Zonetrooper

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[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Yeah, this question... like, this isn't even a question. So much stuff I would re-do...

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Shoutout to the Kraut Space Magic G11 and its weird, squared-off caseless cartridge. Note that the bullet itself is still circular.

This was supposed to help squeeze more propellant into a magazine by not 'wasting' the space unfilled when you stack circular cartridges on top of each other. In practice, the G11 had a number of technical issues, some of which could be traced to the caseless ammunition. It ended up going nowhere.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago

Consider this even moreso if you have a television in the house. "Silly cat, I can't bring the sun and birds back to the porch!" you say, and then turn on the magic window to a realm of sunshine and animals at any hour of the day.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

One could argue that “shock & awe” is a military strategy to specifically terrorize the enemy force, for example a military opponent.

Indeed, and that's why the definition hinges critically on the intended target (civilian vs. military). One could even argue that if you, as a civilian, see your nation's military forces march out and get torn to ribbons, and then the next night your city's sky is alive with enemy aircraft bombing military, government, or materiel targets, you have pretty good reason to be scared. But we wouldn't call this terrorism, even if there are some civilian casualties, because the primary targets are all legitimate ones intended to hamper your ability to wage war.

This strategy is one performed by an organized military that is ... bound by the rules of warfare ... Non-state actors (insurgents, terrorist groups) on the other hand are not beholden to any law. To me, this is another relevant distinction

This is another good point. We nominally expect that organized nations will adhere to the laws and customs of war. More critically, non-state actors also tend to not have uniforms, stash materiel among civilian populations (often even on sites protected under said laws and customs), and deliberately introduce ambiguity as to whether a target is military or civilian.

But this logic can also get murky when we consider states not recognizing other governments or arguing they are "occupied" by another, more ephemeral hostile force. It can be advantageous for a state to portray their enemy as an ephemeral, non-state actor, in part because it lets you portray the enemy as not adhering to laws and customs of war.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Nominally:

  • A terrorist attack is primarily intended to kill civilians or cause damage to civilian lives in order to cause fear of the attacking group, anger against the victims' own government, or otherwise cause a change of policy. The deaths of people with no relationship to any ongoing military operation or force is "a feature, not a bug". Military targets may also be hit, or the goal may even be to selectively target civilians to emphasize that their military cannot protect them.

  • A military strike is primarily intended to deteriorate an enemy force's ability to wage warfare: by killing soldiers or leadership, destroying materiel or supplies being used to fight, or destroying industry or logistics being used to support the war effort. Civilian deaths are an unavoidable side-effect of strikes primarily intended to hamper military warfighting capability.

That's the theoretical line.

In practice, of course, there are many points of disputation - how many degrees separated from a man holding a gun must a target be before it is "non-military"? If an organization which mainly targets civilians in terrorist attacks carries out an attack on a military target, that still might be referred to as a "terrorist attack", as in, "an attack by a terrorist organization". And of course, there's a degree of publicity shaping involved in this as well. But in concept, the above is your line.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 48 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's an interesting thought, but according to the article, it's not even clear that the fungus is absorbing radiation or befitting from radiation. Actual photosynthesis-via-radiation hasn't been demonstrated; it might simply be taking advantage of the absence of other species due to high radiation, or the radiation is triggering a stress response.

Beyond that, I'm not sure this fungus would have a better protection-per-ton rating than, say, water (which is an astoundingly good radiation shield). But, it might point us towards ways of developing plants which are radiation-tolerant, theoretically opening a path to growing food in orbital or lunar-surface environments.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hey! Thanks for the rep for !worldbuilding@lemmy.world . We are, admittedly, not as active as Reddit's equivalent due to Lemmy's fairly niche nature, but more are always welcome.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

This is really it. In some ways early CGI was actually more intensive than traditional setpiece, costume, and effects-making in that it had a very high technical skill floor. Not denigrating the skills of actual physical artists here, but you had to not just have an artistic sense, but be able to navigate (in some cases, program in the first place!) the tools behind it.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Yep. Their heroes, icons, leaders, family... and themselves.

Hell, they'd disbelieve if the glasses detected someone was telling the truth, but they didn't want to believe that!

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

People would very, very quickly start to rationalize why the detection couldn't possibly be right. Look at how many scientifically or historically proven things people already are willing to disregard because it conflicts with their worldview or beliefs!

So they detect "willful" deception? People would just fall back on the "...well, I didn't know" / "didn't think XYZ counted" / "didn't consider ABC" as their excuses. Or if it can be shown that 0.00-near-infinite-zeros-01% of the population has some quirk which makes them detect wrongly, suddenly there'd be most of the population claiming that.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago (3 children)

On the one hand, to me, "mobile suits" should feel titanic and weighty, larger than life. So yet another Gundam zipping around like a demented chimpanzee on crack is... I dunno. Fighting space robot aliens is also a choice, since the man-vs-man and political background is a key part of what distinguishes Gundam.

On the other hand, a Gundam game in 2027, by Bandai-Namco, scored by Mick Gordon? That is such incredible levels of hype and I really, really hope that this is good.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Torties, man. They never stop looking gorgeous.

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submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by Zonetrooper@lemmy.world to c/dnd@lemmy.world
 

Everyone has bad dice days. Everyone has that one time you get a Nat 1 at a critical moment.

But guys, my party is in trouble.

They're consistently rolling terribly in combat across multiple sessions, classes, and dice types. And I mean terribly. Over time, you'd think their d20 rolls would average out to about unmodified 10, right? Plus or minus a bit. Hah. No. They're averaging about 7. Other rolls (damage, healing, etc) also often suffer from this. It's turning combat into a slog; anything with an AC of above 12-14 or so is proving awful to fight, and when attacks do hit they often do little damage.

We're all experienced players, and it's a digital platform - so I can both know they're not missing modifications to the raw d20 roll, and know it's not "bad dice". Unfortunately, they're also experienced enough to figure out ACs from misses/hits, so it's not like I can even give them "free passes" on attacks as anti-frustration measures.

It's at the point where I'm thinking the honest only way to "fix" this is to artificially nerf NPCs or vastly reduce the CR I'm used to them being able to handle. Is that really it, folks?

 

The good ol' fashioned "You all meet in a tavern, answering a poster offering gold for help..."? The action-scene, "You're all engaged in mutual mundane task, when suddenly a band of thugs/goblins/whatever bust in looking for the plot coupon and chaos breaks out"? The "Elder Scrolls classic" - all being prisoners thrown in together? Tie it in to a character's backstory and let them lead the other party members in?

What have you found interesting or successful, and why?

 

Most warships we see launch mobile suits "horizontally" (i.e., in the direction the suit would faces when standing).

I'm curious if we've ever seen a mobile suit launch "vertically" (i.e., 'head" or "feet" first)? Obviously this wouldn't work for any earth-bound warships, but for spacegoing ones it'd be fine. In theory, this would allow vulnerable catapult doors to be far smaller launching "face-forward".

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