UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: Dark on March 31, 2010, 08:28:14 pm
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I thought of making a topic where everyone could list their ideas and suggestions for technologies that can be used in UFO:AI.
I know that there are similar topics already but I noticed they are mostly focused on just one or few ideas.
Keeping the concepts in greater numbers, short and in form of lists would make it easier to keep track of them.
My ideas:
- Anti-matter technology - e.g. as new engine for aircrafts or rocket launchers/SAM.
- Sonic weapons
- Eletro-shock weapons (guns)
- Weapons able to shoot through walls
- Gas/Biological grenades/weapons - ammunition would only affect one or few kinds of aliens. Each ammunition is researchable after examining the alien.
- Teleportation - short-distance troop teleportation.
- Time shift weapons - instead of inflicting damage, they would temporarily but significantly decrease enemy max TU (possibly in an area). Can be also a weapon for aircraft to slow down UFOs.
- Time shift generator - soldier using it would create a sphere, inside which all units get bonus TU.
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- Anti-matter technology - e.g. as new engine for aircrafts or rocket launchers/SAM.
- Eletro-shock weapons (guns)
- Gas/Biological grenades/weapons - ammunition would only affect one or few kinds of aliens. Each ammunition is researchable after examining the alien.
- Time shift weapons - instead of inflicting damage, they would temporarily but significantly decrease enemy max TU (possibly in an area). Can be also a weapon for aircraft to slow down UFOs.
Already in as:
- Anti-matter technology: not yet implemented for humans (note the "yet") but aliens already use antimatter engines
- Eletro-shock weapons: Electro-laser, basically a lightning gun; also the stun baton
- Gas/Biological grenades/weapons: Choke gas grenades, stunning gas
- Time shift weapons: Not actual temporal technology (and I doubt that will be implemented) but TU removing is flashbangs modus operandi.
Welcome to the forums!
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Sorry if I mentioned something unnecessarily. Its just hard to not copy any information with so much content on the forum.
Those were just shortly mentioned concepts to fish out the ones worth discussing further.
Welcome to the forums!
Thanks!
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What about biological alien weapons? In Defense there were the celatid, silicoid, chryssalid, and in Apocalypse there were something spitting liquid and exploding kamikaze ones (I forget the names. I didn't play Apocalypse, just watching someone playing) I also heard that the aliens need more weapons. What about this: an alien launcher (or grenade) with biological munitions. It may be hundreds of insects that are released from the casing upon impact. The insects form a swarm and move at walking speed (just like a new character) to nearest human and do horrible things on him/her. To destroy them you must use explosives, flamethrower, plasma grenades, or gas.
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kodo i think thats a little unfair dont you? and besides 2.3 is harder than 2.2.1 already(It takes more than a rpg to kill a Taman with light armor)
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That's no matter for me. I cannot play 2.3 anyway. the download size is too large and my computer is slow (don't say about upgrading). Doubt 2.3 will run well (or at all).
About unfair... what is fair on unfair is relative, and what do you say about the blaster bomb? But let's hear from the others.
Now, about new tech ideas, as the topic title said. Why don't the aliens use lasers? If human uses infrared laser, then let's give the alien UV or X-ray lasers, that can dissociate molecules directly and not damage by heating.
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Now, about new tech ideas, as the topic title said. Why don't the aliens use lasers? If human uses infrared laser, then let's give the alien UV or X-ray lasers, that can dissociate molecules directly and not damage by heating.
While one can only guess why they don't use them immediatly (story-wise), even x-ray lasers would be a downgrade from particle beams.
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I see. So we expect a weapon stronger than particle beam then. Or, something with more functionality.
But laser is silent and invisible (meanwhile, human infrared laser has visible beam and sound in the game) while particle beam is visible and loud. With the same energy, laser have more particles (photons) than particle beam. Maybe this can compensate somehow, along with the stealth factor. Maybe in the future there will be a race that is so small, that particle beam cannons are too heavy for them. Or maybe particle beam is expensive and difficult to produce, even by aliens' standard. Or the aliens don't want to risk humans collecting particle beam ammo, so they use it rarely (maybe mainly for base defense or major assault).
Another idea: When the aliens realize that humans use IR laser, they start to coat their armor with thin reflective materials.
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As far as nostalgia goes, I do have very fond memories of the XCOM Blaster Bomb... No need to repeat the huge blast radius, it was still the ultimate guided missile. Turning around corners was just awesome for players but it was rerely used effectively by the aliens. A great way to instill the fear of grouping soldiers and a fast and dirty way to give exeperience to rookies ;D
Self-destructing combat robots (Cyberdisk anyone ::) )
Oh and someone mentionned Chrysalids... I DO hope some kind of egg-laying horror like it gets added, it was especially terrifying on a Terror mission at superhuman level (where it took several explosions to kill even one), but once we had the flying suit they became much less of a problem, unlike the tentaculat from Xcom2, too damned frustrating in it's ambushes :'(
I did'nt see anyone mentioning some kind of "Phasing" technology, to allow a craft to escape from a single hit, or a soldier to pass through a wall...
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My sugguestion is a new kind of ammo:
Nitrogen bullets
Requirements: Alien Materials
Description:
The research, to fill bullets up with liquid nitrogen, is about 30 years old. Aim was to research a flechette ammunition releasing a decent amount of liquid nitrogen over heavy armor on impact that would brittle the material and makes it useless for protection.
The only progress we made was in anti tank ammunition. The grenade consists of two different parts. The back of the grenade is just a dewar flask filled with liquid nitrogen, while the front is prepared with a contact explosive strong enough to crack up the mantle of the projectile on impact.
However, this technology was not adaptable on bullets. Bullets are too small a dewar flask would be a possibility to storage the liquid nitrogen without vaporization. The ammount of nitrogen is much smaller in a bullet than in a grenade. Both problems require to store the liquid nitrogen in the bullet with high pressure.
This leaded to the problem to research a bullet body strong enough to endure the pressure of the inserted liquid nitrogen, but still being cracked up on impact. To work with an explosive head, like we did on the greandes, was no option, because even under high pressure the ammount of nitrogen stored in one bullet is not very high, so the kinetic energy caused by an explosion would conter the freezing effect of the nitrogen.
The solution to this problem is in the alien Materials, since it is strong enough to widstand a high ammount of pressure even if the material is only some nanometers thick and changing its form depenent on heat. So we were able to produce a bullet that has predetermined breaking points consisting on alien materials only some nanometers thick. The material is thin enough the friction energy of an impact is enough to make the bullet change its form and to crack up on impact. The freezing effect of the nitrogen loweres the integrity of the amour and leads to frostbites.
However the production of this ammunition is still very expensive. But this ammunition has some more drawbacks. If fired on unamored enemies the friction energy on the impact may not be enough to cause the bullet to crack up. The damage done may be lesser than the damage of a normal bullet against unamored enemies.
Since the core of the bullet is liquid the flight characteristics of this bullet is slightly different. Aiming is a little bit harder with this bullets and the range is reduced. The magazine is very reactive to heat. So if you carry arround a magazine of nitrogen bullets take care not to be set on fire or be target to explosions, since the heat may be enough to cause the bullets to crack up.
Effect:
The damage of the bullets is reduced. The accuracy and the range is reduced as well. But hitting with a nitrogen shot reduces the amor value of the hitted amor part permanetly.
Greetings
Prinegon.
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Nice flavor text and idea, unfortunately a bullet is actually the extreme tip on top of the cartdrige, so the inside volume is awfully tiny. Plus an empty bullet will not weight much, so very little damage.
You'd have much mor luck in throwing a fist-sized ball with a slingshot ;)
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As far as I understand, a shot consists of three parts: The hull, the solid core (bullet) and a powder chamber. The hull falls of at the side of the rifle after igniting the powder and speeding the bullet up. But bullet itself has the mass of about at least 1/3 of the whole shot. It could be solid (Full metal), but it doesn't has to be. I don't think this part of the shot has not enough room to store a bit of nitrogen.
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I'm not an expert but I think the bullet has a far heavier (and larger) than just 1/3 of the weight. I'd guess more like 2/3 or 3/4. The casing doesn't weight much and neither does the propellant AFAIK.
But the nitrogen round isn't a futile attempt because os the dimensions (this is true for smaller rounds but a sniper could handle it). It has much more to do with the temperature. Nitrogen inside would exhange heat since the rest of the round is not cold, so it could theoretically explode suddenly. You could give your agents minifreezers where they would keep the ammo and prevent accidental discharges but I'd question if they would be worth it and how practical it would be.
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It has much more to do with the temperature. Nitrogen inside would exhange heat since the rest of the round is not cold, so it could theoretically explode suddenly. You could give your agents minifreezers where they would keep the ammo and prevent accidental discharges but I'd question if they would be worth it and how practical it would be.
You are totally right that nitrogen would start to boil because the exteriour temperature of the bullet is much higher than the temperature of the liquid nitrogen. Or this would be the case, if the nitrogen would have the chance to boil (Its boiling temperature would be about -200 degrees celisus). So only with extreme pressure the boiling point of nitrogen could be risen to room temperature (this is, how a pressure cooker works, the cooker is sealed so no exchange of air can be made. The pressure rises inside the cooker, the more water foam is created inside the cooker, so the water has to reach a higher temperature to be able to boil).
Theoretically liquid nitrogen sealed in a closed vessel should not be able to boil, as long as the pressure is high enough. I don`t know how much pressure has to be created to rise the boiling temperature of liquid nitrogen to room temperature (I am not a physician and I didn't even try to calculate the expected bar value, but I am sure, one could do that. But if the bullet is a sealed vessel and the liquid is filled in under enough pressure, the bullet shouldn't even turn cold. At the moment, the bullet is cracked up, the pressure suddenly will fall to normal and the liquid will start to boil instantly (freezing all material by this process, since the boiling temperature is still -200 degrees).
That is the problem I described by producing the bullet, finding a material strong enough to endure the pressure of the liquid nitrogen but still being able to crack up on impact and that is, why alien material is needed. If one doesn't like the idee of friction energy of the impact causing heat and making the alien material change its form (cracking up the bullet), one could add a contact electric circuit to the bullet activating on the bullet tip impacting (since electrical energy also causes alien material to change its form).
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If the bullet cracks on impact, then the gas (I think when the pressure drops the liquid nitrogen will boil) will spread to every direction, so the "chilling" efficiency is not good. And the heat of vaporization is 5.56 kJ·mol−1 (wikipedia). Assume one bullet contains 5 ml, with density 0.807 g/mL it's 4 grams, with molar mass 28 it's 1/7 mol. So the nitrogen inside one bullet can absorb ("chill") about 800 Joules of heat. 800 Joule can raise (lower, in this case) the temperature of 10 gram of water of 19 degrees C. So... not much chilling, I think.
I would improvise on this idea by making the bullet release its contents inside the victim (how?). We can make the tip of the bullet monomolecular (it must be curved somehow, maybe like a drill or multiple curves converge on a point). Then the damage is not only from chilling and piercing, but also from the gas expansion. Wow... inverse of plasma.
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Wow... inverse of plasma.
I guess that's the point, but no one even thinks about putting plasma in a bullet to crack on impact, the quantity is simply far too tiny that it would not be worth it compared to the kinetic energy of a solid bullet.
A HEAT anti-tank round actually creates it's own plasma on impact, it's a shaped charge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEAT)
Perhaps the BEST way to shoot liquid nitrogen at an alien would be more like a flame thrower... just spray the bugger.
Requires a large refrigerated (and vulnerable) reservoir though, and the not so great rang would probably limit it's tactical usefulness to indoors.
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Perhaps the BEST way to shoot liquid nitrogen at an alien would be more like a flame thrower...
You mean like... The legendary Ice-thrower! ;D
*cough*
But, Yeah, that could work quite well actually. Maybe, like, a liquid nitrogen canister? All you'd have to do is just give it a lower ammo count than the flamers C-80 canisters and mention in the ufopedia article that all the flamers are being upgraded to be able to use these canisters, and possibly more in the future.
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Another new tech: Blur amour
Requirements: Obduction of at least one alien and 3 differnt kinds of aliens held alife.
Instead of just realizing the aliens to have better technologies and trying hard to overtake every single recovered tech they have so we could reduce their advantage over us, we will have the opportunity to take advantage over one of the aliens physical restrictions.
It is known that light consists of different colors. Another way to describe light is it consits of rays of different wave lengths. Rod and Cone cells react to light of different wave lengths and the percept of a color is created in the brain. Vision is, however, suspectable for optical illusions. It is, e.g. possible to see two rays with different wave lengths as the same color.
While human opticals both react to the same lights bandwith, between 380 and 780 nanometers wave length, this is not the case for the discovered aliens. Their opticals react to different bandwiths each. The reason for this behavior is not known for us, perhaps it is adaption to their natural environment, perhaps animal or plant life of their home world emmit information like poisioness warnings when emitting a different pattern in different wave lengths or it is a flashing protection, leaving one (or in some cases some) eye(s) still functional, while the other is blinded by flash. But this is room to speculation.
It is for sure, we now are able to use this fact to create an optical illusion protecting our soildiers: The blur amour. This amour is laquered with a special laque that has a prismatic effect on light. We are now able to break up light rays in a special way and reflect them in different angles, so that alien species have the optical illusion, the person wearing this amour stands on different positions at once. The research of this piece of amour wasn't as simple, since we can't determine exactly, what one alien is seeing, but we believe, we were able to create a second image of the person standing in a slightly different position. The effect however, varies from person to person and also from enviromental light. It works best in bright daylight and worse in moonlight. Within rooms still an effect will be seen, but since artifical light is much directed and reduced in bandwith, the effect will not be great. But hell, a shot in the shoulder instead of the heart is still a win.
While all alien life forms orientating through infra red (like bloodspiders) can't be fooled by this technology, especially species with compound eyes (if ever integrated into this game) will freak out totally.
This piece of amour is not perfect, however. It doesn't work well in night missions and not at all against specific kinds of aliens. It also is not changing the position of a soldiers face (since the face normally is unamoured), so the more inteligent races may be fooled by this equipment with their reaction shots and still be able to aim proper with their normal shots. Please also take note this amour is not fooling any human supporter, since their eyes don't react to unsimilar bandwith of wave length. The only effect this piece of amour has to them is glistering in the sun.
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*words*
Why something so complex, relatively ineffective and hard to make when we can just craft us a stealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisibility) camouflage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_camouflage)?
Besides, we have already invented a method for invisibility: it's called "get down" and works when the user is wearing military camouflage. [/joke]
But, Yeah, that could work quite well actually. Maybe, like, a liquid nitrogen canister? All you'd have to do is just give it a lower ammo count than the flamers C-80 canisters and mention in the ufopedia article that all the flamers are being upgraded to be able to use these canisters, and possibly more in the future.
There's still the problem that the nitrogen would have to stay cold, so unless those nitrogen canisters also have a refrigation system they could/would explode or simply not work (your flamer would release the indimitating sound of gas leak ;D).
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I am aware that stealth camouflage using mirrors only works if these mirrors actually exist. This would require the spectator looking from a specific angle and also movement would be a problem. There is also the possibility to project a picture from the back of a person on a led display of the front amor (as long as it is undamaged, dead pixel (like shooting holes) just are bad for this illusion). This is also dependent from the angle you look at this picture. Movement, however, would be possible (but may require the camera to move as well). But since the projection only consists of very directed lights in a reduced bandwith, this illusion may totally be visible to opticals that function a different way than human eyes.
The get down with military carmouflage method works quite fine, if the environment holds cover and if the lights are bad. With enough cover this still might work fine in bright light. But, however, tarning is only one way one could think of becoming invisible.
Why the effort?
Two answers: First I like the idea humanity is able to take advantage above physical restrictions the aliens may have. It is much cooler (and more satisfying) to have a technology developed on the weakness of your opponent instead only adopting the strenghts of the opponents. (e.g. the defeat of the dansk Johann the first didn't stay in memory because of two troops fighting on a big battlefield but because of some peasants taking advantage of the dansk army being heavily amoured and opening the dykes leaving the dansk army to drown).
The second answer is: It is a new kind of technology. The more varity this game has in technological advances, the more interesting. And this is a kind of technology that could be pseudo explained by me. Even if this tech doesn't go in final, it may inspire others to come up with their ideas and enrich the tech tree of this game. As it was mentioned in the tech branch discussion it is hard enough to come up with enough reasonable futuristic technologies even without splitting them into different branches. So I thought, one would be glad if I could ad some reasonable tech to it.
I do not have the luxus to say: Well, I like the freezing effect or I like blur, so the explanation will be a spell (like a fantastic setting would do). But I can make my mind make imagine ways how this effects could be explained (although the explanation is not neccessary correct it only needs to be believable). And, the hack, I just like the 3d effect one could see with filtering glasses in the cinema. So i totally believe aliens will die more happily if their filter eyes were tricked by exactly this effect in combat *muhaha*
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There's still the problem that the nitrogen would have to stay cold, so unless those nitrogen canisters also have a refrigeration system they could/would explode or simply not work (your flamer would release the indimitating sound of gas leak ;D).
Hmm I better research this...
I have seen a few mega-over-clocked computers that had liquid nitrogen canisters as coolant, they looked pretty easy to carry and we're small and were pressurised. wouldn't that work? I mean, you could say that the main Liquid nitrogen cooler is on the drop-ship and they use it to fill 'temporary' temperature preserving pressurised flamer canisters that would last throughout the fight. that work?
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*more words*
I guess it's a difference of tastes and preference. I'd like a lot more to have a full-blown invisibility uniform instead of an illusion suit. Plus, invisibility unifroms are more high-tech while still just as possible.
I have seen a few mega-over-clocked computers that had liquid nitrogen canisters as coolant, they looked pretty easy to carry and we're small and were pressurised. wouldn't that work? I mean, you could say that the main Liquid nitrogen cooler is on the drop-ship and they use it to fill 'temporary' temperature preserving pressurised flamer canisters that would last throughout the fight. that work?
That might actually work. It would reduce the canisters need to keep cool immensely. Then you'd only have to make the flamer support it and you'll be all set.
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i am sorry i think this liquid nitrogen idea is not extremely convincing.
i did not enjoy reading the lengthy texts about this idea too much, sorry again, so maybe i missed a description about it's real life use to cool down armor.
but, liquid nitrogen is often used in some labs and... it is dangerous if it gets into your shoes or boots, then you could indeed get some serious frostburns.
maybe if it was mixed with something more sticky then it could cool something.
vodka with a drop of liquid nitrogen on top is a nice cool drink, btw.
talking about sticky goo, have you seen "who am i" where it looks like fun (i know, we already have stun rod that is a more exciting way of catching aliens).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vZpIViEw4&feature=PlayList&p=BF95F62519955BBB&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=42 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vZpIViEw4&feature=PlayList&p=BF95F62519955BBB&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=42)
you can see some nets and some white sticky thing at about 5:35.
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Not only tech ideas:
* EMP-Grenade -> destroys electrical components (but not bio weapons)
* Mech 'suit' (think Alien and Matrix films)
*variations on current weapons
f.i. stronger but heavier rifles
* moddable weapons
sights, scopes, bi-/tripods, flashlights, etc.
* shields
* riot guns (to stun people and aliens)
* intercoms
* fire-support (2+ troopers in a proximity of each other firing on the same target get a bonus)
What I would also like to see is the Aliens acting more logical.
When they land they might not expect resistance but after you fire at the first, I'd expect them to spring into action and not just wonder around aimlessly.
Currently they walk around like they do not know how to use the advanced tech they probably have. i.e. intercoms
They would probably also try to escape.
If I might even go further and go a little crazy, why not start the game with Roswell?
So you start off in the 1947 and then advance through all the tech and what not.
It would also stretch out the story line a little.
Might be perfect for tutorials. i.e. tutorial 1 1947's crash at Roswell. 1957's better weapons and an aliens start kidnapping people ..., 1967 ...
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Currently they walk around like they do not know how to use the advanced tech they probably have. i.e. intercoms
LoL! Do you think Aliens need intercoms?? They have hive mind!
Anyway this is just another list of dreams, I see no new usable idea in them, sorry...
-geever
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Ok, true that. I forget (yes, I am so old I played the original Ufos ;) )
Still, I would think that when one of them gets attacked or even killed, they would become more hostile and regroup.
I'm just throwing some thoughts and ideas out there.
To be honest, I was just thinking about tech we either have now or might have in the short future and the tactics being used.
Though it is never good to implement current or possible future tech into games because often enough real life progresses a lot faster and comes up with stuff quicker then you could image.
I remember a similar discussion about BattleTech and how, against todays weapons, a BattleMech would not last very long.
Though pls no computer virii to cause the mothership to explode. kthx! ;)
I'd also think that much of what we have, the aliens would have discovered long ago and would also have a large arsenal.
f.i. if we have shields, they might use telekinesis.
if they can control minds, why not use the civilians against the troops? And put a plasma bomb in their hands. 'LargeHeadedStrangeLookingFellow is great!' *boom* :D
Heck, they kidnapped so many of us, they should know how to best control and kill us.
@Rest of list
no problemo!
Thanks for reading!
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Hmm....ghillie suits. That would be awesome.
We would need more grass on maps, so you ca hide better :P
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Hmm...
against todays weapons, a BattleMech would not last very long.
But, Then again, it would still be able to do sizeable damage in a battle and, so long as it had some sort of Plated Reactive armour, it would turn the tide of any fire-fight so long as no anti-armour weapons come into play. ;D
ALSO, on a unrelated note, just Crazy idea, but... what about Incendiary flechette-based shotgun rounds?
and what about micro-neutron grenades? neutron bombs can easily cook enemy's in a burst of high energy radiation, but the radiation has a very short life, dies away quickly, and doesn't physically damage its surrounding, useful for killing a target but leaving equipment intact.
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I see this topic as general brainstorming for Ideas, tha could possibly com into game. As long as developers get inspired about the different kind of techs, there is no actual need one of theese ides find their way into the game (althoug I'd love to see some).
A new Idea: Anti-plasmatic shield
This piece of amor mainly consist of a kind a bunch of chambers storing a chemical liquid (or gas) each containing of plasma sensors on the surface. At the moment of an plasma impact the sensor will cause the hitted chamber to explode (like the airbag.tech) and atomize its liquids into the air-plasma micture. The mixture of these both gasses causes a endotherm reaction to happen, binding the ionised hydrogen into a rubbish-PU-Foamlike substate and also lowering the temperature of the incoming plasma. The energy of the plasma is even more reduced, since this foam normally melts, also using up energy of the plasma beam. (i don't know what chemical liquid could be believed to do a exothermal reaction to plasma, but there possibly is one). However, since the amor is "bombed in pieces" by usage even few shots may destroy the anti-plasmic shield. The damage to the amour is not dependet on the weapon type. A Plasma pistol will as well bring one of this chambers to explode than would a heavy plasma. It is a nice addition against plasma weapons, but helps against no other weapon. So you probably wouldnÄt like to carry arround the extra weight, as long as you don't face plasmas. Although it would be technical possible to resist a heavy plasma with nearly no ammount of damage, the extra weight of the liquid required would overcome the benefit.
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ATV's :P thats my two cents now wheres my doughnut......
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*words*
Infantry level reactive armour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_armour)?
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ATV's :P thats my two cents now wheres my doughnut......
Well first explain, what ATV stands for.
Well, if not liked on infantry, this kind of tech could be rewritten for fighter protection against plasma beams. On fighters the liquid probably would be stored in tanks and shooted from watercannons as a defencive beam autoaiming against the plasma beam (like antimissle missels), or perhaps been sprayed out permanently through blushing assemblies creating a protective fog around the craft.
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Well first explain, what ATV stands for.
I think he means All-terrain vehicles
Hummers and stuff would be cool, but since this isn't a open war, more of a urban one, Ugv's effectively beat them at everything.
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Well first explain, what ATV stands for.
Well, if not liked on infantry, this kind of tech could be rewritten for fighter protection against plasma beams. On fighters the liquid probably would be stored in tanks and shooted from watercannons as a defencive beam autoaiming against the plasma beam (like antimissle missels), or perhaps been sprayed out permanently through blushing assemblies creating a protective fog around the craft.
Problem is, plasma isn't used for craft weaponry (maybe with the exception of missiles), and such assembly would be far too heavy to carry for fighter craft.
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Problem is, plasma isn't used for craft weaponry (maybe with the exception of missiles), and such assembly would be far too heavy to carry for fighter craft.
Not even on missiles, they are "kinetic kill" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_kill_vehicle#Kinetic_projectiles) missiles as they are sometimes called, meaning they damage only by their kinetic energy and not with a warhead. The remaining antimatter fuel is pretty volatile though...
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by saying ATV you guys get lots of ideas see i did help :D
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With alien materials, the idea of bullets releasing a nitrogen payload inside the body is a good one, although the damage would be done by expansion not freezing. At room temperature nitrogen will form a supercritical fluid at 33 times atmospheric pressure (not that difficult to contain and no need to refrigerate) that has about one third the density of water. Phalanx could use the alien materials to create a high calibre, armour-piercing round containing about 5mls of nitrogen at scuba tank pressures (around 200 atmospheres) in a compartment behind the business end of the bullet. An impact will cause the material to switch to an alternative shape, springing open a fraction of a second after it penetrates the armour and dumping several litres of nitrogen gas inside the target, added to which the bullet will have lost its streamlined shape and cause a massive exit wound. Potentially quite messy.
Alien material bullets that "intelligently" change shape would work just fine without the nitrogen too. Or replace the nitrogen with something really nasty like a nerve agent. The downside of these rounds could be that if they hit a lightly/not armoured target they will pass clean through before they can fully deploy, so the wound will be less severe than would be caused by a simple bullet. Perhaps expanding rounds could be ammo for the sniper rifle or shotgun.
An intermediate step could be simple monomolecular-tipped, armour piercing rounds to make the slugthrowers more effective later in the campaign.
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With alien materials, the idea of bullets releasing a nitrogen payload inside the body is a good one, although the damage would be done by expansion not freezing. At room temperature nitrogen will form a supercritical fluid at 33 times atmospheric pressure (not that difficult to contain and no need to refrigerate) that has about one third the density of water. Phalanx could use the alien materials to create a high calibre, armour-piercing round containing about 5mls of nitrogen at scuba tank pressures (around 200 atmospheres) in a compartment behind the business end of the bullet. An impact will cause the material to switch to an alternative shape, springing open a fraction of a second after it penetrates the armour and dumping several litres of nitrogen gas inside the target, added to which the bullet will have lost its streamlined shape and cause a massive exit wound. Potentially quite messy.
Hmm... Would an impact generate enough heat to cause the transformation of the bullet? Adding a microcircuit with the bullet to facilitate the change could make the bullet too bulky.
Also would the material be strong enough to hold all that pressure when shaped as a bullet... Seems somewhat dubious to me.
Alien material bullets that "intelligently" change shape would work just fine without the nitrogen too. Or replace the nitrogen with something really nasty like a nerve agent. The downside of these rounds could be that if they hit a lightly/not armoured target they will pass clean through before they can fully deploy, so the wound will be less severe than would be caused by a simple bullet. Perhaps expanding rounds could be ammo for the sniper rifle or shotgun.
As I said adding a microcircuit to the bullet might make it too bulky and not enough impact-resistant. Also how much would the bullet have to "reshape" to get a noticeable effect on the wound?
An intermediate step could be simple monomolecular-tipped, armour piercing rounds to make the slugthrowers more effective later in the campaign.
I have also suggested this here (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4509.0). Especially the line:
It has the problem that the kerrmaterial requires curved form to keep it from breaking but like I said if succesfully fitted inside an AP round as penetrator it would be the mother of all AP rounds.
AKA: Might work, depends how well you can shape the stuff.
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personally i would leave gas agents in grenades, the post about a nitrogen-thrower can work, the tanks must be in immense pressure in order to stay in a liquid state, when disperse the liquid nitrogen will still stay liquid and will freeze anything on contact at certain limits, not a bad way for extracting frozen specimens for defrosting at the lab. this technology is available to us right now.
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There is, however, another benefit you could get of theese kind of bullets:
Put some anastetics into the bullet, medium pressure (cause after the explosion you don't want the bullets to cause too much damage). Still the bullet would be reshaped by the kinetical energy of pertifying the amour (if there is doubt the energy would not be not enough, the bullets tip could be covered in a flamable substance, like the tip of a match, even without having to fear a bad fight behavior too much.
The pressure of the liquid still will cause to explode the bullet and expand into the opponent body, after the heat causes the bullet to transform itself. While the bullet itself doesn't do much of a harm (still it is a bullet and there will be a shooting wound, probably a empty shell inside the body, though), the anastetics will stun large parts of the body. As long as the anastetics work, these parts won't be able to sensor, causing the opponent not to be able to move, stand, grab or use a device, since there would be no nerval feedback on this actions. He would be paralized (at least partially if there is a bad hit).
The worst paralizing effect would take effort if the opponent is hit in the torso (since it is mostly free space, so the anastetics would be able to spread wide inside the body). Hitting the chest could probably cause one of the lungs to malfunction, what would stun you for good, or causing a heart attack (waht would end you for good). Hitting one limb would probably only take out this particuar limb. Hitting the head would turn out bad (well, you'd to have a bullet shot into the head), but I honestly could not predict how bad the paralizing effect would be (might be fatal, too).
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we already have explosive rounds in rl, our ufo:ai weapon specialists are probably well aware of this (i do not consider myself a weapons specialist).
afaik it's just normal explosives, nothing fancy, and that's at least ww2.
and also bullets that change to nasty shapes on impact are, afaik, ww2.
both are somewhat forbidden nowadays.
afaik, nerve gas is also somewhat forbidden.
so, if we wanted freezing or some other type of fancy bullets, would those be more effective than the explosive rounds we already have from ww2?
i think some hardening polymer might be more effective for capturing live aliens than stun rod, but stun rod is more exciting.
for close combat, i would suggest a heavy hammer.
no armor can totally protect against such concussion power.
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As I can see you refer to soft point bullets (dum dum cardige), that was common even before the second world war to the end of the imperialistic aera, and the "watching cardige" ("Beobachtungsmunition"), bullets covered with a sulphur mantle, that ignite on impact and got used in the second world war from both the germans and the russian.
The soft point bullet has a weak structure on purpose, so that the impact will cause the structure to crack up and the bullet to deformate easily, giving a high chance the bullet to stay inside the designined target and causing a greater exit wound if leaving the victim. Since theese kind of ammunition is used in police service in quite some states, I don't think this ammo is forbidden by humanity rights (according to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teilmantelgeschoss (in german)).
The phosphor bullet, however, is not an explosive bullet on itself but more of an igniting bullet. Its purpose was a training purpose. Since the phospor would ignite hitting a target producing smoke, it would be easier to see, if a sharp shooter would have hit a designied target in training. The cardige also could be used to willingly ignite material in battle. However it came to know that the ignition of the bullet would produce high accelerated gases causing great damage to the body, if a target was hit in the stomach eg.
Both kind of ammunition would probably be very affective against no armor. Used against heavy armor the first kind of bullet would be very uneffective, since it was build to deformate easily on impact, the second kind wouldn't have a higher perforate chance than a standard bullet, since the posphor mantle ignites and doesn't explode. The bullets created in this thread were especially designed to take its effect the moment after the heavy armor is perfored, since the kinetic energy caused by the perforation is needed to activate the cracking up of the bullet.