UFO:AI, my comments and criticisms

[Voller]

Just had an idea. How about the ammunition being some sort of capsule containing a few chemicals, which can be triggered by the weapon to undergo an extremely exothermic reaction when it is fired. By the time they reach the target, the contents have become hot enough to melt through the shell and do some damage.

[blondandy]

The energy from exothermic chemical reactions comes from the bonds. It is not possible to have them give up enough energy to create a plasma (ie totally dissociate the electrons).

What you describe is a conventional explosive.

[Voller]

Guess my school chemistry isn't taking me very far

[Sectoid]

I don't like the idea of using tachyons, as physicists are pretty sure they don't exist. Besides, a tachyon grenade would explode before you pulled the pin!    

If you really need an exotic "sci-fi" explosive, you might consider antimatter. Don't know how you'd store antimatter, tho...

[BTAxis]

If you really need an exotic "sci-fi" explosive, you might consider antimatter. Don't know how you'd store antimatter, tho...

Then read up, we're using it pretty extensively in the context of craft engines and weapons already.

We don't have antimatter weapons in tactical combat, though. And I'm fairly sure we never will.

[Adrian Magnus]

Anti-matter is not something you want in any sort of tactical weapon. It has a tendency to make very big booms. A mere 100 grams (.1 kilograms), for comparison the M67 frag grenade has a filling of a ~180 grams, of anti-matter being annihilated  would yield...

E=MC^2

E=(.1)(300,000,000 m/s)^2

E=(.1)(90,000,000,000,000,000)

E=9E15 joules

A kiloton is equal to 4.184 terajoules, that is 4.184E12 joules. Therefore the complete annihilation of the 100 grams of anti-matter would cause cause an explosion of...

9E15 / 4.184E12 = 2151 kilotons, or 2.2 megatons. However, nothing is 100% efficient, let us assume just 60% efficiency. That gives us 1.4 megatons.

Congratulations, your grenade sized anti-matter bomb just wiped-out the aliens along with your entire team, as well as all civilians and structures for kilometres around. If you're going to be flinging nukes it would be much better to use very small nuclear weapons, probably shot from recoil-less rifles, as combat damage won't accidentally initiate them and they are far cheaper. Of course, if you are willing to level an area with sub-kiloton warheads then why bother sending in a ground troops at all? That's what bomb trucks filled with conventional explosives are for.


Incidentally, we could employ nuclear tipped air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles to down UFOs. The real world has had those since the late 50s or early 60s. No need for direct hits, close enough is good enough  :twisted: .

(I'm joking of course, PHALANX would probably be scared shitless of nuking the aliens because the aliens might just nuke back.)

[blondandy]

energy conversion can be 100% efficient when you are converting to heat. conversion of mass-energy to heat-energy using antimatter is 100% efficient.

You will get some kinetic energy and energy stored in photons along the way. but you can be sure that it will end up as heat.

[Agrajag]

I don't like the idea of using tachyons, as physicists are pretty sure they don't exist. Besides, a tachyon grenade would explode before you pulled the pin!    

If you really need an exotic "sci-fi" explosive, you might consider antimatter. Don't know how you'd store antimatter, tho...

How would you store tachyons in the first place, they can't be slowed to lower than lightspeed. Make them orbit a black hole inside the grenade? And how use them as an explosive? What's the idea? How is it supposed to work? What damage would it cause (if any)? And from where comes the explosive force to make the grenade explode. It would more likely just break open.
Particle Beam weapons sounds nicer, more realistic, highly advanced and powerful. Maybe the particle accelerating technology could also make for a nice fragmention grenade like device, yet quite risky (hide! Where to? the blast radius is like a 100 of those squares on the chessboard of the universe!)

   Not being cruel  

[BTAxis]

Just making an observation here, but I notice most people here seem to be trying to come up with technology they can justify from existing physics theories, or discarding technology because they can't. What I'm sort of missing is the "fiction" part of science-fiction. I find myself thinking, why can't we have a weapon that uses a principle we haven't even thought of? I realize the problem of that is that, well, we haven't thought of it, which makes the UFOpaedia entry a bit hard to write, but why must all alien technology be rooted in current human theories? What if there is a field of physics we haven't discovered yet, be it because we're not in the right part of the galaxy, because our current theories do not prompt us to do the right kind of experiment or even because we're just damn unlucky?

We may not be able to explain it ot reason it into our view of the universe right away. Any such technology would be TRULY alien to us, or as

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

So by this token, I guess I'm saying that all this trying to make it "make sense" is taking the magic out of it. Oh well.

[blondandy]

I like sci-fi which has good scientific style. does not break known laws and invents new ones when required, but in a plausible-sounding way. Ian M Banks and Alastair Reynolds are very good at this.

Really pure sci-fi is about trying to guess how science and technology might affect the future. For example, if was in a purist frame of mind I would not classify Star Wars as sci-fi, rather fantasy.

I do thoroughly enjoy sci-fi, which simply tries to tell a story in the future and uses science/technology as a tool.

I think my main point is that it is easier to suspend disbelief if the science sounds plausible. new laws of nature may need to be invented for certain fantastic futures. This is all good fun. Its about getting the style of them right.

for plasma: it is possible to contain them using magnetic fields, it is not possible to contain them using any material.

[Agrajag]

Yeah magic alien stuff. Like in UFO1 and TFTD, almost.

for plasma: it is possible to contain them using magnetic fields, it is not possible to contain them using any material.

True really, but if the plasma is not locked away from the air it will quickly scatter and lose its temperature.
Thats why JET can contain plasma and keep its temperature high and stable for a long time. Its a combined magnetic field and vacuum container, and is so far the only way to keep plasma (as you said).

But if it has to be realistic, how can it be used as a weapon?

UFO: Enemy Unknown was good anyway, even though the plasma weapons there was realy weird. Elerium-115 and Zrbite is magic  :wink:  . The Aliens need that kind of stuff

[BTAxis]

But if it has to be realistic, how can it be used as a weapon?

Well, it probably can't. Else it would have been in use already.

[Sectoid]

Good sci-fi should be as believable as possible without getting in the way of the story or the fun, IMHO. So there's no harm in trying to find semi-realistic ways the aliens could have plasma weapons and hovering UFOs and such. besides, it'd make good filler for the UFOpedida.


As for antimatter grenades, chemists today routinely separate and manipulate materials on the nanogram-femtogram scale, so one can scale down the 2.2 megatons to whatever size explosion is needed.

[Agrajag]

6. I'm confused regarding the shotgun. The in-game UFOpedia suggests both slugs and flechettes cause "blast" type damage. The online wiki suggests they both cause "normal" type damage. Which is it? In any case it should be slugs cause normal and flechettes cause blast, no?

No, 'blast' governs only explosive damage. Both ammo types should cause 'normal' damage. Which really should have been renamed to 'impact' damage.

Okay, so the description of 'blast' damage is wrong, since it says buckshot qualifies as 'blast' damage. Though now we are faced with a different issue. Why would I want to use the shotgun saboted slugs when flechettes do more damage? If slugs are 'normal' and flechettes are 'blast' then you'd use slugs against armoured opponents because their armour is not as strong against that as against flechettes. But with both the same, I see no reason for using slugs at all.

I agree the slugs for riot shotgun are pretty useless, but they spread less than flechettes, so even if both are the same against armor there's still a difference, primarely at longer ranges where flechettes gets totally useless.

It seems to me that the shotgun is underpowered compared to the other human weapons, maybe it should do little more damage to make up for its poor accuracy, and perhaps there should be flechette type damage, both for shotgun and GL (btw. why is shotguns range 60 and GLs ≈10 with flechettes? One would never use flechettes (or shotgun actually) at such ranges) to make a difference between AP ammo and flechettes.

[BTAxis]

Weapon rebalancing is something that needs to be done across the board. And we probably won't get it right on the first try either, especially considering that some weapons, notably the UGVs, aren't even in the game yet.