compressed ultracold gas propulsion is so worse than useless its hilarious. you would go through thousands of tons to get the same thrust a box of model rocket engines would give you. And that thrust is so low that it would barely change the relative velocity of an ultralight fighter by a fraction of a meter/second. keep in mind the exhaust would need to be ~2.7 kelvin to be invisible in space.
unless you have a 5 ounce satellite with a 1,000 ton fuel tank attached and you don't care if it takes 10 years to do a flyby of an enemy... this is ignoring the fact that the sun will warm it up really quickly anyway. space as an insulator filled with big ass ovens.
Actually there is a system to allow you to move without needing any form of propellant. Look up something called a Solar Mag-Sail. The only problem is that, once you roughly get out past the distance of Mars, it's all but worthless until you hit Jupiter, or one of the other gas giants. It's also incredibly slow (0.001g of thrust iirc), but you can effectively thrust infinitely long as long as you have some way of keeping the sails powered. And the 'Sails' actually look vastly more like several giant spools of wire spiraling out from a central hull, and do not look ANYTHING like the sails we see on jumpships/warships. It's just that when active, the magnetic fields form what looks like (if studied up very close) to be an overlapping 'sail' of EM energy, which then uses the solar wind, or a gas giant's magnetosphere, to get thrust. There's another variant that uses trapped plasma to avoid most of the wire, but that would be exceptionally easy to spot in use. The wire method is virtually invisible except if using very specialized sensing equipment at anything over a few thousand Km. Simply because that, for all the power of the field produced, it just disappears when viewed from a distance due to the solar winds and any other large planetary bodies that have their own magnetospheres. So all you need is, after jumping into a system, is to very very briefly give a 2 or 3 gee burn for a few seconds at most, then go to coasting, and switch to the mag-sails. You almost could run off of solar power alone after that point.
A pure AM/M drive with proper shielding and a magnetic nozzle might be pretty invisible as well. It should mostly degrade into gamma radiation and shine only along the axis of thrust I believe. Of course that's probably horrifically impractical considering the amounts you'd need to get anywhere fast.
IIRC solar sails only work for accelerating you when leaving a system. Coming in the could possibly decelerate you, but you would have to start out so slow (comparatively) that it would never be worth it. spending months and months puttering along trying to decel using solar wind is rediculous. and just getting in system enough would require enough velocity that you would never be able to shed it from a sail.
can we just drop the stealth in space ? how about we switch subjects to:GDI power armour/battle armour how would they design them? what tricks would they have ect.
The basic version would just be a self supporting exoskeleton designed to carry more armor than a person could normally. They already know how to make them. the only barriers are A: power supply (current limit is ease of recharge. BT capacitors or batteries would work, but so would fuel cells), and B: easily controlled myomers. BT derived advances allow for both. The suit itself would be controlled by pressure. Move you arm and the pressure sensors will cause the myomers to move proportionately. The design is simple enough for it to be mass produced out the ass, so i expect every ground soldier to be toting around a hundred or so kilograms or more of armor, instead of like 15kg. 250kg PA(L) infantry kit would be heavier than standard. I assume the standard infantry kit would be more like 125kg or something. Thats still order of magnitude more armor than even the elite IS troops. It wouldn't be much more than a light frame (likely made of titanium), armor plates, padding, a battery, myomers, a small shielded computer, and simple pressure sensors. It would probably increase the soldiers speed a bit above the average soldier wearing his own gear simply because he doesnt have to carry it, but thats about it. Larger models would work similarly, but be more complicated.
ok but what sort of armour would/could they use? metallic plates, ceramiks, kevlar, chobham, BT grade armour? intergrated wepon systeams? personly i would go with kevlar to give the GDI a disadvantage when put up aganist BT power/battle armour otherwise it turns into a curb stomp in favor of the GDI. also would'nt bother with intergrated wepons as a LMG is being mounted on the arm it would be very unwildy.
At this point in the storyline, only GDI and the Clans use power/battle armor (oh, and Niops). For several years after GDI's BAs show up, they'll only be facing conventional (by BT standards) Infantry. (and driving IS mechwarriors nuts by being harder to kill than cockroaches)
A guy in an armored, powered exoskeleton with a semi-auto .50BMG as a primary weapon is pretty beastly. Though that would probably be the anti-vehicle/sniper of the group. The average grunt will probably carry a full auto rifle in a large caliber, like 7.62 NATO or even .338 Lapua Magnum. They will probably carry a couple RPG's too. An anti-armor infantry squad could take down a mech through 'death by papercuts'. Getting hit by 10-15 rockets the size of SRM's is fun for nobody. What do people think of light Exoskeleton (~125kg) equipped grunts carrying something like an M60 as their primary weapon? Though i believe the new primary weapon for GDI forces was going to be a very similar design to the Kel-Tech RFB. A bullpup 7.62 NATO rifle.
is this the same gun supposedly designed by Kalashnikov? personly find the idea of a platoon all armed with M60 to be hilarious for even mechs to face they would end up being ammo hogs which the GDI shouldn't be doing as they already have a heavy logistic maybe have that as a home guard load out? could you mount a M2 Browning on to a power armour?
Yes, its the same gun. Also the powered exoskeleton lets them carry WTF levels of ammo compared to normal troops. suddenly carrying 50 pounds of ammo isn't that big of deal anymore. 50 pounds of 7.62 NATO is just over 900 rounds of ammo. of course that takes up a shitload of space. you could probably fit it in a kids backpack if it was full and loose. And M2 brownings are pretty big. It would be PA(L) suits that had one, and it would probably lock onto the bottom of the arm and held in place with the second arm. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to handle the sheer recoil. remember, the SLOW version of the M2 pumps out more than 6kg of ammo per round. It essentially equals a single 'round' of Machine Gun ammo on full auto. 2 damage a round is pretty awesome from a PA(L), right?
50 pounds of ammo? this is with all the other trappings of a trooper plus armor of which there will be alot of as this is the GDI they like the idea of there troops surviving. that and theres still the problem of how your going to keep topping up that 50 pounds of ammo when your invading a planet drop ships can only hold so much after all. one qustion however has just come to me hand held laser's. how far is the GDI in fielding these?
Ignoring the 'no stealth' issues, actually that isn't true. You can 'tack' against the solar wind with some rather neat fiddling with the superconducting wire loop(s), although it's vastly easier with the plasma variation. Your thrust is reduced to something like 1/10 of the outbound thrust (0.00001g iirc), but it's still possible to move back into a system with it. Also there's supposedly a way to do it where you travel, deliberately, off the elliptic plane most planets will lie on, and use the magnetic north/south poles of a star to 'pull' you in as if two magnets were attracting each other. What's annoying me is that I can't find info on that one anymore.
For a second there, I thought that was a certain universally hated British rifle from the late '80s-mid '90s, and was feeling an urge to smack the hell out of you for even suggesting it look like that. BTW, if you want a very evil anti-infantry PA(L), go with one that looks like this: Type: Rico's Roughneck Mk1 (Humanoid) Weight Class: PA(L) (2 slots per arm, 2 slots in body) Theoretical Max Weight: 400kg Chassis: 80kg Motive System: - Ground MP: 1 = 0kg - Jump MP: 3 = 75kg Manipulators: - Left Arm: Battle Claw = 15kg - Right Arm: Armored Glove Armor: Standard 2+1 = 100kg Weapons/Equipment: LMG (Bursts: 50) RA, 1 slot, 75kg Heat Sensor RA, 1 slot, 20 kg AP Mount LA, 1 slot, 5kg Cutting Torch LA, 1 slot, 5 kg 1 Rocket Launcher 1, Body, 1 slot, 25kg 80+75+15+100+75+20+5+5+25 = 400kg It can move just as fast as any ground infantry, or can quickly jump to scale obstacles (or dodge to the side) that normally would require a group to stop, pull out rappelling equipment or climbing hooks, get them ready, and then start the climb/descent - jump jets just let you punch out possibly 90m of height straight up, or 90m lengthwise, or combination thereof, while on the move/no need to stop. Has a heat sensor at the tip of the LMG so it can 'see' through walls or just stick the weapon tip out above/around cover to keep the rest of the suit concealed while taking a 'peek'. Right Hand is free and can be used to carry a standard infantry rifle/sidearm (uses non-natural feeling hand motions to fire the LMG). Left arm is for CQC where the LMG is just too big/powerful to be used, and also has a cutting torch to allow rapid forced entry into a room via melting either the door locks or hinges (and a good swift myomer enhanced kick). The fingers are oversized (NOT sharpened claws) but have hydraulic support in order to crush anything in it's grasp, or to lock the hand shut/tight so as to secure the PA(L) to a 'Mech or vehicle transporting it (that and allows full anti-mech tactics including climbing the things). Shoulder packs a single oversized RPG that is somewhere between an AT4 CS and a Starstreak in size, for use either against armor, 'Mechs, or infantry. BTW, take a good look at the Starstreak. Notice something about the nose?
How long would 30 assault rifle magazines last you in a firefight when opposition has actual armor so you need more rounds to hit them?
Probably the same amount of time as the current combat loadout lasts in current day situations, honestly.
Now that Earth is building its own mechs (slowly) are there now 'off cuts' left over from the manufacturing process that might be put towards other purposes?
Almost certainly, but most of that is going to disappear into civilian applications. Although I fully expect that within 50 years, anyone that attempts to land on CEarth will discover that damn near every 'new construction' large building out there will be as tough to take out as a dropship, if not a small/light warship. And that even a few smaller 1-3 story buildings will be fortified as well. And that's not even accounting for what the CSN's colonies will have setup as their building code minimums, which likely will more resemble bunkers (if hiding under rich layers of wood paneling and creative holography) then anything else, once the outer 'beauty facades' have been damaged.
I doubt they will be fortified or anything, but i would not be surprised at all if it starts becoming common to make buildings out of prefabbed metal. Titanium would be the new steel once the pesky energy cost barrier is destroyed by dirt cheap electricity. Titanium buildings would allow them to be made stronger, lighter and taller. Plus you don't have to worry about corrosion or rust. You could see a skyscraper go up as sections of prefabbed titanium structure. weld them together and then its just adding walls, floors and utilities. Prefabbed houses would start to go way up too, especially in the third world. A titanium or aluminum shipping container style house would enable you to put together permanent cities within days of laying out utilities. Hell, cheap solar panels, batteries and septic tanks would allow you to ignore that and put in your own fully functional town within days if you had the equipment. And it would be cheap as hell. The only thing you need would be a water supply. You don't need BT superbatteries either. With all that excess nickel they have simple nickel iron batteries could be set up to collect the solar power. Nickel Iron batteries last FOREVER. Literally forever. they never suffer wear or anything. You can put a bank of them in your house, and they will still work just fine 100 years later. (you may have to poor some acid in them every decade or so to top off any that escape). The reason they arent used as much today as they could be is because nickel is slightly expensive in the quantities necessary. CSN colony houses built like this would essentially be immune to all environmental forces, and would have lifespans that would be stupidly long. that durable enough for you? "Oh, this planet periodically has class 5 hurricanes roll over it? Once a month you say? Thats fine, my house just ignores wind. Its just a block of metal bolted to a concrete foundation."
Bolted to a concrete foundation? My house would be a block of metal bolted to a block of metal. ... SCIENCE!
