Outsider Ground War

[discord]

hearts of iron game series, now go and try for a german victory.

[Dragoon]

Even in real space lasers lose intensity pretty fast, and have poor armor penetration, so they seem to be mostly useful for point defense or to damage external systems.

which is how I reasoned it out. Big ship killing lasers are possible in therory but ships cant fit the systems and power supplies into their hulls and still avoid being too large to build at a cost that is practical for fleets.

Alpha centauri is 25.6 trillion miles away.

If 100 km in hyperspace equals 1 trillion miles, alpha centauri is 2560 hyperspace km away.

2560 kilometers in hyperspace in 7 days would be 4.23 m / s.

Is hyperspace filled with dense muck?

In places yes.

More realistically most ships cant take a direct route, due to the geography of hyperspae, going in a straight line may be impossible, or simply not practical. a ship may have to sail well out of it's way to safely reach a point which is next door to their system without risking damage, or becoming lost in the distortions and clutter of hyperspace.
In additions since ships don't need to reach escape velocity to exit a gravity well, they can simply make a slow ascent using their antigrav, they aren't really that fast, a fast star ship is only capable of high subsonic or low supersonic speeds in hyperspace.
IF you pilot and Navigator are top notch and you are willing to risk damage or have a reinforced hull a military ship could reach a destination in hours or days where a slower, less rugged ship takes weeks.

So, instant EM shields are inconveniently realistic. Ok, let's see how we can fix that.

yeah, lets face it trying to get real world physics to fit a specific scenario/plot/desired outcome can be tricky.

First, the effect could linger for a whole turn after it's activated, so you can't use magnetic weapons that turn.

In play

Second, if the plasma bubble has a good amount of mass and velocity, it may take a strong field to deflect it, which could draw a lot of power. You might have to charge up your capacitors before you're able to do that again, so do you waste it this turn or wait for a heavier volley?

in play

Third, every action has an energy cost. The same capacitors are shared between propulsion, weapons, shields, life support, and various minor systems. So if you're shooting or maneuvering, those capacitors are slower to charge up or even depleting, and you may not be able to use that energy for shields when you need it.

easily implemented

Fourth, producing and using power creates heat which must be disposed of. Getting hit by some weapons would add some more heat as well. Once your heat sinks are near capacity, you might have to reduce power production to give your radiators a chance to cool them down before various systems melting down.

hmmm will look at this one closely

See Mechwarrior for details on how energy and heat management can make realistic tactics interesting.

yeah, sometimes the limits of the systems seemed a bit too restricting but then again you had to think of more than can I hit him with my big guns...

There's plenty of stuff moving around out there at scary velocities, debris from supernovas and whatnot. It's not so hard to evade or deflect so long as it's not guided, and you can see it from hours or days away unless it's fired from within orbit of your planet or something. Rigging a guidance system to simply shut off after its past the intended target(s) wouldn't be too much to ask.

one option for the "self Destruct" option. There is no set method of turning off a weapon, guided rounds can be sent into nearby stars, planetiod, or they fire a braking motor and simply go dead in space.
Small Kinetic rounds don't need to be limited until they reach a certain threshold, most rounds will burn up if they hit an atmosphere. The more powerful rounds might be hard to detect or avoid, and not many civilian ships can take a hit from a Gigajoule range impact. So the rules are weighted to restrict them in real space.

Firing anything in the direction of a neutral planet or station would risk a diplomatic incident, so that would be a bad idea anyhow.

Ya ever stop to think how much of any set of laws is just there to stop people from doing things that are just a bad idea to begin with....

[fredgiblet]

hearts of iron game series, now go and try for a german victory.

Does it allow me to try and avoid American involvement?
Does it allow me to make the competent technological decisions that would bring the Stg 44 and the Me-262 into the field years early?
How about developing things like a decent heavy strategic bomber?
Does it allow/model the crushing blow to morale that the "Disaster at Dunkirk" should have had?

Then of course it's not going to happen.

[Arioch]

There's a long list of things that a sane German leadership (with hindsight) could have done differently or more effectively... but if Hitler & Co. hadn't been completely bonkers, they probably wouldn't have started the war in the first place, so there's a limit to the value of such observations.

[Trantor]

There's a long list of things that a sane German leadership (with hindsight) could have done differently or more effectively... but if Hitler & Co. hadn't been completely bonkers, they probably wouldn't have started the war in the first place, so there's a limit to the value of such observations.

Yup, as is said before, no war would have been the best option.

But on my questions earlier:

All of the major combatants will have some version of:
[*]Loroi infantry units will often be led by Teidar officers with dangerous psi abilities.

That´s why i say the bomb would have made a difference (Or Loroi Teidars*).
...
*Could a powerful Teidar "manipulate"/kill an incoming warhead, e.g. with Amps? I´d say yes?
So, what´s the Loroi word for "Brunhilda"? And are there blue-eyed blonde Loroi? (Beryl comes close, maybe that´s why i like her so much?)
Well, really, that idea sounds too good, where are the downsides? Availability of Teidar? Exhaustion due to use of Amps?
We´re OnT again!! Hooray Threaddrift!!

Most important: How powerful can an Amp be? Is it possible for a skilled Teidar to kill an incoming warhead at enough distance to survive e.g. in a makeshift shelter?
2nd important question: Blonde blue eyed Loroi?

[Trantor]

Does it allow me to make the competent technological decisions that would bring the Stg 44 and the Me-262 into the field years early?
How about developing things like a decent heavy strategic bomber?

Thx for jumping in.
Engineering and it´s impact is a weak point in all these sims.

Maybe on purpose? scnr.

[Grayhome]

I wonder if the Umiak use suicide bombers and if not what they would think of that tactic.

[fredgiblet]

Maybe on purpose? scnr.

More likely it's too difficult to code and the majority of people aren't really interested in the Nazis/Japanese winning. Making an actual complete economic/social/diplomatic/military simulation that also allows you to create thigns that didn't actually exist (like a decent German heavy bomber) would be far more difficult, and the only real upside would be that the Germans would stand a decent chance of winning.

How many people are craving that?

[Arioch]

I wonder if the Umiak use suicide bombers and if not what they would think of that tactic.

Suicide bombs are usually either terror weapons used against civilians, or guerrilla weapons used by insurgents against government or occupation forces, when the insurgents don't have the strength to oppose their enemy in a stand-up fight. And in general, the bomber has to be able to pass as some kind of civilian or harmless entity to be able to get close enough to the target to trigger the bomb. An Umiak approaching a Loroi checkpoint would almost certainly be shot on sight, so even if the Umiak found themselves in some asymmetrical ground conflict with the Loroi (which seems unlikely), it's hard to imagine this kind of tactic being effective.

At this tech level, there's not much need for kamikaze-style sacrifice; missiles don't need a pilot on board to be effective.

[daelyte]

@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 limited to whatever was programmed in, but some games do have branching storylines.

Other possibilities could include victory by the British, Russians or French without the Americans getting involved. The British could have had up to date military research before the war. French tanks could have been organized as a mobile force instead of being scattered among the infantry. The Russians could have expected the Germans to attack. There's other players too, like Japan, China, etc.

[GeoModder]

2nd important question: Blonde blue eyed Loroi?

With clipped ears though. They wouldn't pass as über otherwise.


On the "victory" discussion: add in climatic parameters. Delay the early onset of winter during operation Barbarossa by a few weeks, and Moskou would've fallen. Could essentially be a breaking point for Russian morale.

[bunnyboy]

There's a long list of things that a sane German leadership (with hindsight) could have done differently or more effectively... but if Hitler & Co. hadn't been completely bonkers, they probably wouldn't have started the war in the first place, so there's a limit to the value of such observations.

Yup, as is said before, no war would have been the best option.

The war wasn't avoidable. Germany was politically instable and economically living on loans, so whoever was leading it, had to make something fast. Even the WWI wasn't avoidable, because every nation of Europe was making themselves ready for next great war changing their alliances almost monthly. Surprisingly, most of time Germany and Britannia wanted to divide France, because they were afraid the rise of next Napoleon.

[discord]

fred:
yes, but it is not easy.(one of my fav runs involved playing as US and joining the axis, that was a blast.), delaying US involvement in the war is quite doable though.
yes, but kinda difficult.
yes.
not sure, but morale is coded for more strategic and longterm issues rather then 'oh crap, disaster!' things.

damn good simulator, the AI however absolutely sucks at amphibious and aerial insertions.

[fredgiblet]

WW2 was only unavoidable because of what Versailles did to Germany. If the Allies hadn't saddled Germany with all the blame for the war and hadn't been such dick-bags about winning Germany probably wouldn't have fallen to the Nazis and wouldn't have ended up kicking off the second war.

[bunnyboy]

WW2 was only unavoidable because of what Versailles did to Germany. If the Allies hadn't saddled Germany with all the blame for the war and hadn't been such dick-bags about winning Germany probably wouldn't have fallen to the Nazis and wouldn't have ended up kicking off the second war.

Perhaps, but it still would have civil war, when Vilhelm II descended from throne. And Nazis, Communists or someone else could have taken power by being more ruthless than anyone else.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

so what kinda toys does the human have?

[discord]

crazy guy: it is just possible humans have better ground pounder stuff compared to the main players, more because of refinement and perfection of equipment not basic technology.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Quantity and Quality.

[fredgiblet]

fred:
yes, but it is not easy.(one of my fav runs involved playing as US and joining the axis, that was a blast.), delaying US involvement in the war is quite doable though.
yes, but kinda difficult.
yes.
not sure, but morale is coded for more strategic and longterm issues rather then 'oh crap, disaster!' things.

damn good simulator, the AI however absolutely sucks at amphibious and aerial insertions.

Interesting. I have 2, it's on the list to play. Of course the list is something like 200 games long.

[Muttley]

far be it from me to stick to an argument when it has more holes in it than the Bismark.

Well, the Bismarck wasn´t sunk by the shells. It´s citadel, and therefor the ability to float, remained intact because the british artillery was too weak to penetrate it. It sunk, because her own crew opened the valves to prevent her from being captured. But indeed, it was only a smoldering wreck at that time.

[/quote]



I can almost agree. The Bismarck was sinking already, just not fast enough. The Nazi crew set the scuttling charges to make sure it wasn't captured.

Bismarck had already been mission-killed in the Denmark Strait, where a shell from Prince of Wales had penetrated the bow causing flooding, a massive fuel leak and the destruction of the pump that could have recovered the remaining uncontaminated fuel. It was rendered fuel-critical, and had to run for home. Having had the bad luck to annihilate HMS Hood, possibly the most emotively-charged ship in the Royal Navy due to its pre-war "showing the flag" tours (and looking damned good while doing it), Bismarck was doomed. The Mighty Hood was the epitome of Royal Naval sea power. They had the maximum attention of the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic.

It's interesting to note that the decisive blows were struck by obsolete aircraft, the biplane Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber. Sometimes it isn't the latest technology that is decisive. In this case, the Swordfish could take off in the most foul weather, strike and return to land on

In the final engagement, Rodney and KGV silenced the Bismarck's guns in less than 30 minutes, and reduced it to a flaming shambles in an hour, as their colours remained unstruck. It was listing and the stern almost under water, but it is always true that it is easier to sink a ship by letting water in the bottom than by letting air in the top. So Dorsetshire delivered the coup de grace with torpedoes.

The Royal Navy sank the Bismarck.

And imagine Hitler having the bomb in summer/autumn 1944, which, according to a paper i once read, would have been technically possible if the nazis had focused on it.

I'd need a lot of evidence to convince me. Nuclear physics was idealogically suspect, "Jewish Science", not Deutsche Physik, and Albert Einstein is only one of the many scientists who relocated to the West before the start of the war in 1939.

The Nazi's stop-start nuclear program was heading down a blind alley, derailed by politicisation and some fundamental errors in physics.