Necron Dynasties

[commander]

I think that lightning arcs would most likely cover a smaller area than typical area saturation bombardment, so they should suffer more to holofields.

On the other hand, the 'charged' sails could act as a conduit/beacon for the lightning arcs?
But I would agree to not negating holofields.

As for the topic of the inertialess drive, well it's pretty naff. I mean, if we're talking a true inertialess drive then the Necron ships should be slower, not faster. This is because it would take a good deal more power to keep them going. Without inertia to keep ships moving they'd stop dead. So you'd need a constant supply of thrust to maintain speed. Achieving near light speed for such massive ships without the aid of inertia would be impossible (well, more impossible  ). On the other hand, without inertia to keep them going in a straight line they'd be super manoeuvrable, able to manoeuvre like a fighter or bomber.

This is also pointed out by a member of my regular player group. Al tough I think that the necrons have access to such 'impossible' power sources (after all, a complete world was destoyed when a powercore of a doomday cannon was breached and they shattered the C'tan). However I agree that their speed would be closer to the 'normal' speed.

The Necron drive functions more like a mass reduction drive. This would allow higher speeds at lower thrust. Having lower mass would make it easier to manoeuvre, except that the distance covered would likely be great (due to moving so fast). This pretty much sums up the current ruleset of +1d6 x 10cm on AAF with a turn every 20cm. It would also make faster than light travel possible, assuming mass can be reduced to zero.

With such a drive one would not expect the Necrons to be able to halt their movement as they pleased (having a lower mass does make it easier to stop, but if you suddenly engage the drive to lower the mass to make it easier to stop you'll increase your speed due to the conservation of momentum, thus increasing the thrust needed to stop, therefore gaining no net benefit). As this also fits with their current ruleset and modus operandi (i.e., non-warp FTL capability) I submit that the Necron drive is not an inertialess drive but really a relative mass reduction drive. Therefore we should abandon any notion of allowing the Necrons to forego minimum movement requirements.

Viable alternative

[AndrewChristlieb]

Inertia and mass are directly related. A body with more mass will have a higher inertia and conversely one with less mass will have less inertia. The problem with your theroy about it taking more energy to move a ship with 0 inertia (0 mass) is that an object with a lower inertia is also easier to get moving. So easier to move = faster (push a cart then a car eventually they will both reach the same speed if nothing interferes but the cart will take much less time) and easier to move = easier to stop (compare rolling a marble to a bowling).

So call it what you will, but a ship that has 0 inertia must have 0 mass and there fore would be able to stop, turn, and accelerate impossibly fast. Now I don't see how its possible to have true 0 mass as there would be no way to exert energy against it, instead the "inertialess" drive must bring a ship down to near 0 mass, neither hear nor there in game terms tho.

[commander]

As I'm told by one of my gaming group is that you will need a huge amount of energy to get and keep your ship inertialess. The amount of power that remains may not be enough to reach incredible speeds but 'top speed' could be reached instantaneously. And highly manoeuvrable. Also zero speed would free energy to go to weapon systems, repairs and stuff.
I like that approach (but we're no scientists).

[AndrewChristlieb]

Makes sense to me. So maybe a high top speed (such as what they have) but a limited aaf (more like +3D6 instead of +5D6) and unlimited turning w/ no min movement.

[Sigoroth]

Inertia and mass are directly related. A body with more mass will have a higher inertia and conversely one with less mass will have less inertia. The problem with your theroy about it taking more energy to move a ship with 0 inertia (0 mass) is that an object with a lower inertia is also easier to get moving. So easier to move = faster (push a cart then a car eventually they will both reach the same speed if nothing interferes but the cart will take much less time) and easier to move = easier to stop (compare rolling a marble to a bowling).

So call it what you will, but a ship that has 0 inertia must have 0 mass and there fore would be able to stop, turn, and accelerate impossibly fast. Now I don't see how its possible to have true 0 mass as there would be no way to exert energy against it, instead the "inertialess" drive must bring a ship down to near 0 mass, neither hear nor there in game terms tho.

Inertia = mass x speed. Having 0 inertia does not mean 0 mass. It means 0 speed. Think throwing an inertialess tennis ball. It has mass (it is a thing after all), but lacking inertia means that as soon as it has left your hand (ie, no more force being applied) it stops dead. There is no inertia so therefore no speed. I = MxS, I = 0, M = tennis ball, therefore S = 0. To move the object you would need to apply more force, and continuously. Apart from the energy requirement necessary to cancel all inertia, there is also a massive energy requirement to move the ship, since it has no inertia to aid it.

Now, a mass reduction drive will allow for great speed, as the conservation of momentum will work to increase speed as mass decreases. Apart from that, a reduced mass is, of course, easier to accelerate and decelerate. As for reducing inertia to 0 by reducing mass to 0, that doesn't make much sense due to conservation of momentum. As mass approaches 0, speed will approach infinite to compensate, maintaining inertia. However, presuming we get 0 mass and 0 resultant inertia (suppose it had 0 inertia before mass was reduced) and suppose we're able to exert thrust upon it, it's still a misnomer to call it an inertialess drive. I mean, this is the only circumstance under which the ship could be truly said to be inertialess. So the drive acts upon the mass of the ship to achieve this and only under the rarest of circumstances is it truly "inertialess". For example, when the drive has reduced the ships mass to 50% , say, then inertia would remain the same, not "inertialess". This interpretation is really a mass reduction drive.

In other words, for it to really be an inertialess drive then for all non-zero mass values there must be zero speed. Even for 0 mass it would have had to have started at 0 inertia to be called "inertialess". In this last instance we're really looking at a renamed relative mass reduction drive with a narrowed scope anyway.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion.

The only problem (other than the unusual use of speed) is that inertia is equal to F, but not in the way you think. F=ma force = mass acceleration is the amount of force required to move an object. It shows that an object has inertia that must be over come by a force with a mass times acceleration greater than the inertia of the body. This of course means that an object must have inertia = to the force required to move it or to stop it if it is already moving, so yes something that is not moving does indeed have inertia.

I believe your confused because of gravity and friction, which being the strongest force we encounter forces all objects we encounter to stop regardless of their inertia. You will note that if you throw your ball in deep space where gravity and friction have little effect it will not stop moving unless it encounters a force that can cause it to stop.

[Sigoroth]

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion.

The only problem (other than the unusual use of speed) is that inertia is equal to F, but not in the way you think. F=ma force = mass acceleration is the amount of force required to move an object. It shows that an object has inertia that must be over come by a force with a mass times acceleration greater than the inertia of the body. This of course means that an object must have inertia = to the force required to move it or to stop it if it is already moving, so yes something that is not moving does indeed have inertia.

I believe your confused because of gravity and friction, which being the strongest force we encounter forces all objects we encounter to stop regardless of their inertia. You will note that if you throw your ball in deep space where gravity and friction have little effect it will not stop moving unless it encounters a force that can cause it to stop.

I have not been confused by either gravity or friction. They have not been brought up at all. The tennis ball I described was inertialess. So, even when thrown in space, it would stop dead as soon as it left your hand. As it has no inertia it won't continue. As for the unusual use of speed, well you can read velocity there. Having a speed implies a direction innately. It never made sense to me to harp on about velocity if you don't know the particular direction or you're talking about just any one random direction. Yes, yes, I know, you can change direction without changing speed and this is a change in velocity, blah, blah.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Sig your great and all, but your extremely frustrating some times. You really need too go read some about physics because this is elementary science and your just not getting it :/. EVERYTHING has inertia. The definition of inertia is: The resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest. It is proportionally equal to the objects inertial mass which is almost always the same as its gravitational mass. An object in motion will always remain in motion unless it encounters a force of equal or greater value. An object at rest will always remain at rest until a force of equal or greater value moves it.

Momentum P=mv is a form of inertia also, the difference being velocity instead of acceleration and what you actually come up with is the objects inertial mass.

Speed is a value used to determine velocity along with direction. Acceleration is a vector quantity using length and time along with velocity.

[commander]

As my knowledge is limited (me being very nice to myself here  ), I pass on the discussion and propose that the necrons are able to negate inertia, gravity and stuff, with a good round of speed and highly manoeuvrable.

[RayB HA]

Sig is right, if it 'only' affected inertia the ship would just stop until a constant force was applied.

But if something struck it with its own inertia it wouldn't bounce off shedding some of its momentum it would carry on with the inertialess object in front at the same speed because for all intents and purposes it would be massless.

However this would only be the case for physical interaction, its gravity would still remain (unless it's mass really was reduced). Mind you if it accelerated for whatever reason it would succumb to relativity affecting it's mass (relative to it's rate of time). So it could then reach (near) infinite mass but only experienced by the inertiless object, everything else would be moving through time at a near infinitly faster rate and would only be affected by the object as much as if it were stationary (excluding its actual movement).

The main problem here is that gravity is a constant force (kinda) so an inertialess object would get drawn towards anything with gravity. So you activate your inertialess drive and you'll fly into the nearest star at light speed!       

I think its best just to think of it as a magic movement drive. 

Cheers,

RayB

[Sigoroth]

Sig your great and all, but your extremely frustrating some times. You really need too go read some about physics because this is elementary science and your just not getting it :/. EVERYTHING has inertia. The definition of inertia is: The resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest. It is proportionally equal to the objects inertial mass which is almost always the same as its gravitational mass. An object in motion will always remain in motion unless it encounters a force of equal or greater value. An object at rest will always remain at rest until a force of equal or greater value moves it.

Momentum P=mv is a form of inertia also, the difference being velocity instead of acceleration and what you actually come up with is the objects inertial mass.

Speed is a value used to determine velocity along with direction. Acceleration is a vector quantity using length and time along with velocity.

I think perhaps you're a little confused. We are talking about an inertialess drive here and pondering what effect would occur if you could reduce an objects' inertia to zero. So, in the case of the inertialess tennis ball (not a normal tennis ball) being thrown in space it would stop dead as soon as it left the throwers hand. Having no inertia it has no momentum. It will also not "remain" moving, since it has no inertia, i.e., the laws of physics no longer tell it to move at its previous velocity. In order to move it at all a force would need to be applied, and as soon as it stopped being applied the object would stop.

There are some issues with this of course. Without inertia I don't think it's theoretically possible to be moved at all, since inertia determines the force needed to move the object. Without inertia then it could mean that no force is capable of moving the object. Either that or it would move automatically at infinite speed in the net direction of the combined forces acting upon it, no matter how weak. Also, internal sublight drives wouldn't work, since they're a part of the object being effected by the inertialess drive and so would have their effects neutralised by the field.

Either way, an inertialess drive is a bit retarded. A mass reduction drive on the other hand seems to fit the bill both in terms of how they currently play and in what they're meant to be able to do.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Your right I did misunderstand what you were saying, I'm sorry. That's why I said earlier that the "inertialess" drive would have to be a mass reduction drive and that it would have to bring the ship down to a fraction of its mass because of course as you stated something with no inertia (mass) would be unable to be affected by any force except by forces aboard the vessel which would be unable to actually move the ship because they would be unable to apply said force to anything (sort of like the ships in a bubble outside of our reality like in warp travel but its actually not in another reality... Twist your mind around that 10 times fast ) In game terms tho something with a mass/inertia reducing drive would basically be able to stop instantly as you stated by simply removing the force moving them (engine thrust) which equates to free burn retros or no minmove, the ability to turn at incredible rates faster even than attack craft or for the sake of simplicity either free ctnh or just let them make as many turns as they want, the only iffy thing would be aaf, on one hand almost no energy would be required to move the ship due to its reduced mass so its conceivable that they could have a very fast aaf on the other hand we can assume that most of the ships power is being used to power the drive and the engines required to move it at all and therefore there would be very little left to go aaf (standard aaf rules would work fine for this: reduced power on everything else +4d6).

[Sigoroth]

Yep, I was basically saying that an inertialess drive doesn't make sense. Even if you confine the notion of inertia to merely momentum (so a momentum reduction drive), then the amount of force necessary to move the object would remain normal, but without momentum it would need to be applied constantly to make the ship move, hence a very low top speed. They would be able to accelerate to this top speed as well as come to a full stop instantaneously though. This is akin to an old sci fi movie that I can't remember the name of, in which some kids were inside an inertialess bubble and could stop and change direction instantaneously. They went to a space ship crewed by giant alien kids. Anyway.

However, if we're going to talk a mass reduction drive here then yes, the force needed to move, stop and turn are greatly reduced, allowing for high top speeds. However, I don't think the ships would be tremendously manoeuvrable. This is because they'd move such a great distance so quickly that reaction times alone would see a lot of straight line movement before executing turns. In this respect I think that the current AAF rules work to represent this quite well. I.e., 1 turn every 20cm. The distance is perhaps a touch too random though.

Of course, there is the possibility that the drive could be engaged part way. For example, mass reduced by 50% for normal fleet operations to increase combat speeds and manoeuvring. This could be used to give the Necrons superior speed and agility if so desired, either as a flat bonus or as a bonus to CTNH and BR. I'm inclined to think that this would come at the cost of hits though, but perhaps not, since it'd only be a relative reduction in mass, not an absolute one. Also, I wonder what the interaction effect would be when projectiles cross the fields' threshold. Perhaps they'd get a decrease in mass but an increase in velocity, changing the nature of their ballistic profile. Curious.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Yep, I was basically saying that an inertialess drive doesn't make sense. Even if you confine the notion of inertia to merely momentum (so a momentum reduction drive), then the amount of force necessary to move the object would remain normal, but without momentum it would need to be applied constantly to make the ship move, hence a very low top speed. They would be able to accelerate to this top speed as well as come to a full stop instantaneously though. This is akin to an old sci fi movie that I can't remember the name of, in which some kids were inside an inertialess bubble and could stop and change direction instantaneously. They went to a space ship crewed by giant alien kids. Anyway.

However, if we're going to talk a mass reduction drive here then yes, the force needed to move, stop and turn are greatly reduced, allowing for high top speeds. However, I don't think the ships would be tremendously manoeuvrable. This is because they'd move such a great distance so quickly that reaction times alone would see a lot of straight line movement before executing turns. In this respect I think that the current AAF rules work to represent this quite well. I.e., 1 turn every 20cm. The distance is perhaps a touch too random though.

The thing about the maneuverability is that a lighter (less mass) ship would be able to turn much faster too, look at escorts vs cruisers for example the Escorts can "turn on the spot" because they have a smaller mass, they are also faster because of their greater power to weight ratio. Now would a Cruiser with a mass reduction drive that can lower its mass to that of an escort not then be able to move like an escort? Or if were going really nuts on the reduced mass (as I am ) would it not be able to move like a fighter? Remember even with their advanced drives Necron ships still move less than a fighter when not on special orders (50cm max/turn on an escort vs 60cm for a fighter) of course on aaf orders If were saying that the mass is reduced that significantly you still looking the average cruiser moving about the same speed as a fighter (could be faster) and having the same (could be less) mass. I could see on aaf orders tho making it a strictly straight line as normal ships just to avoid any mishaps (hate to see the drive lose a fraction of power while making a 90* turn around some blastmarkers at a fraction of ls causing a portion of the ship to become "heavier" and therefor rip away.)

Of course, there is the possibility that the drive could be engaged part way. For example, mass reduced by 50% for normal fleet operations to increase combat speeds and manoeuvring. This could be used to give the Necrons superior speed and agility if so desired, either as a flat bonus or as a bonus to CTNH and BR. I'm inclined to think that this would come at the cost of hits though, but perhaps not, since it'd only be a relative reduction in mass, not an absolute one. Also, I wonder what the interaction effect would be when projectiles cross the fields' threshold. Perhaps they'd get a decrease in mass but an increase in velocity, changing the nature of their ballistic profile. Curious.

Indeed, of course there's nothing saying the fields limits could just be to the hull and super structure so something impacting it would have no change. The half power drive could work for Ctnh/ Br and would give a good excuse for the armor to drop to 5+ as Ray has it now,  there is still no reason for weapon strength to not be lowered tho as the drive being activated is going to drain a lot of the energy reserves.