'To Plunder the Stars Themselves' OOC Thread

[Necronaut]

@Machine God (I'm speaking out of turn here as I'm not the GM, however I am an applied scientist, of sorts, so please take this in good humour) I admire your cunning to use gravity to quickly transport the powered-down Vorax down the elevator shaft at high speed, but momentum, unfortunately, would still apply whether the grav-plates are on or off. Draak would be sweeping that mess up for days! ;)

 

Edit: That being said, this actually does make for an interesting physics problem:

1. You want to move a heavy object in a particular direction, but the only tool at your disposal is a constant force applied (gravity or artificial gravity in this case) in a particular direction, up or down.
2. You want to move said heavy object quite quickly, but do not want to damage it.

If we look at a typical case of parabolic motion, and chart our velocity vectors over time, there is a point at which we have 0 vertical velocity (vy). The real trick with this problem is accelerating the Vorax (our heavy object) "downward" at the gravitational constant of your choice, and then at the ideal calculated time duration since "dropping" the object (or accelerating it down the elevator shaft) flipping the direction gravity is applied to "up" so that at time = tfinal, our object has (de-)accelerated to a downward velocity of 0 which ideally is right when it would make contact with the bottom of the lift shaft. Essentially we're flipping a projectile/parabolic motion problem on its head.

 

Granted this assumes the gravity field can be reversed at the drop of a hat, and that either a program can be written to do this, and/or human reflexes are perfectly tuned to change it at the perfect time to the perfect reverse value.

 

Edit 2: maths to follow later when I have a chance to write this all down for those interested.

Edit 3: okay, practically speaking you would most likely flip the gravitational constant around the half-way point down the shaft, but air/wind resistance would actually be working in our favor, so the math gets slightly messy if you want it really finely tuned, not to mention the height of the shaft might be such that said object could reach terminal velocity and "safely" stay there for a while before we need to reverse the gravitational polarity and start decelerating our giant falling murder-bot (whew!)

This problem is actually more akin to doing a standing quarter-mile drag race in your car, but with the added complication that you must come to a complete stop at the finish line. 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Necronaut

[Lysimachus]

 Yep, I understood ALL of that... 

I think it's possible, but as Necronaut's scientific genius shows, I think it's fair to say it would take a lot of time - during which time the Angels will be moving further and further aft through the big structural bulkheads!

Similarly with the idea of finding other Vorax, there may be more of them elsewhere on the ship, but how will you find them? (Plus the time to permanently disable the 20ish outside the bridge)

Would the time be better spent picking a good spot to hold off the Angels? 2 Boarding torpedoes worth will outnumber you 3ish to 1, but you don't need to kill them, just hold them back until reinforcements (hopefully!) arrive...

[Necronaut]

For it to work it actually requires us to make an awful lot of assumptions regarding Imperial star-ship construction:

1. Are the grav-plates built into the floor and ceiling of the lift shaft? 
2. Are the lifts driven by cables?
3. Are there grav-plates in the individual lifts?

Assuming gravity can *actually* be manipulated in the way we're discussing (and this is a science-fantasy setting so the short answer is most likely yes), then lifts in Imperial capital ships could be entirely grav-plate driven, thereby removing a lot of internal moving components. I suppose the lifts would be mounted on low-friction or mag-lev rails?

Actually if there was zero gravity in the lift shafts, but local gravity inside of the lifts, then the lifts could be entirely mag-lev driven carriages within the lift shaft, if that makes sense.

As I said in another thread, I'm a delight at parties.

And I'm hardly a genius. ;)

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Credit where it's due, as a layman, I kind of got that explanation.

I would say, as I did to another player who used real world science to explain something to me (it was interesting), that we're dealing with larger-than-life science fiction where technology is actually treated like magic.  It would depend on whether the guys implementing this would be cognisant with a theorem which is a niche province of the adeptus mechanicus, and would the mechanism even operate in this way due to suspensors in heavy bulk-load lifts.

If you want my advice, something simpler would be better. This isn't my place - but I feel our GM is trying to steer us, but we can still try stuff.  I think the vorax are a dead end at this point.

Orphiel doesn't want to say it (and to be honest I'm kind of struggling with where to go with him at the moment) but if you hand-wave it as a Codex or some training from one of our ex-Marine Errant players, you could simply whittle down the numbers to manageable levels by funnelling.

You leave one of the blast doors open, they will KNOW it is bait, but they'll exploit anyway for speed and a shot to nothing.  That means another combat squad somewhere will be cutting through the bulkhead door.  You ambush the smaller teams, or hold them off - hell you could send the bastards around in circles to buy a handful of minutes.

We need to stand at chokepoints WE make, not are forced to fight in.

On top of that, Orphiel is wondering if the augurs on board can detect either an Iron Halo or Rosarius....

EDIT: Kind of ninja'd by Necro above.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Necronaut]

Anyway, back to matters more germane to the task at hand:

I support ambushing and attempting to incapacitate up to the point of eliminating (permanently) the attacking Astartes force. Whether Orphiel wishes to participate and/or potentially be branded as a kin-slayer is another question for @Mazer Rackham. 

 

Edit: And Mazer has more or less explained what I was trying to get across through Vesalius: that we guide or steer the forward momentum of the invading force to a place at or close to our choosing where to stage an ambush. 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

If I can find an officer, I can get them into the Lion's Challenge, to see sense.  Alternatively I can try to convince them I'm Fallen and buy the team time whilst drawing them away from the main objectives.

Redemptoria are dumb that way.  They'll go off-mission at the drop of a hat.

Otherwise I can fight them one at a time, with knife, boot, elbow and fist.

Orphiel has washed his hands of this whole business, but there are some lines he won't cross.

[Necronaut]

Blimey! Just when you think you have the cloak-and-dagger aspects of the Dark Angels figured out, you get whalloped with another layer of paranoid insanity. I'm excited to see how Orphiel responds and/or chooses to act. 

[Necronaut]

@Machine God my pedantry regarding Newtonian physics aside, your idea was very creative and could certainly be made to work. More importantly, however, considering this is a science-fantasy setting (set in the grim darkness of the far future), one should not let the practical matters of maths and physics stand in the way of fun ideas or the rule of cool.

 

It's up to the GM whether it would work or our characters would be able to make it work anyways. ;)

[Mazer Rackham]

17 minutes ago, Necronaut said:

...[SNIP] your idea was very creative and could certainly be made to work. More importantly, however, considering this is a science-fantasy setting (set in the grim darkness of the far future), one should not let the practical matters of maths and physics stand in the way of fun ideas or the rule of cool.

I agree, it was a very creative idea, and I liked it - besides - what we don't end up using now, we can store up for later!

[Machine God]

Thank you Necro.

Perhaps next time. Draak is really just a Devastator not a Techmarine.

[Necronaut]

Well he is probably the most tech-savvy individual on the ship besides Holger, so that counts for quite a lot in the 41st millennium! 

[Necronaut]

Don't worry, lads: a TPK is still in the offing! 

[Machine God]

1 hour ago, Necronaut said:

Don't worry, lads: a TPK is still in the offing! 

7 Vs 17

[Mazer Rackham]

Hmm.  I feel this may be appropriate.

Spoiler

 

 

[Trokair]

So, err, what the whatever this is is happening?

 

[Necronaut]

21 minutes ago, Trokair said:

So, err, what the whatever this is is happening?

 

Chaos! No er wait... Conflicting allegiances and mission objectives! 

[Machine God]

7 hours ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Hmm.  I feel this may be appropriate.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

"Omnissiah I don't often pray to you, I don't have the tongue for it."

Edited July 13, 2022 by Machine God

[Lysimachus]

There you go, 6 vs 15... that's better, right...? 

[Mazer Rackham]

Don't care what happens now, Orphiel is very satisfied with  Interrogator  Chaplain Narakiel's very wise judgement.

@Machine God A chat without caf?  You monster.

[Machine God]

The Tactical Squad and the Terminators will be two Hordes, right? 

[Machine God]

25 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Don't care what happens now, Orphiel is very satisfied with  Interrogator  Chaplain Narakiel's very wise judgement.

@Machine God A chat without caf?  You monster.

Can we read your Spoiler yet? 

Or should we wait until after the TPK? 

[Mazer Rackham]

20 minutes ago, Machine God said:

Can we read your Spoiler yet? 

Or should we wait until after the TPK? 

Mate, if we're all killed, you can read the label on my t-shirt if you'd like, but for now, be patient young man!

[Machine God]

Question to Wounded in Cutlass. 

So if your character was wounded by the Vorax why did you not ask for healing in Narrative Time? 

Edited July 13, 2022 by Machine God
Emphasis of question

[Lysimachus]

I'm pretty sure Vesalius did heal them, as far as it was possible? Odysseus was down to 3 Wounds left after the fight. The rest will have to heal over time I think? (I think that's how it works...?)

 

Edit: Though admittedly, I don't think we ever got a Dodge Roll from Decimus against the hit from the Vorax? So, if he did Dodge successfully, he would have taken less Wounds and therefore be fully healed by Vesalius' Medicae test? I'm happy for BC to roll it if he'd like?

Edited July 13, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

15 minutes ago, Lysimachus said:

I'm pretty sure Vesalius did heal them, as far as it was possible? Odysseus was down to 3 Wounds left after the fight. The rest will have to heal over time I think? (I think that's how it works...?

Pretty much.

If they are lightly wounded, and not in combat, they will heal at a rate of 1 wound per day.  It's why Orphiel never goes near Vesalius, bit of white coat syndrome and letting the air get at it. 

In addition, the treated wounds cannot be healed outside combat with another medicae test - it would require an extended care test. Core p.102 and Errata P.2.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Mazer Rackham