It occurred to me that if Planetside were real....

That's funny. I always imagined Vanu as possessing alien technology, but having an imperfect understanding of it. That the whole Vanu '"we are the most advanced" was propaganda and that what they are really doing is the sci-fi equivalent of clopping around the house in mummy's shoes.

I think it gives them farther to fall if anyone were to find out. Rather than being quantitatively more advanced they work very hard on appearing that way whilst using dangerous, ancient technology that no-one understands and hiding the fact that so many of their researchers and test pilots end up as green smears on a wall.... or just disappear altogether... :s
We're really talking your Dr Kevorkians and Moreaus here. Morality is literally ****, the scummy limescale of 'monkeythink' dirtying their nice clean view into the future.

Anyway, if they really did have anti-tank lasers, anti-grav, had aircraft that fired photons like short range missiles and a general understanding of the level of technology these things require, there wouldn't be a war. Vanu would have won in half a day and forced TR and NC into a bitter guerrilla campaign, just like every other time a technologically superior army has invaded a backwater (sure I don't need to provide examples to this mostly American player base).

They aren't The Culture. They're closer to Weyland-Yutani.

sorrry i was thinking lasers...i had a complete brain shutdown when i said that

They use both but speaking of plasma, your Vanny would be so boiled when Scythe comes with PPA. Melts straight through armor.

No because gauss/rail dont do all acceleration at once- its not an explosion causing way to much excess recoil (gunpowder Im looking at you) just because the vanguard can toss the other tanks around- which with advances in science and better understanding of physics could lead to- Does not mean it would move.

LOL.
You responded TWO years later. Congrats, man!
In my opinion, it could be just a tie. Terrans would enjoy CQC superiority, as their weapons would be too fast and too unlimited in terms of ammunition to be beat. NC would enjoy general combat superiority, as the velocity of their weaponry would pretty much annihilate anything (however, the biggest issue is how to generate energy for their weapons). The VS would enjoy long range and vehicle superiority, as the Magrider could definitely avoid a Prowler's cannonfire, and can get to places a Vanguard can't. Plus, the plasma the VS would use in such a scenario would expand over a larger area the longer the firing range is. With proper containment, VS weapons would be able to DISINTEGRATE enemy troops at ranges above 120 meters, before the plasma overextends itself and turns into warm air.

I'm thinking the reason that vanu has bullet drop is that we're actually firing rounds smaller than a bullet, with integrated electronics to generate a shaped parabolic magnetic field around itself to contain the outer plasma sheath for the duration of the projectiles flight. That's also why our rounds travel slower, because they don't have as much mass behind them, and the shaped plasma loses its aerodynamic properties due to the tip of the plasma flattening out against the onrushing air. No-drop weapons might have built in propulsion systems to combat the arc.

Focus groups didn't find the Old Conglomerate to bee "cool" or "modern" enough, so we changed the name.

There is a possibility that real world physics and real world bodies would react in the way that the post intenss, but there is something to consider, in the game none of the players, weapons, bullets, or vehicles are actually what they appear. Everything is made of nanites. Your character in the game is really a nanite avatar controlled by a brain in a tank on the mothership high above auraxis.

The question is, what are nanites? They seem to have mass as they can fall and take damage. They seem to be rigid and frail at the same time. My theory is that nanites are projections, light made solid through magical science fiction wondermagic. The player health experienced in game is actually a representation of the player's connection from the brain in the mothership to the avatar on the surface below. When you take damage in game you are losing the connectiom when you die. Things like the medic tools repair this connection.

The engineer repair tool repairs the connection of a vehicle as well. Because vehicles ckst so much extra energy they cost rationed nanites. Vehicle nanites are generally more rigid tham avatar nanites, resulting in players being forced to pay nanite rations to afford them.

My theory is supported by several factors, when you die in game, your body dissolves. When you pull a vehicle, you dissolve into it. When a vehicle is destroyed, it desolves. This could mean that there is some sort of chemical reaction, but more likely this means that the light particals are no longer being governed by the connection to the mothership.

I saw in this one documentary, a rail gun from the navy KILLED DEVESTATOR IN ONE HIT! RAILGUNS ARE CLEARLY THE BEST!!!!

If we assume the NC got actual Gauss weapons, then we should assume the others have gotten similar upgrades. The VS uses superheated plasma, which is actually only a great weapon in science fiction and less so in real life. However, if we assume they fire some kind of super-corrosive material in a plasmatic container it could work. The more corrosive something is, the faster it consumes itself, seeing that the shot almost instantly dissapears on contact this corrosive stuff could almost fall through the armor without slowing down (we already have materials that can actually fal through your arm without slowing down, so in this future...)
This makes the distinction between AP, HEAT and HE very clear as well. AP has a much faster self-consumption rate, allowing it to better penetrate armor (even the armor of a Vanguard). HEAT and HE have slightly slower consumption times meaning they reach just a little further before hitting something or reacting with the air and dissipating.

TR would be screwed unless they had really, really specialised shells. But this is the future! Through nano-technology they can create perfect weapons that pass 99% of their energy on to the armor with as little as possible going in other directions. Fire extremely heavy shaped charges that on impact create massive jets of liquified heavy metals into the armor (that's how shaped charges already work) and the smaller caliber might still work.

But NC would still pretty much have one huge advantage: The faster something goes the more damage it'll do. Bullets accelerated fast enough will hit with the force of grenades, a shell accelerated fast enough will liquify itself in-flight and explode on contact, possibly taking out a few tanks next to it. The biggest problem would be preventing the shell from damaging the tank itself during the fire sequence, which will limit the maximum speed of the shell.

I would think a similar thing happens to infantry weapons as with tank weapons. A bullet accelerated enough will hit with the impact of grenades... but any action has an opposite reaction. The recoil would be enough to launch the user in the air and maybe mush him up, if it doesn't just tear his arms off. They would need a specialised shield to survive the shot themselves. So a lower amount of energy would be required, and fast-firing weapons would be minimal. The time between shots could range between anything, but in the end there's just a golden spot where amount of bullets fired and recoil are balanced enough that a soldier can fire it and doesn't have to be a marksman for optimum effect.

VS wouldn't have such problems. Using similar super-heated corrosive stuff as the tanks they can fire loads of it at a time. Seeing that armor and shields won't stand up that much against it, they might be better off than the NC.

TR... "conventional chemically propelled bullets" is what they use, and boy are they screwed if they try that against the sophisticated weapons of the VS and NC, on such a small scale it won't matter what kind of shape the bullet is or what kind of conventional stuff they put in them, they are going to lose, hard.

All this really boils down to is a pointless debate akin to 'superman vs batman, who would win?' the only difference is there are three contenders with 50% more pointlessness.

You know what's funny? While you look at the American civil wars for reference, I'm looking at the more recent wars, such as WW1 and WW2 and the small-scale wars fought in europe and middle eastern countries.

For instance, let's go to the famous blitzkrieg warfare from the ****'s, or the Russian tanks of that era. They were lower tech, but cheaper to produce while able to wield similar firepower as the allied could field. This helped in their war-effort as they could destroy more tanks and at first at least lose less tanks due to more barrels aimed the right way.
Similar examples can be found in the AK series of weapons, AK-47 being the most famous. The Americans developed the "superior" M6, but despite it's higher cost it was more prone to failure, needed more servicing and care and was in general worse off than the AK-47, which was up until a few years ago still in use even by superpowers China and Russia.

The last few wars that America had to fight had a massive difference in tech-level. It was litterally farmers with anything they could find, sometimes using muscets, versus a highly trained, expensive military using combat helicopters, aircraft etc. The total amount of EOD explosives used in all those wars might not even be more expensive than a single aircraft the VS used.

In Planetside 2 however, the difference is far smaller. You can see it in the way everything behaves. The VS might be using floating tanks, but they also sport the lowest amount of armor and firepower in their main canons, possibly due to recoil restrictions because they are floating about rather than using conventional, reliable tread vehicles. This already shows that the VS are making more a show of technology than having superior technology. Even using plasma-based weapons is a dumb descision, as they are far less efficient than most conventional weapons even if you maximised the output. Did you see the little video of the accelerator firing a 3KG shell at mach 7? The firestorm you see at the barrel end is the very air erupting in fire, turning into plasma. Plasma is nothing but another state for matter to be in, even the area surrounding a candle holds plasma. And the problem with superheating a relatively tiny object and firing it, is that it'll lose much of the heat energy in-flight, if it doesn't just fall apart into a plasma-cloud before it even reaches it's target. Plasma is one of the most impractical weapons invented by science fiction.
Also, all 3 sides have access to rebirthing technology and nano-building of weapons and equipment. This means that each vehicle is perfect down to a molecular scale, allowing for maximum efficiency for each vehicle type. This also means that their ammunition is perfectly designed, meaning the technological advantages of one technology become less potent compare to the others.

No, if PlanetSide were real, the Vanu would be unbelievably deadly, and the NC would be wiped out in months. The TR wouldn't be stubborn, because technology is easy to get, if you can reverse engineer it, then you will have your enemy's technology.

The stubborn crap that the TR, NC, and VS have is just typical of sci-fi. Like a super militant empire, where everyone is a warrior, it's total bs.

So, I think the TR would win, because they already absolutely dwarf the NC and VS in size and production capacity. And the second the Terrans collected NC and Vanu tech, it would be used like there's no tomorrow.

The second the Terrans killed some NC terrorists,and took their weapons back home, they would be stripped down, reverse engineered, document how they're built, and with what. And they would be mass produced.

The same would go with Vanu technology, except instead of being built on a small scale as I'd expect with the NC, and on a small industrial scale with the Vanu, it would be produced in massive numbers.


The TR in reality is just invincible, it's just way too big compared to the Vanu or NC. And they aren't defending a homeland, so they don't have the support of the people like the French did, how the Polish did, etc.

The Vanu would probably by the scariest thing at the start of the war. The NC would be just...gone.

But the TR would eventually run down the VS, and the NC if they still exist by that point.

If PS2 were real...we might have developed the technology to climb a damn hill properly and learnt how to swim.

i've got BB guns that fire faster than 650 FPS

That's just so we can watch the terror in your eyes before you expire. We had REAL lasers but PaPa Vanu was very insistent on using slow lasers it's almost as if he was controlling our minds.

Are you wacko? Vanu would wreck everybody, they are more advanced technologically. Meaning in a real setting, their weapon would be far more devastating while their armor/maneuverability would be higher.

And let's imagine it hits a forefield.... nothing happens (kind of like the infantry one, or the spawn room one). Breaking through rock doesn't mean all-mighty.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Plasma_Cannon

All seem to be useful in the 31st century. Why not in the 29th?

Gauss technology takes alot of power. But is very destructive. And for you all claiming that its not feasible.. its going onto ships, then tanks. Its only a matter of time till its made smaller.

About 16 or 17 years ago I was in the Electronic Vehicle club for my High School. A small pick up truck had its engine removed as well as its transmission. It was replaced by an electric motor and batteries. It weighed much more than it did with a ICE. Ten years later, we have hybrids and electric cars with even lighter batteries and power sources.

Who's to say that trend doesn't continue?

But people love to emulate the current-day scientific community who spends more time saying you can't do something, and tries to prove things wrong sitting behind desks and reading facebook/twitter... where engineers pioneer forward, combining intuition, trial and error, and good old fashioned ingenuity, and take impossibilities and make them work.

The lack of actual railgun-style weapons for NC has indeed bummed me out. Firstly, they would not look or sound like normal chemical guns. And you wouldn't have some mystic blue muzzle flare. If anything, you'd get a flash of burning air following the bullet as it leaves the chamber.
And because a railgun uses massive amounts of electricity, it would be far more likely that NC guns would take batteries instead of ammo magazines. The guns would likely store all their ammo internally since the projectiles could be small (and just accelerated super fast) and would need no casings. And Vanu, with their plasma guns, should have ammo clips, because all that plasma that they shoot has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere certainly isn't batteries.
I guess what I'm saying is that Planetside =/= realism. (As much as I would love to see some real railgun tech.)

Also it has been shown that high velocity ammo is actually less lethal than slower velocity ammo due to the flowering effect of slower ammo that shreds internal organs while a high velocity punches a much cleaner hole. The collapse of the air cause by the vacuum MIGHT cause some extra damage if it is large enough,but most of the kinetic energy in the round would pass right through.

As to vs armored vehicles It would be devestating. Softer targets, not so much.