#external weapons mount

[sw5w]

Maul Speeds Away

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:16:36

#Star Wars #Episode I #The Phantom Menace #Tatooine #Xelric Draw #Darth Maul #Bloodfin #repulsorlift field array #exhaust gas vent #DRK-1 “Dark Eye” probe droid #external weapons mount #thermal imager

[carionto]

Geronimo!

Space suits have come a long way - near 1 to 1 articulation and haptic feedback, intuitive zero-g booster based movement, nano-clamps for spiderman-like grip in low/no gravity, and of course dozens of micro layers of protection against all know space radiation and other hazards. Plus a centimeter thick composite armor against sentient threats, with a "cocoon" mode to fully cover all joints and other normally more exposed parts, that renders the Human inside near impervious to most small arms, and even some heavier impacts.

To fully test the limits of protection you don't actually need to have a person inside, just plenty of sensors and a good understanding Human physiology and anatomy. The military, of course, does things a bit differently, as their suits are even tougher. They do have this half-half mode where you are mostly armor, but can still move, but more like the Terminator. Given it also boasts a powered exoskeleton between the armor and hazardous protection layers, soldiers can wield weapons other militaries typically mount on vehicles, so the metaphor is almost just a straight factual comparison.

Some, however, are still not satisfied, and are always seeking to extend the durability of their suits to beyond the extremes.

____________________________

Hilda Lavre was standing on the edge of the ship in low orbit. One hand gripping an outer handle while engaged in final diagnostics.

"Alright, Hilda, everything looks green on our end, how 'bout you?"

"Same green green. I'm good."

"Whenever you're ready then. There's some clouds in the way of the predicted path, might slow you down a bit. Wanna wait?"

"Nah, nah. I'll wing it."

After a seconds pause, Hilda let go of the handle and gently kicked off the side of the ship. She was now on a direct collision course with the Atlantic Ocean.

.

.

.

(Thermals should start going up soon. I'm gonna turn on the external mic just a tad. There's just something about how the heat sounds scraping against the metal.

Oh, there it goes. Yellow, slowly getting to orange. Good.

Yea, that's a nice screech - burn that paint!

Halfway to red, altitude check. Already this close? Guess it'll be just shy of 80% tolerance.

Hehehehe, that means we can go for a bit faster next time. Cool.

Eh... wind without the heat just doesn't sound right, I'll turn it down to just barely audible. Something to keep me company.

Aaaand three.

Two.

One.)

SPLASH

.

.

.

(It's dark. But I guess it was dark before...

before what though?

Well, that's okay.

This feels like a new kind of dark though.

There's the dark when you're alone in your room at night, all the lights are out.

Another kind is when you decide to get inside your brothers closet to scare him when he comes back from the kitchen. That's a fun kind of dark. (it's getting cold)

There's also the dark of being in an underground bunker during a storm. Then the power gets cut and all the exits are sealed. That's a... lonely kind of dark.

One time I was wandering the woods, and before I knew it, it was the middle of a moonless night, overcast too. Hiding out in an abandoned shed, without even the wind or animal sounds to let you know anything is out there. I didn't like that kind of dark at all. (It's really cold)

This dark though... I dunno. It's like I'm hiding out in my own closet. My shoulder is up against my winter jacket, feet are grazing those old sandals I swore to throw out two summers ago. But also, it's not my room. Or even my house. Why am I in my closet? How did it get here? Where even is here?

I feel sleepy.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Hey, hey! Hilda! Wake up!"

*grunting* "Ugh... shut, shut up Barry..."

"Gods, don't freak us out like that. You okay?"

"Depends. How high did it go go?"

*laughter* "Okay, [She's fine everyone] yeah, you're fine. 87 meters, new record."

"Hmm, I was aiming to to break 90."

"Well, those clouds nudged you a little off, you hit it at a 83 degree angle. Still, those other readings are nice. I'm pretty sure we can do a boosted fall next time."

"Yeah, I I think so too. I feel a little little cold, did something break on hit hit?"

"Not break, but the impact did jolt the subsystems a bit. Activated one of the sedative shots. I manually made your suit give you a wake up shot right as I noticed. You should be feeling the effects right about now."

"Mmhhmmm, oh yea. I'm feeling the kick kick now. We need to improve the kinetic tic dampeners. No good if if it puts you to sleep upon any hard enough nough impact."

"Yup. We're suspending any other jumps for the week until we get that fixed and implement some minor tweaks based on your jump once we analyze the telemetry further.

Okay, everyone! Good job today! Let's meet up next weekend and test these bad boys out. Let's aim for a 100 meter splash by the end of the year!"

*cheers and yeahs as Barry opens a mini fridge and everyone cracks open a cold one*

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #sky diving #more like space diving #but whatever #also #don't know how I feel about giving her that... stutter? #I just randomly felt like trying out a speech impediment #hope I don't offend anyone with the way I presented it #I don't think I've seen how a stuttering character talks in text format #well #trying out new things

[definitely-not-a-lucifer-clone]

How should i kit out a HA Tokugawa? I mean besides the fuel rod gun, how do i really give @reactor-tech-ermine and @lancersafetysigns heart attacks by maxing out my reactor as a way to spread the deluge of nuclear flames?

SOMETHING LIKE THIS WOULD BE MY RECOMMENDATION FOR SUCH A TASK:

» Test Pilot // TEST « LL6 [ SKILL TRIGGERS ] Apply Fists to Faces (+2), Assault (+2), Blow Something Up (+6), Hack or Fix (+6), Invent or Create (+2), Threaten (+2) [ GEAR ] Heavy Hardsuit, Heavy Signature, Heavy A/C, Frag Grenades, Stims, Thermite Charge

[ TALENTS ] Grease Monkey 3, Nuclear Cavalier 3, Ace 3 [ LICENSES ] HA Tokugawa 3, IPS-N Nelson 3 [ CORE BONUSES ] Superior by Design, Sloped Plating [ MECH ] « DANCE WITH THE DEVIL IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT » HA Tokugawa H:2 A:0 S:2 E:4 SIZE:1 STRUCTURE:4 HP:15 ARMOR:2 STRESS:4 HEAT:0 REPAIR:5 ATK BONUS:3 TECH ATK:1 LTD BONUS:2 SPD:4 EVA:8 EDEF:8 SENS:10 SAVE:14 [ WEAPONS ] INTEGRATED MOUNT: Fuel Rod Gun FLEX MOUNT: Torch MAIN MOUNT: Torch MAIN MOUNT: Annihilator [ SYSTEMS ] Type-I Flight System, Ramjet, Plasma Gauntlet, External Batteries

[alex99achapterthree]

Phantom Friday...

Gets the gun.

In the early sixties, conventional wisdom was that air battles would be fought at long range with missiles. Planners seemed to still be fighting WWII, envisioning fleets of enemy bombers coming over the pole from Russia.

Except for the F-100 and F-105, most of the Century series and the Phantom lacked guns. Early losses in Vietnam at the hands of nimble cannon-armed NVA Migs convinced planners that a gun was absolutely required. Revamping existing designs to accept a gun would take time, so as a stopgap the SUU-16/23 gun pod was created.

An external store mounted on one of the hard points contained a GE Vulcan 20MM rotary cannon and ammunition giving the aircraft a fighting chance against a gun-armed adversary.

It wasn't perfect. Besides not being terribly accurate it was big, heavy, prone to jamming and took up a hard point better used for drop tanks or other weapons.

Here, a gun pod mounted on a well-tied-down Phantom fires into the butt on the range.

That stop-gap gun pod served until the F-4E...

...with a 20MM cannon in a re-designed nose could be rushed into service.

Since then, all fighter designs have included internal guns.

#aircraft #airplane #phantom friday

[aethelaum-pages]

Armistice

The Armistice is a Pilot bar. Everyone is welcome, of course, but when your establishment is located half a mile from the Mid-South Gate, you attract a lot of Pilots who want to drink off their post operation stress. Pilots like Onager.

She's much like every other Pilot in the bar – staring dumbly into her drink, nothing behind her eyes until Vesa, the orange-haired bartender, snaps her fingers and she sits bolt upright, eyes wheeling around as she remembers how her Handler used to do that and the conditioning kicks in. Vesa doesn't do it again. The bartender's seen that look before. If the look hadn't given Onager away as a Pilot, the dark, swirling neck tattoos surrounding a jagged mess of interface ports on the back of her neck would have.

Volmjir III was plagued by sandstorms. The high walls surrounding the few cities the planet had did a solid job keeping the sand mostly out, but development outside the periphery was difficult, as the tiny grains had a knack for working themselves into mechanical joints. Enter the biolith rigs: looming biomechanical monstrosities made of melded metal and flesh. Owing to their thick skin and armor plating, they fielded much better outside the walls, as well as on hundreds of other "difficult" planets.

Every biolith was a veritable colony of both micro and macro-organisms, all lab-grown and designed for mutually beneficial relationships. The crucial flaw, however, was their inability to distinguish between humans. To them, while they were in active mode, everything that moved was a target, because training them to slaughter everything was easier and cheaper.

This problem was solved with the Pilots: neurochemically conditioned humans who rode inside each rig's protective shell and acted as a living targeting unit for the machine. A human, linked to the brain matter of the biolith through external neurons and arteries, could detect a target, process it, and approve a kill order faster than any mechanical computer and with more reliability than wetware – and receive a massive dopamine reward for each confirmed hit. A trained Pilot was essential to the successful operation of each rig, and the most valuable piece of the weapon.

Wars end. Pilots age and retire young because the stress and emotional highs of Piloting a biolith take a toll on the brain and the dopamine rush from driving a massive cannon shell through an enemy becomes hard to replicate. Many Pilots find themselves chasing anything that makes them feel good to try to feel that again.

Onager sleeps under a weighted blanket half her weight and wears a compression vest under her duster – she needs the feeling of the biolith's muscular internal sac squeezing around her, fleshy walls compressing her arms to her sides, thick secretions slicking her dark wolfcut against her unused eyes, to feel comfortable. She feels exposed without the pressure.

Her curiously absent drinking partner Ballista, who she trained with, feels phantom shoulder cannons and wears knee and ankle braces and has for years. Being pinned down and having her biolith panic and clamp down on her with enough force to liquify a normal human, messing up her legs, wasn't enough to disqualify her brilliant brain from the NKD's Pilot program. When someone talks to her, she still subconsciously pulls back her left wrist to extend the arm-mounted blade she no longer has.

When they drink together, they usually have about a dozen drinks each, each setting one aside for Mortari and drinking it last. They never found her.

Onager stares lifelessly into her drink, completely still except for her jerking eyes, which lurch back and forth in her head, scanning across a nonexistent targeting interface. Vesa worries about her. Most Pilots aren't the most mentally stable after a career of operating a rig, but Onager was different. Pilots who stayed inside too long were at risk of developing rig-rot: their brain functions would shuffle with the rig's, causing loss of brain function when extracted.

"Onager?" Vesa knew her name. It was tattooed on the back of her right hand, her serial number on her left. "Are you alright?" No response. Vesa sighed.

"KV846?" Onager's head snapped up, the light returning to her eyes as she heard her serial number.

"Command-ready, ma'am." The Pilot didn't recognize her. She drank here almost every night, but the bartender was just another unimportant face. Vesa had taken a course on how to help rotted Pilots. The phrases were just as burned into her head as they were to each Pilot she saw.

“Run internal diagnostics and report.” She felt bad to activate Onager’s conditioning, but she didn’t know how else to reach her.

"I feel... wrong." That made sense. Formerly rig-rotted Pilots pulled from their bioliths described the feeling as similar to losing a limb and experiencing constant phantom limb for an entire second body.

"Here." Vesa laid her hand on the bar, and Onager practically snatched it up, serial number twisting as she squeezed it.

"It hurts." Her voice was thoroughly broken, even compared to other Pilots Vesa had helped.

The bartender just nodded. "I know."

...

Onager cries in her sleep sometimes. When she does, Vesa holds her close and squeezes her. She makes wonderful breakfasts on those mornings. She knows Onager isn't used to eating anything besides NKD rations yet. She loves pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries – expensive to get this far from agricultural worlds, but worth it for the way she laughs and smiles.

Legally, they had no connection. How could they? Onager didn't exist and Vesa had died. In every other manner, though, they never needed one.

They both have new lives. Vesa designs buildings, and Onager helps build them. They save money to go somewhere nicer – A beautiful world like Hiho VII, perhaps. It's forested and temperate, and housing isn't very expensive.

Rig-rot never fully goes away in most cases. Onager still has bad days. She wakes up shaking and sweaty or freezes up in the middle of tasks, crushed by the immense feeling of everything being wrong. But Vesa is there to take her hand and rub her thumb gently, and when Onager looks at her lover her eyes don't flick up and right to access the threat assessment menu anymore.

#writblr #wlw love #wlw post #wlw #sapphic #lesbian #writing #mecha #mecha pilot #fantasy #scifi #worldbuilding #mech pilot

[tavina-writes]

Just there to say, loch 2017 fight scenes are the best thing ever!! I like them SO MUCH. so, I am wondering, very foolishly, how is jin yong writing style? Does he write great combat scenes?

Also, I am insane over how everyone can teach everyone?? I remembered in mdzs a part where it is stated that people can't learn different cultivation styles, or their cultivation will be compromised. It's an interesting world building. Like, loch world building is quite different from mdzs. It's such a great drama!

omg I am SO GLAD you're also hyped up on the fight scenes. The fight scenes in LOCH 2017 are spectacular and SHOULD be hyped. Everyone has very distinct and VERY cool fighting and I adore it.

On to Jin Yong's writing style and combat scenes, I think this depends a number of factors, but I really love Jin Yong's writing. It's a bit difficult to get across in translation, but there are some REALLY great imagery and poetry in his work and honestly it's a crying shame the translation has a hard time getting this across. I think the best way I can describe it is that it's evocative? Sweeping?

For example:

Though the two’s laughter had gone, their faces still carried a smile, the valleys quietly echoed back the sounds of two people laughing. Northern Beggar and Western Poison have been adversaries for many years, they hated each other, how could it be that they ended up dead together on Mount Hua. The two of them were enemies when they were alive, just before they died they were hugging each other, laughing. All the feuds and arguments that they have had over the years were finished over a laugh! - Return of the Condor Heroes, Chapter 11: A Pause From Roaming

or:

Tuolei gazed at Guo Jing's back, which became smaller and smaller. Like a dark shadow on the vastness of the desert, [he] finally disappeared on the southern horizon. - Legend of the Condor Heroes, Chapter 38: Secret Order in the Embroidered Pouch

As for the fight scenes themselves, I think they're often really dynamic and fun to read about (though the narrator LOVES digressions into historical stuff surrounding the fight scenes; I could talk about the LOCH narrator all day but I'll contain myself since this post will be REALLY LONG regardless) and they're very detailed, but they do kind of rely on the reader having some genre knowledge -- what certain acupuncture points are/where they are/strong visualization abilities to figure out where everyone is/etc.

On to your second paragraph of thoughts: actually! Well, okay so I think there's a slight difference between being a cultivator and like, being a LOCH style martial artist. This is fermenting in my documents somewhere re: society related meta but typically in cultivator novels, cultivation (of Qi, internal energy, etc) is separated from the martial arts bit (which weapon you fight with, palms, fist, sword etc). MDZS is a bit complex in that it doesn't really uh, distinguish between these two things and also doesn't really care much about say, "this sect has these specific specialties and moves" etc.

But basically: the way you cultivate your qi in these sorts of novels is typically sect specific and very secretive and incompatible with how other people in other sects cultivate their qi and this is actually no different in LOCH! But for like, external martial arts -- how you punch and swing a sword or be able to do x or y -- that tends to be transferable between people of different sects and you even have characters who are easily capable of imitating what they see from other sects/reverse engineering how a character can do x move or y move. (Huang Rong in the book is a great example of this!) Specific moves are also very heavily specialized to specific sects (the 18 Dragon Subduing Palms are a Beggar Clan specialty, etc) -- so people in Jin Yong universes are able to recognize each other's sects and maybe even specific shifu(!) by the types of moves they use if they're seasoned jianghu travelers. Which. Also can't happen in MDZS bc MDZS doesn't really care about this sort of thing.

What's happening to say, Guo Jing in LOCH regarding so many people being able to teach him stuff, is that:

His qi/internal energy basis is from the Quanzhen Sect which is Taoist and the most orthodox sect in the martial world, which means he's got a very mainstream and well established internal energy basis and can very easily incorporate anything that is Taoist philosophy related regarding how to cultivate qi. (The 9 Yin Manual was developed by a government minister who read too many Taoist Philosophy Manuals, Zhou Botong, while not a Taoist Priest has long been affiliated with Quanzhen and his own qi cultivation philosophy also aligns with orthodox Taoist cultivation practices etc).

A lot of the moves that people are teaching other people in this story are external martial arts moves. How to punch, how to use this particular weapon, etc. Most of this is not strictly, in Jin Yong philosophy, linked to your internal qi cultivation. These are therefore, easily transferable.

We actually get an example of what happens when you try to cultivate qi via a way that isn't compatible with how you know how to cultivate! When Mei Chaofeng and Guo Jing meet at the cave in Zhao Palace early on in the story, she's actually suffering from a qi deviation that blocked her ability to use her legs because her qi cultivation basis is an unorthodox method based on Peach Blossom Island's personal philosophy, and she'd been trying to work out instructions on how to cultivate qi in the 9 Yin Manual which was Taoist philosophy based and actually heavily injured herself while doing it! Which is why she can't walk or use her legs.

This is all explained in the novel by our helpful narrator friend who is the most bonkers of all the narrators I've ever met. Narrator friend will tell you all #TrueFacts but they WILL drop some out of the 17th story window and never ever come back to address this ever again bc narrator friend doesn't care and refuses to explain themselves if they don't want to. If narrator friend told you it's 100% factually true, but. At What Cost. (Imagine if you will, you're being told a very long and rambling story by a friend who, if you ask them to expand on a certain thing will sometimes go "oh we don't have time for that! MOVING ON THOUGH, let me tell you about the politics of late stage Song Dynasty China, you want to know that right?????")

:D Thanks for the ask Mar! I'm glad you're having a good time with LOCH 2017.

#legend of the condor heroes #guo jing #asks and answers #meta #my meta #god I have so many THOUGHTS about our narrator friend in LOCH #they're nuts #but in such a different way than MDZS's narrator friend

[copperdaisy]

Did I ever ramble about my TRON OCs? I probably have in the past but heck, I am in a rambling mood so here we go again. Going with the most developed one because the references for the others are on my external HD and I don't feel like digging it out right now.

This is Drive, a soft spoken, Bit loving System Utility who drew the short end of several sticks in life but somehow managed to survive despite it. For a given value of 'survive'.

(It's okay, he gets better. He just gets roughed up first. A lot. Thanks for everything, Flynn.)

Drive is a System Utility written by Kevin Flynn somewhere towards the middle of the Golden Age of the Grid. He is part of the Database Management suite that specializes in defragging and organizing data sets. In the Good Times™ he was a jovial, upbeat program that was not terribly concerned about the political side of things. His friend circle was comprised of both Basics and ISOs (mostly Arjians; he rarely encountered Bostromites) and his opinions on Flynn could best be summed up with the '¯\_(ツ)_/¯' emoji. The End of Line was a regular haunt of his, where he befriended the mp3 DJs and had a reputation for being a terrible dancer. Life was good. But, you know what they say about good things...

Drive almost met his end when Arjia was destroyed. He had been working on a remote data terminal near the city and got swept up in the invasion. Cornered by a pair of Sentries who questioned what his business in the area was and where his loyalties lay, he was unable to answer to their satisfaction. They left him alive but horrifically scarred both physically and mentally. He was able to escape the destruction of the city, barely. Things would not improve much in the cycles that followed.

In time, rumors would being to circulate among certain circles that there was a weak link in the Database Management suite - what remained of it. You see, in Flynn's faltering attempts to balance the Grid and his responsibilities on the other side of the screen, he had rushed his coding. Drive had been written with a faulty directive re: information sharing permissions, and without self defense protocols. This meant that any information Drive processed in his work on the various databases was in danger of being shared if he was asked or told to do so, as there were no limits set in the permissions. His lack of fighting ability (or even the option to access his disc or light batons as weapons) made him a sitting duck. This vulnerability was taken advantage of by players on both sides throughout the cycles. The once gregarious program became an anxious wreck, plagued by the pain of new wounds and old.

Desperate to overcome a directive he had no hopes of defeating, he began to butcher his memory files. He couldn't give up the info if he didn't remember it, right? While this did stem some of the problem, this drastic action caused a multitude more. As time wore on his coding became more and more damaged. Drive began to suffer from glitches. Small ones at first, then more severe ones that left him dazed and confused, not unlike a program who was not properly synced to their disc. By the time Sam Flynn entered the Grid, Drive - who had somehow managed to survive to that point - was on the cusp of either turning into a Virus or literally falling apart from the mounting instability lurking in his code.

His fate at the end of Legacy, as well as that of the Grid in general, is up in the air. In the RP group I played him in years ago he overcame a lot of his trauma - and gained a few more. He learned how to trust others again. He had his chest crushed by Rinzler while trying to prevent him from breaking into the Archives. He made new friends and was reunited with old. He nearly derezzed when his code started to experience cascading failures due to the damages. He was found and rescued in time to save his life. He fell in love. He eventually let a User completely repair his coding and rewrite his faulty directive. He learned to live again and how to be happy.

Here are a few more miscellaneous facts about him.

Drive has three Bits: regular Bit Alpha, NAVI Bit Beta, and an adopted NAVI named Gamma that he found hiding in a data terminal.

Gamma was Anon's NAVI and took shelter in said terminal after its owner's demise. While Gamma never bonded to Drive's code like the other two it still obeyed him... more or less.

Drive once dated an ISO named Katina. Their split was amicable when they decided they made better friends than lovers. Katina was killed when Arjia was destroyed.

The program Drive found love with in the RP group was a rerezzed Anon. They were friends for a long while before their relationship turned romantic. It was Anon who found Drive suffering the near fatal glitch that gave away his until then hidden condition. Much earlier on in their relationship Drive had helped Anon, who was injured after a run-in with a Virus.

Parkour is one of Drive's hidden strengths. Following his recovery he sometimes helped train new Security programs by leading them in a 'wild Bit chase' race.

Speaking of wild Bits, Drive has a habit of setting out energy dishes for the wild Bit flocks on his balcony. As such, he has many Bit friends besides the two and a half that are his.

His theme song (one of them) is Iridescent by Linkin Park

Drive has several siblings who also suffer from various effects resulting from Flynn's distracted coding sessions. Might ramble about them later.

Every Siren he has ever interacted with has called him some variation of 'adorable'. He's still not sure what to think about that.

In the Good Times™ there was more than one instance of him winding up in a platonic sleepy puppy pile with the End of Line DJs after their shifts. He also spent some time hanging out with them in their booth on occasion. Watching them craft their music was fascinating to him.

#TRON #TRON Legacy #Copper's OCs #TRON OC

[vexwerewolf]

So a friend and I have been tooling about with some builds for a Barbarossa and we were looking at talents, what would you recommend for a sort of cannon focussed build, we were thinking siege specialist, nuclear cavalier, brutal and house guard

-- HA Barbarossa @ LL6 -- [ LICENSES ] HA Barbarossa 3, SSC Black Witch 1, HA Sherman 2 [ CORE BONUSES ] Heatfall Coolant System, Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints [ TALENTS ] Nuclear Cavalier 3, Siege Specialist 3, Grease Monkey 3 [ STATS ] HULL:2 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:4 STRUCTURE:4 HP:17 ARMOR:2 STRESS:4 HEATCAP:12 REPAIR:5 TECH ATK:-2 LIMITED:+2 SPD:3 EVA:8 EDEF:6 SENSE:10 SAVE:13 [ WEAPONS ] Integrated: Apocalypse Rail Integrated: Fuel Rod Gun MAIN MOUNT: Magnetic Cannon MAIN MOUNT: SUPERHEAVY WEAPON BRACING HEAVY MOUNT: Siege Cannon // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints [ SYSTEMS ] Redundant Systems Upgrade x3, External Ammo Feed, Ferrous Lash

So basically, this is a very hard-focused ranged DPS build. You want Grease Monkey II because you'll be Stabilizing fairly often, and it lets you rip almost every condition off yourself while doing so. Grease Monkey III also gets you a free additional use of both RSU and Fuel Rod Gun.

Direct Fire Mode

Your turn cycle will usually looks like this:

Turn 1: Move to firing position, shoot gun, Overcharge to perform support action

Turn 2: Move to safety, Overcharge to perform support action, Stabilize

This firing mode is basically impossible to get Heat Capped in if you have even the slightest idea what you're doing, so it has a relatively simple cadence of turns. You WANT to be overcharging most turns to get that additional NucCav damage.

Siege Mode

This firing mode requires more careful heat management, so it doesn't have a single neat turn progression. You can theoretically fire the Siege Cannon two turns in a row if you want to, via Overcharging to run External Ammo Feed at the end of the first turn. This will leave you between 6-8 Heat, though, which is perilously close to Overheat territory if you're not careful about it.

RSU lets you Stabilize as a quick, meaning you can OC to purge heat and reload your weapons while still having a full action to direct-fire the cannon.

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

Wing Commander Rerik Xaran - a cocky, self-assured Wargen (a species that is, essentially, a Star Trek take on the Traveller-verse Vargr, backstory of being uplifted wolves and all), and son of his people's ambassador to Earth, Rerik grew up on the shores of Lake Louise, Canada. He found an early fascination for flight and stories of early aerospace combat. Applying to the Federation Aerospace Force Academy, he graduated at the top of his class, and notably achieved the rank of Wing Commander in less than 10 years in service. He serves as USS Sorcerer's Commander Air Group, and finds his true home in the cockpit of a Valkyrie aerospace fighter.

The Valkyrie Mark X Starfighter:

(art by Ravendefiant on Deviantart)

The Valkyrie F-1100C Mark X multirole aerospace fighter (colloquially known as a "starfighter") is the premier aerospace superiority fighter of the Federation Aerospace Force, a subdivision of Starfleet Command with a long history and traditions dating back to the armed forces of the original founding members of the Federation, particularly the United Earth Air Force and the Imperial Andorian Air Legions, bolstered by the strong traditions of the Caitian Republic's Aerial Corps.

The Valkyrie class fighter has been in service since 2336 in a succession of variants, replacing the older, iconic F-1000 Vanguard series. The latest Mark X upgrade to the C-model debuted in 2402, and boasts increased agility, weapon systems accuracy, and improved low-observability features, namely the highly-classified HAVE NEBULAE VI sensor-absorbent material that also functions as a layer of ablative armor. The craft is able to mount a variety of anti-smallcraft missiles and ground attack munitions in internal weapons bays, as well as on a number of removable external hardpoints. The Valkyrie even has the ability to carry payloads as heavy as a pair of full-size capital-class torpedoes (formerly the Mark XIV photon torpedo; this older ordnance is being rapidly replaced in FAF service with the Mark III quantum torpedo).

#star trek #star trek fanfiction #uss sorcerer #crew manifest

[palatinewolfsblog]

Untitled...

In the light of certain events - on the first Advent.

Long time ago the biblical prophet Zechariah foresaw the coming of a king promising true peace and justice.

One who renounces external power and chooses a donkey to show himself to his people.

Show, what he stood for... (Zech 9:9-10)

Centuries later a man named Jesus connects to this word and enters the state capital on on the common man's mount. (John 12:14-15)

An unworldly, hopeless idealist?

A dreamer?

A detached visionary?

Well, what would this world be without ideas and dreams and visions?

This world needs people who take a stand against war and weapons.

Against the power of money, against elbow mentality.

This world needs a revolution in thinking.

This story is a demonstration against the age-old will to power.

It's an old story - but highly topical.

Have a good time everyone.

Peace be onto you.

#thought of today #first advent #prince of peace #immanuel #zechariah #ideas #dreams #visions #peace on earth #stop war #will to power #greed is good #greed is god #past and present #then and now #shape the future #think about it #what matters #thought of the day

[shadesofmauve]

How many people does it take to make the space guns go?

Word brain is dead so I've been beating my head against my Alliance SR2 org chart again. I rediscovered @sheepishwolfy's post suggesting that the SR1 had about 60 crew (down from initial estimate of 150), because of heavy computerization. My org chart had been sitting at 89, (my initial estimate was about 100). But now I'm trying to figure out what some of these people actually do.

First, I'm assuming the Alliance (unlike noted fuck-ups Cerberus), requires human eyes on systems. Not some poor sod watching every screen at every minute, but someone around who's trained on the system and is awake. I also assume three 8-hour watches because even the US Navy has finally had to admit that just works better for most people.

SO. GUNZ.

1: Javelin Disruptor Torpedoes

The Javelin is an experimental close-assault weapon consisting of paired disruptor torpedo tubes bolted or magnetically "slung" onto the ship's exterior armored hull.

and

Resembling old-fashioned submarine torpedo tubes, Javelin torpedoes come packed in individual sealed tubes filled with compressed, inert gas. Opening the front of the tube causes escaping gases to push the torpedo into the vacuum

So the javelin system is externally mounted, like a modern fighter's missiles, not stored-and-loaded from the inside like a sub's torpedoes. Each comes with it's own cold-launch system. Anything the weapons techs do with javelins is digital and at a distance. Targeting, choosing delays, etc.

Sexy sexy spaceship with torpedoes in her armpits.

2: Thanix cannons

[Soveriegn's] massive element zero core powered an electromagnetic field suspending a liquid iron-uranium-tungsten alloy that shaped into armor-piercing projectiles when fired. The jet of molten metal, accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light, destroys targets by impact force and irresistible heat.

and

It uses an electromagnetic field to shape and accelerate a stream of superheated molten metal to relativistic velocities

I'm choosing to say this is still a rail gun — now with increased power, dual 'barrels', and Special Scary molten projectile — because:

"It uses an electromagnetic field... to accelerate..." is exactly how the mass accelerator cannon (rail gun) works

Rail guns are cool

The entry also says they are "a retractable battery of cannons mounted beneath the Normandy's main hull", but this is stupid text and I've elected to ignore it. We see it fire from the nose, and we see Garrus in the main battery. That thing is integral to the ship and runs half it's length at minimum*.

But what do people have to do to run it? Presumably not much! There has to be some kind of maintenance, an eye on whether it overheats, etc, but you aim it by aiming the ship. (For which I thank Bioware daily, because space combat is SO much more fun to write when you dogfight than when you use ship-seeking missiles).

So after thinking through this stuff, I'm scaling my weapons teams drastically down. I think the same hands work with both systems. In combat they're more concerned with the javelins, which can be programmed and have a firing delay, with an eye on Thanix performance in case it needs to be shut down. Joker aims (and often fires) the Thanix.

Physical problems CAN'T be solved in combat: the Thanix will be too hot, and the javelins are outside. More hands don't help that! Tweaks and fixes have to happen outside of combat, and if they need more people they can wake 'em up.

And speaking of 'tweaks':

Garrus is constantly calibrating the Thanix cannon because he's in a petty war with the human gunnery crew. No one argues, they just set it their way. He sees it and sets it back his way. While he's sleeping they change it again.

After determining from the gunnery chief that it makes no practical difference, Shepard allows the incredibly passive aggressive calibrations war to continue, because she's tired of dealing with other people's shit and at least it's keeping Garrus occupied.

*Both the drive core and the central elevator shaft prevent it from taking up the 90% the codex suggests is standard for mass accelerators. It either ends in the battery, at about 45%, or at the elevator, at about 69%.**

**Nice.

#sexy sexy spaceship #It's not that I don't want to move forward on this chapter #it's that everything in my life suddenly involved a lot of professional writing #and the words got tired #so I... wrote a lot more words #about space guns #science (fiction) is serious business #mass effect #mass effect meta #normandy sr2 #fire the headcan(n)on #the Normandy

[sw5w]

Sith Probe Droid

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 00:54:55

#Star Wars #Episode I #The Phantom Menace #Tatooine #Mos Espa #DRK-1 “Dark Eye” probe droid #unidentified Mos Espa denizen #transmission antenna #Sisrai #magnetic imaging device #scan-absorbing stealth shell #primary photoreceptor #external weapons mount #levitator #GX-8 moisture vaporator

[someweirdladybug]

The LDI-05 Sunstride is the latest in a line of experimental support-oriented Frames that the archmage Arnebam has had commissioned based on their specifications, pulling inspiration from their own culture as a member of Twilit's priesthood, and is made to resemble both one of the Sunsworn Paladins in their people's history, as well as the goddess they worshipped, Luxus the Lightbringer. As part of its resemblance to a Paladin, it has two major formations.

In "Eclipse" formation, The Sunstride wears a heavy suit of external armor across its body. While in this state, it serves as more of a weapons platform, taking careful and large steps as it bombards enemies with pauldron-mounted pulse cannons, any additional mounted kinetic weaponry, and close quarters rocket-assisted claw swipes. It is among the heavier Frames in the Defense Unit's hangar in this state, albeit not the tallest.

In "Sunflare" formation, the Sunstride forcibly ejects the external armor, trading defense and physical weaponry in favor of acting as a larger-scale arcane channel for Arnebam's magic. As a welcome side-effect, the sturdy reinforcement in its limbs needed to hold the armor compared to its size as being among the smallest Frames make it able to move and jump at very high speeds, living up to its rabbit-like shape.

Arnebam seems to have no greater plans to upgrade the mech at any point, as they note that it's difficult to really tweak the Frame any further without sacrificing something else in return. However, they have been seen working on a document known only as "Project Flemish" while maintaining the mech in their hangar.

#camarts #kdu #oc #mecha

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up March 28-29, 2023

Under the cut:

Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol deep behind front lines on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has described the situation at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine as “very dangerous” and very unstable. The nuclear facility has lost its external power supply six times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, forcing emergency diesel generators to kick in to cool its reactors.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov suggested that Ukrainian offensive action involving Western tanks may begin in April or May in an interview with Estonian television.

The German federal government has agreed to allocate an additional 12 billion euros (over $13 billion) worth of military support to Ukraine over the next nine to 10 years, it announced Wednesday in a statement.

The US has not seen any indications that Russia is getting closer to using tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, White House spokesperson John Kirby has said. It comes after Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday that Moscow has made a deal to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. The Russian president said he was acting after negotiations with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, who he said had “long raised the question” of a nuclear deployment on his country’s territory.

Map from The Guardian

Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol deep behind front lines on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.

Unverified images on the internet showed explosions lighting up the night sky with streaks of contrails in Melitopol, base of the Russian-controlled administration in Zaporizhzhia, one of five Ukrainian provinces Russia claims to have annexed.

Ukraine's exiled mayor of the city confirmed there were explosions there. Russia's state TASS news agency, citing Moscow-installed officials, said a railway depot was damaged and power knocked out to the city and nearby villages.

Melitopol, which had a pre-war population of around 150,000, is a railway logistics hub for Russian forces in southern Ukraine and part of the land bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimea peninsula.

There was no public information about the weapons Ukraine might have used for the strike. The city is at the far edge of the range of Ukraine's HIMARS rockets and within reach of newer weapons it is said to be deploying, including air-launched JDAM bombs and ground-launched GLSDB munitions promised by the United States. Russia said it shot down a GLSDB on Tuesday, the first time it has reported doing so.

The strike could hamper Moscow's rear logistics at a time when Kyiv has suggested it could soon mount a counterattack against Russian invasion forces who have scored no big victories in a months-long offensive despite the war's bloodiest fighting.

Melitopol is south of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, visited on Wednesday by U.N. nuclear agency chief Rafael Grossi, who repeated calls for a safe zone there, saying the situation had not improved and fighting nearby had worsened.

-via Reuters

~

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has described the situation at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine as “very dangerous” and very unstable.

The nuclear facility has lost its external power supply six times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, forcing emergency diesel generators to kick in to cool its reactors.

Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the water level in a nearby reservoir controlled by Russian forces was another potential danger. Water supplied by the reservoir is used to cool the reactors.

He told Reuters:

If the reservoir level goes down beyond a certain level, then you don’t have water to cool down the reactors, and we have seen especially in January that the levels of the water were going down significantly. They recovered somehow in the past few weeks.

He added that there had been increasing military activity in the region without giving details.

Grossi, who yesterday met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the Dnipro hydroelectric power station, northeast of the Zaporizhzhia plant, said his attempt to broker a deal to protect the plant was still alive, and that he was adjusting the proposals to seek a breakthrough.

He was speaking a day before he is expected to travel to the nuclear plant, the largest in Europe.

Grossi has been pushing for a safety zone to be created at the plant to prevent a possible nuclear disaster as Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the site of the power station. Kyiv does not want a deal that will in effect recognise or allow a Russian military presence at the plant.

Grossi added:

I am confident that it might be possible to establish some form of protection, perhaps not emphasising so much the idea of a zone, but on the protection itself: what people should do, or shouldn’t do to protect (the plant) instead of having a territorial concept.

-via The Guardian

~

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov suggested that Ukrainian offensive action involving Western tanks may begin in April or May in an interview with Estonian television.

Reznikov said that German Leopard tanks, which have begun arriving in Ukraine, will be part of “the counteroffensive campaign under the decision of our General Staff. … They are planning that in different directions.”

“And it will depend on the time, the best time,” Reznikov said, speaking in English. “It will depend on weather conditions. During the springtime, we have wet land. And you know, you can use only tracked vehicles without wheels for example.” “I think that we will see [the tanks] during these two months. I mean April and May,” Reznikov said.

Last week, Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, said on his Telegram channel that the Russians are "losing significant forces [in Bakhmut] and are running out of energy."

“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupyansk,” he said.

-via CNN

~

The German federal government has agreed to allocate an additional 12 billion euros (over $13 billion) worth of military support to Ukraine over the next nine to 10 years, it announced Wednesday in a statement.

"Germany has been supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia for more than a year with money, equipment and material and will continue to do so. This must also be reflected in the budget. On the one hand, for the procurement of armaments for Ukraine, and on the other hand, for the replacement of weapons and material handed over to Ukraine from Bundeswehr stocks," the government noted. Around $4.3 billion will go to the German military to replace the military aid Berlin has given to Kyiv since the invasion, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius added.

-via CNN

~

The US has not seen any indications that Russia is getting closer to using tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, White House spokesperson John Kirby has said.

It comes after Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday that Moscow has made a deal to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. The Russian president said he was acting after negotiations with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, who he said had “long raised the question” of a nuclear deployment on his country’s territory.

Speaking to reporters today, Kirby said:

We’re watching this as best we can. We haven’t seen any movement by Mr Putin to act on what he pledged he would do.

The Belarusian foreign ministry today confirmed it will host Russian tactical nuclear weapons, saying the decision was a response to years of western pressure.

-via The Guardian

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #Bakhmut #Germany #nuclear weapons #zaporizhzhya nuclear plant #UN #melitopol

[alex99achapterthree]

Phantom Friday...

Pole dances.

Phantom on the radar test range.

Likely only a gutted shell, this Phantom is set up to see how various weapons loadouts affect the radar cross-section.

Most aircraft spend some time on the range to evaluate how they are detected by radar. Mounting them upside-down allows for testing how external stores, control surfaces and landing gear affect the RCS.

#aircraft #airplane #phantom friday

[fictionalafvsmybeloved]

T-100X Futura railgun tank from Arma 3

Well, It's a good thing i still have Arma 3 installed.

And now (finally), Time for a peak at the Futur(a)e.

With More Pictures!

The armored Speartip to CSAT's tech arsenal.

It's based heavily on the Russian Object 640 "Black Eagle", which was a one-off prototype from a proposed upgrade program for the T-80. That program never got off the ground so Russia showed off the prototype a few times for propaganda.

It has Good mobility overall (though it is a little sluggish in reverse), and is quite nimble on it's treads.

This mobility comes at a price though, as it is the least protected out of its contemporaries. But it is still an MBT, so the armor it does have is fairly heavy.

And for the main event, The Railgun. It fires a 75mm dart at hypersonic velocities, allowing it to punch through the frontal armor of other MBTs at extremely long ranges. It's not all good news for the main gun though, as it has a lengthy charging cycle that must be completed before the railgun can fire the first round, as well as a long cooling cycle before it can fire the next one. It also needs its engine intact and running to be able to charge up a shot, which increases its fuel consumption. Another cause for concern is its lack of any high-explosive or anti-personnel rounds for the main gun, forcing it to rely on the commander's HMG (mounted in a remote weapon station and with only two 150-round belts) for close range defense.

Crew visibility is somewhat lacking, being mainly periscopes. The commander has pair of electronic sights, but the back-up periscopes only cover the right side of the turret. The gunner at least has an analog back-up for the main electronic sight. The diver's station has a rear-view camera.

The crew is 3, standard for a tank equipped with an auto loader.

The vehicle is outfitted with an appropriate array of hatches, handles, hooks, and holders for external fuel tanks.

It should also be noted that the ERA visible on the tank is all functional in game, although the Drozd APS visible on the sides of the turret are actually the smoke grenade launchers.

FINAL SCORES

Credibility: 9/10 - Dangerously Credible

Coolness: 7/10 - As Deadly As It Looks

BONUS

How can I mention ARMA 3 without Bringing up these three morons youtubers?

#noncredibledefense #ncd #noncredible defense #tank ratings #tanks #arma 3 #ARMA