[Boomer]

As a final note, I wish you'd stop disparaging those of us who don't want the main FS2 campaign to be fooled around with. We know what we like, and it isn't what you keep proposing. Think of us in the same way as you'd think of someone who wants to prevent a forest from being torn down to make way for a strip mall.  I would welcome further dialogue about the campaign, as long as we keep things civil.

Holy sh*t, I think I started WWIII.

*To Trashman*

Here, Here! (Again)

I'm not taking sides, however, so feel free to continue to send in input.

[Jetmech Jr.]

OK, people. One question to solve this:

Are FS ships invisible with shields? No. Therefore, Beams should penetrate shields.

[Boomer]

Are FS ships invisible with shields? No. Therefore, Beams should penetrate shields.

WTF does the matter of being able to see a ship or not with shields have to do with beams going through shields?

[Jetmech Jr.]

Photon Beam Cannons

Photon=A Particle of light.

If the shields blocked light, you wouldn't be able to see the ship, IIRC.

So, if the shields can't block light, why should they be able to block Streams of Photons?

At least, thats my understanding of it. If anyone cares to correct it...

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Pnakotus
Aside from more philosophical matters, I find any description (even , yes, tech room descriptions) of FS weapons as plasma utterly ridiculous. The problems with plasma being used in this was are so manifold and so obvious to anyone with a scientific background that I simply will not consider it. I don't particularly care WHAT they are, in fact.

Canonical facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. They're plasma. I'd also advise you to look up an article on the subject Aldo posted awhile back.

Originally posted by Pnakotus
ngtm1rs suggestiong includes many flaws, such as assuming the effective area of a missile impact is the same as it's casings diameter, when in fact HEAT warheads (for instance) have a much smaller area of effect.

And since all available evidence indicates the GTVA is not using HEAT warheads on their missiles...

Every single damn missile from the MX-50 on up has a nuclear warhead. Every missile. It's the only way they make any sense.

And you fail to do more then allude to the "other flaws". Name them. You have a bad habit of pretending to know more then you actually do, you see...

Originally posted by Pnakotus
I'm in the process of making shots to establish it, but I'm not convinced AAA beams are '12 inches' either.  On external views, they're larger than the pilot.

Did I say that AAA beams were 12"? I did not. I did not give them a size. I said that Terran Turret blasts were a minimum of 12".

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.
Photon Beam Cannons

Photon=A Particle of light.

If the shields blocked light, you wouldn't be able to see the ship, IIRC.

So, if the shields can't block light, why should they be able to block Streams of Photons?

At least, thats my understanding of it. If anyone cares to correct it...

But they blocked the ML-16 most effectively...and it was a laser.

Best guess would be they're tuned to block certain levels of energy, though how one would do that is beyond my ken...

[Pnakotus]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Canonical facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. They're plasma. I'd also advise you to look up an article on the subject Aldo posted awhile back.

Le sigh: in ngtm1rs world, both lasers and high energy plasma can fly in little packets, highly visible, through a vacuum at a few hundred m/s.  Wow, what an amazing world - of fiction.  If you want to take the techroom fluff of the Subach being a 'laser' go right ahead.  I'm not following you.

I did completely forget the yields on FS weapons.  I'm not 100% if they're actually nuclear weapons, or simply very high yield: they sure don't LOOK like nuclear explosions (rather like petrol bombs, actually ).

Apologies for mistaking your claims about beam lasers.  Not that it really matters with regard to regular missiles, since the beam has much more energy in any case.  However it's easily arguable that the treb detonation would be harder to handle than a AAAf, so why doesn't it penetrate?  But hey, don't ADDRESS my points, just handwave them.  ZOMG CANON!

I'm going to ignore 80% of your post, since you ignored most of mine.

[redsniper]

How's this for an analogy:
Think of shields as a kevlar vest, regular weapons fire as 9mm pistol rounds, and beam cannon fire as an armor piercing sniper round. The force of the pistol rounds will get dispersed across the vest but the AP round will punch right through it. However, the AP round only makes a small hole in the vest, so the vest could still stop more pistol rounds. So an AAA beam punches a hole through your shields and goes straight to your hull, the small hole in your shields is easily recharged, and the whole time your shields can still block weaker weapons fire.

[FireCrack]

Originally posted by Pnakotus


Le sigh: in ngtm1rs world, both lasers and high energy plasma can fly in little packets, highly visible, through a vacuum at a few hundred m/s.  Wow, what an amazing world - of fiction.  If you want to take the techroom fluff of the Subach being a 'laser' go right ahead.  I'm not following you.

 

Read the damn post, you're putting words into his mouth. He said the the main FS weapons were Plasma, as in not a laser. Therefore he isn't taking the techroom "fluff".

[Pnakotus]

Originally posted by FireCrack

Read the damn post, you're putting words into his mouth. He said the the main FS weapons were Plasma, as in not a laser. Therefore he isn't taking the techroom "fluff".

AND I QUOTE.

... in ngtm1rs world, both lasers and high energy plasma can fly in little packets...

Yeah, I'm really ignoring that he mentioned plasma.  I'm not addressing that at all.   Lets not even go into why plasma isn't going to work that way: you need to start with reading comprehension.

@Redsniper: As I mentioned in the part of my post that ngm1r ignored, I have no problem with this model of shield interactions.  Did you read my post?  Did anyone?  Can you explain why AAAf beams should penetrate (due to intensity) and Trebs should not, since Trebs arguably have *greater* intensity at point-of-impact than an AAAf?  I would love to see such a model implemented in FS.

[JoeLo]

IIRC [V] once issued an explanation,(Incomplete\) that it was an ionized beam of energy, therefore it was oppisitily charged to the shields, and it went write through them. Meaning the kevlar vest explanation is wrong. It is more for scientific reasons that they go through.(Incomplete/)

[Ghostavo]

Shields partially block the kinetic energy transmited by the Trebuchet while the AAAf manages to pass because it fails to interact with the shields.

[Boomer]

[rampant speculation]I think that missiles don't explode until they hit the hull.  Umm Let me put it this way:

M=Missile damage
S=Shield power

If M < S, Missile explodes against shields and applies damage to shields.

If M > S Missile itself penetrates shields and explodes against hull.
[\rampant speculation]

@Jetmech:  What if shields only block coherent or polarized light?

It's possible that the inherent frequency of beam weapons could be exactly in perpendicular phase to shield energy. i.e.

l=shield.
-=beam
l
-----------------------
l
-----------------------
l
-----------------------
l
-----------------------
l
-----------------------
l

They don't react because they don't vibrate on the same plane, so there is no interference.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.
Photon Beam Cannons

Photon=A Particle of light.

If the shields blocked light, you wouldn't be able to see the ship, IIRC.

So, if the shields can't block light, why should they be able to block Streams of Photons?

At least, thats my understanding of it. If anyone cares to correct it...

"Gunnery control, commence PLASMA core insertion"

photon, plasma, laser or meson? [V] should make up their mind allready...
Alltouhg a laser is techinly allso light...does that mean a ML-16 should pierce trough shields????

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by TrashMan
"Gunnery control, commence PLASMA core insertion"

That could be just part of the power-up sequence (i.e. it uses plasma for power).  It doesn't mean the plasma was actually fired.

[aldo_14]

I always interpreted that as starting up some form of reactor to power the cannon, myself.

[FireCrack]

It is my own theory that FS "lasers" are plasma with a laser bouncing around inside them (somehow).  Or mabye even they're packets of bose-einsteinium condensate? that's a viable explination.

[Boomer]

Or mabye even they're packets of bose-einsteinium condensate? that's a viable explination.

There is another!

I always wondered if someone would mention that possibility.

BTW:  explination=explanation
mabye=maybe
bose-einsteinium=Bose-Einstein

Just playing Grammar Inquisitor:nervous:

[pyro-manic]

Be careful - you're infringing on Goober's territory, and he won't like that...

Your theory about beams being out of phase with shields is interesting, but surely a tech somewhere would just tweak the shield frequency, to stop it from happening?

As for the "plasma core insertion", I always thought of that as being the means of charging the beam, not the weapon itself.

[Taristin]

's not grammar, that's spelling

[FireCrack]

Well, it could be that the sheilds of the target are actively scanned before firing the beam, kinda like what the prometheus supposedly does, but with sheilds.

By the way, i'm experiencing extreme keyboard lag right now.