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Still like the idea in the Battletech thread of the next step for the setting being the Thirty Years War with giant robots.
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Sep 27, 2020 05:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Still like the idea in the Battletech thread of the next step for the setting being the Thirty Years War with giant robots. They do have a lot of mercenaries running around I suppose, and the clothing aesthetics would probably be an improvement over the original artwork designs.
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Sep 28, 2020 08:16
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Finally, what intergalactic phone companies were missing, pre-paid phone card guilds
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Sep 28, 2020 10:08
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MadDogMike posted:They do have a lot of mercenaries running around I suppose, and the clothing aesthetics would probably be an improvement over the original artwork designs. Pretty sure the equivalent would be painting your mechs like MEGAS XLR.
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Sep 28, 2020 11:39
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CainFortea posted:Aren't Battletech credits effectively phone minutes from comstar? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01iJiiaK5Ac
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Oct 2, 2020 02:18
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I forget if it's come up before, and I feel like it probably has, but hell with it, I feel like among all of Warhammer 40k's absurd technology both in-universe and out, Ordinatus (warning: chan speak, if relatively mild) absolutely fit the bill. Might have come up that humanity in Warhammer 40,000 have had a pretty bad case of Butlerian Jihad (if not as bad as Dune itself, or even Battletech, overall, but significant) to the point where the technology-cult of the Adeptus Mechanicus considers innovation and blue-sky research in itself to be incredibly dangerous at best. This means, poo poo has to be ridiculously dire for them to actually do it, and the Ordinatus are a result of what precepts and organisations they have to actually accommodate it. What you end up with is basically a mad science superweapon mounted on absurdly large tank treads of an arbitrarily massive size, typically built around an extremely specific scenario that needs to be solved. This can range from a massive sonic cannon to a Death Star Jr superlaser to a massive drill tank, and is sometimes not even operable after its first use, which probably doesn't make the AdMech too sad because they're incredibly reluctant to use them for any reason other than something ridiculously similar to the scenario they were originally built for. Perhaps fittingly among 40k's deliberately ridiculous treatment of technology, Ordinatus stand out, as they're oddly standardised for one-off mad science superweapons, yet a design that makes sense as 'break glass only in case of mad science emergency' button, being as said, basically a massive fuckoff superweapon mounted on ridiculously oversized treads made only for massive fuckoff superweapons. The ones who have playable stats even make sense for this; they tend to be glass cannons et large, mainly relying on very rare energy shields usually reserved for particularly large and rare Titans (the giant mecha which are often literally cathedrals) That said, their stats do in turn seem to be 'anything I'm pointed at is all kinds of hosed'. And of course, a couple of these, mostly the city-sized sonic cannons, have been looted by the Orks. It aint the Imperium til it's been used against them because of their hubris!
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Oct 11, 2020 11:57
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Aphrodite's boob rockets from Tranzor Z. Just the idea that somewhere there's a warehouse full of bespoke boob-shaped rockets that had to be designed by a team of aerospace PhD's who then handed the design off to a military contractor to build, and then a designated ground crew has to constantly reload the robot by shoving rockets into it's boob holes. Lotta people questioning their career choices, I'd wager.
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Oct 21, 2020 23:59
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Buttchocks posted:Aphrodite's boob rockets from Tranzor Z. Just the idea that somewhere there's a warehouse full of bespoke boob-shaped rockets that had to be designed by a team of aerospace PhD's who then handed the design off to a military contractor to build, and then a designated ground crew has to constantly reload the robot by shoving rockets into it's boob holes. Lotta people questioning their career choices, I'd wager. God, I remember watching that show when I was VERY young and had to get up ridiculously early on Saturday to watch it, and even then it struck me as utterly terrible to be able to fire a grand total of two shots in a fight. Granted now I've grown up enough to be aware that yes, mad scientists are dumb enough to make a terrible weapon simply in the name of horny, so this was probably a disturbingly realistic design choice.
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Oct 25, 2020 05:44
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To be completely fair to Go Nagai, it's sort of rare for Mazinger and co to have to fight more than two or three monsters at a time, and Aphrodite A is explicitly there to support Mazinger rather than fight poo poo on its own. If it fires two shots and then it's done, that's one or two less Mechanical Beasts to deal with for Kouji. Now, if you want absolute garbage tech from Mazinger, there's Boss Borot, a robot made from literal junk and trash that constantly falls apart and is essentially a metallic Jar Jar Binks piloted by a fat idiot. Boss Borot owns.
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Oct 25, 2020 18:45
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Megillah Gorilla posted:At the very least, a Pacific Rim style game where the Kaiju are meat mechs. They kind of did something like that in the last episode Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, where the main character and the villain both turn into Kaiju, and it keeps cutting back to them in their respective mindscapes to show their reactions to the fight. It owns. The whole series actually a great example of what SlothfulCobra was talking about with good postapocalyptic fiction where the world has largely moved on.
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Oct 30, 2020 14:27
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Megillah Gorilla posted:At the very least, a Pacific Rim style game where the Kaiju are meat mechs. He looks like this 
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Oct 31, 2020 09:59
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I just re-read The Caves of Steel for the first time in a long time and that book is just jammed pack full of stupid garbage tech. The shittiest however has to be the rod. It's a little rod you hold in your hand and the tip grows warmer when it's pointed towards the destination it's tuned for. This is so stupid in so many ways. I mean, to start with heat is not nearly as good a tactile response as say, vibration might be. Also why use vibration and not light? But the main reason it's stupid is that it's supposed to help you through a warren of corridors and rooms and such to get to your destination. Getting a direct point to the room you're looking for isn't going to be all that helpful.
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Nov 2, 2020 22:06
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What’s the loving difference between a hand phaser and a phaser rifle in Star Trek they seem to do the exact same thing
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Nov 3, 2020 10:38
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In DS9 at least, Federation phaser rifles are pointed out as having a ton of different settings (at the cost of fragility, helped by the prop falling apart as Nana Visitor holds it in that memorable scene), though I think the pistols are too. TOS does sometimes show them as being multipurpose to an almost absurd degree. I assume the main deal is meant to be the same as how a gunpowder rifle is different from a pistol; presumably the phaser rifles are more powerful, longer ranged and/or have stronger power cells.
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Nov 3, 2020 12:34
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Ghost Leviathan posted:In DS9 at least, Federation phaser rifles are pointed out as having a ton of different settings (at the cost of fragility, helped by the prop falling apart as Nana Visitor holds it in that memorable scene), though I think the pistols are too. TOS does sometimes show them as being multipurpose to an almost absurd degree. Most Star Trek tech seems to exist mainly to remove limitations for the writers to come up with whatever story they want so "handy tool that can do whatever" fits the universe.
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Nov 3, 2020 13:33
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Owling Howl posted:Most Star Trek tech seems to exist mainly to remove limitations for the writers to come up with whatever story they want so "handy tool that can do whatever" fits the universe. The scene I was talking about actually has Kira compare a Federation phaser rifle, which has ten settings, to a Cardassian one, which has two: stun and kill.
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Nov 3, 2020 13:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:In DS9 at least, Federation phaser rifles are pointed out as having a ton of different settings (at the cost of fragility, helped by the prop falling apart as Nana Visitor holds it in that memorable scene), though I think the pistols are too. TOS does sometimes show them as being multipurpose to an almost absurd degree. Right, but a hand phaser can already turn a person into vapor, what more can a phaser rifle really do in that situation?
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Nov 3, 2020 14:25
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Taintrunner posted:Right, but a hand phaser can already turn a person into vapor, what more can a phaser rifle really do in that situation? Turn more people into vapor before running out of juice, I'd assume.
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Nov 3, 2020 14:29
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Hunter Noventa posted:Turn more people into vapor before running out of juice, I'd assume. And maybe turn bigger/tougher things into vapor too?
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Nov 3, 2020 14:37
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Turn the vapor into really hot vapor, thus negating the need to even have line of sight with the room. Phasers are basically portable war crimes.
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Nov 3, 2020 14:49
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Phasers also come with a "cooking pot" setting for when you're in the kitchen and the food suddenly starts trying to kill you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_a2GN0Ix4o&t=29s
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Nov 3, 2020 15:39
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You'd think that'd be more of a Klingon feature.
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Nov 3, 2020 15:50
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Taintrunner posted:What’s the loving difference between a hand phaser and a phaser rifle in Star Trek they seem to do the exact same thing IIRC: bigger batteries and better heat exchangers so they can shoot harder longer. Source: The TNG Technical Manual was my most-prized possession when I was an literal childe.
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Nov 3, 2020 16:29
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Taintrunner posted:What’s the loving difference between a hand phaser and a phaser rifle in Star Trek they seem to do the exact same thing It's easier to be accurate with a rifle. 3 points of contact is better than 2. Also according to the Technical Manual, the type 2 hand phaser has settings 1 to 16. The type 3 phaser rifle has similar power settings but 50% additional power reserve. Settings are: Light Stun Medium Stun Heavy Stun Thermal Effects Thermal Effects (But more) Disruption Effects Disruption Effects (Harder) Disruption Effects (Harder Better) (This is basically the Kill setting) Disruption Effects (Harder Better Faster) Disruption Effects (Harder Better Faster Stronger) Explosive/Disruption Effects Explosive/Disruption Effects (Harder) Explosive/Disruption Effects (Harder Better) Explosive/Disruption Effects (Harder Better Faster) Explosive/Disruption Effects (Harder Better Faster Stronger) Explosive/Disruption Effects (Heavy Geological Displacement; 650m3 of rock/ore of 6.0 g/cm3 density explosively uncoupled per discharge)
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Nov 3, 2020 16:35
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Speaking of garbage, the response time of those 2 red shirts to the alarm is pretty poo poo considering they have instantaneous point to point teleportation available.
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Nov 3, 2020 17:14
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It's probably considered a bad idea to beam down into an unknown, unsecured situation.
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Nov 5, 2020 05:08
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Also I'm pretty sure they didn't really do transporters between points inside the ship until Next Gen, remember them making a big deal about it in that series.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:53
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Taintrunner posted:What’s the loving difference between a hand phaser and a phaser rifle in Star Trek they seem to do the exact same thing Optional bayonet attachment
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Nov 5, 2020 07:48
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Buttchocks posted:Optional bayonet attachment 
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Nov 5, 2020 08:26
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's probably considered a bad idea to beam down into an unknown, unsecured situation. Any worse than running through the door? At least transporting the potential bad guys won’t know where to point their phasers to get you before you’ve a chance to do anything. This is all assuming Savik disabled internal sensors before nuking the pot so security couldn’t see first where everyone is before beaming in anyway. Which I doubt as not necessary for her demo and would just cause more problems.
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Nov 5, 2020 11:12
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's probably considered a bad idea to beam down into an unknown, unsecured situation. Also, beaming isn't instantaneous; it takes a few seconds for them to materialize, enough for the bad guys to get the drop on them.
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Nov 5, 2020 14:46
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I feel like there would be potential military applications for whatever causes the occasional transporter fuckup (more like in the movie where they end up as a screaming blob of flesh than the ones where O'Brien gets trapped in the pattern buffer and it's like space Ireland and he grows a beard or some poo poo)?
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Nov 5, 2020 15:39
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Any time you can beam security INTO a situation, you could also just beam the assholes into the brig. Or space.
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Nov 5, 2020 16:10
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CainFortea posted:Any time you can beam security INTO a situation, you could also just beam the assholes into the brig. Or space. At this point why isn't the brig literally just a transporter pattern buffer? E: Like the containment thingy in Ghostbusters what the ConEd guy shuts off?
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Nov 5, 2020 16:26
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Schadenboner posted:At this point why isn't the brig literally just a transporter pattern buffer? It takes a lot of power to run a buffer with a pattern in it. Way easier to just stick em in room then ship them to new zealand
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Nov 5, 2020 17:08
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one of the big divides in SciFi is "space on ship is plentiful" (because space is big and you aren't constrained by gravity) vs "space on ship is constrained" (because all current spaceships are very constrained on account of having to be built on earth and then launched out of gravity). In any event the transporter buffer is a far more limited resource than physical room. CainFortea posted:Any time you can beam security INTO a situation, you could also just beam the assholes into the brig. Or space. Spacing anybody who gets snitched on, immediately, is a very Cardassian solution.
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Nov 5, 2020 17:38
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Also transporter buffers are literally bigger than the brig cells. Also also, being constrained by gravity is not the only reason to build ships compact. If you build them with big open space you still need more ship to wrap around that space and inertia exists. Tulip posted:Spacing anybody who gets snitched on, immediately, is a very Cardassian solution. I disagree. Cardassians love nothing more than having a show trial and would go to great lengths to bring them back so they could televise it. If anyone was to build some sort of transporter buffer prison brig to haul prisoners around it'd be them.
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Nov 5, 2020 18:43
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CainFortea posted:Also transporter buffers are literally bigger than the brig cells. I was torn about the Cardassians, because Garak and the rest of the spies I'm pretty sure would just space people and the rest of Cardassia would be down with it because they're basically a society built around the ethos of 24, but it is true that they love their show trials. The question comes down to "how important is it to a show trial that the accused is alive." There's also more reasons to not just make giant loving ships, such as shielding and construction, I just didn't want to get too exhaustive in a single parenthetical. Which leads me to - I've been playing Hardlight Shipbreaker, and while the tech in the game is explicitly supposed to be poo poo, the really baffling ones are "universal utility keys that are disposable" and "wait why do objects in motion come to rest without an outside force"
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Nov 5, 2020 19:25
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Tulip posted:I was torn about the Cardassians, because Garak and the rest of the spies I'm pretty sure would just space people and the rest of Cardassia would be down with it because they're basically a society built around the ethos of 24, but it is true that they love their show trials. The question comes down to "how important is it to a show trial that the accused is alive." It's very important. Their "lawyers" are there to convince the victim to confess, as it's VERY important for the rest of Cardassia see that the justice system works, and the perpetrator is sorry for his actions. I just figure they run into the little bits and bobs floating around, and basically metal dust left over from melting metal in ton lots. What gets me is that some aluminium goes in the processor, some goes in the furnace.
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Nov 5, 2020 19:52
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The weird thing about Cardassian society is that later on the series fleshed it out as being the most extreme sort of police state that's deeply embedded into their society, but earlier on in TNG, they established that Cardassian society only was taken over by the military within living memory. I guess Gul David Warner is much older than Garak, so Garak just isn't old enough to know about pre-central command days? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ3EDTYZTOU Also to be back on topic, torture is a lovely way of getting information, so technology involving it is garbage.
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Nov 5, 2020 21:24
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