After the Chieftain...

nosleepdemon

nosleepdemon
Aashenfox said:
Nice. All British tanks.

For a time, I worked at a military fan and impeller manufacturer in Sunbury, Airscrew Howden (I wonder if they're still around?). My job was testing various aspects of electric and hydraulic fans. Once a week, I had to test the (hydraulic powered) fans that cool the engines in the Challenger II tank.

This is a bank of two fans approximately 3/4 of a metre across each. In application they spin at up to 2800rpm if memory serves me correctly, and at that speed they produce a lot of noise. The main test we were required to perform was for impeller integrity, because as you can imagine, if a fan blade a square foot in area and a centimetre thick comes off at 2800rpm, we're going to ave a scenario for the crew, somewhat similar to putting a spider in a jar of nails and shaking it.

So, we put them up on hydraulic rigs in soundproof chambers, and spun them up to 5800rpm for 15 minutes. This noise could be heard a mile away, from a soundproof room. I never had any failures, thank god (it was dangerous for us as testers, too, naturally), but a colleague did, and one of the blades came flying off, went through one soundproof wall, through the walls of the next booth and through both walls of a third booth, before embedding in the wall of the fourth.

It was nucking futs I tell ya.
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Physics is a bloody marvelous and dangerous thing that most people don't give enough respect to at the best of times. Have some rep for never getting darwined by a giant fan.
 

Ambroza

Ambroza
Cosmo said:
The Chieftain sounds tribal, Native American (Amerindian). The next ones should have a similar theme.
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I think this is a safe bet (and I like it). Remember the "Hunter"?

latest


Looks to have a pretty similar style to the Chieftain, so I bet we'll see that this year. Large ship could be called an "Elder" or "Sage" or something.
 
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MK Regular

M
If we are going by British tanks, a few more possibilities for names:

- Centurion
- Comet
- Crusader
- Caernarvon
- Cromwell
- Conway
- Charioteer

I would say Centurion, Charioteer and Challenger would be the most likely names since they are not really related to politics or geography and don't conflict with the Alliance's ethos.

Cosmo said:
The Chieftain sounds tribal, Native American (Amerindian). The next ones should have a similar theme.
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Chan e American dùthchasach a th 'ann, ionnsaich do eachdraidh Bhreatainn, dammit! :p (I probably butchered that. Thanks Google Translate!)

In all seriousness though, this could be interesting too. It would tie in with the Alliance's ethos quite well.
 
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Hadarmil

Hadarmil
MK_Regular said:
If we are going by British tanks, a few more possibilities for names:

- Centurion
- Comet
- Crusader
- Caernarvon
- Cromwell
- Conway
- Charioteer

I would say Centurion, Charioteer and Challenger would be the most likely names since they are not really related to politics or geography and don't conflict with the Alliance's ethos.



Chan e American dùthchasach a th 'ann, ionnsaich do eachdraidh Bhreatainn, dammit! :p (I probably butchered that. Thanks Google Translate!)

In all seriousness though, this could be interesting too. It would tie in with the Alliance's ethos quite well.
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I'm guessing naming ALL alliance ships after British MBTs will be weird. Maybe the biggest will be the alliance Vanguard and the smallest the Alliance Brompton/Pashley.
 

Noobilite

Noobilite
shadragon said:
I'm betting the new Alliance line of ships contains:

- Challenger
- Conqueror
- Cruiser
- Churchill.

:D
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The challenger is challenged. The conqueror will be conquered. The cruiser ain't gonna cruise. And the Churchill is self defeating. 8)

What we need is a real space plane...

worm.jpg


I wonder if they would allow this to increase the maximum number of NPC run vessels/fighters that can escort you with... Maybe one fighter one shuttle? Maybe more than one shuttle. Maybe they have less weapons DPS but act as distractions or utility support. We could have a fighter bay and a shuttle bay. Then 2 NPC and up to 4 with multicrew or more depending on the ship. Larger ships could have more multicrew ships but only if they are shuttles. maybe a max of 5. Two npc(1xfigher,1xshuttle) and 3 players(1xfigher,2xshuttle) on the bigger ships. On top of this the shuttle bay could act as a way to save your crewmembers if you are going to die. You literally get to launch them and get them to run away(or sacrifice themselves for you) and then get back to base one way or another where you can redeploy them if you blow up.

The shuttle bay could have the disadvantage of actually fielding your crew member live and only having one use per bay. This being because it is a real shuttle bay for escape and landing. In larger bays you could have more than one or more bays but for the sake of letting the next guy get to a safe destination as a landing/escape vehicle. IE, fight at your own risk.

I'm putting this in the suggestion forum. 8)

Edit:(rest of the idea.)

You could also excuse fielding unrestricted amounts of these with NPCs because they would actually have your crew flying in them and they die with the shuttle. It would be very dangerous to use. Or you could just employ very low level crew. Possibly to help level them up. Then they act as real shuttles and not remote fighters. Or, again, fight at a risk to the crew members life.

You could possibly also use it to taxi crew or goods from a station or landing place to your ship and back if you don't want to go in the station yourself for various reasons. Maybe it could act as an independent vessel and not alert the authorities to your issues.... But it might not have the best cargo capacity. Not sure what it's stats were in game. If it doesn't have cargo you could use it to fly in station without them realizing it's attached to your main vessel and triggering police or scanners successfully.

Here are the best stats I could find: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Worm_(Oolite)

If this has unrestricted amounts of NPC shuttle flyers this could make it ideal for mining as you could employ more of them, but at risk to your crews safety. It could make much more dynamic mining vessels as you could load more of you main ship with more weapons or cargo. It would also give a gritty reality to hiring cheap crew for deadly mining missions. They would become in essence expendable. Although that would the case in most cases a shuttle is used.

Here is another shuttle: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Navy_Shuttle

I would think the chance to save expensive crew or use cheap crew to save your own life could be invaluable. This is why it would need unrestricted number of NPC used. It's needed to get all crew to safety, including you potentially. So you would need to permit this for fighting and mining and other activities. But it would actually have crew and you in it and not be remote piloted. So if it dies so does the pilot.

That would make slave running a heck of a lot less immoral though. ><

Note: Numbers of shuttles would naturally be restricted by bay and crew capabilities for a given ship.
 
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Bill Clement

Bill Clement
Bit off topic, but since we're on the subject of tanks... (I'm sorry guys, I just can't help myself).:eek:

"Centurion, probably the most innovative tank of it's time (1945 onwards)"

Vandaahl said:
I was thinking the same thing :)



Not sure about that though. Because it had a gasoline burning Rolls-Royce Meteor engine, it was still a potential Tommy cooker.
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The 'Tommy cooker' thing was an exclusively Sherman issue, down to ammunition stowage rather than fuel system. Many of the British Shermans were diesel powered, but they brewed up just as often as the petrol ones. No 2 ORS noted in '44 that 82% of Shermans hit in Normandy caught fire, after an average of less than two penetrations (1.89). Churchills, petrol powered and carrying identical ammunition, rarely brewed up. During Operation Bluecoat, out of 20 tanks knocked out, only one caught fire. The Guards put that down to never stowing ammunition outside of their tanks armoured bins. Later in the War, the Sherman's stowage arrangements were changed, ammunition was carried lower in the hull in water or glycol lined bins. The instance of ammunition fires dropped to @15% in Shermans equiped that way.

The Germans were just as badly off, by the way. Tigers and Pz IVs brewed up 80% of the time; Panthers didn't burn as often when hit (@65% of knocked out tanks brewed up), but they had much more vulnerable flanks than the other German tanks in Normandy, not great in fighting in an area where hits from the side were just as likely as hits from in front. But that's a discussion for another day...

Centurion didn't make it into wartime service, but with great frontal glacis and turret armour immune to German AT guns, a stabilised gun able to penetrate all known German tanks, a surplus of engine power guaranteenig terrific cross country and hill climbing performance, Merritt-Brown transmission allowing a stationary piviot and good reverse speed, it really was pretty much the most innovative tank of it's time. Pity the Soviets spoilt the party by just layering obscene amounts of armour onto monster tanks! :D Still, nothing that a decent upgunning couldn't sort out...
 
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