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Post by Farseer Kythil on Jan 1, 2004 10:12:43 GMT -5
I would point out that Titan transporters don't have to be big. A Titan is a relatively small piece of machinery next to a ship The biggest Titans averaging 45m tall but the transporters need to carry the 16 Titans, the repair crews, forges and raw materials for repairs, living quarters for the support crew, the bridge and weapons amongst other things.
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Post by zholud on Jan 1, 2004 10:22:37 GMT -5
The Legio Titanicus is directly controlled by the Fabricator General of Mars (as is the Centurio Ordinatus), so the Adeptus Mechanicus does have direct control over the Titans. I guess this is pure de jure control, because every time Titan crew is described in fluff they are far from AM Magi of Tech-Guard in mood...
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Post by Farseer Kythil on Jan 1, 2004 10:30:50 GMT -5
The Legio Titanicus is treated as a separate 'group' as each Titan crew is 'bonded' to their machine through the neural linkage (They aren't physically bonded but rather they become so 'attached' to the Titan they pilot, they are unable to pilot any others with the same success). The Titan crews don't contribute to the Forge World when not active unlike the Tech Guard (who serve as additional workers). Although the Fabricator General does decide when the Titans are to be used.
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Post by Minister on Jan 3, 2004 18:16:38 GMT -5
Ama heara ama heara.
Anyway, a ship with a Titan onboard doesn't have to be big. A Titan transport doesn't have to be big. What a Titan transport does have to be is designed with the stupidly large drop ships/pods required to get these things on to the ground. This would require a dedicated military vessel if you wanted quick and easy deployment into anything resembling a hot dropzone, which the Mechanicus is not permited.
On the Research Vessels, this is a catch-all term for independantly operating Mechanicus vessels larger than a warp-courier and smaller than a battleship which are not built with building things in mind. Imperial edict (sems to be in the habbit of and this is what we're assuming) allows defensive weapons aboard vessels not of the Navy, and permits the carrying of guards to protect the cargo and passengers. The Mechanicus has taken a fairly liberal view of "defensive" on a few vessels and built what are in efect medium warships (tending to be smaller but with better systems than equivelant Navy ships) with a regiment of Skitarii onboard. Technicaly the imperial Navy could demand that many of these ships breach regulations and must be decomissioned, but the navy conciders it prudent to overlook a small number of these battle-ready vessels amongst the far larger numbers of REAL research ships.
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Post by CELS on Jan 3, 2004 18:40:50 GMT -5
Would the contestants please present their fluff sources and/or arguments for their opinions?
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Post by zholud on Jan 4, 2004 6:59:46 GMT -5
Would the contestants please present their fluff sources and/or arguments for their opinions? Quite a few sources and descriptions. - AM ship in Soul Drinker is, to my knowledge, the sole description of such vessels. It has own awfully devastating ‘cannon’ which could e separated from the main ship. The general impression is that AM ships are close to Transformers able to decompose and re-compose. The number of tech guard there was 5,000... plus electro-priests.
- The Titan transport in the Storm of Iron is former Tyranid ship, which is 2 km long/high (the description mentions this number, but I always imagined ship landing in horizontal, not vertical state) and bearing demi-legio of Titans (6 I suppose).
- Some more ideas may be in Titan comics, but I haven’t seen them.
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Post by Kage2020 on Jan 4, 2004 14:08:15 GMT -5
The adeptus mechanicus will maintain a 'secret' force that it does not keep on the books, as it were. Thus sayeth the law... I would prefer that this was a general statement rather than something peculiar to Anargo, but if that were the case then so be it. Kage
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Post by Farseer Kythil on Jan 4, 2004 14:52:35 GMT -5
The adeptus mechanicus will maintain a 'secret' force that it does not keep on the books, as it were. Thus sayeth the law... I'm happy enough with that. ;D
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Post by Kage2020 on Jan 5, 2004 9:22:43 GMT -5
Well, the size of any such force is going to be by necessity limited. However, while Imperial forces are limited to TL10 components at most (though the majority of the 'ship' or whatever will be composed of lower tech components), the adeptus mechanicus would like use dominant TL10 with specific manufactured (theoretical) TL11 components. And, of course, TL12 archaeotech (and possibly xenos tech). The difference between TLs can be significant enough that a smaller force will be able to take on a proportionately larger force... Again, though, that is something that is not likely to manifest in the Anargo sector. At least not necessarily so... It is just there as a general statement. Kage
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Post by CELS on Jan 5, 2004 9:43:19 GMT -5
I'm afraid T10, T11 and T12 doesn't really mean much to me. Could we perhaps write a list of examples, such as
TL8- Lascannons, TL9- Melta weapons TL10- Plasma weapons, warp drives TL11- Anti grav, personal force fields, digi-weapons TL12- C'tan Phase swords
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Post by Kage2020 on Jan 5, 2004 9:54:43 GMT -5
My apologies, I meant it only as a general guideline rather than to suggest the specific manifestation of certain technologies. From memory the following technologies spring to mind when thinking about tech-levels. Quite a few of them are weapons, but that's not surprising considering the normal focus of the 40k universe! TL 6 - Autoguns TL 7 - Advanced autoguns ( Orks) TL 8 - Bolters (gyrocs), Shuriken catapult TL 9 - Lasguns (blasters) TL 10 - Marine Power armour, Warp drive ( Imperium, Tau) TL 11 - Power swords TL 12 - Contragravity, pesonal force fields TL 13 - Living metal, nanotech. ( Eldar) TL 14 - I forget... ( Necrons) TL 15 - Potential basis of wraithbone... Those are ones that spring to mind. The only problem is that you cannot show the differences in the various fields of technology (i.e. the Necrons are more advanced in physical technology than the eldar, but the eldar make up for this in psionics technology and 'technomantic artefacts'; or that the Imperium and the Tau are the same rough TL, but the Imperium is more advanced than the Tau in the production of warp-drives...)... With that said, is this the rough thing that you were after? Kage
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Post by CELS on Jan 5, 2004 10:18:28 GMT -5
Yes, roughly. Thanks What I was trying to figure out was just how well equipped the Proteus tech-guard, research ships and Olm Knights would be. I.e. would my tech-guard have hellguns and carapace armour? Could the AM ships have superfired plasma batteries (exceptionally long range), especially powerful engines or force fields? Would Knights have assault cannons and autocannons, or multi-meltas and plasma cannons? Etc... But I guess I'll be able to work these things out by myself, and it seems we all have the same idea of these things.
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Post by Kage2020 on Jan 5, 2004 13:58:52 GMT -5
I.e. would my tech-guard have hellguns and carapace armour? Could the AM ships have superfired plasma batteries (exceptionally long range), especially powerful engines or force fields? Would Knights have assault cannons and autocannons, or multi-meltas and plasma cannons? Etc... The problem that you're going to run into there is the concept of the wargame and the 'fluff'. It is entirely in keeping with the 'fluff' for the above to be possible... but such flexibility is not present in the wargame with its requirement that overall game balance be maintined. I personally feel that it would be entirely appropriate for the adeptus mechanicus to be able to field more advanced weaponry... But hang on, that would be there 'secret' force. Their established force - the ones that everyone else knows about - are going to be using the same rough technology that the Imperium would be using. Kage
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Post by Minister on Jan 5, 2004 18:19:52 GMT -5
I belive what he is questioning is would the Mechanicus be better equipped (not nececarily equipped with more ADVANCED technology, just BETTER than the normal ), to which I would say: yes. (Although, if you actualy want to use them in a game, I would shy away from universal hellguns and have a high proportion of units using them. Doctrines wise Carapace and Grenadeers along with Stormtroopers, me thinks. Kage, ignore that statement.)
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Post by CELS on Jan 5, 2004 19:46:31 GMT -5
What 'secret force' are we talking about? There's the tech guard, which aren't secret at all, but still have fairly high-tech equipment, such as bionics, haywire grenades, targeters, carapace armour, etc. (Of course, they could be reported as only having crude autoguns and flak vests) And there's the various ships that are registered as explorer ships and research ships, that might have unknown transport and military deployment capabilties, as well as a lot of camouflaged weaponry.
Are you suggesting that the Adeptus Mechanicus has an additional force that is totally unknown to the Imperium?
(And btw, I was asking about both 'better' and 'more advanced' technology for the Tech guard, so thanks)
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