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Old 11-18-2018, 08:39 AM   #41
Flyndaran
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

Post-war humanitarian efforts involve rapidly deploying force grown insects.

It's not like warfare has ever been good for the ecosystem after all.
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Old 11-18-2018, 08:55 AM   #42
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
Against such cheap missiles, what Ultra-Tech calls "point-defense lasers" seem to expensive for the purpose. A semi-portable laser will be more cost-effective, but even that isn't a perfect solution: if treated like a normal robot character with a gun, you'll always have a 2% failure rate.
And two such robots adequately cover for one missile. Have several of the PDLs, and only a missile barrage a la Robotech mini-missiles will get through.

Regarding cost: Are the lasers expended after one use, or can they defend against numerous missiles in their lifetime? Also factor in the cost of not defending against the missiles: loss of life and/or infrastructure. What does it cost to operate existing PDLs ($/missile destroyed)?

Last edited by Culture20; 11-18-2018 at 09:00 AM.
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Old 11-18-2018, 10:52 AM   #43
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

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And two such robots adequately cover for one missile. Have several of the PDLs, and only a missile barrage a la Robotech mini-missiles will get through.

Regarding cost: Are the lasers expended after one use, or can they defend against numerous missiles in their lifetime? Also factor in the cost of not defending against the missiles: loss of life and/or infrastructure. What does it cost to operate existing PDLs ($/missile destroyed)?
Obviously lasers aren't expended after one use. Cost-effectiveness really becomes an issue when facing Robotech-style missile barrages. In the real world, there seems to be something of a concern that the US navy's missile defense systems are oriented towards dealing with an infinite number of missiles, one at a time, but would totally fail if hit by many simultaneous missiles as might happen in, say, a war with China. Cost-effectiveness is also a concern when you're asking how many different locations, units, etc. you can effectively protect.

As a side note: larger lasers do protect a larger area, so on a flat plain might substitute for many smaller lasers, but in hilly, forest, or urban environments might have an effective range much lower than their listed range.
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Old 11-18-2018, 12:09 PM   #44
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

One really notable change is the high Acc of lasers, which potentially makes barely-trained irregulars much more dangerous.

Consider a teenager recruited off the streets for a local militia. He's given next to no training, not only relying on his Beam Weapons default of 6, but even suffering from a familiarity penalty (-2). However, the people who recruited him did at least manage to teach him to aim (+12 from Acc), use a basic targeting aid like a laser sight (another +1), and make All-Out Attacks (another +1). No question he's going to be using full auto (+2 to attack from RoF 10). Now at 50 yards (range penalty -8) he'll attack human-sized targets with effective skill of 12, which isn't too shabby! Even those scout bots that the big powers seem to use in place of human troops (SM -4) can be targeted at effective skill 8, which is still around a 25% chance of hitting. Reduce engagement range further (totally possible in urban warfare), or drop the familiarity penalty, and the untrained idiot becomes even more dangerous.
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Old 11-18-2018, 12:17 PM   #45
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

We should also consider the impact of orbital weapons on a battlefield. A network of LEO weapons platforms could provide 24-7 artillery support for a space capable nation. An SM+10 platform could potentially have 120 laser turrets and 120 missile turrets, allowing it to potentially destroy 1200 hard targets with its misses before resupply and up to 6 soft targets per second with its lasers. With 10 minutes on station every two hours, each platform could engage over 40,000 soft targets a day, meaning that a network of twelve could engage 14,400 hard targets before resupply and over 400,000 soft targets a day.

That would suggest that the first step of any TL10 conflict would be to destroy or to convert the orbital platforms of the opponent. If your side possesses space dominance, you have a great advantage, as you can cripple the opposing side. If your opponent possesses space dominance, you will almost certainly suffer defeat.
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Old 11-18-2018, 12:53 PM   #46
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

One question worth asking, when talking about insurgencies, irregular forces, etc. is what kind of "dirty tech" is likely to be viable at TL10. At TL6-8, ubiquitous gasoline enables Molotov cocktails and other similar tricks (like filling tires with gasoline and lighting it to cover an escape). Those tactics might go away if internal combustion engines are replaced with hydrogen fuel cells, but other things might take their place. If power cells can be made to explode (not totally implausible given the energy densities assumed by Ultra-Tech), power cell bombs might be common. Not sure how effective liquid hydrogen is likely to be for weapon-making purposes. Methanol, from methanol fuel cells, maybe could substitute for gasoline in Molotov cocktails and such?
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Old 11-18-2018, 01:13 PM   #47
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

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We should also consider the impact of orbital weapons on a battlefield. A network of LEO weapons platforms could provide 24-7 artillery support for a space capable nation. An SM+10 platform could potentially have 120 laser turrets and 120 missile turrets, allowing it to potentially destroy 1200 hard targets with its misses before resupply and up to 6 soft targets per second with its lasers. With 10 minutes on station every two hours, each platform could engage over 40,000 soft targets a day, meaning that a network of twelve could engage 14,400 hard targets before resupply and over 400,000 soft targets a day.

That would suggest that the first step of any TL10 conflict would be to destroy or to convert the orbital platforms of the opponent. If your side possesses space dominance, you have a great advantage, as you can cripple the opposing side. If your opponent possesses space dominance, you will almost certainly suffer defeat.
Without superscience drives to make change-of-plane maneuvers easy, I suspect orbital weapons platforms are likely to be expensive boondoggles. Exactly what does wrong with your strategy depends on the type of weapon being used, but basically none of the possible strategies are a good idea:
  • Most possible weapons: you need hundreds of platforms to get full coverage of the Earth's surface, just to do the work of one surface platform in the right place.
  • Ginormous long-range laser in high orbit: assuming the "eggshells armed with hammers" paradigm holds in space (and probably it will), this will be too vulnerable to attack. Also, it's a hell of an expensive way to destroy tanks.
  • High delta-V missiles (7 mps or more): reasonable if you're conducting an interplanetary invasion. But for fights between two powers based on the same planet, just use surface-based ballistic missiles. The surface-based missiles might be more accurate anyway.
The one thing that could make orbital weapons platforms make sense is superscience drives to make change-of-plane maneuvers cheap. The "constellation" approach also might not be too crazy if you just want to control a planet's equator on the grounds of it being prime real estate for placing spaceports. Even if your constellation just needs to cover the equator, though, any given platform is only going to be above any given point on the planet's surface once every 90 minutes.
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Old 11-18-2018, 01:31 PM   #48
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

Re: accuracy of kinetic bombardment form orbit, the Minuteman III reportedly has a circular error probable of 120 meters (about 130 yards). It's not obvious that that will be easy to improve, since atmospheric reentry is likely to blind the sensors used to guide surface-based smart munitions. Maybe by TL10 you'd get a CEP of 65 yards. So if I had a PC trying to hit a tank with a missile from orbit, I'd probably use the "attacking an area" rules with an effective skill of like, 2, which gets you roughly the right CEP if you're squaring margin of failure to see how far away from the target the thing lands.
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Old 11-18-2018, 01:41 PM   #49
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

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W it's a hell of an expensive way to destroy tanks.
What tanks? The ones with DR 2100 on every facing that survived the 100mm missiles?

Even if you build such a monster you're just giving your enemy an excuse to iuse micronukes. After that escalation you need DR 42,000.

I could probably find more uses for cyborg cavalry horses. They at least could be used to breed your improved robot mules.:)
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Old 11-18-2018, 02:41 PM   #50
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] What does the TL10 battlefield look like

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What tanks? The ones with DR 2100 on every facing that survived the 100mm missiles?

Even if you build such a monster you're just giving your enemy an excuse to iuse micronukes. After that escalation you need DR 42,000.

I could probably find more uses for cyborg cavalry horses. They at least could be used to breed your improved robot mules.:)
"Tank" here is a stand in for any reasonably common military asset. Giant orbital lasers are a proportionately even more expensive way to destroy warbots, hover jeeps, and so on. I confess I'm somewhat unclear on what purpose tanks serve in 2018, given proliferation of anti-tank weapons. But that wasn't my point.
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