Things that are cool about Alien Wars

[DrTemp]

Well, while there is this certain problem with the setting I mentioned earlier , there are lots of cool things about the setting. One thing I just wanted to point out: Laser rifles.

 

Now there is a real reason why a modern army should have those. The Laser rifle is a large military's wet dream: While it is not as efficient as a conventional slugthrower, its ammo ist just a few hundered thousand times easier to obtain. That was an idea I had never encountered before, at least not for infantry weapons and it is the most plausible reason for using personal energy weapons I have seen.

 

Just reread that part and felt the urge to say that. Thank you for your attention, citizen.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

Gotta agree there. Logistics arguments are often forgotten when thinking about sci-fi technology.

[Nyrath]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

IIRC that was the main motivation behind the development of "caseless ammo," to reduce the logistics requirements. It's amazing how much all that brass weighs.

[Curufea]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

However - there is a HUGE drawback.

How much smoke is there on the average battlefield? It's a bit much to assume that both sides don't use combustion engines, explosives or smoke grenades...

I'd give everyone a projectile sidearm as well, just in case.

 

 

[warning - spoiler for players]

 

 

 

 

 

BTW - has anyone else noticed the similarities in origin between the Xenovores and the Daleks?

 

I fully expect the lead scientist Other to still be hanging around, immortal, occasionally tinkering with his creation and attempting to take over the race from the Autarch

[Zeropoint]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

If you still have conventional power sources, you'll still have to haul the fuel for the rifles. Granted, if the fuel for the rifles is just more general purpose diesel that can be used in a generator, tank, truck, jet, or helicopter, it's a lot more convenient than hauling something that only works in the guns.

 

If you have nuclear-powered generators, then, for all practical purposes, you can use the lasers as much as you want without using any consumables.

 

I'm not familiar enough with that particular setting to know whether they have nuclear generators in the field or not.

 

Zeropoint

[Curufea]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

It's not listed AFAIK (I only bought Alien Wars yesterday and have only skimmed so far) - but squad support rechargers would make sense. The big problem with nuclear is the shielding, of course - which is the majority of the weight.

 

I saw an interesting argument on the noise of laser weapons in an RPG book awhile ago - mainly to do with capacitor discharge, the filling of the vacuum created in the atmosphere from the passage of the beam, and the explosive expansion of whatever is hit. But then, these guns aren't bought with 'invisible power effects' so it doesn't matter.

[DrTemp]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

It's not listed AFAIK (I only bought Alien Wars yesterday and have only skimmed so far) - but squad support rechargers would make sense. The big problem with nuclear is the shielding, of course - which is the majority of the weight.

 

Well, the setting knows "cold fusion reactors". So not much shielding required.

[DrTemp]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

However - there is a HUGE drawback.

How much smoke is there on the average battlefield? It's a bit much to assume that both sides don't use combustion engines, explosives or smoke grenades...

I'd give everyone a projectile sidearm as well, just in case.

 

IIRC, those rifles were Xray-Lasers. So smoke is not that much a problem.

[Curufea]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

X-Ray, definitely beyond our current tech. I wonder how you can reflect the rays to make them uniform? Some form of energy field?

 

Anyhow, the laser weapons in AW have the limitation 'not through smoke' - so we can assume there IR to UV.

 

On a side note - a german prototype tank design I saw in Jane's in the early 80's was for a carbon-dioxide laser. Gas was forced under pressure through a small space until it lased, then was reflected witha parabolic mirror. Looked disturbingly like a Martian weapon from the illustrated War of the Worlds

[DrTemp]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

X-Ray' date=' definitely beyond our current tech. I wonder how you can reflect the rays to make them uniform? [/quote']

 

A lense from a material that works for X-rays like crystals work for visible light. X-Ray lasers were considered in the US 1980's SDI project, so the technical problem seems to look solvable at least to some people, without using rubber science. Since AW is in the 24th century, I assume they were solved at some time.

[Curufea]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

I vaguely recall that scifi story (SDI that is )...

 

It was a one-shot laser using a nuclear explosion and somehow focusing most of the x-ray range radiation into a beam.

 

I found Footfall more believable.

[DrTemp]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

I vaguely recall that scifi story (SDI that is )...

 

Well, those technical problems don't seem to be unsolvable by principle:

 

http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/laserioi.htm#ioixrl

[Nyrath]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

I vaguely recall that scifi story (SDI that is )...

 

It was a one-shot laser using a nuclear explosion and somehow focusing most of the x-ray range radiation into a beam.

You are thinking about the SDI project called Excalibur.

It did not use x-ray lenses nor x-ray mirrors because for all practical purposes they don't exist. Instead it used an incredibly crude and wasteful method of selectively using any x-rays in the flood from the nuke that just happened to be going in the desired direction.

 

Other scientists looking at the design concluded that the specs were optimistic, and the project was killed.

[Basil]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

Another thing I liked about Alien Wars was the well detailed military hierarchy and structure. Firmly based on common current-day hierarchy and structure, to make it believable, simplified some to make it easier to play. A definite for that.

[Nyrath]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

I saw an interesting argument on the noise of laser weapons in an RPG book awhile ago - mainly to do with capacitor discharge' date=' the filling of the vacuum created in the atmosphere from the passage of the beam, and the explosive expansion of whatever is hit.[/quote']

Yes, there are some notes here, scroll down to "What would it sound like?"

[Curufea]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

Very interesting!

Although I'd always thought of blasters as plasma based accelerators.

The flash of lasers I should have thought of - especially if the steam of the impact multiplies/scatters the beam. I remember in the other RPG there was talk of goggles/shades for that.

Not sure about UV creating flourescent effects though - there is a specific mixture of noble gases in flourescent lights, and they may be at higher pressure. Our normal atmosphere could be too dispersed to create much in the way of a visible beam.

[Rapier]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

You are thinking about the SDI project called Excalibur.

It did not use x-ray lenses nor x-ray mirrors because for all practical purposes they don't exist. Instead it used an incredibly crude and wasteful method of selectively using any x-rays in the flood from the nuke that just happened to be going in the desired direction.

 

Other scientists looking at the design concluded that the specs were optimistic, and the project was killed.

At the time we were all very excited. It sounded rather plausible, at first. There was even a surgeance in SciFi about bomb-pumped lasers.

 

'Course, I suppose that one could posit that an effective bomb-pumped laser is no more implausible than FTL travel, teleportation or anything else us RPGers take as a given.

[DrTemp]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

Another thing I liked about Alien Wars was the well detailed military hierarchy and structure. Firmly based on common current-day hierarchy and structure' date=' to make it believable, simplified some to make it easier to play. A definite for that.[/quote']

 

I agree, the given structure is detailed and believable, both at the beginning of the war and at the end.

However, current-day military hierarchy and structure on this planet are a lot more diverse, naturally,

 

The endless stupidity of he Logistics Computers is, sadly, very believable too- large organizations tend to loose contact with reality all the time today, and for a military force without any real wars in the last centuries, this seems even more true. Dramaturgically, the LC's are cool, too- incompetent superiors obeying incompetent computers allow for a lot initiative on the part of the PC's.

[Bucky]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

A lense from a material that works for X-rays like crystals work for visible light. X-Ray lasers were considered in the US 1980's SDI project' date=' so the technical problem seems to look solvable at least to some people, without using rubber science. Since AW is in the 24th century, I assume they were solved at some time. [/quote']

 

The SDI X-Ray lasers never got off the ground for the simple reason that to produce them, what you did was explode a nuclear warhead at one end of an iron bar. Which would mean putting nukes in orbit, and exploding nukes to shoot down other nukes, with all the attendent problems involved. (EMP as well as flash blinding of any remaining sensors).

 

There is such a thing as a solvable problem, but sometimes the solution is impossible for other reasons, like politics, economics, or a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

[Nyrath]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

At the time we were all very excited. It sounded rather plausible, at first. There was even a surgeance in SciFi about bomb-pumped lasers.

'Course, I suppose that one could posit that an effective bomb-pumped laser is no more implausible than FTL travel, teleportation or anything else us RPGers take as a given.

But remember, while Teller's design of bomb-pumped laser was discredited, the basic idea was not.

[Basil]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

Very interesting!

{snip}

Not sure about UV creating flourescent effects though - there is a specific mixture of noble gases in flourescent lights, and they may be at higher pressure. Our normal atmosphere could be too dispersed to create much in the way of a visible beam.

 

Actually, if you pump enough energy into any gas, it'll fluoresce. Sometimes, just before it becomes a plasma.

 

And flourescent lights are, AFAIK, at or below atmospheric pressure. However, they're contained, which helps make them bright. A UV laser shot through the air would not fluoresce very well, but it would fluoresce.

[Rapier]

Re: Things that are cool about Alien Wars

 

But remember' date=' while Teller's design of bomb-pumped laser was discredited, the basic idea was not.[/quote']

True, true. And if it was a shipbased weapon...launching a couple of them puppies at another ship in the deepest pit of space...whats the big? At least until the previously unknown insect people invade because you've been attacking them the whole time!