Future Tech Advice and Assistance Thread [O.O.C.]

[Nyte]

Well I was thinking if they were in armor you'd be able to disable it with enough voltage or energy without frying the guy inside; or have it tunable?

All of that works for me, I've been looking for an idea for a tunable stun weapon for a while. Thank you.

A problem with that is if your opponent is using an expensive PA, its likely to be insulated against the effects of a stun weapon and hardened to withstand EMP as well. If you're looking to disable them, you might think about using something like a sci-fi net launcher or equivalent (like the predator in AVP)... Maybe a foam gun that shoots a fast-drying hard adhesive foam to prevent movement and functionality?

Hmm... Now that I think about it, that's actually a pretty good idea for my own guys to use. -slaps forehead-

[Lubyak]

What is the consensus on issuing mainly semi-automatic weapons to infantry? I like the idea of using a heavy laser rifle designed specifically to pierce armour instead of something that just sprays beams everywhere. I know battle rifles went out of fashion IRL once assault rifles were introduced, but that doesn't mean the case will be the same in the future, right? I can honestly see power armour being immune to anything other than HMGs and bolt action rifles (And the energy/rail/gauss equivalents of such). This also bring to mind the idea of melee weapons and their use in FT. We have vests now that can stop knives, so some sort of powered version (A power-mace?) would be required in order to pierce heavy armour, yes?

I've got space muskets.

Start with what you consider the 'essentials' of your nation and build around those. Nobody's going to tell you you're 'wrong' unless you try to field 70 AU diameter worldships.

He is not alone with men in tricornes with space muskets advancing in lines against the enemy, laser bolts glancing harmlessly of their shields, so they can use their power bayonets in close combat.

Don't worry about whether or not something is 'realistic', just think about whether it makes sense within your own canon. As it seems, this idea works pretty well within your own system of tech and what not.

[Transvaal Vrystaat]

What is the consensus on issuing mainly semi-automatic weapons to infantry? I like the idea of using a heavy laser rifle designed specifically to pierce armour instead of something that just sprays beams everywhere. I know battle rifles went out of fashion IRL once assault rifles were introduced, but that doesn't mean the case will be the same in the future, right? I can honestly see power armour being immune to anything other than HMGs and bolt action rifles (And the energy/rail/gauss equivalents of such). This also bring to mind the idea of melee weapons and their use in FT. We have vests now that can stop knives, so some sort of powered version (A power-mace?) would be required in order to pierce heavy armour, yes?

Don't ask me, I use 20mm space R1s.

[Neornith]

What is the consensus on issuing mainly semi-automatic weapons to infantry? I like the idea of using a heavy laser rifle designed specifically to pierce armour instead of something that just sprays beams everywhere. I know battle rifles went out of fashion IRL once assault rifles were introduced, but that doesn't mean the case will be the same in the future, right? I can honestly see power armour being immune to anything other than HMGs and bolt action rifles (And the energy/rail/gauss equivalents of such). This also bring to mind the idea of melee weapons and their use in FT. We have vests now that can stop knives, so some sort of powered version (A power-mace?) would be required in order to pierce heavy armour, yes?

Don't ask me, I use 20mm space R1s.

Standard issue rifle for Avan PA is a 15mm coilgun while standard issue rifle for basic infantry is a lighter 10mm coilgun

[The Fedral Union]

We use "Displacer" rifles, they have attachments for neato things like 40 mm grenades, they're tunable disruptive weapons..."Vape" settings aren't used because well like an M16 on full auto it would eat through the power cell. As for blades; we still have multi role bayonets with an option for monomol sheathing activation.

But that mode is really to cut through enemy armor if they even mange to get that close.. Like Pulse waves (Think shot guns only with a Plasma burst). And Pistols, along with grenades and other fancy doodads added with our PA. I don't usually deploy massive armies icly; while I've built it up actual deployments aren't huge.. But they can make up for lack of numbers with what they have; its also expensive and somewhat resource expansive to maintain our force, even with fabber stuff.

Automation helps keep the need for a large number of personnel down and we don't practice conscription. Doesn't mean they cant fight head to head with other "first rate" forces. But our forces have become more adaptable and spectral. We generally tend not to resort to occupation; while we may have a plan for it . We'd much rather pull out than get bogged down in a protracted nation building project complete with insurgency; certainly though swarmer nations would have a hell of a time fighting with us (depending on what the plot is and who im rping with) but in general think of how many ottomans it took to take down Rodes and apply that to FT.

OOCly if the fight makes for a good plot line to have to withdraw or if IC circumstances due to ic events force one; well it is what it is! Loosing can be fun, even if people don't like to admit they dislike "loosing" a war; if written right its a good read.

[Kyrusia]

Let's remember this is not a "chat thread." Thank you, folks!

[Stormwrath]

What is the consensus on issuing mainly semi-automatic weapons to infantry? I like the idea of using a heavy laser rifle designed specifically to pierce armour instead of something that just sprays beams everywhere. I know battle rifles went out of fashion IRL once assault rifles were introduced, but that doesn't mean the case will be the same in the future, right? I can honestly see power armour being immune to anything other than HMGs and bolt action rifles (And the energy/rail/gauss equivalents of such). This also bring to mind the idea of melee weapons and their use in FT. We have vests now that can stop knives, so some sort of powered version (A power-mace?) would be required in order to pierce heavy armour, yes?

I don't think there is a consensus on having your infantry carry semi-automatic weapons, just that it happens to make the most sense to most nations who worldbuild their military equipment. However, I think everyone else before me said this already: that is up to you really, as long as you RP your soldiers using those rifles, adhering to the 4Cs of the FT community.

On another note: armor isn't the only thing that is constantly improving, and that is just as evident in FT as it is in real life. A powered-up mace may be a possibility, provided the limits to your imagination and how you can successfully pull this off with yourself and other RPers. Who knows if the ballistic assault rifle could pierce through power armor in FT? Again, it is up to you where to draw the lines when it comes to the potency of your firearms and melee weapons.

[The Fedral Union]

4 C's?

I just go by this non mantra:

Don't be a jerk, play to have fun, smoke em if you got em (Slag for take five or chillax its a game) ; damn the critics, use common sense? and if in doubt ask.

Too many changing acronyms . Being around for nearly 13 years, I can tell you simple English gets your message across much better than jargon some newbies may not understand.

[Kyrusia]

4 C's?

I just go by this non mantra:

Don't be a jerk, play to have fun, smoke em if you got em (Slag for take five or chillax its a game) ; damn the critics, use common sense? and if in doubt ask.

Too many changing acronyms . Being around for nearly 13 years, I can tell you simple English gets your message across much better than jargon some newbies may not understand.

The Four C's: collaboration, compromise, creativity, and consistency; established through the "Rule of Cool" (creativity and consistency) and the "Code of Bro" (collaboration and compromise). The basic gist of the fundamental principles found throughout FT for years as explained in the original post of this thread.

[The Fedral Union]

Noted. I can see how that would be helpful; I was just noting and I think people can understand at first glance someone might not understand what things like that mean n such (happens to me sometimes whilst in class). Anyway yes, pretty much ^

[The Nuclear Fist]

Doing some lore building for my Mad Max-themed FT race. Created a substance called 'eco' (thanks Jak and Daxter) that my people refine into space gasoline.

Weapons are mostly limited to heavy calibre rifles and power weapons. I'll probably be asking some questions here soon.

[The Fedral Union]

Right. Will it be unobtanuim rule of cool stuff? Or Hydrogen, deuterium?.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Right. Will it be unobtanuim rule of cool stuff? Or Hydrogen, deuterium?.

The former, yeah. Just stuff that can be created in small quantities and refined to make precious guzzoline.

[The Fedral Union]

Eh, go fer it dude; though if you get on IRC later Im cooking up an idea with Domhold that might fit in with your kinda concept (go go space pirate coalition)

[The V O I D]

I was wondering. Would it be too OP to have hand-held railguns which use miniature rods made of *insert-Unobtainium-class-metal-here*? Just curious. And I know it probably depends on who I rp with, but I really want to know what everyone thinks for the most part. This is more of my asking for opinions rather than advice, but eh.

[The Fedral Union]

I was wondering. Would it be too OP to have hand-held railguns which use miniature rods made of *insert-Unobtainium-class-metal-here*? Just curious. And I know it probably depends on who I rp with, but I really want to know what everyone thinks for the most part. This is more of my asking for opinions rather than advice, but eh.

As it was said to me before how deep is the bucket?

If you want technical details you'll have to provide mass, velocity , rate of fire ... Otherwise as has been said before if you think its too powerful make adjustments. No one is going to take in to account what kind of round your using inherently. So basically; it doesn't matter unless you claim it can go through a row of tanks. Or something silly like that.

[Transvaal Vrystaat]

Doing some lore building for my Mad Max-themed FT race. Created a substance called 'eco' (thanks Jak and Daxter) that my people refine into space gasoline.

Weapons are mostly limited to heavy calibre rifles and power weapons. I'll probably be asking some questions here soon.

Do they believe in riding eternal, shiny, and chrome in space Valhalla?

[The United Dominion]

I was wondering. Would it be too OP to have hand-held railguns which use miniature rods made of *insert-Unobtainium-class-metal-here*? Just curious. And I know it probably depends on who I rp with, but I really want to know what everyone thinks for the most part. This is more of my asking for opinions rather than advice, but eh.

If going for projectiles, I personally prefer burst-fire and automatic weapons, and railguns would lose a bit of flavor if they were more assault rifle or HMG. So, overall I guess my opinion would be not to do it based on taste preference.

However, your actual question: is this OP? No. It doesn't "probably" depend on who you RP with, it just outright does, but not in the way that I think you're thinking. If the person wants to treat them as super powerful weapons, that's their choice. Personally, though, if we were RPing, you'd just have a generic [INSERT GUN HERE] with a different flavor than my own. I'd expect no less of you - my small arms are a generic gun that you should just treat as a weapon that can kill people. If your people don't automatically die from having a hole burned through them and their bodies irradiated, well, whatever; I wouldn't expect you to even try for a scientifically-accurate or whatever outcome to getting shot by ixee small arms.

That said, you may find someone who says "OMG TOO OP" but that usually only happens when you are (or they are, even though you don't want to) playing competitively, and this thread doesn't really support competitive RP, so I'm going to keep away from that.

[The Fedral Union]

If its an anti material rifle, and your hitting a thin skinned object, yeah its gonna mission kill it or render it dead, if its being used against a front line main battle tank and can take one out in a single shot and if its standard issue then that would be a problem in the "Up to 11 or higher" scale.

[Vocenae]

I was wondering. Would it be too OP to have hand-held railguns which use miniature rods made of *insert-Unobtainium-class-metal-here*? Just curious. And I know it probably depends on who I rp with, but I really want to know what everyone thinks for the most part. This is more of my asking for opinions rather than advice, but eh.

If going for projectiles, I personally prefer burst-fire and automatic weapons, and railguns would lose a bit of flavor if they were more assault rifle or HMG. So, overall I guess my opinion would be not to do it based on taste preference.

However, your actual question: is this OP? No. It doesn't "probably" depend on who you RP with, it just outright does, but not in the way that I think you're thinking. If the person wants to treat them as super powerful weapons, that's their choice. Personally, though, if we were RPing, you'd just have a generic [INSERT GUN HERE] with a different flavor than my own. I'd expect no less of you - my small arms are a generic gun that you should just treat as a weapon that can kill people. If your people don't automatically die from having a hole burned through them and their bodies irradiated, well, whatever; I wouldn't expect you to even try for a scientifically-accurate or whatever outcome to getting shot by ixee small arms.

That said, you may find someone who says "OMG TOO OP" but that usually only happens when you are (or they are, even though you don't want to) playing competitively, and this thread doesn't really support competitive RP, so I'm going to keep away from that.

Quoting this for truth. At the end of the day, you need to remember "Screw the Causes, show me the Effects". And remember to communicate with your RP partner if you're attacking anything plot specific. Just gunning down. Regular troops and tanks that don't effect the story can, with most players in FT (as the vast majority of the community has no interest in competitive RP) just die in droves but if there is something central to the plot getting hit, you gotta talk with whoever you're shooting beforehand.

[The Fedral Union]

Thing is... An interesting issue while ooc communication is always the best....Let me note using for example IIRC the Ixee use swarm tactics; so if your facing someone who doesn't and doesn't have "we have reserves" to just dump in to something they'd have to rely on more powerful individual firepower.. Again much like the siege at rodes defending against the Turks; or machine guns in WW1. Otherwise you'd be able to say ( not you but someone) Hey if we treat the weapons equally, and this guy doesn't have a huge army or fleet, we can just throw bodies and ships at him!.

In the end you have to maintain an equilibrium but if you have the time invested in a smaller more well equipped force with "higher" tech to maintain the equilibrium of balance they'll have to be able to take down a few for everyone of them. But there are limits even to that.

[Vocenae]

And if your RP partner is cooperative and easy to work with, communication will solve any problems. Thus the latter two of the C4; Collaboration and Compromise.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

I've got space muskets.

Start with what you consider the 'essentials' of your nation and build around those. Nobody's going to tell you you're 'wrong' unless you try to field 70 AU diameter worldships.

It's good to see you back, you seemed to disappear for a while there.

Don't you also have power armoured horses? I remember that idea popping up at one stage.

Sort of. I'm not really sure how to jump back in at this stage. So right now I'm just kind of lurking and dispensing sage advice.

And yes, Space Russia's cossack population employ power armored horses. Because what's a cossack without a horse?

[Neornith]

I was wondering. Would it be too OP to have hand-held railguns which use miniature rods made of *insert-Unobtainium-class-metal-here*? Just curious. And I know it probably depends on who I rp with, but I really want to know what everyone thinks for the most part. This is more of my asking for opinions rather than advice, but eh.

I don't see why it would be, I personally use coilguns which are similar to railguns in function for my small arms. Now to beat a dead horse, as others have stated it doesn't matter what you use or what you call it, as long as the effects of the weapon aren't "I fire one bullet and the city disappears I win" you will be fine, ultimately though you need to talk with the person you're RPing with and remember you're trying to collaborate with them in creating a story for the sake of having fun, compromise is key to this as well, it's always been my experience that when you try to give more you get more from your RP partner and you'lll end having a much funner time then you would if you were trying to beat them at writing a story which has never ended well in my experience

[Neritucal]

New-ish player here, hoping to take a few steps into this community looking for some advice and opinions.

I wanted to hear your thoughts on how viable it is to play a FT civilization, with FTL technology and colonies spread across a few star systems but which is not an interstellar or even interplanetary empire and has so far not even achieved planetary unity. The basic concept is a species that in haste began colonization and evacuation as their homeworld turned increasingly hostile to them in large part due to their own impact on climate and biosphere. Though the various powerful states had much technological exchange, even the crisis couldn't bring them to prolonged political cooperation and in the end they performed their own colonization programs independently. These independent colonies grew, unified and fractioned repeatedly as time passed, at a few points setting up new colonies on new worlds that eventually splintered into independent (and mutually hating) states.

At this point there is no planet that is unified, each is divided among different nations that often have very different government and ideology, and only the most powerful of these states have the power and resources to construct and maintain starships with FTL drives, most of which would be used for trade between the colonies rather than equipped for warfare (I just imagine that as most planets are locked in cold, or hot, wars it's simply easier to import strategic resources from extraplanetery nations that has no personal reason to hate your guts). Any space navy will be small, without FTL and focused on protecting from alien threats - I'm not planning for them to be isolationist or isolated despite their obvious vulnerability.

So, well, how viable is it to play a FT state which is a superpower bound to only one planet but still can construct and man (a few) FTL-capable ships? I'm concerned not only about the concept but also if it would be too limiting in roleplay.