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[Warhammer 40k Online] speculation for the Speculation God!

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Posts

  • SJSJ College. Forever.Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Well to be fair a heavy bolter fires 1.0 cal ammo standard instead of .75 but the mechanics of how the round works are the same.

    SJ on
  • SkannerJATSkannerJAT Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Anyone here read through the Horus Heresy novels? I am finishing up Descent of Angels and am wondering why this book was even included. Its great having a back story for a Primarch, but nothing of relevance is going on.

    The Lion must be one of the most boring Primarchs too. Granted the author kind of blows but damn. Why build an entire book around someone so mediocre?

    SkannerJAT on
  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    The Dark Angels portion of the HH series is pretty much considered to be the worst of the bunch.

    Granted, it is nice seeing what lead to the destruction of Caliban.

    Nobody on
  • DemiurgeDemiurge Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Nobody wrote: »
    The Dark Angels portion of the HH series is pretty much considered to be the worst of the bunch.

    Granted, it is nice seeing what lead to the destruction of Caliban.

    I'm still undecided on whether or not the Lion is a traitor or not. Its really hard to tell from the backstory and the whole split doesn't make sense at all. Basicly the new blood marines from Caliban are a bunch of assholes and the Lion is actively marginalising the first founding marines from Terra and anyone he decides to have a beef with.

    Demiurge on
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  • SkannerJATSkannerJAT Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    From the background I read he did not seem to turn at all. Unless I missed something, he was late to the party but never turned on the Emperor.

    Speaking of turning, the foreshadowing of Luther's turning is so painfully obvious. Wish the author would stop beating me over the head with the idea.

    SkannerJAT on
  • Evil WeevilEvil Weevil Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    SkannerJAT wrote: »
    Anyone here read through the Horus Heresy novels? I am finishing up Descent of Angels and am wondering why this book was even included. Its great having a back story for a Primarch, but nothing of relevance is going on.

    The Lion must be one of the most boring Primarchs too. Granted the author kind of blows but damn. Why build an entire book around someone so mediocre?

    I haven't read the Dark Angels yet but I managed to read Legion and Battle for the Abyss.

    Legion was much better in all regards, Battle of the Abyss wasn't bad but compared to Legion it's very very boring.

    Evil Weevil on
  • MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Is our clan name going to be

    "Always Angry"?

    MagicPrime on
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  • SJSJ College. Forever.Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    No.

    SJ on
  • ForumiteForumite Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited August 2010
    we have a few years to come up with a good destruction guild name and a good order guild name

    Forumite on
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  • ArghyArghy Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Theres a really good recent dark angels book that does a better job of telling the caliban story then decent of angels. I fucking love when
    he tells the chaplain that the lion wasent late he was just seeing which side would come out on top

    Arghy on
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  • SkannerJATSkannerJAT Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Arghy wrote: »
    Theres a really good recent dark angels book that does a better job of telling the caliban story then decent of angels. I fucking love when
    he tells the chaplain that the lion wasent late he was just seeing which side would come out on top

    I recall that tidbit Arghy, and I agree. Much better then the mediocrity of the Descent telling

    SkannerJAT on
  • ArghyArghy Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    That entire book was fucking awesome at showing that the dark angels arent just some emo chapter. I loved how there was literally nothing they could do to prepare their marines to resist the fallen bar disbanding their entire chapter.

    Arghy on
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  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    If that's the book I'm thinking of, then that book is actually pretty old.

    Ahh, here it is.

    I didn't know it had gotten a reprint in 2008. The one I had read came out in 2003 :P

    Nobody on
  • SyrdonSyrdon Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    SJ wrote: »
    Well to be fair a heavy bolter fires 1.0 cal ammo standard instead of .75 but the mechanics of how the round works are the same.
    You know, that means a bolter round is relatively unimpressive by modern standards. For reference .75 cal is about 20 millimeters (well, 19 nearly on the dot but I'm going to round) and I can only remember them being impact fused high explosive or armor piercing HE in the fluff. I'm pretty sure I recall the US trying to field radar fused 20 mm shells in infantry weapons to give folks the option of having it explode above, in front of or slightly behind whatever you're shooting at (from what I recall the project got canned over budget issues). Incidentally, its also about the same size as a 12 gauge round, and those are used (poorly) in full auto weapons these days.

    1 cal works out to about 25 mm, which I can't find anything good for, but from what I remember if you go up to about 1.57 cal (40 mm) you can get pretty much everything but a swiss army knife coming out of your barrel, and those are definitely carried by modern infantry (since Vietnam I think actually), but I have no idea what a reasonable rate of fire or load is for those (other than slow and not much).

    Syrdon on
  • MrDelishMrDelish Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    Is our clan name going to be

    "Always Wangry"?

    MrDelish on
  • RaslinRaslin Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Syrdon wrote: »
    SJ wrote: »
    Well to be fair a heavy bolter fires 1.0 cal ammo standard instead of .75 but the mechanics of how the round works are the same.
    You know, that means a bolter round is relatively unimpressive by modern standards. For reference .75 cal is about 20 millimeters (well, 19 nearly on the dot but I'm going to round) and I can only remember them being impact fused high explosive or armor piercing HE in the fluff. I'm pretty sure I recall the US trying to field radar fused 20 mm shells in infantry weapons to give folks the option of having it explode above, in front of or slightly behind whatever you're shooting at (from what I recall the project got canned over budget issues). Incidentally, its also about the same size as a 12 gauge round, and those are used (poorly) in full auto weapons these days.

    1 cal works out to about 25 mm, which I can't find anything good for, but from what I remember if you go up to about 1.57 cal (40 mm) you can get pretty much everything but a swiss army knife coming out of your barrel, and those are definitely carried by modern infantry (since Vietnam I think actually), but I have no idea what a reasonable rate of fire or load is for those (other than slow and not much).

    It can be difficult to try and compare to real life standards.

    But really, a fully automatic 20mm infantry rifle, capable of firing fully automatic, using gyrojet-like explosive bullets with depleted uranium tips, armour penetrating(easily capable of penetrating any widely used real life armour), highly accurate, and to top it all off... its the most basic weapon they use.

    Sure, we have stuff similar to boltguns. But then, marines have plasma cannons, multi melta's, and god damned assault cannons. Not to mention higher shit, like psycannons, conversion beamers, etc.

    Anyways, the point is that bolters fire explosive bullets, and thats grimdark as shit.

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  • SJSJ College. Forever.Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Syrdon wrote: »
    SJ wrote: »
    Well to be fair a heavy bolter fires 1.0 cal ammo standard instead of .75 but the mechanics of how the round works are the same.
    You know, that means a bolter round is relatively unimpressive by modern standards. For reference .75 cal is about 20 millimeters (well, 19 nearly on the dot but I'm going to round) and I can only remember them being impact fused high explosive or armor piercing HE in the fluff. I'm pretty sure I recall the US trying to field radar fused 20 mm shells in infantry weapons to give folks the option of having it explode above, in front of or slightly behind whatever you're shooting at (from what I recall the project got canned over budget issues). Incidentally, its also about the same size as a 12 gauge round, and those are used (poorly) in full auto weapons these days.

    1 cal works out to about 25 mm, which I can't find anything good for, but from what I remember if you go up to about 1.57 cal (40 mm) you can get pretty much everything but a swiss army knife coming out of your barrel, and those are definitely carried by modern infantry (since Vietnam I think actually), but I have no idea what a reasonable rate of fire or load is for those (other than slow and not much).

    Are you out of your mind? Unimpressive? Do you have any idea what a .30 cal does to someone? And that's just a fucking AK-47. What difference does it make that you can convert it into millimeters, a bolter is over twice the size of a .30 cal and explodes when it's inside of you.

    SJ on
  • Mr.SunshineMr.Sunshine Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Mr.Sunshine on
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Bolters fire tank rounds designed for enemy infantry as a basic weapon and someone's going "man that ain't shit"

    I don't even

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • Librarian's ghostLibrarian's ghost Librarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSpork Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    So long as we don't get into an argument about Earthshaker Basilisk rounds being mortars like we did in the TT thread, we should be fine.

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  • Redcoat-13Redcoat-13 Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    The Decent of Angels book, looks to be part of a series. A second one came out, Fallen Angels, which carries on with the story arc.

    It's an ok set of books; I suspect that alot of disappointment from it, comes from people not knowing that it was going to be it's own series, so I'll reserve judgement until the next one (I suspect that will be the last one) comes out.

    The Dark Angel's got their own series, probably because the story it tells, is opposite to the Horus Heresy itself.

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  • SyrdonSyrdon Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Bolters fire tank rounds designed for enemy infantry as a basic weapon and someone's going "man that ain't shit"

    I don't even
    25 mm isn't a tank round. 20 mm isn't either. Current tank rounds are around 5 times those diameters and even WW 2 tanks were floating somewhere between 3 and 4 times that diameter I think (no actual research done there beyond memory though). As far as them being unimpressive, the point isn't the damage you can do if you hit someone, its what else you can do. The explosive is overkill for unarmored infantry, particularly when you spend one bullet one each of them (as opposed to, say, some sort of airburst detonation where you get several of them with the shrapnel). Packing a shell full of high explosive and hardening the point is fairly damn simple as far as rounds go. One would hope that by the time someone has figured out how to make environmentally sealed suits of power armor that have seeming limitless power supplies that we'd have advanced beyond a round in use 1939. As far as the gyrojet portion goes, none of the benefits of that sort of propulsion would seem to apply at the ranges bolters are typically used. Specifically, for the 20 mm rounds in use today, I'm not seeing anything with an effective range under 1000 m (although its worth noting that the accurate range of the operator may be a lot less than that. Can't blame the round for that though).

    At least one of those issues could be changed by writing less entertaining fluff, and another could be changed by unbalancing the tabletop game (or writing space marines as being even more over powered in the fluff), but the way its handled the rounds that they have coming out of bolters in 39,000 years are the same rounds that were coming out of anti-tank rifles in 1939, with some modifications to the materials.

    Grimdark as shit? Yes. Up to par with the rest of their universe? No.

    edit: if the only goal is to make pretty explosions, giving them a slower firing weapon in the 80 mm range should do the trick nicely. I haven't sen anything to indicate that they wouldn't be able to use that. It'd be slower and they wouldn't be able to fire it on the move but the kick should be within their abilities to handle. It does run in to the same problem of making for less interesting fluff though.

    Syrdon on
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    You are overthinking this a bit too much

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    MrDelish wrote: »
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    Is our clan name going to be

    "Always Wangry"?
    :^:

    MagicPrime on
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  • CorehealerCorehealer The Apothecary The softer edge of the universe.Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    MrDelish wrote: »
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    Is our clan name going to be

    "Always Wangry"?
    :^:

    :^:

    Corehealer on
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  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I recall a picture, I think it was in either first astartes codex or possibly the chaos codex, but it has a chaos space marine with his bolter pointed at a guardsman's head. the bolter barrel was the size of the mans head.

    this would be pretty close to tank barrel size I believe.

    TheKoolEagle on
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  • SJSJ College. Forever.Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Syrdon wrote: »
    blah blah blah

    How long did you spend writing that? Because you have completely missed the point, in addition to being wrong.

    SJ on
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Too long

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Syrdon, you're missing the entire point.

    The fantasy science behind a bolter is pretty fucking clear to understand. In the current times (we'll call this now times), we have .50cal anti-infantry weapons. These weapons turn anything with in their optimal range and behind light cover, to mince meat.

    These .50cal weapons generally take 2 round to put a man down. You can do it in 1 precise shot (such as with a sniper rife), but with something like a mounted fully automatic weapon...the odds of hitting directly on target and not just winging someone are pretty low (also, the odds of you just accidentally putting two rounds into him because you're firing on the highly wasteful fully automatic mode).

    We also have higher caliber weapons, but lets ignore those. Because right now we are talking about guns designed for their intended target pool. Anti-infantry. The fantasy Bolter is designed to shoot its bullet into a target, and kill it in one round. Conserving ammo, causing fear, and taking advantage of the increased skills of a space marine.

    The Bolter is also designed for one intended target pool. Anti-infantry. Do you see a theme here? The .50cal mounted machine gun is to heavy, to unwieldy, and impossible to aim for a human being without bracing it first, or using some kind of bracing device. The Bolter, a .75cal weapon, can be fired by the space marine with one hand, from the hip or sighted, in fact, the space marine can fire two of these in each hand sighted down on different targets!

    Back to modern warfare, the .50cal weaponry is pretty much universally feared. It rips through light cover, is highly effective and destroying human bodies, and can be used to suppress an area, they can also get really lucky and destroy light armor with a few well placed shots. It can not, however, break through moderate to heavy cover, or do anything but ping off medium and heavy armor.

    In fantasy land of 40k, the .75cal bolter...operates much the same way! It is not designed to destroy heavy armor, it is not designed to punch through a solid steel reinforced wall and hit the target on the other side.

    The magical bolter does exactly what it is designed to do. It puts a single round into a single target, and destroys that target, with one round. It's target pool is human/humanoid/squishy bug things.

    I'm pretty sure, a gun that fires a .75cal AP, Explosive round, at a pretty solid distance...Doesn't need any improvements. It's a modern .50cal machine gun (used on thousands of vehicles as anti human/humanoid weapons), that only needs 1 round to kill, except, it can hit you anywhere with that round. Once that .75cal round is inside you, you're dead. Oh! Oh! and it's fired in a hand held package.

    That is the entire point you are desperately trying to counter. It doesn't need a bigger round, and probably the only reason they don't go smaller, is because they designed a ton of these bolters, and like NATO, don't want to re-tool.

    Anon the Felon on
  • Metal Gear Solid 2 DemoMetal Gear Solid 2 Demo Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    no, stop this

    stop

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  • ArghyArghy Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Whats this about the earthshaker being a mortar round!

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  • SyrdonSyrdon Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Syrdon, you're missing the entire point.
    No, I understood what the bunch of you said. Here's the bit that you've missed "As far as them being unimpressive, the point isn't the damage you can do if you hit someone, its what else you can do." Or you could go with "the rounds that they have coming out of bolters in 39,000 years are the same rounds that were coming out of anti-tank rifles in 1939." Putting it in an infantry rifle when wielded by a supersoldier doesn't make the round or the gun more advanced, it just makes the user strong enough to manage it.

    The round makes a mess and that's it. That's all current .50 cals do too in most cases. Compare that with what else you can do (or, at least, what your other options are for making messes) in some of the larger calibers.

    Syrdon on
  • RaslinRaslin Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Still missing the point, Sydron.

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  • PoketpixiePoketpixie Siege Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    They shrunk the firing platform down so it's hand held instead of braced or vehicle mounted and the ammo it uses is a high explosive round instead of a simple, kinetic round. They've made it so the marine is capable of firing the weapon without blowing his own arm off from the recoil and is able to maintain pinpoint accuracy.

    Ok, so it's not a mini deathstar capable of destroying an entire fortress with one shot.

    Perhaps it's destructive capability isn't awe inspiring but that's still a pretty hefty technological advance.

    Poketpixie on
  • FiarynFiaryn Omnicidal Madman Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I'd say that's pretty damn effective for the bog standard, generic Space Marine armament. The absolute weakest weapon available to them.

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  • SkannerJATSkannerJAT Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Now I want to see Space Marines take over the Death Star. Poor Storm Troopers :(

    SkannerJAT on
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    SkannerJAT wrote: »
    Now I want to see Space Marines take over the Death Star. Poor Storm Troopers :(
    I always kind of wondered how the Space Marines got their name, in-universe. Usually, archaic military unit names come about as established units evolve over time. That's why you still have Cavalry units, Fusiliers and the like. Those units used to be mounted on horseback and armed with a fusil (musket), respectively, hence the names. The names remained, even though the equipment is gone. The US Marine Corps will probably evolve into a space marine force in the future.

    On the other hand, IIRC, Warhammer Space Marine chapters were created by the Emperor- they didn't evolve from an actual marine force. I'm not sure why you would name a newly-created space-faring elite force "Marines" given that history.

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  • ApollohApolloh Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Because IRL Marines are pretty bad dudes.

    Throw them in space and holy shit you are in for an asskicking.

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  • RaslinRaslin Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Of course, space marines are just a colloquial name.

    They are the Adeptus Astartes, which evolved from the Legion Astartes.

    Perhaps there was a history of the emperor's genetically altered soldiers making large naval invasions back on terra, assuming the oceans were still there when the wars over terra were occuring?

    Who knows.

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  • FiarynFiaryn Omnicidal Madman Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Modern Man wrote: »
    SkannerJAT wrote: »
    Now I want to see Space Marines take over the Death Star. Poor Storm Troopers :(
    I always kind of wondered how the Space Marines got their name, in-universe. Usually, archaic military unit names come about as established units evolve over time. That's why you still have Cavalry units, Fusiliers and the like. Those units used to be mounted on horseback and armed with a fusil (musket), respectively, hence the names. The names remained, even though the equipment is gone. The US Marine Corps will probably evolve into a space marine force in the future.

    On the other hand, IIRC, Warhammer Space Marine chapters were created by the Emperor- they didn't evolve from an actual marine force. I'm not sure why you would name a newly-created space-faring elite force "Marines" given that history.

    This is the only relevant part of the post. They were created by the Emperor and named by the Emperor.

    Are you questioning the will of the Emperor?

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This discussion has been closed.