Messages

16

Design / Re: why no nuclear stuff?

« on: April 07, 2010, 11:32:52 pm »

Well, most metals tend to burn when you increase their surface far enough. Aluminum would burn quite awesomely, but it's not very hard so it's out of the question

... and that's why nanoscale particles of Al and other metals are used to boost the output of thermobaric warheads.

Is the weight a big factor? I'd expect the momentum of a projectile fired from the same gun, with the same amount of porpellant, to always be in the same order of magnitude. That means heavier projectiles should come out of the gun slower.

... and that's why the discarding sabot principle is used for DU. The DU projectile is much smaller than the bore of the gun barrel. If an Abrams 120mm cannon tried to fire a 120mm diameter DU projectile the gun would burst from trying to expel something that massive.

17

Design / Re: Fusion: not in ten years, but now...

« on: April 05, 2010, 10:57:24 am »

Hi there,

For all who are being curious about Fusion Power?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

The article is a good quick backgrounder on what fusion is but the project coverage is outdated as the article's project focus is on the multinational ITER effort... which ain't doing so well with net power recently being pushed back to 2019  and it's falling further behind with each successive report.

A variety of smaller projects seem headed for net power in the next year or two, including Focus Fusion and Polywell.

And LET THERE BE LIGHT...AMEN

Oh, if any of the aneutronic projects work there will be light... and heat... and an exceedingly warm welcome for alien interlopers who show up decades after net power is reached...

18

Design / Re: why no nuclear stuff?

« on: April 01, 2010, 02:35:29 pm »

I didn't know DU actually explodes. I have always thought it was just for the added weight.

To be precise DU is pyrophoric under certain conditions... heated particles that are above about 500 degrees c ignite on contact with air and burn at 3000c.

Needless to say, the fragments of a DU projectile that just punched its way through a foot of armor are somewhat above 500c...

It's not the primary effect of such weapons but it is a rather noticeable side effect.

19

Design / Re: Fusion: not in ten years, but now...

« on: March 30, 2010, 05:04:31 pm »

That would work, but it'll make things interesting mapping the game world closer to ours without the benefit of an interregnum such as was supposed to follow the "Second Cold War".

Hmmm... Perhaps the SCW could start sooner, hit everyone harder, and stop sooner?

20

Design / Re: Fusion: not in ten years, but now...

« on: March 30, 2010, 04:10:52 pm »

Er... where did you hear this?

The usual suspects, talk-polywell.org and to a lesser extent emc2fusion's own website.

Note: I wasn't talking net power by next month (though would be be a wild possibility ) I was speaking of their Navy contract to have a WB8 built and running by 4/30/2010. The contract calls for minimal power generation at this stage... but that will be enough to prove scaling. Between now and next year there should be net power and also proof of pb11 fusion.  And by April of next year: 100MW.

But I believe things will get interesting before then....

21

Design / Fusion: not in ten years, but now...

« on: March 30, 2010, 12:03:12 pm »

Looks like we'll have controlled fusion power generation proof-of-concept by the end of next month, that's April 2010, with a 100 megawatt operational reactor to follow by April 2011 and that's apparently already ahead of schedule...

Yep, it's the Return of the Son of the Bride of Polywell and it looks like it is indeed capable of aneutronic operation fusing protons with boron 11 and that means vast reductions in required shielding and radiation handling measures and it also means direct conversion to electrical power with existing technology... with equally vast reductions in the weight of auxiliary power and cooling gear.

...

.... has anyone thought about what that will do to game balance if the aliens attack 70+ years after we have such sources of fusion power?

Ground defenses blasting UFOs out of the exosphere with directed energy weapons at game start because the mooks were mistaken for missiles... naval vessels mounting railgun and directed energy weapons powered by multi-gigawatt reactors... human combat aircraft faster than UFOs and mounting energy weapons as well... irate human spacecraft chasing UFOs offworld as far as Mars at 450 kps... and not needing to refuel... human ships from Mars moving in to cut off the retreating alien ships...

... and those are very conservative estimates for human abilities at the start of the game because these things are first up in the R&D pipeline NOW and will be among the first fruits of fusion power.

It ain't fair, but it's there... I seriously wonder how we'll handle the changes.

I knew the future had caught up with the game already in some respects, but I'd not thought through what the recent developments in fusion would actually do to the game balance.

With antimatter power sources the alien ships would still outpower human ships and especially human aircraft... but not to the degree needed for the game storyline. Ground and naval facilities, not having to be flightweight, would be even more on a par with the alien capabilities as they are currently envisioned .

... oh yeah... the arguments against human mass production of antimatter also go out the window but it just wouldn't be needed for ordinary civilian purposes. Only for interstellar ship research... and military uses...

... whee! 

22

Design / Re: Plasma and the Nitpickers

« on: March 17, 2010, 03:01:35 am »

the plastic casing etc reduces the coolness factor imho.
why not just say the plasma holds itself together like ball lightning, and worry about the reasoning when the real mechanism of ball lightning is discovered.

Because the ball lightning explanation falls apart when you start treating the plasma as a projectile. Plasma is both tenuous and very energetic and  trying to force it through the air at any speed for any distance would be like trying to ram a helium balloon through a brick wall... i.e. it can theoretically be done but the forces involved would be kinda insane and the effects of those forces would dwarf any actual damage done by the plasma.

If the plasmoid explanation for ball lightning holds up it gets around this because the theory (and the relatively few observations) do not describe the balls as acting as projectiles.

And the plasmoid hypothesis indicates that actual damage comes from a charge carried by the plasmoid structure, and not much from the plasma itself.... and that charge is presumed to be lightning-related.

That's why ball lightning doesn't make good plasma ammo

23

Feature Requests / Re: Eliminate Blocked Spaces for Bases

« on: March 17, 2010, 02:37:36 am »

The cheapest thing would naturally be to just place a special Command Center there. Call it a "Main Command Center", "Main Headquarters" or "Atlantic Operations Command" where basically YOU reside and command the whole thing. And if that falls, it's game over.

I was pondering the same thing... a specialized base the loss of which would end Phalanx and therefore the game.

To make it worthwhile I was thinking of an notional command complex that would bundle a set of standard buildings: command, power, quarters, storage etc... but would be separated from the main base by heavy blast doors and a short tunnel... and thus would be not be rendered with the main base. Instead there would be just one building containing an armored door that's presumed to lead to the command complex.

(This assumes that the 3d rendering of the base is what's defining the upper size limit of bases)

This means that the aliens must fight their way through the base until they reach the building that houses the entrance to the command complex and force their way through the blast doors and tunnel before they can be assumed to have stormed the final complex and won the game.

The player would have to defend the building that defines the entrance of the complex but would have the benefits of a set of buildings that are readily available and yet only take up one block of space in the main base.

Workable?

It'd be nice to have the complex as an actual fightable map... but...

24

Feature Requests / Re: Eliminate Blocked Spaces for Bases

« on: March 10, 2010, 10:07:11 pm »

Agree on the illogicity of the rock blocks in subsequent bases.

Perhaps some changes could be implemented in steps?

Interim suggestion: free up some first base space for the player. If you want the first base to be special and you don't want to use different size formats between the first base and the subsequent bases then give the first base some immediately operational extras such as a supply dump/warehouse for a storage area, external SAM batteries, and a UFO yard. These would be represented by icons adjacent to the first base and would be subject to the same game effects as their normal game counterparts.

(What do you mean "What warehouses?" Of course you have warehouses... you just haven't noticed them yet...)

But that's a stopgap. My best suggestion is a major change: let the player buy as big of a base as they like, up to as big as the game allows... but at a price scaled to the size of. the excavations the player wants.

And there are two catches to the pricing. The first catch is that any expansion of an existing base costs double price (or more) because of the difficulties in modifying the base without disrupting current operations.

The second catch is that space for the first base is 1/2 off *but only for the initial excavations*

A substantive change but it should give the desired results.

25

Feature Requests / Re: option

« on: March 09, 2010, 03:52:34 pm »

Hi,
sorry if there it already is, but i cant find in options UNDO ALL CHANGES.
I did something with it, and I dont know how to make it right, so... can you make there UNDO ALL CHANGES in options? :-))

btw. there is next bug. when i change something in display options, it will shut the game down :-/

EDIT: Sry if this is bad section^^

Right section, I think

I believe the usual English phrase for what you want is RESTORE DEFAULTS...
... which is shortened from "Restore Default Settings"...
... and yes, I think it would be a good thing to have as well.

Another option, similar but different, would be the option of starting in a "safe mode", which I imagine would be a windowed mode with barebones visual settings.

Hope this helps!

26

Feature Requests / Re: Blade Drone Hive

« on: March 09, 2010, 01:34:06 pm »

Ewww, Mook Makers in a UFO/X-COM game?

Kidding.  I kinda like the idea, but I'm a bit iffy about it.

My friend, have you ever watched... 8-Bit Theater? 

... ah well, I was pretty sure I'd already given away the plan when I did the Plasmoids writeup...

But I intended to be fair and I'd envisioned this particular Hive spawning only one drone at a time and the troops could take it out in turn by planting a bomb (when that becomes available).

It's a very flexible concept, I just wanted to get its foot in the door...

27

Feature Requests / Re: Bloodmantis

« on: March 09, 2010, 12:59:07 pm »

So, addressing the various and salient points raised:

It seemed to me that the aliens were still gathering biomass and thus tweaking the human version of XVI until very late in the game, at least so far... as the game is naturally still incomplete

As for the why of the mantis... there are arrays of robotic allies and enemies that have yet to be brought into the fray and I'm just examining what might be upgrade paths for the aliens along the way. Thus the mantis is the bloodspider... upgraded. With guns

And I believe the guns will make a tactical difference, especially when the Phalanx UGVs join the party. And unless a way to revive stunned Phalanx troopers in the battlescape arises *(you can't do that yet, right?) there's no difference between stunning and killing them, tactically speaking.

So those are my wandering thoughts, presented for inspection and dissection

28

Feature Requests / Re: Automatic weapons upgrades? .... and also ammo as a weapon function?...

« on: March 09, 2010, 12:30:26 pm »

Well... (pause) ... I was thinking of upgrades to existing weapons and not new weapons as such, but it seems that all weapons threads veer sharply towards bigger, better and above all else newer guns

So back to upgrades:  the ability to load a magazine with a newer type of ammo helps a lot in that regard, although ammo capacity really should be dependent on the magazine and not the weapon in weapons that use magazines.

Add-ons such as improved sighting etc should be okay.

Upgrades to the construction processes of the weapon, producing it faster and cheaper, are easy.

But upgrades to the actual structure of the weapon and/or alterations to its primary mode of operations would be something else entirely, I think.


... oh, btw... kerrblade shotshells, while deadly and perhaps unbalancing, wouldn't be so far out of line technically, I think. I imagine a set of 6 curved scalpel blades set in a rosette pattern in a nanocomposite base in a nanocomposite sabot, sharp edges forward. When the shell is fired the rosette will slam into the unfortunate alien, slice into the armor until the nc base smacks into the armor and the "scalpels" will then depart the base and spend a second roaming around inside the alien.

So its structured very much like the flechette rounds that the shotguns are already supposed to be loaded with except these rounds would have a very low effective range.

The result should be powder burns on the alien armor around 6 slots in a rosette pattern... and randomized alien leaking out of the lower joints of the armor.

Of course if the kerrshotshell is insufficient for the task then just as the grenade launcher can fire a king-sized version of a flechette shell... 

29

Feature Requests / Blade Drone Hive

« on: March 08, 2010, 05:20:24 pm »

Blade Drone Hive

This would appear when raid losses make it clear to the aliens that Phalanx troops need dedicated robots deployed against them as opposed to the more general purpose bloodspider and bloodmantis.

In this case the robot is actually a stationary AI-equipped "Hive" that would deploy relatively simpleminded five-legged disposable robotic drones the size of a small dog.  Heavily armed robotic drones.

Hive Structure: Your average big alien box, about 2 meters on a side, with holes in the side and sprouting spiky antennae.

Blade Drone Structure and Weapons: Five legs, a body containing the power pack and the electronics, a sensor cluster and a plasma blade in the front... and it carries an additional explosive charge.

When Phalanx troops intrude on the raid area the Hive begins dispatching blade drones to deal with what the Hive deems as the most threatening enemy units. When a blade drone is in range it leaps at the target in an attempt to lock on with the plasma blade. If it succeeds it spends that turn killing the target and then it will explode the next turn.

Otherwise it will try again.

And again.

The blade drone's small size and pre-programmed evasive maneuvers will make it a difficult target to hit in the meantime... and there's always the chance that a drone will explode anyway if it is hit hard enough.

The actual embodiment and descriptives can be changed at will, of course, but would this seem likely to provide sufficient game variety for the effort that would be involved?

30

Feature Requests / Re: Bloodmantis

« on: March 08, 2010, 05:00:32 pm »

Overall I like it. I'm not sure if the aliens would follow the theme of researching Earths bugs but who knows what they'll do. Also this could be scary as hell. Not as scary as a huge bloodspider perhaps but scary nonetheless. PHALANX would not mind it but a lot of the civilians would.

... or maybe the design is a coincidence?... or perhaps an alien saw a mantis during a raid and the hive remembered it while drawing up the new 'bot?... mysterious aliens are mysterious...

About its smartness, I remember reading from some topic that the XVI can control robots too if there is a biological part present. That's how they would use theirs so calling just another hiveminder (with no actual brain) smart might not be absolutely correct. Just as a FYI.

Well, the point is that the mantis doesn't want to make the Phalanx job any easier by stunning civilians during a battlescape encounter. The rationale for it not doing that is that the mantis is concentrating on enemy units with offensive capabilities... although it undoubtedly will be happy to disassemble any civilian that gets close during the fight.

Wouldn't those shockers be somewhat useless against armor? At least I've understood that PHALANX uses armor made mostly out of non-conductive stuff.

Nope. Even Phalanx electrical weapons can take out troops in nanocomposite armor... and the alien version would be much more powerful. Powerful enough to incapacitate a UGV at full charge.

Armor definitely helps, but in-game it does not confer electrical immunity.