Why so low Tech?
Slavak
Join Date: 2005-02-19 Member: 41765Members
Join Date: 2005-02-19 Member: 41765Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Its the future, man.</div>I was thinking as I was making breakfast (as you do)
Why are the marines still using projectile weapons and pump action shotguns?
We have colonised new planets and we don't have some kind of hand-held directed energy weapon?
Right at this moment we have fully automatic shotguns, commercial lasers that are dangerous to use, darpa's developing self guiding bullets, Their even testing a new laser based CIWS for ship based missile defence.
Why has weapons technology stagnated so much when everything else has proceeded forward so nicely?
I understand the game play and balance reasons, I'm more interested in the story behind it. It would be kinda overpowered if every TSA Frontiersmen had a portable, continuously firing skulk-melter.
Why are the marines still using projectile weapons and pump action shotguns?
We have colonised new planets and we don't have some kind of hand-held directed energy weapon?
Right at this moment we have fully automatic shotguns, commercial lasers that are dangerous to use, darpa's developing self guiding bullets, Their even testing a new laser based CIWS for ship based missile defence.
Why has weapons technology stagnated so much when everything else has proceeded forward so nicely?
I understand the game play and balance reasons, I'm more interested in the story behind it. It would be kinda overpowered if every TSA Frontiersmen had a portable, continuously firing skulk-melter.
Comments
I would be interested to see some new weapon types but I dont want it to turn into unreal tournament. Theres something easy to understand and satisfying about the conventional weapons.
If I had control of matter on a molecular level like the TSA do there's not a power in the 'verse that could stop me.
They could make armour that's harder than diamonds but flexible and yeilding.
Power sources that could provide huge amounts of power for long periods of time.
And, of course, said directed energy weapons.
They'd send marines out armed with plastic cups and no.2 pencils if that loadout had won more fights.
<!--quoteo(post=1781175:date=Jul 21 2010, 12:07 AM:name=Arrowhead)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Arrowhead @ Jul 21 2010, 12:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1781175"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think even in the far future, projectile weapons will still be the most efficient way to deliver pain.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
oh, there are a lot more efficient ways to deliver pain... ;)
Why are they still using projective weapons, and not energy weapons? Well again it can easily be justified to come down to energy and nanite costs again. I wouldn't say that technology has stagnated at all, since we've been using projectile weapons for the past ten thousand years, and we still use them. The speed, shape and device used has changed, but pretty much nothing else.
As to the laser beam comment... well, most of the environments the TSA have to deal with involve situations where high power laser beams could be rather a bad idea. If you miss with an incendiary shotgun to the side of your spaceship, it will probably be ok. Not so much with the beam weapon that can arc weld small moons.
Plus, "there's something easy to understand and satisfying about conventional weapons".
Why are they still using projective weapons, and not energy weapons? Well again it can easily be justified to come down to energy and nanite costs again. I wouldn't say that technology has stagnated at all, since we've been using projectile weapons for the past ten thousand years, and we still use them. The speed, shape and device used has changed, but pretty much nothing else.
As to the laser beam comment... well, most of the environments the TSA have to deal with involve situations where high power laser beams could be rather a bad idea. If you miss with an incendiary shotgun to the side of your spaceship probably will be ok<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See, that's all I needed :P
If I had control of matter on a molecular level like the TSA do there's not a power in the 'verse that could stop me.
They could make armour that's harder than diamonds but flexible and yeilding.
Power sources that could provide huge amounts of power for long periods of time.
And, of course, said directed energy weapons.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's what Heavy Armour was.
The reason we're not disassembling the aliens directly is because of "nano-gridlock", which is the alien bacteria (technically the actual Kharaa) fighting the nanites on a teeny tiny scale; it takes a lot of the in-game res, which I forget what it is lore-wise, just to gain control for long enough to assemble a building, or a shotgun.
Skulks et al are not actual mammals despite appearances, and for example are room-temperature so you can't see them with thermal imaging or what have you. I don't know if they had some similar natural defence against lasers/plasma (or if they would just adapt to it so rapidly it wouldn't be worth the effort), but I do know that the TSA don't exactly have a lot of cash - and kinetic weaponry is cheap and reliable, even in the future.
I think the NS1 manual is still around somewhere, it has all sorts of neat explanations...
Also, what type of energy weapon would be feasible? Halo was able to get away with no energy weapons on the human side (besides a laser added later). Energy weapons seem inefficient considering they're usually heat based and not simply destructive. The aliens might have super heat resistant carapace and pretty resilient to electric pulses (electrified RTs/TFs kill extremely slow). Biological weapons don't work because they gain immune to them extremely fast.
I could see maybe an energy flashbang of some sort or maybe a laser, but projectiles with real mass have always been effective, and it just might be that energy weapons require technology that just isn't suitable for small scale fighting (ie you need huge amounts of energy to carry around, and it might just not be practical to carry around a battery pack).
Nanotechnology is being developed already with the attempt making fabrics that can harden into body armor on the fly. Soldiers of the future might only need to wear a uniform and no body armor, but how cool does that look? Lasers and energy based weapons, while more "futuristic" feeling, lack the sort of grittiness and rawness that we want in NS.
The main thing is developing an internal logic to the universe that is consistent and believable throughout that particular game/movie/etc., not that it necessarily has to conform to the rules of the "real world". You can see this same approach in plenty of other games and movies, such as Starcraft 2, for example.
--Cory
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->"A Marine's Guide to the 'Verse" Vol. 2
When your Tesla-gun jams, it's a lot harder to fix (because it just turned your entire squad into mashed potatoes) than say fixing a jam in the shotgun.
[...]
Although we initially tried using high intensity laser weapons on the kharaa they were quite effective, but then a few months later at Altera they developed a carapace mutation that worked very much like a mirror and just reflected our beams back on the users. That's how Admiral Chuck lost his arm. Even limited use of the weapons were quickly countered in future encounters with some hefty losses because of those mistakes.
[...]
In the end conventional projective weaponry seems the most effective... nothing says die quite like making their organs into a salad with a shotgun.
[...]
Their best weapon, something we never expected and seems absurd even now is that they often just throw rocks. Which is what they did at Orion3. They just threw rocks at the colony from a distance of who knows how far. The ######s are clever, in it for the long-haul. Did you know a skulk can survive in vacuum for over a decade in a hibernation state? Oh yeah, those rocks were the size of football fields.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A hydrogene cell fueled by hydrogene and oxygen in the air you say? I say goodbye to your atmosphere.
And to the lasers and stuff, I'd say it does take less than three generations of kharaa to adapt with a crystaline sub armor structure that reflects and fractures the coherent light.
Plasma, hm, ok, that might work, but its dangerous as hell as one shot missed could mean the reactor of the base / ship is hit.
Tchernobyl in space, baby.
Also, the kharaa are a cluster of bacteria, and bullets inject small doses of nanites to fight them, which also prevents the damage from heal up instantly; any healing they have is caused by bacteria overwhelming the nanites in their body.
Do that with a laser... One non leathal hit and they scurry away, letting them analyze the damage and adapt like said above.
Its simply that it wouldn't be fun if you were invincible. The Alien movies had to have bad things happen for them to be enjoyable, there had to be a struggle... there had to be a reason for them to last longer than 10 minutes. Same with a game.
A hydrogene cell fueled by hydrogene and oxygen in the air you say? I say goodbye to your atmosphere.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090320173859.htm" target="_blank">Nanotech Batteries For A New Energy Future</a>
That's the concept behind it, take something like that and make it smaller. Smaller cells leads to higher energy density.
I remember the old NS manual. Does anyone have it? I'm keen to read it again.
I think you are severely underestimating what cool weapons the future can bring. Even the marines in Aliens had caseless light-armor-piercing exploding projectiles [which have been around forever it seems]! The "smartgun" could track targets like a real-life aimbot [although aircraft and boats already possess this in various form factors NOW... but their's no handheld version yet], and in a cut scene they had Hudson mentioning their were energy weapons in the Suloco's armory).
Look, i'm about to weaponize the phase gate technology [gimme a second... THERE].. Now i can teleport 50% of the onoses ass into orbit! What's he gonna do now, besides spew out hundreds of gallons of blood on the floor and die!
Do that with a laser... One non leathal hit and they scurry away, letting them analyze the damage and adapt like said above.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is probably the best reason for projectile weapons to be used.
High velocity rounds hit the kharaa body to penetrate the armor, then when inside the body the nanites that the bullet is made off start to fight the bacteria, and if enough bullets is pumped into this creature they will spread in the body tearing down necesary "muscles", causing it to seem dead to the humans, and then slowly killing the lifeform by replicating nanites by killing the bacteria.
Or something similar.
Sounds like you are perfectly describing the siege cannon, or MASC as it is now known. The MASC costs a lot, is brought out only when the Kharaa structures cannot be broken otherwise, and is some kind of energy based (definitely not projectile) weapon.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2008/8unknown_worlds_videocast_4" target="_blank">Videocast about the MASC</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2008/10/happy_halloween_2008_and_masc_renders" target="_blank">MASC Renders</a>
Nanotechnology is being developed already with the attempt making fabrics that can harden into body armor on the fly. Soldiers of the future might only need to wear a uniform and no body armor, but how cool does that look? Lasers and energy based weapons, while more "futuristic" feeling, lack the sort of grittiness and rawness that we want in NS.
The main thing is developing an internal logic to the universe that is consistent and believable throughout that particular game/movie/etc., not that it necessarily has to conform to the rules of the "real world". You can see this same approach in plenty of other games and movies, such as Starcraft 2, for example.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But I want my codpiece form-fitting.
I think it was sound-based actually...
What about the horrible accidents where personal is teleported instead of enemys?
Try to explain that to the public media...
What happened to those official story fics that used to be on the NS website? Those were ###### amazing.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/world/background/" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/world/background/</a>
Just looking at "estimated AK47's in circulation" right now 90+ million.
Take those and add pistols shotguns etc.
You will have a colonization arsenal that lasts you for decades meanwhile you develop future.
naw shotguns are solid. machine guns are solid, lazers seem weak. they have gone eactly in the direction they should have with this.
not trying to make the point as if the game was real life. just saying bullets are cool gritty and whats makes NS a bit different. in terms of marine play.