Utari's Puppies (Formerly Off-Topic Thread)

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
1045

Walkers are never useful in combat.

Tracks are always going to be better for going over rubble, with feet, you step in the wrong place and your foot falls in. Now you have a trapped and very likely fallen over walker because those things are also extremely top heavy. With a vehicle with tracks, it doesn’t matter unless the entire thing is unstable because the load is distributed.

Walkers have some use in industrial contexts, I’ve piloted an industrial walker (a long time ago) and it was utterly ■■■■■■■ badass, but I wouldn’t want to be in one in combat.

Also you can run over squishy infantry, which provides the same effect.

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1046

I was about to say that we also do have levitating war vehicles that can simply hover over the rubble. The main tactical advantage of an MTAC then perhaps remains its potentially larger firing arcs - practically 360 degrees, straight up, straight down, all around, and assuming weaponry is not built in to the chassis, like in many traditional heavy assault vehicles, marginally better ability to change modular weaponry in a relatively short amount of time.

So, like I previously said, they might have their uses in specific scenarios, particularly perhaps zero-g combat, but in terrestrial environments other units are often simply better suited to the task.

Do note, that clone soldiers also were preparing to adopt weaponized MTACs, though they would have the advantage of not dying with the unit when it would predictably eventually get smashed to bits by a heavy tank.

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1047

Twirls moustache

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1048

Now, recoil’d be an issue, but a mobility-oriented weapons platform could easily have the weapon and some appropriate sensors on an extensible armature. That way, when you’re hull down, you’re very seriously hull down.

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1049

What, like already exists in the turrets of tanks?

Seriously, these walkers are incredibly inefficient and sub-optimal except in incredibly niche situations. It’s not the sort of machine you order millions of, and that means it’s not the sort of machine that actually gets to efficient levels of development and production.

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1050

Mmmm… I think you’re off a bit here. Small volumes of specialized products tend to get massively over engineered, and cost ridiculous amounts of money on top of that. Once you start ordering millions of something, that’s when development into reducing cost and manufacturing efficiency starts coming into play. This tends to start reducing quality when it comes to durability, performance and so on until it’s in balance with material cost, design cost, manufacturing efficiency and cost, etc.

So as far as us capsuleers go, where money is very much not an issue and performance is all, they’re actually in a quite nice place right now. Expensive as hell, but who cares about that really, and ridiculously over engineered to the point that they’re composed of components hardier and more durable than the block of highest grade material they were milled out of.

Still completely pointless outside of a very few niche situations of course, but in those niche situations they’re shining brightly enough that it’s not like it hurts to stock up on those and trained pilots.

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1051

Yes, that’s exactly my point. This is the kind of machine that doesn’t get developed to the point of efficiency. It stays in the ‘horribly over-engineered niche product’ phase. Which, you know, really isn’t where any of our tools as capsuleers are. Not even Titans. Even at the scales we use, normally-available components just make more sense than trying to maintain a hangar full of ships loaded with officer-spec’d systems.

And those MTACs aren’t something sitting there for ‘oh, well, you might see a hundred die in a month, if Darkness is feeding’ situations. When they get used, they’ll need to be used in numbers, and they’ll need to be replaced in numbers, quickly. That means they need to be able to be produced efficiently.

Which isn’t where they are, and isn’t where they’re gonna be, because the times and situations where they’d get used aren’t common enough to warrant it.

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1052

I suspect you and I have vastly different use cases in mind. When I’m going up against other capsuleers, it’s in ships. These little horribly ridiculous walkers are for applications that you may perhaps have lost touch with out there in psycho space.

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1053

Yeah, when these things get used, they’re being used for either assaults or defense of primarily infantry positions. They’re tanks, built on legs. But the thing is… tanks are built like they are for good reasons. And wanting the ‘look, it’s a cool walking robot’ factor doesn’t change those reasons.

The target profile it presents is comparatively huge.
Its center of gravity is much higher, making it less stable.
It’s attempting to balance on two legs instead of distributing the weight evenly across a wider base.
It’s going to be knocked over, which is a worry tanks just don’t even have.

When it attempts to go hull-down, it puts itself into a vulnerable position where it cannot fire during the transition from ‘mobile’ to ‘hull down’ and vice versa (Really, when getting into position, it’s going to need that arm as part of the support process. It’s going to need that arm as a structural support when getting up at least to ‘kneeling’, as well. I don’t think these things have anywhere near the flexibility or balancing capabilities to do one-handed pushups while firing a railgun).

The supposed increases in mobility talk about rough or uneven terrain. Tracks are actually pretty good at that stuff, and even when it gets to be too much, GEVs are even better. Hovertanks exist. They’re at the efficiency point in production.

There’s simply no niche these fill that doesn’t already have either powered exo-armor in it, or tanks. Trying to split the difference is like trying to split the difference between cruisers and HACs.

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1054

The answer is simple.

Tripods.

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1055

Hexapods, actually. You want a stable tripod on the ground while the other set of legs is moving. At that point, though, you’re not gaining anything over a tracked vehicle. You’re still higher, fairly bulky with the drive system for all those legs, and probably not moving like the nimble ballerina people seem to think bipedal walkers would be.

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1056

Dammit Arrendis, you need a tripod so you can make third leg jokes. Humour is so much more important than practicality.

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1057

We. Have. Hover. Vehicles. We can locally manipulate gravity. Honestly, given enough funding and engineering talent, making a 50+ ton walking tank do delicate ballet while blasting everything in to swirling atoms around it should at least theoretically be possible, and someone already has probably done it, somewhere.

Your point about the financial and general practicality of such bipedal assault units still stands firmly like a hexapod design, though.

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1058

Anybody heard about infamous and stunning “Glittering Dream” Gallente Nightclub on the Crystal Boulevard? First time have heard about it. Maybe because its infamous. :thinking:

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1059

Because you touch yourself at night. The hidden cameras in your quarters say so.

It’s really weird that you call out random Federal Senators’ names while you do it, though.

(NOTE FOR DIANA: THIS IS A JOKE. EVERYONE BUT YOU CAN SEE THIS IS A JOKE. YOU ARE ABOUT TO OVER-REACT IN YOUR ANGRY RESPONSE. CALM THE HECK DOWN)

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1060

I wonder whom else should I have touched? The only thing I sleep with is my plushie leviathan, which I touch most probably. And since your cameras didn’t saw that, it’s definitely a fake.

I love books and I read that story too, about a girl who was reading a list of names before sleep. To be honest, I don’t know a lot of Senators name, and what maybe will be even more surprising to you, despite my offensive behavior, I really don’t have a lot of personal enemies. The only names I could recall as ones would be: Soup Foiritan, Mental Blaque and Joke Roden. Them I’d kill with pleasure.

Actually, if I think a bit more, there is one more name - but he is from our camp. Traitor. Disgrace. One who makes State look weak, one who sells own people to enemies. One who for almost nine years was poisoning one of most advanced corporations in our State. Mens Reppola.

Other than that - I don’t have personal enemies and can’t come up with any other name.
However, if you insist pestering me with nonsense like that, who knows… maybe tonight I will call out YOUR name. :crazy_face:

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1061

Stopped reading here.

Adorable.

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1062

I didn’t want to plushie-shame.

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1063

It isn’t, or at least, not completely-- certainly not in the sense that I expect you to listen (even if I might hope a little). If you begin to do something foolish it’s kind of a public service to point out who you are and what you’re about.

There are ways this can be argued to be true, and some will and do, notably strong Matari partisans (who tend to want to say the Amarr are worse) and Nation agents themselves.

It seems like some simple, stupid truths aren’t worth resisting, though. Nation’s chief methods of persuasion can change your mind about them so you’ll never change it again. … at least, without permission.

That is, if one wishes to experience it, if one merely want to entertain thoughts, they can paint the moon or describe it with lots of words and graphs and such.

We don’t really have a lot of reliable data on what it’s like to be part of Nation. It’d be neat to hear from someone who’d made a major study of the effects of Nation implants and was in a position to really talk about what it’s like to be a True Slave or a networked agent. Mostly we just have stuff like the cases where Nation communities starved to death in hiding because nobody had orders to forage or could take the iniatative to start foraging.

Did it hurt, starving to death like that? Did they suffer? Or was that function turned off, too?

Evi’s apt to dismiss stuff like that as CONCORD propaganda, and I like Evi, but I don’t trust her Master, either to have the kind of foresight to avoid such an event or the compassion to worry about his True Slaves’ subjective experience. CONCORD’s version seems all too probable to me, and I don’t think Evi could verify it if she wanted to.

Is your nihilism the commonsensical one of questioning “what to do when there is no meaning in nothing to be done” therefore filling the pockets of the Record Companies that use those adolescent bands with a catchy angry rock songs and hospitals with angst people and sliced wrists? (Absolutely no judgment, i like those!)

Actually “my” nihilism is the more usual kind-- the sort of vaguely-defined void of belief and principle that almost everyone denies actually having, including me. I’m a Shuijing sect Achur practitioner. That does indeed mean that I question the existence of almost everything, including myself as a separate being; it’s distinguishable from nihilism largely by attitude.

I accept the universe-- or rather all universes, the Totality of all things-- as real. Nothing else is; our existence as separate beings is illusory, but, I do accept the subjective experiences of my fellow figments as meaningful.

We’re not “real,” but, we don’t have to be.

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1064

Objective: Maintain social cohesion and operation in a certain way.

Most groups: Positive reinforcement on ideas and certain core values, set what they consider transgressions, punish Ex post facto to set example and serve as negative reinforcement on an operant conditioning to their respective identitary groups.

Sansha: Avoid transgressions from the beggining in a way that appear to make people feel happy with it.

Less steps, more results, requires the whole universe (including Jove) in unison to (almost) destroy.

I would call it efficient.

Penal System, death penalty, torture, all the negative reinforcement as the point above. Not to mention the hiring or usage of rogue elements to special State/Republic/Empire/Federation interests as elite/disposable groups.

Once you know how sausages are made…

Because of CONCORD and the winners deliberately classifying the information and hiding it from the public.

How were the first years like? What tech was implemented prior to the hive mind one? Those are things that i am curios about, therefore i ask any Nation people get my hands into.

Nan-in, an Achur master, received a Gallente university professor who came to inquire about Wayism.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Waism unless you first empty your cup?”

Reflect upon the point above. Your cup is quite quite full.

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