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Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Eric's thread got me thinking about the worldbuilt aspects of the Middle Earth I'm writing into my fantasy cosmology. It's a place that takes a backseat to Left Earth, which is a more traditional medieval world, but that's one of those Attention-Span Black Holes that I'm far more likely to end up writing a bunch of short stories about rather than just get around to writing a storygame about, and you guys sure as hell don't want to hear me prattle on about short stories in the WW, right?

Point is, Middle Earth is a Napoleon-Punk fantasy. Which, like Eric's story, is a lot like steampunk, except it tries to stay pre-industrial. Industry is mostly people-powered, uniforms are fancy and frilly, and electricity is generated sparingly by big windmills and big water wheels that don't have any more immediate tasks, usually for the purpose of electrifying the water around fortified islands, shoving live tesla coils down hills at attacking formations, telegraphs, and cooling/heating public buildings. Some more alchemy-minded fellows use this mysterious "Electricity" to draw out Aluminum, the rarest and most valuable metal of them all.

However, New Earth is very young, (Still has dragons and dinosaurs, Psuedo-England actually has polar bears and ferns all over the broader plains) and doesn't really have any fossil fuels. Whale oil is used a bit, but since whales are now magical, if not also prehistoric behemoths, actually killing a whale and taking its oil is a downright Herculean feat of foolhardiness and expensiveness. Whaling is a thing that happens by accident for the survival of the crew when an old and/or weakened whale breaks off from their herd to hunt whatever moving thing they thing they can keep up with. (Which often results in "Maneaters", which are generally avoided until they starve, or hunted down by fleets if they get too close to the coast.) In other words, all the whale oil they get is either an accident or harvested from some poor whaley bastard that washed up on the beach. 

Therefore, they've had enough time to invent "Steampunk" technology, but their methods of industry, society, and warfare remain firmly rooted in the 1700s, because modern power sources either don't exist, or they take their sweet time generating enough power to get a city-wide grid working. Anyway, that's how I'm writing off the fact that this place presumably has been in that weird technological renaissance for thousands of years without jumping off into an industrial revolution. Still don't know how I'm going to explain the lack of innovation in guns, but I'm sure you guys can help me with that.

Anyway, the thing I've come here to ask you guys about is airships!

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Yup, they're not just the old exploration devices your Uncle Verne used to ramble about. Part of the reason I chose this period is because the concepts and designs people came up with before we started making combustion engines were pretty fucking metal. Da Vinci's tank was pretty badass before Assassin's creed ruined it. And hell, look at this fucking thing:

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And hell, even if it meant all of Europe would eventually be France, it'd still be badass to have the English Channel be fought over like this:

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Anyway, back to airships. This is how I'm thinking they'll work, feel free to jump in at any point and offer corrections or criticisms. Sometimes I make holes in my logic that befuckle the story, and I aspire to have a Stryker-like understanding of the technogeekology in my story!

1. Airships can only really move with the wind, since they don't have engines or propellers to propel themselves. With wings and sails, they can fly with or against the wind, and turn using their momentum, but flying across wind, or moving in slow winds, can become tricky business and leave them stuck, sort of like water ships, but arguably floatier and more dangerous.

2. Because they create a helluva lot less drag in the air, broadsides are avoided, because it can send them "sliding" into other ships in their formation and knocking them off course. Usually cannons are fired just a few at a time, or formations break up and fly into the enemy, so they can fire cannons on both sides simultaneously and not push themselves around by accident.

3. They're big and slow, have a lot of hull space, and don't really fight each other all that well without leaving themselves open to massive damage, so from a tactical application standpoint they're used mainly to bomb fortifications, bring paratroopers behind enemy lines or on enemy flanks, and otherwise just rain shit on people from above.

4. There are very few ways to fight off this air force without betting on the notion that your crew will blow the other guys up before they blow up you.  (Unless you're the Psuedo-Russia of Middle Earth. The Tsardom has goddamn dragons.) One common strategy between ships is to try and fly above the enemy and drop paratroopers down on top of their ship, so they can take the ship in close combat possibly by surprise. The big problem with this is that balloons are round, and it's hard to keep your hot air balloon hot at higher-than-average altitudes.

5. Another balloon combat strategy is to attach big fuckin' blades to the belly of your ship and then ram into the other guy's balloon. This can result in a hilarious bout of slow and meticulous manuevering as one crew desperately tries to get higher than the other before ramming.

6. Balloons are made of pretty durable material, and usually damage from a volley of rifles and/or field cannons will result in the ship's slow, usually harmless descent back to earth if it gets severe enough. Therefore, cannon crews and gunmen are encouraged to keep their sights on grounded targets, since by the time they're in range of most ammunition, the most they can do is put a de-facto fort full of angry marines and sky-sailors on the ground directly in front of them. (Or worse, behind them!) so attacks against airships need to be more or less immediately demoralizing and destructive. Therefore, large anti-air mortars that cause dangerously big holes in balloons and ships, cannons and mortars with explosive rounds, or, in the case of Psuedo-China, boulder catapults and fucking Lord-of-the-Rings triple ballistas, are kept on towers, walls, and hilltops as a countermeasure against airships.

7. They have sort of steel skis around the bottom to absorb harsher-than-average landings and stay upright. Like Helicopters, but big and pretty long. However, since steel is very heavy, the more "safety" you want to have in that regard, the slower your ship will go and the lower your max altitude will be. So big ships, like sky-traders and troop transports, will have big skis, but fighters and bombers will be smaller and have little skis. Tourist and pleasure ships will be small and have large skis, which will allow middling speed and altitude but lots of safety, which is what Tourists usually pay for anyway.

Does this sound practical, from a fantasy warfare standpoint? Does any of this not make sense? (And by that, I mean in-world-sense, not "Sent, you're a stream-of-consciousness fucktard and I can't be arsed to pay attention to anything you're saying" sense.)

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

There's a reason that zeppelins and the like were lightly armoured. You'd need to generate an insane amount of lift to make them bulletproof, let alone canon-proof. 

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

They're neither of those things, it's just that the holes they make don't continue to cause huge tears in the balloon outside of the initial entry and exit, and there isn't exactly any danger of water leaking in if you put holes in the boat itself. It doesn't cause any big immediate damage, and damage to the ship or balloon doesn't continue happening after the impact. So, ammunition is generally saved for traditional targets, if there are any, and the task of taking down zeppelins is mainly left to anti-air guns or other zeppelins.

A single unit of rifles can definitely sink a ship, but with the amount of momentum they generally have when going at enemy lines, it usually won't stop or change course. And it usually won't crash, because there's a load of comparatively little holes causing the heat to slowly vent out, which gives the guys time to patch up the balloon, generate the biggest fire they can and slow down the fall to safe levels, or just strap on parachutes/gliders and abandon ship. 

Bullets and cannons are therefore inefficient, unlike, say, an explosive shell which spreads fire, which would shoot the thing way the fuck up in the air before giving the balloon a big fuck-off hole, or a sizable explosion, which will either rob them of control, make everyone fall off the ship by breaking it the fuck up, or cause a big fuck-off hole that makes the boat fall and crash.

If you just sink the zeppelin, you'll either have a unit of dudes in a boat forced to entrench themselves in an awkward place at best, or a unit of dudes in a boat entrenching themselves right next to you at worst. Because of that, people generally don't shoot at balloons unless they are anti-air or on balloons themselves. Of course, shooting down balloons, sinking or not, is just common sense if the enemy tries to bombard you with just zeppelins, or you don't have any anti-air, but it's more effective to shoot at dudes if the enemy is also coming at you with dudes.

To be fair, I'm talking about HUGE balloons fueled by multiple furnaces on roughly viking-boat-sized ships. I have no doubt that a volley of bullets would take out some of the sky canoes pictured above, but the size of the balloon and the holes bullets can cause would be much smaller in comparison on things like these.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Okay, I'm really surprised that I've never heard of this. It's seems like a a very interesting way to have a war though. I imagine everything was a bit slow-paced. 

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Kinda sorta. There's a lot of explosions ans gunfire, so you don't notice. And also infantry and cavalry charges, which were decidedly not slow-paced! I fucking love infantry and cavalry charges!

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
Are those guys on kites?!?

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

That was what I was wondering, but I decided not to question it.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

You never heard of the the flying Kite Hussars of the French Foreign Legion? That's the job they gave all the worst criminals, so none of the other soldiers ever had to talk to them! They bravely charged into the sails and splattered on the decks of the British Fleet and intimidated the shit out of them!

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

That seems a bit...extreme, in my opinion.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Napoleon was a pretty brutal dude, dude.

...

7 years ago

That's true. It's strange, since he apparently tried following in Alexander the Great's footsteps, but Napoleon wasn't very great.

...

7 years ago

You kiddin? Napoleon conquered and subjugated way more different clashing cultures than Alexander ever had to deal with, and fought off two or three world powers in a world that pretty much hated France for tossing out the monarchy system that kept the rest of Europe "In power". Alexander was no slouch himself, but he did kinda sorta crush a democracy and drive Philosophy into a new, depressing age under the reign of a dictator. Napoleon, on the other hand, was a constitutional dictator who was at least willing to honestly work with a parliament of the people unlike the guy before him. Say what you want about his morality, but as far as his achievements and the mark he made on history, he was pretty great.

Napoleon

7 years ago

My apologies, I was under the assumption that by "great", we were discussing morals and such. Yes, Napoleon was great in matters that realty with his achievements and his mark in history. No argument there.

...

7 years ago

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, Alexander was also kind of an asshat. He was an alcoholic murderer who disregarded the feelings of the people closest to him as they starved to death on the edge of the world. Sure, he was tolerant of other people's religions and tried to intergrate them into the rest of the Greek Society, except for the Zoroastrians, who he sacked and murdered like the filthy proto-Jews they were. Napoleon was just surprisingly lovable, and not in a "D'aww, look how amusingly evil Genghis Khan can be!" kinda way. Every emperor is amusing in their own ways.

Battle of the Greats

7 years ago

In the end, it seems that whoever is tolerant of others' religion is considered "the Great". 

Battle of the Greats

7 years ago

Alexander literally went to war against Zoroastrians for being Zoroastrian. Napoleon was crushing Islam and Catholicism alike in Spain. Alexander's whole purpose for "tolerating" other religions was that the majority of them were polytheistic anyway, and didn't see any harm in making themselves Greek. Zoroastrianism... Didn't believe in that. I can't speak very well for how it would've affected the conversion process, but it's similar to how Jews and Christians, whose religions were about worshipping only that religion with little room for intergration, were also highly discriminated against and more or less were genocide targets for what they believed.

Hell, the only guy out of the emperors mentioned who actually seemed remotely tolerant of religions was Genghis Khan, and he was GENGHIS FUCKING KHAN!

Genghis Khan

7 years ago

Genghis Khan: The solution to all problems.

Napoleon

7 years ago
Alexander meanwhile liked little boys so much he managed to creep out the Greeks. Oh right and he murdered countless thousands of people for ego and power, and sold more into slavery. He still looked pretty reasonable compared to Genghis, but I'm not sure where our ideas of morality come in with any of these guys.

Napoleon

7 years ago

Genghis as far as we know didn't sex up little boys, so he wins as far as morality is concerned.

Plus he conquered more shit and had enough children to carry on his Empire a bit longer after he died. So he wins on that front as well.

Gengis Khan

7 years ago

For some reason, I recall reading something about Genghis and salt (or was it sugar?).

Gengis Khan

7 years ago

It probably had something to do with his superstition. He had a big obsession with immortality, because he promised Mongolia he wouldn't rest until he conquered the entire world.

Gengis Khan

7 years ago

Didn't he collect one of them as some form of rebellious act against someone? 

Gengis Khan

7 years ago

Huh... I don't know who the hell Genghis Khan would have to rebel against, or what salt would have to do with it, but that's always interesting.

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago

Apologies, it seems I was thinking of Mahatma Gandhi. I get things like this confused a lot.

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago
0_0

Confusing Gandhi with Genghis. Someone's been playing too much Civ.

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago

What is "Civ"?

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago
Sid Meier's Civilization series. Due to a bug, the most pacifist leader in there (Gandhi) - at a score of 0 / 255) would become more pacifist due to some reason, but the way memory stored 0-1 was 255/255 (instead of correcting to 0). This made him a nuke happy madman. This is the only scenario under which you can be forgiven for confusing Genghis with Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago

Then it seems I cannot be forgiven. 

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago

Nope.

Mahatma Gandhi: Civil Rights Leader

7 years ago

There is more similarity with Gandhi than this! Genghis Khan also ask girls to sleep with him to test for celibacy all of the time!

Except, in Genghis's case, it was to test Genghis's lack of celibacy! And it was not with blood relatives...

Gengis Khan

7 years ago

STILL NOT RESTING!

Gengis Khan

7 years ago

Genghis was unable to conquer the rest of the world, but his followers seem to be willing to achieve his goal for him.

Napoleon

7 years ago
In addition to what End's said, in Genghis' favor: Understanding and implementing meritocracy amongst advancements, Sabutai, mastery of mobile blitz warfare.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
Well he got such good results back when he was a nobody second lieutenant firing shrapnel into a crowd, why ever stop? Seemed to work out pretty well for him.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

AND THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

I'm seriously considering making heavy armor and Winged Hussars part of the Tsardom, just because of that song. I don't care if they were more of a 1600s thing! They still did okay against guns!

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
The COG hosted Sabres of Infinity has you defending against an army of fantasy Hussars with muskets, it's pretty sweet.

Winged Hussars

7 years ago

They seem very interesting from what I just saw when I looked it up. That's a badass set of armour.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Alright, I'll be responding to the technical parts of air balloons / airships. What you want in this setting is blimps, not hot air balloons. Hot air balloons however can be useful as static air defenses (stretch a metallic net between two of them), and were used in that role in WW2 in the Battle of Britain.

First of all, Air Balloons have no power of their own, relying on the wind. Airships add an engine, the first one had a 1.5 hp steam engine, matter of fact.

History lesson: In June 1783, two French brothers, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (1740–1810 and 1745–1799), made the first practical hot-air balloon using a linen envelope lined with paper. Instead of gas burners, they used a simple fire made of wood and straw. People would be strapping engines on them in the 1800s turning them into airships, and gatling guns would arrive around the late 19th century.

Hot air balloons are basically three important parts: An envelope (the 'balloon'), a burner (to generate lift), and a basket (for the people + payload). Stick an engine on it, and you're on your way to making an airship. For more details, check this out

Airships would add ballonets (think big bellows) that would hold / release air the same way a submarine holds / lets go of water to dive. Extremely handy flash rendition of their way of gaining/losing altitude here

Hot air balloons can get by without using gasses (Hydrogen/Helium), while due to the different method of generating lift (lighter than air gas + ballonets) Airships need them. This makes airships more risky UNTIL someone switches over from Hydrogen (which is lighter and cheaper) to helium (non-flammable)

Hot air balloons while hit would deflate gently like a balloon, with Airships it depends on what gas is used, and what the outer body is. There are three kinds of outer bodies Rigid / Semi Rigid / Non-Rigid

Cannons will not be making their ways into the air, managing all those pesky parts (canonballs, gunpowder, recoil) make it a painful and messy endeavor. Instead, expect there to be a gatling gun on one for Anti Air fire. If you're hesitant to add gatling guns, (and want to make something extremely cool in the process) add baby blimps attached to mother blimps, which carry raiding parties. Due to their small size (only carrying one inhabitant), they may be able to board enemy blimps / fire harpoons at them, and have this awesome air to air fighting. Still a one man sized balloon is still pretty large, so you'll have to have a swarm of atleast four of them per airship. Size of one person sized airship here . They'd have to be recalled via ropes and a pulley on the mother airship

Most attacks for ground targets would be via dropping bomb(lets), again, no cannons. Also, airships can be pretty fast, the Hindenburg could cross 134 kmph (around 80mph for you yanks). Consider adding incendiaries to their loadout for some burning joy (also, dragonfire would probably have accelerated research into incendiaries, so this would totally fly)

Hope that was helpful

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

While the thread above devolves into a fight over which dictator was the most dictator-y yet acceptable, this poor, honest, yet fairly well researched answer continues its silent vigil from the edge.

I shall take this opportunity to reference a song I haven't in a long, long time. Hit it

E: Are my hyperlinks not working for some reason?

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Yes, I believe it's been happening with all your posts recently.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
Thanks, switched from RTE to manual, wasn't sure whether I was doing something wrong or not. Also, is there no other way to manage paragraphs in manual without adding (p)(/p) tags everywhere?

Thanks, figured it out now, was using href: (link) instead of href="link"

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

I don't believe there is, but you may want to message someone experienced with HTML like Bradindvorak to get a more reliable answer.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

These would definitely have to rely on sails. These people, with what they currently have, definitely can't create reliably powered engines, but could spend the same resources trying to find sails to put on bigger and bigger balloons. They could also be pulled by "Balloon Hussars" and then let go to be sent over enemy battlements, but stuff like engines probably won't work, unless it's possible to blacksmith a battery-powered 1.5 HP engine, but that's a whole nother matter, and would make air attacks unreliable outside of certain windmill-laden areas.

From a game/story design standpoint, I may have to force airships to be at least somewhat beefier and have big guns*. But I think I'll at least have to make them very boatlike, if nothing else, sheerly so they can carry a lot of dudes with guns and blow-uppy things, in order to make sure that most factions have a means of attacking and defending the air, in order to balance out the fact that the Holy Tsardom of NotRussia has goddamn dragons. (Which, of course, are much better than blimpboats, but all three sides are supposed to have their own edges.)

*Cannons and guns in this universe, while still being mostly single-shot so that the traditional "Adventurer with a sword and possible sorcery" thing can still stand logically, will have been innovated to the point that they have fewer moving parts needed. Mostly cannons in this regard, because bombardment is a seriously complex process that I'm not sure I'll ever be completely confident writing about, but rest assured most standard-issue sizes of cannon, whether it's the 3-pounders on airships or the big kahunas on fort walls, do have a sort of ready-to-fire cartridge system in place that keeps them from firing all the time, and makes the crew have to take cleaning breaks every few shots, but no longer makes them a befucklement to store, move, house, and fire. Unless, Gods forbid, you're the guy assigned to put all those cannon shots together...

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
One problem with flying knights: Armor. Armor was made for ground combat, 'Air-Knights' would be in chainmail at best and greaves at worst, they're more rogue than warrior up in the sky, and dexterity would count for more than strength in getting to their targets. It was be more economical to have an extra person than a heavier armored person in air-warfare (plus landing in full armor would fracture the Hussar's limbs, unless you're playing this by rule of cool)

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Oh, no, the Hussars would be ON THE GROUND just pulling the ships and then letting them go when they had enough momentum to get to where the general wanted them if the sails idea didn't work, since they don't really have engines for midair propulsion in this world.

Granted, there are probably non-winged, heavily armored dragon-riding Hussars, but they're specially trained to deal with midair funny-business and take certain measures not to fall from too great heights at any particular point. (Including grappling guns, the Napoleonic equivalent of parkour lessons, Dragon whistles, armor designed for rolling...)

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
Bad news, the sails won't make a difference. They'd be just like putting sails on a submarine - nothing happens.

Re: Hussars on the ground > Would you want to be running on the ground pulling gigantic weights? They'd have to have a separate 'pulling' outfit from their 'combat' outfit. Plus, wouldn't they just use a pulley system to do that, instead of manpower?

And if the ships are strong enough, they could attach a ballista projectile to the airship - making it a sort of catapult aided launch that semi-modern aircraft carriers have (the latest ones switched to an electromagnetic accelerator IIRC)

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Nevermind, Genghis Khan needed to log off first. Sorry about that, sometimes he invades my computer.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

I'd imagine a front and back team of of horses opens up more on-field mobility options and sort of gives them relative independance more than static, destructible pulley systems or one-time launches, especially since sails do nothing. The Hussars would mainly be there to protect the team of horses and keep them in line in addition to the other units protecting them.

Or... Maybe they have a team of onboard sailors always working a sort of bellows system that sucks from one side to provide air to push them from the other side? Though there's certainly no way there could be enough air to do that unless the thing were made from Balsa and Aluminum.

And that would be ridiculous, because Aluminum is the most rare and valuable metal of them all!

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Alright, I see where the discrepancy is here. In my mind these aerial machines are free flying, in yours they're human led, like a cart behind cattle. The tethered approach is not sensible, and no military did things that way IRL. Being forced to leave a certain amount of your troops to guard carts that would need to be the frontlines to position the balloons well is not sound military thinking.

Bellows are one option, treadmill / cycle driven pedal-propellors is another, but I really think canned compressed air could solve your problems. You may also want to see how early steam engines worked for more of a tech perspective.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Well, they're supposed to be able to be pilotted but there really, but I don't see that happening without steam engines, which is something I'm really trying to avoid, because they have charcoal fuel at worst and really expensive oil/batteries that need handmade engines at best. I could definitely see a team of people peddling or compressing air, though.

Ooh, but that's just the thing, who says they need to be the front line?  The application of horses would allow them to pull the balloon in quick bursts, and the balloon's inertia would keep the balloon going over the horses. As long as they are behind a front line, a brief charge from both teams could send the balloon over the front line and allow the crew to drop things on the enemy, if they were, say, in front of an area of strategic import or one side or the other was charging and attempting to take ground. This wouldn't happen often, but again, something would have to happen to make these their own unit and give them an application.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Nope, if they're tethered expect counter-tether units (trained to just cut the wires with two metal edges between a sharp rope - like chain shot for ship mast-killing) to be up and equipped the morning after the first attack. Tethers are weak. Also, in that case where they're only 'raiding,' the upkeep costs for them would not be justified.

You have to remember, they look good but they have to be practical as well. In a tethered configuration they'd be better for races amongst lords than dropping bombs on the frontlines.

#untethertheairships

#trueairshipsdonthavetethers

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
There should be ways to make steam era batteries. If I recall this correctly, can't you have some equivalent to compressed air batteries (literally storing energy while inflating a balloon, the relieving air pressure provides the energy)?

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Yeah, they can have electrical batteries, they do technically have the means, but most of their knowledge of electricity comes from the fact that copper wires get hot and zappable if you mess with magnets on old grain mills. Though, that could be a pretty good power source, especially if they are held to the ground while heating up and then pushed out with the ballista you proposed. Can't speak for how safe the crew would be, but they're brave men of course.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

They must be brave to put themselves at such a risk. Admirable.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago
That's actually expected. Most new technologies are deployed by people very conscious of the risks. Take almost any major frontline technology (military or otherwise), and you can find the learning curve deaths.

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

All the soldiers who're too 'patriotic' for their own good are sent to become Sky Marines. It takes some balls/ovaries of light, aerodynamic steel or an arseload of faith in The Emperor to just stand there with guns while sailors are just sort of sitting around lighting fires, pumping air into cannisters and preparing to hurl you into the sky on a giant crossbow

Criticize MY Ideas, would you!?

7 years ago

Idea criticism? Your wish is granted!

7 years ago

A few counter points and thoughts:

1. Moving with the wind in the air seems even more awful than with sea ships, as you cannot reduce sails during unfavourable winds and thus be blown literally miles off course (actually, naval sips can anyway, so exaggerating that would be devastating). Those daft sods in the Spanish Armada learnt that the hard way!

2. Small, maximum six pounder cannon could be used to deploy long range artillery (in sequence to avoid sudden shock like you said), and half pounder swivel guns for countering other airships. It would be difficult to use downward as cannon shot needs to be a bit loose so the barrel doesn't explode, especially before rifling. That extended range would give any artillery captain a right old stiffie.

3. The paradrop idea sounds fascinating, especially to bring intimidating troops like the Old Guard or the Scots. Alternatively you could drop multitasking 'special forces' akin to Dragoons (but without horses) as raiders and snipers. Bombs would be an easy and tactically sound idea, ranging from fused shot canisters to bursting quicklime to diseased corpses.

4. Planes might always be difficult to fight In Real Life, but that's because they're faster than Alt F4 on porn sites and escape before you can pop the buggers. Lumbering balloons would be cannon fodder to mortars using airbursts and such contraptions if left around the enemy's lines (especially if they're so large like you mention).

5. Giant blades, each heavier than a rack of montantes? Sounds like the perfect way to weigh any balloon down so it never even lifts off. Give halberds and siege forks to some crew members instead perhaps.

6. Putting armour on an entire balloon is almost as bad as the blade idea for exactly the same reasons, but perhaps bulwarks and tactical shielding on the exposed areas of the underside might work, but we'd be talking about having at most a 35% coverage including the basket itself. Any armour itself would have to be light in the sense of being similar to human armour like Brigandine or perhaps be an almost tsuba-shaped disk around the basket's exterior that acts as a small and thin but effective literal shield. Weight is your #1 problem and any thick protection warrants instant dismissal.

7. Skis sound like a nice idea, but again they have to be lightweight and gain strength from structure rather than material density (like on bridges that don't collapse themselves if you so much as sneeze).

...

In summary: Airships in general sound good, but with hefty impediments and limitations because they cannot be heavily armed or armoured, plus they cannot raid in and out quickly because they're bloody balloons.

Idea criticism? Your wish is granted!

7 years ago

1. Oh, yeah. They use compressed air pumps to push themselves around now.

3. There's definitely a lot of rude dudes that they drop in on people. Since this story is going to take place in very contested territory that's been touched by war for ages, the game is going to get pretty medieval-feeling. At least in the sense that Fire and Sword feels medieval, where a warlord or "Knight" type could rise up in the ranks in a way they can't do in the more modernised world behind strong empire borders.

Because of this, locals are vaguely familiar with various soldier types and divisions, and has many tales and superstitions about the scariest ones. Their psychological effect is perhaps more powerful here than in any other warring territory, and so stories are greatly exaggerated. I've been considering ranking any in-game encyclopedia pages on different units and individual warriors on the 'Mohs Scale of Hardass', with 1 being disgraced/laughable, 5 being of formidable repute, and 10 being legendary. However, 'Mohs Scale of Hardass' doesn't sound very Napoleonic.

4. That's definitely their biggest problem, which is why they're usually saved as a finishing charge or something you send in when the enemy is suitably distracted or the enemy engineers have been lost.

5. Halberds might work, because they can create big gashes, but forks create little holes, which would definitely sink the boat, but not fast enough to be more harmful if your crew is on the ball. I was thinking sharpened skis, Guan Dao cutters along the end of the boat, or something along those lines, not the enormous boatswords you see in stuff like The Last Leviathan.

6. Ah, yeah, armoring the balloon was never a thing that was happening. It's just made of some tough stuff that keeps the air from getting out and is woven tightly enough that tearing doesn't happen much, so bullets, while being perfectly capable of taking it down, don't cause enough immediate damage to the balloon that it would fall down hard and kill everyone inside. Not without wasting several volleys that could've been spent on the approaching infantry.

7. Definitely. They've had a long time to design these and pit them against each other, and a long time to make different metal alloys that would be light and structurally sound. They were always around this sort of pre-industrial era, and probably will be for the forseeable centuries because of their various impediments, so they already have the means for manual mass production and high-quality steel. As well as a good, extensive knowledge of what various alloys do. (Outside of certain metals, like Aluminum, which are very difficult to get out of the ore without electroplating.) Mithril, since it's usually portrayed as a structually light, but durable, non-oxidizing metal that ancient legendary swords are made of, would probably be a good choice for skis... Assuming people are willling to hand-smith it to get the metal out, like the Dwarves did.