More 40K questions, this time about ships...

[Adrian Laguna]

PetaTons? I hate to ask, since i have long ago forgotten the calcs, isn't that pretty close to some of the standard heavy turbolasers in Star Wars?

IIRC that's the firepower range of a Star Destroyer's full broadside, not one of its turbolasers.

[fusion]

PetaTons? I hate to ask, since i have long ago forgotten the calcs, isn't that pretty close to some of the standard heavy turbolasers in Star Wars?

IIRC that's the firepower range of a Star Destroyer's full broadside, not one of its turbolasers.

Also that was why 40k vs Star Wars is really more about which side you prefer as their fire power is fairly similar.

So what happen to the picture of the Hexathedral Assault Citadel?

[Dominus]

Also that was why 40k vs Star Wars is really more about which side you prefer as their fire power is fairly similar.

While their firepower may be broadly comparable, it's worth noting that the Imperium's Navy seems rather small in comparison to the 100 million or so figure that is frequently thrown around for the Galactic Empire. Connor has done some excellent calculations on the size of the Imperium's warp-capable interstellar navy, but even the upper limit numbers just don't seem comparable to the sheer size of the Galactic Empire's fleet, and the fact that they can replace their losses far more quickly than the Imperium.

An important thing to remember is that the SW galaxy has a vastly superior industrial base, and a much, much larger population base as well. Just using Star Destroyers as an example, recall that the Galactic Empire built some tens of thousands of them over the few decades of its existence, while the Imperium is lucky to get a single cruiser laid down and finished over the span of, say, several years. If the Imperium actually does build new battleships, they're likely to be of inferior quality to the designs that came before... and the few remaining Apocalypse-class ships (among others) are described outright as being irreplaceable.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I never quite understood how the 40K universe could have the Imperium fall to such lows when it comes to technology, that it can regarded as magic in some quarters.

[Imperial Overlord]

I never quite understood how the 40K universe could have the Imperium fall to such lows when it comes to technology, that it can regarded as magic in some quarters.

Think about how the computer illiterate perceive computers and their capabilities. Think about every stupid hacking scene in every Hollywood movie.

Then remember that modern computers are like flint axes compared to the high technology of the Imperium of Man. Common people know it works, they don't understand why it works. On many worlds, the majority of the population is poorly educated. Their knowledge of technology is that if they go through the proper procedures, a device will work. They have little or no understandings of the principles behind it. Using the device is like praying or casting a spell, a process to invoke powers they don't understand to obtain the desired result. It is like magic.

Of course, on more developed worlds they do have a much better understanding of technology, even if they don't know much science.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I never quite understood how the 40K universe could have the Imperium fall to such lows when it comes to technology, that it can regarded as magic in some quarters.

In addition to what IO said, it gets even better:
Imagine that the technology really can be magic, praying to your bolter might really make it work better, AI's really can get possesed by flesh rending daemons, equipment without holy blessings on it from the God Emperor may not save your soul from being ripped apart by telepaths.

And it gets even better when you consider that All of the Colonies established during the Dark Age of Technology, for thousands upon thousands of years, were all set up with a large box that gave you easy instructions (OR made for you, it depends) for effectively anything.

• "Son, go ask the STC for plans for a new Land raider, the native wild life's been acting up".
• "My son, ask of the sacred Construct to build us a Land raider to stop the incursions of the "Generix Xeno species"".
• "My Son, ask of the great machine-god to create a great battle-wagon for us against the Orks".
• "You have been anointed thrice and have the honour of petitioning the great god for a mighty metal warrior to slay the greenskins!"

Look at how technical skills have dropped precariously today in the US, can you imagine that stretched over thousands of years, with magic boxes that build you anything or give you lego-level difficulty plans for anything? It's a miracle that so many societies survived their STC's breaking down or being improperly copied over.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Look at how technical skills have dropped precariously today in the US, can you imagine that stretched over thousands of years, with magic boxes that build you anything or give you lego-level difficulty plans for anything? It's a miracle that so many societies survived their STC's breaking down or being improperly copied over.

Whereas I would admit something of that like can happen, and it happened before in history with regard to say Roman concrete, were there any exacerbating factors that led to such a situation? Did the means of educating the populace fail or?

[Shinova]

Whereas I would admit something of that like can happen, and it happened before in history with regard to say Roman concrete, were there any exacerbating factors that led to such a situation? Did the means of educating the populace fail or?

Heavy warp storms cut off most of the colonies from each other for at least several thousand years.

[Dominus]

Whereas I would admit something of that like can happen, and it happened before in history with regard to say Roman concrete, were there any exacerbating factors that led to such a situation? Did the means of educating the populace fail or?

Yes. It was called the Age of Strife. Human civilization essentially collapsed around M28 or so as a result of dangerous warp storms that made interstellar travel via the warp nearly impossible, isolating Terra from the rest of its colonial empire and effectively bringing an end to the Dark (Golden) Age of Technology. These warp storms in turn were caused primarily by the fact that Eldar civilization was in its death throes at this point, and Slaanesh was due to be born soon. This was also the point at which humanity first started to manifest the so-called "psyker" gene, and, being completely unprepared for it, were made the playthings of warp daemons and the Gods of Chaos, whom they had no concept of and thus no way to deal with this rather irritating problem of psychically active individuals getting possessed and/or and generally causing widespread chaos in their wake. In the first Grey Knights novel, the Tzeentchian daemon prince Ghargatuloth himself states that he had quite a bit of fun wreaking havoc amongst the puny mortals during this chaotic epoch in humanity's history.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Whereas I would admit something of that like can happen, and it happened before in history with regard to say Roman concrete, were there any exacerbating factors that led to such a situation? Did the means of educating the populace fail or?

Heavy warp storms cut off most of the colonies from each other for at least several thousand years.

Surely there was at least a central knowledge repository on Terra and people actually learnt the stuff in there?

[Dominus]

Gah!

My apologies, Fingolfin; I completely misinterpreted the question and went off in my usually verbose manner. Anyway, part of the reason why all that technology was lost is simply because the Standard Template Constructs all broke down, or were lost over time, as Death alludes.

Surely there was at least a central knowledge repository on Terra and people actually learnt the stuff in there?

Apparently not. Most of the truly arcane knowledge on technology was kept secreted away on Mars by the Adeptus Mechanicus, which (as a cult if not an organization) was already extant at this point, and controlled the planet. As I recall, Terra itself actually became a war-torn wasteland during the Age of Strife as civilization collapsed and various warlords rose to power and began fighting each other (somewhat akin to what happened in China after the collapse of central authority in the early part of the last century). This lasted until the Emperor finally revealed himself and quelled the incessant fighting on Terra; which would probably have destroyed any such central databases or centers of knowledge, had they actually existed.

[Connor MacLeod]

I have vague notions about how alot of mechanical devices work. That doesn't mean I could neccesarily explain it or fix one, or even explain the processes by which they are built. My GF's grandmother can operate her TV and VCR and CD players, but does not understand how to program them or anything beyond pushing cerrtain buttons by rote memory. I've known people who can't operate a computer unless they have specific instructions to follow or have memorized steps by rote memory.

The whole supersition angle basically amounts to that: rote learning. It also serves the purpose of controlling dangerous technologies, because as we know for a fact, daemons CAN possess inanimate objects with disastrous results (from giant robots to Batlte Titans.)

Aside from the whole "rote learning" thing, 40K many humans are actually well educated, even though you might think otherwise with the whole "Dark ages in space" thing. This does depend on where and who, but alot of the Guard troopers I've seen or read about (and the planets I've read about) seem no worse than what you might expect at Elementary or High school level. They understand biology, gravity, elecricity, light, and so on and so forth. They might not be able to tell you precisely how a device works, but then again the same can be said of alot of people in real life. And people in real life, I might add, can be quite intelligent or understand technology and hold goofy beliefs (Creationists anyone?)

[Shinova]

Ffirst off let's face it, the IoM is an OLD civilization. Such a timespan of that many millennia is nearly unimaginable for us modern humans, who inhabit civilizations that are at most a few hundred years in current forms. The IoM has been officially the IoM for ten thousand years; that's an incredibly long time for a lot of stuff to happen, and that's after thirty-thousand years of prior development and events. The IoM could've lost so much of its technology during that time period and basically collapsed, especially with constant Chaos influences and attacks from more physical threats at nearly every border, but they've retained enough tech to be one of the dominant forces in the galaxy. We criticize the IoM for stagnating over the years, but I don't think we give it due credit for only losing as much as it has over such a long period of time.


And also, most of the AdMech's efforts are concentrated on recovering intact STCs which contain most or all of what they've lost over the years, but they do slowly refine existing designs and develop new things over the centuries, it just takes time and a lot of tinkering and testing before they actually put it into use; their focus is not on creating entirely new technologies, but to slowly improve on existing ones. They also delve a lot into stuff like biology, and constantly attempt to create new bio-weapons against stuff like Tyranids and such.

The AdMech is also faced with the very real threat of Chaos influence so they can't change and develop too fast so they have to seriously scrutinize their work for best possible resistance to Chaos, plus their products often must be constructed and used in planets all across the Imperium with wildly differing technology levels and environments. Not to mention they have to stay operable and reliable for long periods of time.

Imperium tech really are some of the most pinnacle examples of durability and reliability in sci-fi. Lasguns are like AK-47s on steroids in terms of reliability, and spaceships and vehicles can last thousands of years and still fight like new. Ships can have huge chunks of their structure blown out and still keep fighting.


In short, while it's right to criticize IoM tech for stagnation and we do so, they deserve some credit too.

[Ted C]

I have a few questions:
Have any one heard of this Hexathedral Assault Citadel and if so could provide me a link and picture?
Also which of these ships is more powerful: Battle barge, Emperor Class, Apocalypse Class, or Retribution Class? Also are they all around 19 klicks long?
Lastly what is the single most powerful weapon can fielded by the Imperial Navy?

Your answers will be appreciated.

To my knowledge (and we'll see what other people have said after I respond to the OP)...

No, I have not heard of the Assault Citadel.

I'm not familiar with the Apocalypse class. Each of the others excels at particular types of combat: the Battle Barge is great with boarding torpedoes, boarding actions, and close-range broadsides; the Retribution excels at broadside shoot-outs; and the Emperor is a powerhouse carrier. Any might defeat the others, depending on the conditions of the fight. BFG warship models seem to scale to about 1 cm = 1 km, so none of these ships is more than about 10 km long.

The most powerful standard weapon in the Imperial Navy's arsenal is the Nova Cannon.

[Ted C]

PS: Is the Planet Killer about 30 klicks long?
That would help because I can scale from there.

I believe that Andy Chambers once described the PK as about 10 km long.

[white_rabbit]

As promised, the Hexathedral assault citadel (the view is from inside the command bridge of another one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/ ... itadel.jpg

Another image to give an impression of scale, the large dropship transport is about the length of a Battlecruiser, but much larger cross-section.

It also gives an example of "grotesque overreaction" by the Imperium to a single rebel planet, even one so rich and powerful, I have to wonder whether or not they actually knew about the Eye of Terror Junior plan prior to the Assassins finding out about it. There were also 11 Battlecruisers and an un-specified number of escort size ships dispatched. This is almost as much hardware as that sent to attack the Tau empire. In fact its probably better equipped from some perspectives.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/ ... lscale.jpg


And just for fun, " Impending Doom"



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/ ... rydoom.jpg

[Stark]

I can't be the only person who thinks that looks utterly retarded.

[Imperial Overlord]

I can't be the only person who thinks that looks utterly retarded.

You aren't.

[white_rabbit]

I can't be the only person who thinks that looks utterly retarded.

It actually fires solid projectiles as well

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

That citadel looks like Minas Morgul in space.

[Siege]

The Adeptus Mechanicus must have been high on Mars' finest crack cocaine when they designed that.

[Shinova]

Except Minas Morgul looked awesomer.


Walking cathedrals and cathedrals in space. What's not to love about 40k?

[Dominus]

... By the Emperor, that Hexathedral assault whatsit is ugly.

I'm not familiar with the Apocalypse class.

As others have said, it's designed exclusively to kill other battleships, and is armed with Strength 6/Range 30 lances--the most powerful I've ever seen in BFG; only the Planet Killer's are the equal of them--a nova cannon, and some token dorsal weapons batteries (which are nothing to write home about). The range on those lances can be expanded to 60cm, but you take overload damage in the process, making your already ponderously slow battleship even more of a sitting duck, as it were. As fancy as the Apocalypse is, I prefer the Oberon, thanks very much.

the Retribution excels at broadside shoot-outs

And is also the only IoM battleship capable of keeping pace with the cruisers and the rest of the fleet, a valuable resource if you don't want your battleships to be left behind, flanked and encircled. The fact that it can ram with the best of them is an added bonus.

[NecronLord]

I never quite understood how the 40K universe could have the Imperium fall to such lows when it comes to technology, that it can regarded as magic in some quarters.

Have you ever shouted 'You stupid clanker' at your computer? Your car?

Same principle, but with several dark ages to percolate, and be accepted by almost everyone as fact.

[fusion]

As promised, the Hexathedral assault citadel (the view is from inside the command bridge of another one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/ ... itadel.jpg

Another image to give an impression of scale, the large dropship transport is about the length of a Battlecruiser, but much larger cross-section.

It also gives an example of "grotesque overreaction" by the Imperium to a single rebel planet, even one so rich and powerful, I have to wonder whether or not they actually knew about the Eye of Terror Junior plan prior to the Assassins finding out about it. There were also 11 Battlecruisers and an un-specified number of escort size ships dispatched. This is almost as much hardware as that sent to attack the Tau empire. In fact its probably better equipped from some perspectives.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/ ... lscale.jpg


And just for fun, " Impending Doom"



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/ ... rydoom.jpg

Question: What are those things that stick out of each door?

Runway for battleships?