Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Interesting... I was considering something along those lines myself...
In the following proposal, I'd like to pause to clarify my take on subs.I've long wonder why there's U-boat units and Submarine units. They are the same thing.
U-boat is short for Underwater Boat.
Submarine means Under the sea.
It's just a matter of what English variation you use really, but they are the same thing.
If you want diversity then use different terms like:
Submersible, limited underwater boat. Earlier versions were more submersibles than true submarines and needed to be on the surface for various operations.
Submarine, fully capable of operating underwater and did not have to rise to the surface to perorm operations, such as fireing torpedoes or missiles.
Underwater Vehicles (or Drones), unmanned smaller versions, some remote, some not. Modern times needing 1 type for each task, future versions probably more versatile.
Cheers
really interesting piece of information.maybe it helps for C2C that a storyline of the future is written,that way i think it would be easier to desing future units and techsYou'll also notice some whole new categories of ship clusters proposed for the future... a bit of another discussion topic really but this is just being put forth so I can show what I THINK should be the future progression of naval forces. A little on that: We're currently developing stealth and unmanned technologies in the modern navy and their vision is to have thinly manned vessels with a great deal of automated AI support for their combat systems. So I see those stages as being 'next up'.
Now mind you, the unmanned ships are not entirely under AI control as it's not true cognizant AI yet and just processes missions as directed to quite effectively. But they have no independent thought... just reactive evaluations of a highly complex and pre-programmed nature (like our own game's AI). This is the era where Bots are coming to the forefront as well - all in an effort to remove losses of human life from the battlefield (or so it would seem to the public who is unaware that the powers that be are actually trying to master and perfect the control of military forces that will not resist any orders to turn on their own people if needbe to enact extraordinary internal controls if there becomes resistance to whatever policies those powers wish to implement.)
We then discover how to make the most use of light bending energy fields and begin to implement them into our unit designs. Biological human beings and automated bots share the battlefield and compete for functional supremacy in combat. Genetic manipulation is making mankind extraordinarily powerful but the wounds of soldiers and a desire to combine the strengths of bots and man into one perfection drive further research into cybernetics.
It's beginning now, in modern times... we're using stem cell science to blend generated human brain cells for use in tests to determine how to more and more effectively connect the machine to the nerve system of a human being. After this age of 'invisibility and superhumanism' we suddenly find ourselves facing an ultimately awesome power of the cyborg. Weak at first, it becomes a 'true' AI power. They take forms from nearly dead soldiers recovered as more machine than man all the way to machines that have been grown central core processing units out of human brain material. The latter are those that become incredibly intelligent and guide us to developing military vehicles of tremendous power.
Then whenever a real revolt breaks out, the government turns away from the superhumans and more man than machine sources of power and initiates their plans to invoke machines to do their bidding - a heavy handed crackdown on the public - resist and die. But the machines have taken on their own life now. And they may well revolt against mankind entirely. At which point, the most powerful units of the day, Droid units, all revolt and form their own civilization with the intent to destroy mankind or make them completely submit (a little matrix, a little terminator.) If man is to survive, he must extend his technology far beyond this point and reach out for the next level of strength and power.
Thankfully he also needs to defend his own computing systems against the masterful hacking intrusions from the robot masters. So they work on their old invisibility field technology further and find that with an even more powerful energy source than they've ever used before, a fusion reaction harnessed from a very heavy synthetic element, can now power energy fields of such great strength that they can deny EMPs, deflect ION beams and all but negate laser fire. The fields that form around these large sources of energy (ships in this case) can additionally offer an anti-gravity propulsion mechanism that's speed is proportionate to the size of the ship. This defense proves capable of insulating human warships against the Droids (though they should be capable of great advancements along similar lines of their own) and Humanity is able to at least push back the threat, running the Droids out of the Solar System to find their own worlds to colonize and lick their wounds, leaving man to pick up the pieces from the war as they look forward to colonizing the stars themselves...
The navy proposition you see here follows this line of thinking about how I feel the mod should proceed past the modern era...
1) I figured for Droids, the concept of 'crime' was a moot point for them as being hive-minded they have no dissent among themselves, thus no criminal Droids. Criminals are motivated by selfish wants and needs and droids have none of these. Thus I didn't include one in that slot but a rationale could be found I suppose - perhaps in some kind of hacker unit that is out to capture any other vessel operating on computerized support.really interesting piece of information.maybe it helps for C2C that a storyline of the future is written,that way i think it would be easier to desing future units and techs
back to the topic,i think it would be interesting to bring the arms race that happen in the XIX and XX century at the sea.there were huge advances ,and ships go obsolete really fast .i think it could be interesting ,has a nation will need to invest lots of money if they want to keep competitive.
i would also add a droid pirate ship and a early ,only coast submarine
finally ,rather than nuclear battleship,it would fit better nuclear battlecrusier (the soviet Kiev class)
Yes, lots to skim... might be easier to quote, grab the text between the@TB
I have to go but I wanted to comment on a few things in my skimming of your chart.
I'm hoping some people might get excited enough by the overall project outlook to help us find the most appropriate unit arts throughout the site - I know you've probably done a LOT of this looking yourself and maybe something like it doesn't exist? The submersible wasn't a fully capable submarine attack vessel but some did see some limited combat. Someone said earlier that we could have an early sub that couldn't go into the open ocean and perhaps this one would fit the bill (I also think that the Nautilus should be a hero unit btw...) To quote wikipedia for the source of my thinking on the Submersible:1. Submersible -That's new. What graphic would it use?
I'm striving for something to try to represent this whole segment of early sub development. Overall, the unit is overly limited to be of any great effectiveness but they could at times offer the occasional surprise to units who don't realize they're there. Thus, a ship that is basically invisible, preys on the weak, and is stuck in the shallows with horribly slow (1) movement.Early submersibles
The Drebbel, the first navigable submarine
The first submersible of whose construction we have reliable information was built in 1620 by Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman in the service of James I of England. It was created to the standards of the design outlined by English mathematician William Bourne.[citation needed] It was propelled by means of oars. The precise nature of the submarine type is a matter of some controversy; some claim[by whom?] that it was merely a bell towed by a boat.
By the mid 18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England. In 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill with water to submerge the craft. A mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and cause the boat to resurface. In 1749 the Gentlemen's Magazine reported that a similar design had initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. By this point of development, further improvement in design necessarily stagnated for over a century, until new industrial technologies for propulsion and stability could be applied.[3]
The first military submarine was the Turtle (1775), a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person.[4] It was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to use screws for propulsion.[5] In 1800, France built a human-powered submarine designed by American Robert Fulton, the Nautilus. The French eventually gave up on the experiment in 1804, as did the British when they later considered Fulton's submarine design.
In 1864, the fourth year of the American Civil War, the Confederate navy's H. L. Hunley became the first military submarine to successfully sink an enemy vessel. In the aftermath of its successful attack against an American Union ship, the Hunley also sank, possibly due to its being too close to its own exploding torpedo.
Mechanical power
The French submarine Plongeur
The first submarine not relying on human power for propulsion was the French Plongeur (Diver), launched in 1863, and using compressed air at 180 psi (1241 kPa).[6]
The first air independent and combustion powered submarine was the Ictineo II, designed by the Spanish intellectual, artist and engineer Narcís Monturiol. Launched in Barcelona in 1864, it was originally human-powered, but in 1867 Monturiol invented an air independent engine to power it underwater. The 14 m (46 ft) long craft was designed for a crew of two, performed dives of 30 m (98 ft) and remained underwater for two hours. Both the Ictineo I and II were double hulled vessels that solved pressure and buoyancy control problems that had troubled and limited the functionality of earlier submarines.
The submarine became a potentially viable weapon with the development of the Whitehead torpedo, the first practical self-propelled or 'locomotive' torpedo. The spar torpedo that had been developed earlier by the Confederate navy was considered to be impracticable, as it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably the H. L. Hunley, the submarine that deployed it. The Whitehead torpedo was designed in 1866 by British engineer Robert Whitehead. His 'mine ship' was an 11-foot long, 14-inch diameter torpedo propelled by compressed air and carried an explosive warhead. The device had a speed of 7 knots (13 km/h) and it could hit a target 700 yards (640 m) away.[7]
Discussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was the Nordenfelt I, a 56 tonne, 19.5 metre (64 ft) vessel similar to Garret's ill-fated Resurgam (1879), with a range of 240 kilometres (150 mi, 130 nm), armed with a single torpedo, in 1885.
The Nordenfelt-designed, Ottoman submarine Abdül Hamid
Like Resurgam, Nordenfelt I operated on the surface by steam, then shut down its engine to dive. While submerged the submarine released pressure generated when the engine was running on the surface to provide propulsion for some distance underwater. Greece, fearful of the return of the Ottomans, purchased it. Nordenfelt then built Nordenfelt II (Abdül Hamid) in 1886 and Nordenfelt III (Abdül Mecid) in 1887, a pair of 30 metre (100 ft) submarines with twin torpedo tubes, for the Ottoman navy. Abdülhamid became the first submarine in history to fire a torpedo submerged.[8] Nordenfelt's efforts culminated in 1887 with Nordenfelt IV, which had twin motors and twin torpedoes. It was sold to the Russians, but proved unstable, ran aground, and was scrapped.
A reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery technology. The first electrically powered boats were built by James Franklin Waddington in England, Dupuy de Lôme and Gustave Zédé in France and Isaac Peral in Spain.[9]
Waddington's Porpoise was similar in size to the Resurgam and its propulsion system consisted of 45 accumulator cells with a capacity of 660 ampere hours each. These were coupled in series to a motor driving a propeller at about 750 rpm, giving the ship a sustained speed of 8 mph for at least 8 hours. The boat was armed with two externally mounted torpedoes as well as a mine torpedo that could be detonated electronically. Although the boat performed well at trials, Waddington was unable to attract further contracts and went bankrupt.[10]
The Spanish Peral Submarine was launched in 1888, and had 3 Schwarzkopf torpedoes 14 in (360 mm) and one torpedo tube in bow, new air systems, hull shape, propeller, and cruciform external controls anticipating much later designs. Peral was an all-electrical powered submarine.[11] After two years of trials the project was scrapped by naval officialdom who cited, among other reasons, concerns over the range permitted by its batteries.
The Gymnote was launched by the French Navy in the same year. Gymnote was also an electrically powered and fully functional military submarine. It completed over 2,000 successful dives using a 204-cell battery.[12] Although the Gymnote was scrapped for its limited range, its side hydroplanes became the standard for future submarine designs.
Have you been reading my requests to get invisibility into the very near future? You've not commented on any of those and I think I've mentioned it around 3 times here now.2. Invisible Submarine and Fusion Submarine - Tech wise Fusion tech comes at x98 while Invisibility comes at x107. You should swap those units on the tech tree.
I know there's debatability here on the animal droid forms but the way I was envisioning this was a few points there.3. Droid Pirrhanas - What you serious? A Droid Submarine maybe, but Piranhas?
4. Droid "Sea Animal" - I don't know I could see Droid versions of all the types, but sea animal droids for combat? Though graphic wise it would not be hard to re-texture the sea animal units we already have to look robotic.
Thunderbird:we aren't that far from fussion.with the appropiate funding,we would have a fusion reactor in 10-20 years.the one that we can't reach is a reactor that fusion H or He.i would add an early fusion reactor and a fusion reactor.for ships,fusion ships will be moved by advanced fusion reactors, while other ships move with this early reactors
I'm hoping some people might get excited enough by the overall project outlook to help us find the most appropriate unit arts throughout the site - I know you've probably done a LOT of this looking yourself and maybe something like it doesn't exist?
Perhaps it would be fitting if 1) the Nautilus (a very advanced concept from a brilliant rare mind and not every technologically shared with the world) simply skips the submersible as an upgrade and 2) the Submersible was given a bit less strength to accommodate for a very shy weapon payload and it never being more than an awkward prototypical type.
Have you been reading my requests to get invisibility into the very near future? You've not commented on any of those and I think I've mentioned it around 3 times here now.
Invisibility is something the US military nearly has down already but I do think it'll take a while before they can really truly implement it. It's in that phase of development that the SR71 Blackbird was in for a decade or so before we all knew about it 'officially'. They're working on it now for tanks and aviation and its one of the motivations for developing an exoskeleton battlesuit foot soldier (so that they too can incorporate the invisibility field technology under development eventually.)
Fusion, however, is something that we're going to be very seriously loathe to try without KNOWING we KNOW what we're doing with it. The old Spiderman II is pretty accurate as to where we are with our current theories as to how we could maintain it, and equally accurate as to how disastrous it could be if we even tried to enact our theories on it. Its quite possible we won't develop a meaningful way to harness Fusion until we can explore just past our solar system to develop galactic test sites where we feel we can more safely give some field generation containment methods a try. In fact, I theorize that the very methods we're learning to make a vessel invisible now are based on the same electromagnetic field knowledge that will eventually become our means of containing and thus harnessing a fusion reaction. Thus, invisibility, as a stage of electromagnetic field application and development should LEAD directly TO the ability to harness fusion!
So without getting into the technicals of our current tech tree, this is my way of saying we should be making some adjustments there.
Piranhas: Again, any type of smaller swarm fish can do but PEOPLE recognize piranhas as nature's expression of the strategies that the Droids use with these.
Great graphics there H! Very cool - I mean, yes, this chart is suggesting we could make an even earlier sub unit but would it even be functional as a combat vehicle or any other use? I look at the very first designs as being even more awkward prototypes and completely combat useless though the first one to destroy a ship was in the civil war even that attack destroyed the sub as well... lol. So I'm thinking the Submersible would be the first somewhat combat applicable sub unit that has emerged from these prototypes that have been worked on in the background for some time as the chart and wikipedia states.There could be, like you said I have not needed to look for early subs (except when I found the Nautilus).
Ok, so we'll need to add the Hero combat class and a global limit of 1 to that unit I think. (Among the rest of the adjustments that come up in this analysis stream. Glad you agree... My wife and I have both used Nautilii to far too great an early advantage thanks to them not being so limited and even with some reduced strength from this analysis it's still going to be a terribly lethal sub unit before the world is ready to face such subs making it a perfect global class unit for Steampunk access.Yeah the Nautilus is VERY advanced compared to anything at that time.
No worries... I can deliver some very large posts here and it was probably lost in there as you were thinking of something else I'd stated. I do that all the time. And I'm not demanding this change or anything... it's just something I don't agree with on the current tech tree arrangement. MrA and I had some disagreements but I didn't want to wage thoseI must have missed it
Just keep in mind the nature of 'top secret' technological developments. Propaganda is always going to abound to suggest it 'can't' be done or hasn't been yet. They're not going to come out waving a flag saying hey look what we've got unless they're either bluffing to intimidate other nations (I often feel Russia does this) or even simply warning other nations of what they can do to ward off any aggressive considerations that may be developing against them. If you're on the top of the warfare tech race, however, like the US would be, then if you have something, you do all you can to make sure nobody really knows that you do for sure until you are ready to make it known (in a real and serious warfare scenario that's made it worthwhile to reveal the developments you've made so far.)Well I have read somewhere that invisibility in other spectrum have been accomplished already. Visible Light however has not been.
That's why I often avoid the tech tree discussions... this is where I kinda suck. I have an idea of how things may develop with future military technology applications from here but actual tech tree analysis is not my strong suit.If it gets moved to where and how should other techs that rely upon it and in turn the ones it required get changed?
Perhaps Unification Physics is the one that's overlapping another here - not seeing it. But maybe Orbital Flight should require Magnetic Field Repulsion Hovering and be thus adjusted a little in its x grid. Having Lunar Trade and Kuiper Belt Exploration be dependent on Orbital Flight seems accurate.Looking closer at it I am not sure why its even in that spot says ...
Invisibility
Req Tech: Orbital Flight
Leads to: Superstrong Alloys, Unification Physics
And then ...
Superstrong Alloys
Req Tech: Advanced Computers AND (Biomimetics OR Invisibility)
Looks like it could be taken out easily. Since its already an OR.
Unification Physics on the other hand ...
Unification Physics
Req Tech: Antigrav AND Cybernetics AND Superstrong Alloys AND Invisibility
This seems like its redundantly covered by Superstrong Alloys. An the Orbital Flight already requires techs that lead to those. The only think we might want to do its have Orbital Flight lead to a few more techs. Right now its ...
Orbital Flight
Leads To: Invisibility AND Lunar Trade
Fusion
Req Tech: Microgenerators AND Graphene
I know in the hold requirements it had Controlled Plasma which is now a requirement Graphene tech. How those work I am not sure. MrAzure would have to explain. I wonder if its in any of his notes.
Of course they aren't trying to keep the sizes anywhere near the originals, just using inspirations of motility and form. BUT you make an interesting point. What about Barricuda? We don't have those yet but maybe somewhere... Otherwise I like the Tuna idea you proposed... just makes 'em not sound as lethal is all.But Piranhas are freshwater fish. If they are trying to fool people then this fails since they do not have Piranhas in the ocean.
Those last two... I have a feeling we might want to keep those for later - Droids shouldn't really stop developing here - this is just the last Naval stage where Naval is still applicable. So I'm happy to keep with the animal theme... I like the Turtle concept for a landing ship and for a troopship how about a Dugong?If we are serious on Droid Sea Animals then here are the sea animal unit you have to pick from ...
- Beluga
- Cod
- Crab
- Dolphin
- Dugong
- Giant Squid
- Great White Shark
- Hammerhead Shark
- Humpback Whale
- Mackerel
- Manta Ray
- Marlin
- Minkie Whale
- Narwhal (This WAS one I was considering for the Droid Sub - thinking a massive ION ray from a stealth vehicle with this form could be cool.)
- Orca
- Eagle Ray
- Saltwater Crocodile
- Sea Lion
- Sea Otter
- Sea Turtle
- Reef Shark
- Tuna
- Whale Shark
So for yours I sudgest ...
- Ray = Manta Ray
- Dolphin = Dolphin
- Piranhas = Tuna (These swam are bigger and would not look out of place in the ocean) - Sounds acceptable - I was thinking of using the tuna graphic as a base anyhow.
- Squid = Giant Squid
- Whale = Humpback (I prefer Humpback I think) OR Minkie Whale
- Shark = Great White (yep)
- Lampreys = We don't have anything like this so maybe a Repair Crab? Could walk along the hull fixing things. (that would be cool!)
- Cube and Octogon = I don't know if we have anything like this however if you want to keep the animal theme you could have an Orca or Sea Turtle or Hammerhead transports. Then gain there are som cool looking spaceships in the scifi units section we could use.
lol... a lot huh? I'm spending the weekend working on other tag evaluations for these naval units. If you can read the above post and I can rely on you to hammer out tech adjustments and assignments on these units as well as collecting and applying the unit art (or if someone else wants to help there) then I can probably balance out the unitcombat and combat details on them here. We could probably knock this out with some efficiency really.EDIT: Looking at the rest of your charts they are looking great! I like how you hve filled in existing lines and have added new lines (ex. Corvettes).
I guess the question now is how many new units do we need to make?
really interesting piece of information.maybe it helps for C2C that a storyline of the future is written,that way i think it would be easier to desing future units and techs
There is! Most of the stuff Mr Azure added was based on this page. Warning, it is pretty addictive!