Well of Souls Forums

The advantage of narrow hips is a more efficient, energy-conserving gait when walking or running. Large breasts seems to be mainly due to sexual selection, small ones work just as well for lactation purposes. Given that Loroi males don't really choose their mates, big boobs make little sense. Wide s...

Here's another question: Can the umiak extend the range of their weapons to match the loroi's at the expense of higher damage. Lasers and particle beams don't work that way. They could increase the effective range by increasing the power of the weapons, but it would take a lot more energy for not m...

Predatory species often have eyes facing forward (rather than to the sides) to give them stereo vision and depth perception. Having eyes spaced widely apart actually aids in stereo vision, as long as they're still able to face forward. Eyes spaced widely apart can also cause a large blind spot, but...

@Jericho: In reality, a particle beam would indeed have shorter range than a laser, unless the lasers are low quality/intensity. In the Outsider universe, the solution is Applied Phebotinum: "At higher tech levels, I presume ways are found to substantially extend blaster range; I imagine a sort of p...

@fredgiblet: I don't think the technology aspect would be that much harder to code, so long as the number of chassis and options are limited. The economic and military aspects are common enough. The social and diplomatic aspects could be harder. AIs are really dumb, so the possibilities would be lim...

Or where you mount the thrusters. Or you move smaller thrusters further away from the center of gravity on projections or wings. smaller thrusters with more leverage work as well as really big thrusters That was part of what I mean, yes. Big thrusters far from the center of gravity would make a ver...

@Dragoon: How fast you can turn depends on the ship's mass and maneuvering thrusters. How accurate you can be depends on your battle computers, and that goes for turrets as well as spinal mounts. Without very accurate battle computers you won't hit anything anyway. Being off by a few degrees would b...

a spinal mount weapon has more punch than the 18 inch guns of the Yamato, ( but you have to point the ship fairly close to target and fly at a predictable path for several seconds while you line up your shot. Only while accelerating, and that's if your thrusters aren't ridiculously mobile. In space...

@Arioch: The size increase of putting an inertial damper on a projectile would be a problem for ship-based mass drivers, but orbital mass drivers would be more concerned with the manufacturing cost per projectile. I still don't think you need to get to 75% of lightspeed for a mass driver to be effec...

It was a case of making it fit into a game world and mechanics of a game, Unfortunately my physics is limited to Two semesters of College...and what I've picked up on my own. So I made a call to make it fairly effective, allowing a good portion of the impact to be delivered to the target before it ...

Imagine a smart Führer with engineering skills who read his Machiavelli and Sun Tzu carefully... Taken from the biography of another historical leader (name removed): "Another influential book which he read at the time was a translation of Great Heroes of the World, becoming inspired by the America...

Strap it to a Gravity/mass reducing bit of tech. slap a high powered reactionless drive to the rear of it. fit it with a simple flight control system that kicks out the mass reducing device a nanosecond before impact.....fire it out of a simple tube launcher. Easy fix. As mass reducing device is ki...

@Dragoon: There are some loopholes in the stealth issue. Mostly, an object can be made to look like some other object so long as it has a similar speed and heat signature. A space mine can look like a rock, a warship can look like a freighter. See Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered for more det...

hunter killers would be something like the modern fast attack subs, stealthy, equipped with good long range torpedoes etc... they lurk well outside the perimeter and wit for the enemy to bring in their transports and supply ships. once the enemy brings up it's invasion transports and supply ships h...

@Dragoon: ASAT outer layer: out of system or deep system....scouts, recon craft surveillance systems and intercept forces.( a few good hunter killer type ships could seriously derail an invasion force before it arrived if it could get into the troop transports) I think a serious attack fleet would r...

I was working from the assumption that the long range defenses had already been reduced, and that the target was invasion not extermination. Ok. In that case ASATs can even make attempted landings quite dangerous, because you can't land without coming into range. There is very little difference bet...

@Turrosh Mak:
Sorry, I didn't realize that bit was from an old article. Fixed.

@Dragoon: Japan surrendered pretty fast after Hiroshima, and for good reason. If the US had dropped a bomb like that every day, there would be nothing left of japan within weeks. Without long-range defenses, a planet could be glassed in a matter of minutes. The only thing ground-to-orbit defenses ca...

Just to ask what about a mobile super mass driver? A mobile platform has to be smaller and lighter or it will require huge engines to move it, and a lot of manufacturing to make those. Because of this, mobile mass drivers would be noticeably less super. Shorter coilgun leaves less time for accelera...

@discord: Out of sequence, but figured this bit should be first to put this discussion in perspective... what you are talking about MIGHT be theoretically possible, although i doubt it, but in reality? not gonna happen, that kind of precision can't be done even under laboratory conditions, much less...