much less powerful than the antimatter weapons like the helios used in FS2 and even those could barely scratch the Sathanas.
I have no idea what the FS2 ships are made out of but even FS2 fighters laugh off weapons fire that could level a city block.
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even if mesonbomb is more powerful then any nuclear weapon,
i don't think there is a huge diffarence between the power of the nuke weapon. blast radius of 3km isn't that big compared to the hydrogen bomb.
why didn't GTVA simply launched a cruise missile or something to
the sathanas fleet?
even if they banned the use of it, the sake of the entire race is depending on it.
btw, please forgive any grammar mistake or weird sentence. im not a native english speaker
;)
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You're forgetting that FS battles are played out in space. So there's hardly any thermal or kinnetic blast-waves thanks to the vacuum and the lack of air for the blast to super-heat.
And the Meson Bombs were used as much because of their affect on subspace as for their raw explosive power.
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Originally posted by an0n
You're forgetting that FS battles are played out in space. So there's hardly any thermal or kinnetic blast-waves thanks to the vacuum and the lack of air for the blast to super-heat.
And the Meson Bombs were used as much because of their affect on subspace as for their raw explosive power.
Oh, and how was a supernova supposed to kill if that was true? All that energy from the explosion has to go somewhere, and I would seriously doubt it all went to light.
Personal, this has been one of the things that has always bugged me about FS, indeed almost any Si-Fi, weapons. I mean, all the 'standard' missiles are suggested to use convential explosives, but then suddenly we have anti-matter bombs:wtf:
I feel that it's most likely that the 'bombs' in the game are all nuclear fusion bombs of different yields. From very low yield (Tusmani) up too very high (Helios).
Anti-matter is overused, and would you trust someone with it?
EDIT:Your proberly right about the Mesons bombs effects on subspace though.
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Hey, was it Rockeye or MX-50 that had a warhead of 15 Kt? :D
So they've bascially just made weapons with different damage ratings and later some drunken fellow was allowed to write descriptions about them.
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a supernova is a big cloud of gas, isn't it? there's your atmosphere.
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that meson bomb could probly leave a nice contenent sized hole in a planet if detonated in the atmosphere, people oftine overestemate the real power of nukes.
if you want some idea about the scales of power being used the harpoon is about as powerfull as a small tactical nuke (~70 kilotons)
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Explosions are too little for such bombs.
The explosion of nuclear bomb could destroy everything in 50km diameter. These explosions would be unusable in the game such as real physics.
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um,
_not in space_
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yeah, but a direct hit from a a nuke ( harbinger ) would not scratch a Sathanas. FS2 ( mmh, and star wars, and startreck, yeay for Babylon5, nukes are never underestimated , right, Sherridan? :D ) is completly idiotic on that regard.
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Originally posted by DIO
even if mesonbomb is more powerful then any nuclear weapon,
i don't think there is a huge diffarence between the power of the nuke weapon. blast radius of 3km isn't that big compared to the hydrogen bomb.
why didn't GTVA simply launched a cruise missile or something to
the sathanas fleet?
even if they banned the use of it, the sake of the entire race is depending on it.
btw, please forgive any grammar mistake or weird sentence. im not a native english speaker
;)
Your English is no problem. :) But as we've said, even if the power you mention was superior, the GTA has already tried them. Go replay FS1 and check the tech room descriptions of the bombs.
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GTM MX-50
Available for all space battles, defensive and offensive; medium payload (16.5 Kt); infrared tracking and semi-intelligent targeting; pilot chooses desired target, and the MX-50 tracks the chosen target based off the emission of heat from the engine, the weapon bays, and the cockpit of the target ship; the MX-50 will always attack a target that is determined to be hostile by the onboard computer of any GTA combat vessel, thus ensuring a higher kill rate, should the pilot find himself in a heated battle situation where precise aiming might be difficult.
GTM - 31 DISRUPTOR MISSILE
Advanced signal processing; high precision interception capability; small payload (9 Kt), combining both conventional explosives and a localized blast of energy caused by the effect of impact upon the laser-propulsion system of the missile; designed to temporarily disable subsystems on hostile targets.
GTM - 2 FURY
Small, fast dumbfire missiles; fired in swarms; GTA fighters can carry more Fury missiles than conventional missiles, due to their small size; used for distraction and other tactical measures; very small payload (3 Kt).
GTM - 4 HORNET
Infrared and ultraviolet tracking; designed to fire in small groups of 4 missiles per burst; light medium payload per missile (12 Kt); semi-intelligent on-board tracking; single-pass kill probability will not
exceed 60% on average; designed as an offensive version of the Fury.
GTM - 9 INTERCEPTOR
All-aspect seeking; laser tracking senses energy reflected off a target from the primary weapon systems of the target, increasing single-pass kill probability; medium payload (18.5 Kt); missile is designed to pierce
reinforced hull, thus securing itself to the target, prior to detonating (15 ms delay).
GTM PHOENIX V
All-aspect seeking; same tracking system as the Interceptor; large payload (50 Kt), but somewhat slower than the Interceptor; one of the best fire-and-forget missiles ever developed; many fighter pilots within the GTA regard the Phoenix V as the weapon of choice against high value, heavily defended targets.
GTM - 1 SYNAPTIC BOMB
Missile propulsion unit carrying several small intelligent "bomblets"; when distance to target is less than 100 m or when time to impact is less than 2 sec., bomblets direct missile to the most vulnerable part of the ship of those parts of the ship facing the missile; bomblets then separate from missile propulsion unit and form a sphere; inertia continues to carry bomblets in the direction of the target; the missile propulsion unit
continues to advance toward the target; when the missile hits the target or 1.5 sec. after the missile should have hit the target, the bomblets explode; the spherical shape of the formation of the bomblets helps to ensure a fairly even level of damage across a sensitive area on the target; the spherical shape also ensures that the target will not be able to effectively maneuver away from the blast, thus "pinning" the target to a specific area in space; can also act as dumbfire; medium payload per bomblet (15 Kt); very small payload for missile (2 Kt).
GTM - 43 STILETTO
All-aspect seeking; laser tracking similar to the Interceptor; missile is protected by a small shield system, allowing for greater success in payload delivery during busy melee situations and intense firefights; fast, but low in-flight maneuverability compared to other missiles of comparable size; low maneuverability due to the size of the missile’s payload (60 Kt) and on-board shield system.
GTM - 3 TSUNAMI
Intelligent tracking similar to GTA targeting system; prior to launch, communicates with ship computer, gathering data about enemy target types and whereabouts; slow, low maneuverability; antimatter warhead (500 tonne3 mass-to-energy conversion); due to instability of antimatter, no more than 6 may be carried on board a GTA bomber at any given time, unless pilot is granted a special permit by an appropriate governing body or pilot is to participate in a glory mission.
GTM - N1 HARBINGER
Fusion bomb surrounded by 3 salted fission bombs; propulsion unit is a half-size version of a regulation GTA fighter thruster (Class II); given the weight of the payloads, the missile is slow despite the power of the thruster; as the Harbinger is exceptionally large, GTA fighters and bombers are limited to carrying 2 of these weapons at any given time; the resultant shock wave from this weapon is potentially deadly, due to the size of the payloads (5000 Mt in total); use near allied installations or allied ship groupings is strongly discouraged by the GTA; most effective when used in preemptive defensive strike against non-military installations.
3kt is a small payload?! Hiroshima bomb with 13kt, apparently......
EDIT; and by the last line in the description (as well as being 5000Mt!! :eek: ), the Harbringer sounds almost like a planetkiller
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Originally posted by aldo_14
GTM MX-50
Available for all space battles, defensive and offensive; medium payload (16.5 Kt); infrared tracking and semi-intelligent targeting; pilot chooses desired target, and the MX-50 tracks the chosen target based off the emission of heat from the engine, the weapon bays, and the cockpit of the target ship; the MX-50 will always attack a target that is determined to be hostile by the onboard computer of any GTA combat vessel, thus ensuring a higher kill rate, should the pilot find himself in a heated battle situation where precise aiming might be difficult.
GTM - 31 DISRUPTOR MISSILE
Advanced signal processing; high precision interception capability; small payload (9 Kt), combining both conventional explosives and a localized blast of energy caused by the effect of impact upon the laser-propulsion system of the missile; designed to temporarily disable subsystems on hostile targets.
GTM - 2 FURY
Small, fast dumbfire missiles; fired in swarms; GTA fighters can carry more Fury missiles than conventional missiles, due to their small size; used for distraction and other tactical measures; very small payload (3 Kt).
GTM - 4 HORNET
Infrared and ultraviolet tracking; designed to fire in small groups of 4 missiles per burst; light medium payload per missile (12 Kt); semi-intelligent on-board tracking; single-pass kill probability will not
exceed 60% on average; designed as an offensive version of the Fury.
GTM - 9 INTERCEPTOR
All-aspect seeking; laser tracking senses energy reflected off a target from the primary weapon systems of the target, increasing single-pass kill probability; medium payload (18.5 Kt); missile is designed to pierce
reinforced hull, thus securing itself to the target, prior to detonating (15 ms delay).
GTM PHOENIX V
All-aspect seeking; same tracking system as the Interceptor; large payload (50 Kt), but somewhat slower than the Interceptor; one of the best fire-and-forget missiles ever developed; many fighter pilots within the GTA regard the Phoenix V as the weapon of choice against high value, heavily defended targets.
GTM - 1 SYNAPTIC BOMB
Missile propulsion unit carrying several small intelligent "bomblets"; when distance to target is less than 100 m or when time to impact is less than 2 sec., bomblets direct missile to the most vulnerable part of the ship of those parts of the ship facing the missile; bomblets then separate from missile propulsion unit and form a sphere; inertia continues to carry bomblets in the direction of the target; the missile propulsion unit
continues to advance toward the target; when the missile hits the target or 1.5 sec. after the missile should have hit the target, the bomblets explode; the spherical shape of the formation of the bomblets helps to ensure a fairly even level of damage across a sensitive area on the target; the spherical shape also ensures that the target will not be able to effectively maneuver away from the blast, thus "pinning" the target to a specific area in space; can also act as dumbfire; medium payload per bomblet (15 Kt); very small payload for missile (2 Kt).
GTM - 43 STILETTO
All-aspect seeking; laser tracking similar to the Interceptor; missile is protected by a small shield system, allowing for greater success in payload delivery during busy melee situations and intense firefights; fast, but low in-flight maneuverability compared to other missiles of comparable size; low maneuverability due to the size of the missile’s payload (60 Kt) and on-board shield system.
GTM - 3 TSUNAMI
Intelligent tracking similar to GTA targeting system; prior to launch, communicates with ship computer, gathering data about enemy target types and whereabouts; slow, low maneuverability; antimatter warhead (500 tonne3 mass-to-energy conversion); due to instability of antimatter, no more than 6 may be carried on board a GTA bomber at any given time, unless pilot is granted a special permit by an appropriate governing body or pilot is to participate in a glory mission.
GTM - N1 HARBINGER
Fusion bomb surrounded by 3 salted fission bombs; propulsion unit is a half-size version of a regulation GTA fighter thruster (Class II); given the weight of the payloads, the missile is slow despite the power of the thruster; as the Harbinger is exceptionally large, GTA fighters and bombers are limited to carrying 2 of these weapons at any given time; the resultant shock wave from this weapon is potentially deadly, due to the size of the payloads (5000 Mt in total); use near allied installations or allied ship groupings is strongly discouraged by the GTA; most effective when used in preemptive defensive strike against non-military installations.
3kt is a small payload?! Hiroshima bomb with 13kt, apparently......
EDIT; and by the last line in the description (as well as being 5000Mt!! :eek: ), the Harbringer sounds almost like a planetkiller
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it seems ships in freespace has ultra thick armor plating...
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Indeed they did, in addition to the aforementioned weakening effect space has on explosives. :)
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A atomic (plain fission) or a hydrogen fusion bomb (fission-fusion-fission bomb) does a lot of damage on a planet for a reason. The inital detonation of the device converts its energy into heat and light the same as say a light bulb.
obviously this is a little more powerfull than a light bulb, but its the same basic idea. (scale the lightbulb up a few million times) anything at ground zero will be vaporised by the intense heat (like you will burn your hand if you hold onto the light bulb), this heat then travels outward from the center of the blast for a long way. (put your hand near a light bulb and you can feel the heat a couple of inches away) The following dosen't happen in a light bulb...
Air at ground zero has been vaporised by the blast, creating a vacumn.
What then happens is air gets sucked back into the point where the device exploded so after every thing has been pushed one way it then gets pulled back the other way. This pulls down most buildings that haven't been pushed down or incenerated and does the damage most people associate with nuclear warheads.
In space there is nothing to carry shockwaves like this, so most of the blast would be just light, with heat damage only where the warhead is in direct contact with the hull (it would probably be melted) there would also be a EMP shockwave.
as Setekh said, the harbinger is a nuke. (fusion bomb = hydrogen bomb or (thermo) nuclear bomb) so the GTA did use them, and I think they said it had previously been reserved for planetry bombardments.
Where it says salted fission/fusion bomb, thats a description of a nuke. A fission explosion (in the KT range) provides the heat for the fusion of the hydrogen (now up to MT) which them starts another fisison explosion.
bobbau said about a harpoon being the size of a small tactical nuke at 70kt. The bomb dropped on hiroshima was somewhere around the 20kt range to the best of my knowledge. Thats not exactly little...
between the age of FS1 & FS2 the cyclops came in and as a conventional weapon managed to be twice as powerfull as a nuke, and how much more powerfull is the helios comparerd to the cyclops? and the helios to the meson bomb.... the nuke looks like a kids toy.
[EDIT] it looks like in the time it took me to type that out someone got here first..
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Originally posted by an0n
You're forgetting that FS battles are played out in space. So there's hardly any thermal or kinnetic blast-waves thanks to the vacuum and the lack of air for the blast to super-heat.
:nod:
That and the GTVA has similar and much more powerful weapons like the Harbinger and of course the Helios. (Nuclear fission and fusion if IIRC)
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Wasn't the Helios anti-matter?
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The Tsunami was, the Helios is meson - an 2 kvark particle, that very unstable.
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Originally posted by Flaser
The Tsunami was, the Helios is meson - an 2 kvark particle, that very unstable.
Nope
The GTM-13 Helios is the product of an entire generation of high-energy physics research, based primarily at the GTVA particle accelerator complex near Antares. The most powerful warhead in the fleet's arsenal, the Helios generates a massive shockwave from the cataclysmic annihilation of matter and anti-matter, triggered upon impact with its target. Each bank of Helios warheads can fire only once every 30 seconds. The Helios is prohibitively expensive to produce, thus its deployment is severely restricted."
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Originally posted by wojta
Explosions are too little for such bombs.
The explosion of nuclear bomb could destroy everything in 50km diameter. These explosions would be unusable in the game such as real physics.
Actually, a H bomb (more powerful than the regular nuke), has a blast radius of about 7 km, if I remember correctly. Most of the devistation comes from the radiation and the shockwave. We can assume that FS2 ships are hardened against radiation (because they have to withstand cosmic rays), and their are no shockwaves in space, sooo...that makes nukes pretty much innefective.
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Put simply: Gas-expansion weapons don't work in space. You need a nukes raw energy release to even make a dent.
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This is pretty much solved, so here's another question,
Is it possible to hear the things we hear in freespace like explosions and flybyes?? Also, Beams are visible aren't they, even though corrent light does not show, itstill gives of light we can see wehn talking about proton energy weapons.
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All of the laser weapons are bull**** science wise: it's only in atmospehere or water where the high energy beam would have to ionise the environment where you could see the beams.
Even then these would be a long continous stream from the barrel to the target - just like the beam weapons in FS.
A laser/electro-magnetic wave weapon would be invisible in space. All you would notice is the flare of the gun barrels and the shimmer of the heat sinks on the attacker and the sudden melt in the receivers armor. Furthermore these would be effectivly point-hit weapons, so anything in the target reticle would immediately get hit. A miss is still posible though since it takes time to charge the guns, and in reality the weapons would have to be actually aimed by computers, since some sort of adjustable convergence would be more than necessary - especially since the very beam you fire should be focused on the target as well or it will have minimal effect.
Beam weapons on the other hand look apropiate - they fire high powered plasma - BUT although you should be able to see it, this plasma should behave like a projectile, so unless it is fired from a very powerfull accelerator coil, it would have a little tendancy curve as a flamthrower's flame does.
As for the sound in space: Radio interference. High powered fusion engines, as well as high energy electro-magnetic equipment create readio noise that can interfere with the frequencies on which your flighradio operate.
This is actually a "welcome" fault in the system since it helps the pilot to give him more bearings.
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Not to mention that it would be completely possible for a computer to invent the sounds and play them to the pilot as a way of indicating danger behind him etc.
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just like when a bomb is detonated near, there is that "warning" type sound played
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I'd imagine that FS-era bombs direct most of their yield forward through the point of impact when they hit a ship's hull, while the shockwave is a secondary effect. It's the only real way to explain why a Harbinger with over thousands more times the firepower of the most primitive nuclear weapons doesn't have a shockwave the size of the play area. :)
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But it's in space...
The blast radius/shockwave of a space-born munition is strictly proportional to how far the little pieces of debris from the bomb do significant damage. The wave itself is only propogated if there is some form of medium. Otherwise, the detonation only serves to heat up whatever it hits. In some cases (and with a large enough bomb) the target may partially vaporize, causing an outlet of vapor in all directions away from the point of impact and creating a pseudo-shockwave, but this wouldn't be nearly as big as the blast wave created from thermal expansion of a weapon in the atmosphere.
And for the record, I think the A-bombs deployed in WWII had a yield of either .5kT or 1.5kT. But the yeild/damage ratio isn't linear for weapons in the kT+ range either, so a megaton bomb wouldn't destroy an area 1000 times as great as a kiloton weapon.
EDIT: And the Harbringer was originally a planetary-bombardment weapon, modified to be carried by a bomber. So it would make sense for it to be 1) insanely powerful and 2) less advanced than the newer Tsunami.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
EDIT; and by the last line in the description (as well as being 5000Mt!! :eek: ), the Harbringer sounds almost like a planetkiller
IIRC, it's mentioned that Harbingers were adapted from a planetary bombardment weapon. Which goes to say that ground combat in the V-T war was especially brutal...
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Harbringer had a 5 gigaton payload, damn.
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hiroshime was 15kt, IIRC/AFAIK
the biggest thing they can make right now is a Russian beast of a 100 Megatons, but standard range is mostly noted in megatons.
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Which makes the Harbinger 50 times more powerful the the biggest H-Bombs ever built.
Kind of shows why the GTVA doesn't use standard nukes :D
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yeah.
that data, and that one tech entry with the energy output in joules for one of the primary's, someone could/should calculate the average power of FS shields and hull plating.
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a megaton is 4.2 petajoule, start calculating...
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4.18 petajoules, to be 10 times more exact :D
the guy who wrote the tech room database entries wasn't paying one bit of attention to the actual in game values. according to the tech room, a harbinger is over 300,000 times as powerful as an MX-50, while the actual .tbl values are nothing so outrageous.
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My MS Paint oracle told me Things about how the FS weapons were made.
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7597/ATOIMS.PNG)
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that looks like a bottle of liquid spam.
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IIRC When they were introduced in the storyline someone said something about the Harby being an orbital/installation attack weapon, not meant to be fired at things like Cruisers or Destroyers.
It really was a planet killer, this might have been a scaled down version.
FS2 weaponry is "supposed" ¬.¬ to be more powerful, but, meh, I never really saw a difference except for Furies/MX40(?)s vs Tempests/Rockeyes.
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One word... Tre...bu...chet... :shaking:
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At a sci-fi conference a few years ago there was a great panel done by a well accredited physicist from some fancy US university and he explained how nukes in space are much less powerful weapons than what you have on the ground.
Most of the damage done by nukes in atmosphere is related to the shock blast....the immense pressure change and the resulting blast sends quite a shockwave that destroys all sorts of things in its path. The nuke was just a catalyst for that....then you have your radiation which again is deadly on earth.
In space...if you had a theoretical warship floating about firing nukes at each other just the mere fact that the ship is capable of sustained space travel suggests significant technology being able to screen out the already high levels of radiation in space. So adding a little more local radiation apparently barely compairs to what is already there.
So nukes would really be a point explosion but the damage level in a radius would be smaller. Thus its perfectly concievable that all of the weapons in FS are nuke based warheads (we know Tsunami/Cyclops and Helios/Harbinger are) without doing massive widespread damage each time they get fired.
Plus its just a game....the scale measuring system isn't really there :D
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
One word... Tre...bu...chet... :shaking:
Is exactly the same as the Pheonix V, the table entry is exactly the same. The difference is the guidance code in FS2 is TONS better than in FS1.
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wonder what would happen if you fired a harpoon in an atmosphere.
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you'd take out a small city
and i move to change DIO's title to "Holy Diver"
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Originally posted by Liberator
Is exactly the same as the Pheonix V, the table entry is exactly the same. The difference is the guidance code in FS2 is TONS better than in FS1.
Doesn't the trebuchet have more range? I thought it moved a bit quicker too.
Hmm, about the only thing that's the same is the warhead. Even the aspect values are different.
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i wonder how ground combat would be.......
the moment you learn to fly a persues or something in an atmosphere, you basicly own the local battleground...
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didn't we discuss how the ships wouldn't be able to fly in atmosphere at some point?
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Unless they have antigrav tech or an aerodynamic design with wings, they'll just... fall 'n crash.
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Originally posted by Liberator
Is exactly the same as the Pheonix V, the table entry is exactly the same. The difference is the guidance code in FS2 is TONS better than in FS1.
hehe - how i like such comments from people who obviously havent played Freespace.
Phoenix V - range of ~ 1500 metres
Trebuchet - range of ~ 5000 metres
Phoenix V - slooowww
Trebuchet - fairly fast once locked on
plus, the trebuchet is homing far more accurate.
PHOENIX V
$Velocity: 175.0
$Fire Wait: 5.0
$Damage: 350 ;; damage applied when within inner radius
$Blast Force: 200.0
$Inner Radius: 10.0 ;; radius at which damage is full (0 for impact only)
$Outer Radius: 30.0 ;; max radius for attenuated damage (0 for impact only)
$Shockwave Speed: 0 ;; velocity of shockwave. 0 for none.
$Armor Factor: 1.0
$Shield Factor: 0.5
$Subsystem Factor: 0.8
$Lifetime: 10.0
TREBUCHET
$Velocity: 280.0
$Fire Wait: 6.0
$Damage: 350 ;; damage applied when within inner radius
$Blast Force: 160.0
$Inner Radius: 20.0 ;; radius at which damage is full (0 for impact only)
$Outer Radius: 40.0 ;; max radius for attenuated damage (0 for impact only)
$Shockwave Speed: 0 ;; velocity of shockwave. 0 for none.
$Armor Factor: 0.9
$Shield Factor: 0.5
$Subsystem Factor: 2.4
$Lifetime: 18.0
does this look like exactly the same table values? :p
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in FS1 those 1500 meters felt like a huge distance, btw.
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Actually the Pheonix is a stronger anti-ship weapon by some minute scale (it has a higher armor factor) while the treb blows out subsystems better. Ultimately the treb is a better weapon, but from a strict warhead comparison that needs to be pointed out.
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Stronger anti-ship weapon by 35 hit points...thats not really much when you have more than double the subsystem damage potential and the fact that a bank of subachs can make up for that in a second :)
Trebuchet is far far far superor :)
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Like to see you hit me with either o_O
Treb is one of the most notable differences out of the missiles I didn't list, when I said differences between FS1 and FS2 missile wise.
Simply because;
Their damage is roughly the same.
Trebuche is somewhat tactically more viable than the PV, but, in all honesty Trebs/PVs are/were only ever good against;
A) AI.
B) People who can't fly for peanuts.
C) Cap Ships(Or disable/Disarming thereof).
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Originally posted by Tiara
Unless they have antigrav tech or an aerodynamic design with wings, they'll just... fall 'n crash.
This is not necessarily true. It is clear that:
1. Freespace ships have sufficient structural integrity that they probably could withstand atmospheric flight, at least to some extent
2. Freespace ships demonstrate the ability to either vector their thrust or use small maneuvering thrusters to accelerate in directions other than directly ahead.
Therefore, it seems possible that by directing 10 gees worth of thrust downwards at all times, FS fighters could fly in atmosphere, although probably not that well. It is not, however, necessarily true that any or all FS fighters are combat capable in atmosphere , because you'd need a flight computer programmed to handle it.
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@QuantumDelta
I'd like to see someone dodge a pair of trebuchets in an Ursa. I'm pretty sure that it would be rare that a pilot would be able to muster up enough acceleration to avoid incoming with a heavy bomber =(
@Alan
Why 10Gs? Are you playing to fly in Jupiter?
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
@QuantumDelta
I'd like to see someone dodge a pair of trebuchets in an Ursa. I'm pretty sure that it would be rare that a pilot would be able to muster up enough acceleration to avoid incoming with a heavy bomber =(
Why would any good pilot ever consider flying a bomber?
I know some idiots on PXO who like the sekhmet, but even that is inferior.
If you absolutely HAVE TO BOMB in a mission, especially if you're going to be competing against other humans - Fly Myrm.
As for Dodging Trebs in an Ursa -
Depending on range, EASILY.
+300-500m would be prefered for that heap of cheg :P
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No good pilots bomb.
Good pilots leave bad pilots/AI to bomb and keep complete fighter cover, hense why BlackDove and I were just about the only people to complete most of the harder ("newish") PXO Missions either on our own or in a team of two+AI on insane.
Sticking anyone who considers themselves to be able to fly properly, in a bomber, is a waste of resources in almost all situations.
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Originally posted by QuantumDelta
B) People who can't fly for peanuts.
Somehow, that sentence disturbs me.
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@quantumdelta
Then your comment that trebuchets can't hit good pilots is pretty meaningless since it's an anti-bomber/subsystem weapon.
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Well, we at TI will be pretending this info doesn't exist for a while, else the whole planetary MOD is pointless, you wouldn't need to take out ground installations, you'd just send in a Myrmidon or the like with a big missile and shoot in the general vicinity ;) And hope like hell you remember that you WILL get a shockwave this time ;)
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Originally posted by Stunaep
Somehow, that sentence disturbs me.
Maybe that's because it reads stunaep rof ylf t'nac ohw elpoeP )B when written backwards and therefore is obviously a klingon insult aimed at you :p
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Originally posted by karajorma
Maybe that's because it reads stunaep
Wait... Stunaep is Peanuts backwards? When did this happen? :p
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Like... years ago? :p
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Like... years ago? :p
Of course :p
I am truly suprised this is the first time (AFAIK) that we noticed...
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Wow, that's more interesting than the thread topic. :p
Hmm... nomlooC? omg. Num lock. :D
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Wow, that's more interesting than the thread topic. :p
Hmm... nomlooC? omg. Num lock. :D
:lol:
And anyway, I always thought the Treb/PV were good at shooting down those damned SF Dragons when you're in like, a Medusa. Bastards were too fast...
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Trebs are the most effective secondary weapon for fighting AI or Bad pilots like I said.
Even in a bomber you'd never hit a good pilot with trebs unless it was more than 2v1 because;
If they're close enough for the treb to be undodgable, the bomber should have you in morningstar lock, you wont be able to lock on then.
If they're not close enough to get a reliable morning star lock -- They're at a range where they can dodge the missile.
No other scenario is valid ¬.¬
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tut tut QD, always give out flying tips :D
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They can always lock far away and then go "straight" at you...
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Do trebs need lock, I seem to recall most bombers I took out with trebuchet were by screaming up behind them on afterburners and piling 2 unguided trebs into their tails, no warning, and very little defence.
And also, this is entirely assuming that the guy with the trebs is your single and only concern during a mission, and that you've not got other things distracting you :)
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
They can always lock far away and then go "straight" at you...
The URSA Pilot would have to be pretty stupid.
In any situation like that;
If pilot A has been flying straight at you (as a good pilot you should be keeping track of EVERY SINGLE SHIP on the battlefield) for an extended period of time and have not been firing secondary missiles, they are most likely going to try to use one of my old favourite (56k) tricks, and dump them into you at the last second.
Rarely works, since Pilot As plan is obvious from the outset, your evasion pattern should begin before the missiles are actually fired, once fired, the missiles will still attempt to follow you through the evasion pattern, hense, missing.
....If you can evade properly (pls note; no aspect seeking missiles in this game hit me when I'm flying anything more manuverable than a sekhmet, and, this is without CMs (disclaimer; I can't dodge EVERYTHING if they are so well aimed/fired with such skill (eg; predicting my flight pattern in such a way and fired from a SPECIFIC distance at a SPECIFIC angle, they may well hit me, but never enough for a kill, and never more than one volley of anything other than POSSIBLY rockeyes and usually, Tempests, or when pinned with morning star (occasional, exceptional pilots)) that is.
Flying a fighter of any description excluding the Ares, I can avoid everything except harpoons and hornets (torns are fine), using TWO SINGLE KEYS on my keyboard.
Using four or more keys I can avoid 4 herc mk2s worth of missile banks of missiles of your choice excluding the two above from ANY ANGLE simultaneously(Unless missiles are fired from exceptionally skilled pilots, and/or morningstar users combining primary, with secondary fire).
Flipside;
Dumbfire "aspects" are pretty useful on occasion, but, that is the occasion... a good pilot would be aware of your position and, if they couldn't shake you completely;
They wouldn't be flying in a straight enough line for you to dumbfire anything other than possibly temps :)
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Why 10Gs? Are you playing to fly in Jupiter?
Ha ha. Switched units on myself midsentence. 'cause 1g=10m/s/s.
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Getting back to the nuking aspect of this thread...
What about Beam Weapons?
I recall a video in FS in which the Lucifer (I think) fired upon Vasuda Prime and leveled an entire city (and then some) with what looked like a beam weapon. Was that a standard beam weapon the lucifer uses or what? I don't recall a planetary weapon on the subsystems of the lucifer....just the damn superlasers it had...
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The superlasers were a primative beam, sortof added at last minute by [V]... It appears that an attempt at beams was made during fs1, because of the #beam weapons tag in the weaons table... The superlaser is well represented in the FSPort, though the regular Shivan Super Laser is there too...
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How does Lucy vs Sath line up main gun vs main gun?
All I remember is the Lucy's main gun being able to kill a Orion in like 3 hits? o.O
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Do it in fred...
Even though the Sath. wins, or at least I think it does
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Not if it has the invincible tag :D
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Originally posted by QuantumDelta
How does Lucy vs Sath line up main gun vs main gun?
All I remember is the Lucy's main gun being able to kill a Orion in like 3 hits? o.O
The sath reduces the phoenicia (sp) to at least 3% hull with one shot. I don't know if it was on 100% hull to start with though but I think so. In which case the Sath would win easily.
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Why 10Gs? Are you playing to fly in Jupiter?
Modern fightercraft can pull 9G maneuvers, limited only by the pilot's endurance.
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The guys who wrote weapon descriptions clearly had too much to drink the night they worked on missiles.
No imaginable armour can withstand a direct nucler impact.
Write your theoires as much as you want, but the fact remains that someone in Interplay screwed up here...
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Read the thread Trashman. That's the whole point of this silly discussion; Nukes don't behave the same way in space that they do in an atmosphere. Armor would have to withstand the direct radiation burst from the nuclear detonation, but not much else. For once, I actually think :V: was on the right track this time.
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I don't recall ever seeing a Nuke denonate in space...Did you?
I really don't know how much truth there is in this, but I'm too lazy to check it out now....
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Originally posted by TrashMan
I don't recall ever seeing a Nuke denonate in space...Did you?
Haven't seen atoms with my bare eyes either but I'm not going to dispute that they exist. :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by TrashMan
I don't recall ever seeing a Nuke denonate in space...Did you?
No, but then, thank God, I've never seen a Nuke detonated on land either. Nonetheless, it doesn't take a genius to figure out just why Nukes are so destructive; they produce light and most importantly heat (and lots of it) which rapidly increases the pressure of the air around the detonation. This pressure, in turn, causes a sudden expansion and sets up the shockwave that so many people associate with a nuclear blast. In space, there is not only too little matter to transmit the shockwave, there is also no matter to start the shockwave in the first place. All you'd get is a large radiation burst, which I would think spacecraft armor was designed to shield out anyway.
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I'd like to take this time to point out that heat is heat is heat. Doesn't matter where you are, the amount of heat released by a nuclear device is quite lethal.
All atmosphere does to a nuclear detonation is enhances it: a nuke is still a powerful weapon in space.
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We aren't saying Nukes are useless in space. Just that they aren't as powerful as they are on the ground.
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I thought that was a givin?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
The guys who wrote weapon descriptions clearly had too much to drink the night they worked on missiles.
No imaginable armour can withstand a direct nucler impact.
Write your theoires as much as you want, but the fact remains that someone in Interplay screwed up here...
Evidently collapsed molybdenum can withstand nuclear impacts. And well, too.
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The heat is a lot, but the Hiroshima bomb, I seem to recall, couldn't have have burnt through the ceramic tiles that are mounted on the hull of the shuttle. The radiation is dangerous, but radiation shielding is improving even in this day and age, who knows what we will be capable of in 300 years :) Most physical damage done by a nuke is the shockwave and the heatblast. Since the first is eradicated, it just means people have all the more time to consider how to deal with the other.
And also, the armour doesn't withstand it, it doesn't take many Helios to take down an Orion ;)
The numbers ARE a bit ridiculous, I agree, but hey, it's a game :D
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The most rediculous stat in the game is the yield of the tsunami bomb. 500^2 tonne mass to energy conversion. first of all, i don't know what a squared tonne is, but assuming that's a just a brain fart on their part, 500 tonnes of matter/antimatter turned into energy would create an 11 teraton blast, enough to create a mass extinction on earth, and over 2000 times as powerful as the Harbinger.
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I may remind you that FS2 has no physics. Its a WWII dogfighting game in space, that says enough about its realism.
Why bother comparing FS2-code to real life ? The Volition staff is not consisting of astro-physicans, you know.