tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post1885783781691767475..comments2023-07-04T03:20:09.860-07:00Comments on William's Corner: Extermination Teaser 3E. William Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10474901849783297203noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-85213263296405309542015-11-12T01:50:30.736-08:002015-11-12T01:50:30.736-08:00The same actually applies to the mortars. They are...The same actually applies to the mortars. They are most likely absurdly heavy for the task they need to do. There is no need for a solid tube. A mesh would make more sense. That is a good example for not knowing and considering the implications of magic. You could make a bazooka based on that principle. Just blow out an equal mass of sand out of the end of a mesh tube. Possibly even a magic shaped charge warhead by controlling the sequence and shape the metal is conjured in.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04828441907873796955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-5946053857471485902015-11-12T01:45:31.651-08:002015-11-12T01:45:31.651-08:00No need for any revolving parts for a revolver can...No need for any revolving parts for a revolver cannon. You are thinking in terms of a weapon that needs a chamber to contain an explosion. For a force enchantment that isn't needed. If you can conjure multiple bullets in a row (in generators right next to the barrel but not inside it) you can accelerate the whole group. You can have multiple such chambers arranged around a central barrel. In fact it is hard to see why you absolutely need a physical barrel. Something with holes in it should conduct the magic as well and would lower air resistance. You have no hot gasses to contain. Your weapon is a railgun, not a firearm.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04828441907873796955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-72999414440319981042015-11-09T13:19:15.705-08:002015-11-09T13:19:15.705-08:00Volley fire was used for devastating effect during...Volley fire was used for devastating effect during the war between the states even though technology allowed for greater accuracy. <br />It also allows for those with limited training to have something to focus on other than the oncoming enemy.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13179037297729072982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-81176580594194860982015-11-09T13:12:20.720-08:002015-11-09T13:12:20.720-08:00Just remember the rate of fire for ALL other firea...Just remember the rate of fire for ALL other firearms in Daniels world is ZERO.<br />The British conquered a lot of our world with a musket that had a rate of fire of approximately 6 rounds per minute.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13179037297729072982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-16444057696827700172015-11-08T00:22:41.261-08:002015-11-08T00:22:41.261-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17609648387844093437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-81765097001518101402015-11-08T00:00:43.903-08:002015-11-08T00:00:43.903-08:00I'm going to have to do a blog post about powe...I'm going to have to do a blog post about power levels at some point. I'm of the opinion that Hollywood, and to a lesser extent recent written fiction, has gotten into a bad habit of pitting powerless characters against unstoppable foes and then having them 'win' via some nonsensical deus ex machina. This is a lazy method of artificially inflating the drama in a story, and the price comes in the form of an unsatisfying ending.<br /><br />I prefer more of an RPG approach, where you create a protagonist who actually has a somewhat reasonable level of firepower compared to his enemies. Being the underdog is fine, but he should be strong enough to plausibly pull off a victory using some combination of brains, determination and tactical skill. This makes for much better fight scenes, and allows me to make the bad guys actually competent instead of having them trip and fall on their own swords in the last chapter.<br /><br />Of course, since Daniel is trying to survive Ragnarok that standard means he has to have the potential to actually matter in a war between gods. So yes, he ends up being a pretty powerful character. But don't worry, he's still well below the level where I'd start having trouble coming up with challenges for him.E. William Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10474901849783297203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-84678554125785497902015-11-07T23:46:46.950-08:002015-11-07T23:46:46.950-08:00Why would you assume that monsters have unbreakabl...Why would you assume that monsters have unbreakable morale? Creatures like goblins and trolls aren't necessarily any braver than humans.<br /><br />But aside from that, I think Grimmelhausen has it right. It isn't really essential for weapons with a high rate of fire, but it has some modest practical benefits. It also gives Daniel's half-trained soldiers something to concentrate on other than the size of the onrushing enemy horde, which can sometimes be a valuable morale booster.<br /><br />As for the calcs, I use a two-step process. First I figure out what numbers sound reasonable to me, and that's what Daniel uses. Then I actually look up numbers and do the math, to find out what would really happen. So far Daniel has always gotten close enough to compensate for his mistakes with magic, but sooner or later he's going to fumble one of these engineering challenges...E. William Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10474901849783297203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-17542056557646933792015-11-07T23:18:16.606-08:002015-11-07T23:18:16.606-08:00Volley fire had more than psychological effect. Fo...Volley fire had more than psychological effect. For one when dealing with an enemy using massed ranks it also served to disrupt his formation, and, if done the way the British did it, maintaining a continuous stream of fire. <br /><br />You are however correct though that fast repeating arms, in this case semi-automatics really, have largely rendered the practice obsolete as the individual fire rate rose so much each individual soldier effectively became the equivalent of a front-loader era firing line.<br /><br />It can still be useful for conscript armies as a way to compensate indifferent individual marksmanship with volume of fire. Militaries comprised of highly trained longtime service professionals tend to be small, expensive, and very vulnerable to quality erosion when faced with protracted wars of attrition. <br /><br />Grimmelhausenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00629289185884708740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-4590487288382892102015-11-07T22:23:51.795-08:002015-11-07T22:23:51.795-08:00I was doing some calculations and it appears that ...I was doing some calculations and it appears that with about perfect conversion, 1 gram mass will lift about one 2 story house 1 meter per second for 1 year in standard gravity. I got the impression that the average power output of his amulet was giving energy about the amount to lift an average house 1 meter per second in standard gravity. Since the described amulet used for most of book 2 is "a few pounds" or between 1 and 5 kilograms, that means that if the matter to energy enchantment has an efficiency of 10% (which is what I had guestimated), the amulet would last "a few centuries" or between 1 century and 5 to 10 centuries. My gut feeling was that the amulet would last millenia, instead of centuries, but the calculations based on speculative numbers indicate that the indicated centuries were a quite accurate estimate of how long the amulet would last. Did you run the calculations before publishing the book? Also, from my research voley fire was only effective as a psychological tactic (or perhaps firing faster by having half the line get out of the way, which wouldn't work with a 1 hz fire rate) and psychological tactics like that only work when an enemy might retreat or run away. Since most of the enemies are inhuman monsters that don't know fear, I was a little put off by the implications that voley fire was important for guns that had a fire rate of greater than 60 rounds per minute.Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17609648387844093437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-72644978943148219102015-11-07T22:18:57.814-08:002015-11-07T22:18:57.814-08:00Speaking of developments - technological that is -...Speaking of developments - technological that is - anyone want to speculate what important (re)inventions by our latter day yankee in nobody's court we'll see in this volume and/or which tricks he missed last time?<br /><br />My contender for the first is: radios. <br /><br />Daniel's done a decent job on the arms armor and mobility front as well as making good progress on infrastructure and logistics, but the one area his team has zilch until now is communication. Which was okay so long as everybody on Team Black was crammed into a couple of barges within shouting distance of oneanother or later doing static defense from a single strong point were runners could pass messages at 'good enough' speed, but once you combine motor transport and offensive operations radio communication or some techno-magical equivalent becomes crucial, and a _huge_ force multiplier. The obvious way to go about it, aside from reinventing actual radios, would be to modify the mana transmission spell. If you can transmit power over long distances you can also transmit information. In fact you already are. Use the energy transmitted through the spell link to stimulate vibrations in a crystal tie that to a speaker/microphone combo and voila: two-way radio with at least thirty mile range. Okay more like a wireless telephone line since it would only tie two specific receiver/transmitters together but that can be solved by a central 'switchboard' - manned or automated - that patches people through to oneanother.<br /><br />My candidate for the 'best missed trick' category is the revolver cannon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver_cannon). <br /><br />We know Daniel put 25 mm guns in a rotating turret on top of his Mk.I APC/AAA prototypes and they impressed the heck out of the locals with their fire power, but lets be honest a cycling rate of 120 rounds per minute is kind of anemic for that type of weapon. The bottleneck to getting moar dakka was identified as the guns ammo mini-factory /spell taking half a second to summon a new bullet. Now we know Daniel's personal sidearm houses multiple <br />ammo-facs in a revolver drum arrangement allowing him to easily switch between different ammo-types with a twist of the cylinder. If we take that type of multiple bullet-fac drum, scale it up to 25 mm, integrate it with the APC turret cannon, add a spell to make the drum spin at 120 rpm (which is fairly slow) when the trigger is held down, and another spell that has a fac fire whenever it lines up with the barrel then the autocannon's <br />cycling rate goes up by 120 rounds a minute per 'chamber'. For a classic six chamber drum that means 720 rounds per minute. Which is still chicken feed compared to the four-figure monsters like the GAU-8 Avenger that General Electric builds into the Warthog but hey baby steps. For extra points you could make the bullet facs modular and removable, like cratridges, so the gunners could create and switch out ammo mixes on the fly, tailoring them to the situation <br />and type of enemy as they encounter them. <br />Grimmelhausenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00629289185884708740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-14212838487549443312015-11-07T21:57:40.755-08:002015-11-07T21:57:40.755-08:00I hope it comes out soon. I thought it would come ...I hope it comes out soon. I thought it would come out midnight east coast (New York) time, but no luck. Hopefully it will come out midnight Houston Texas time which is where William Brown claims to live, instead of the West coast time that this blog runs on. 3 minutes I hope. Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17609648387844093437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-83181620878510673362015-11-07T21:48:59.930-08:002015-11-07T21:48:59.930-08:00Just a couple more hoursJust a couple more hoursAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13179037297729072982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-62806275773117672882015-11-07T21:15:38.042-08:002015-11-07T21:15:38.042-08:00No :( went to bed thinking it would be out when I ...No :( went to bed thinking it would be out when I got up. Stupid stupid clock go faster. And yes I've got a feeling this books going to be epic too Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-67717826974845585712015-11-07T20:22:20.892-08:002015-11-07T20:22:20.892-08:00I'm staying up till I get this!!! Took tomorro...I'm staying up till I get this!!! Took tomorrow off work so I can curl up and read.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12439769122698035925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-13899158738003188962015-11-07T18:06:44.418-08:002015-11-07T18:06:44.418-08:00I think Extermination will be epic :3. Finally the...I think Extermination will be epic :3. Finally they can get into some development!<br /><br />As for all us clock watchers. Well, four games of League of legends should narrow that 6 hour gap downAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05479861194660747992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-62238633846788975472015-11-07T13:39:08.287-08:002015-11-07T13:39:08.287-08:00Nope not going to happen :)Nope not going to happen :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-21046285092333373992015-11-07T12:18:02.542-08:002015-11-07T12:18:02.542-08:00So another eleven hours, or 8 a.m. for me. I can d...So another eleven hours, or 8 a.m. for me. I can do that... as long as mark stops watching his clock. (c:Grimmelhausenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00629289185884708740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-5975765350303394202015-11-07T12:08:14.092-08:002015-11-07T12:08:14.092-08:00I just realized everyone is commenting today! I di...I just realized everyone is commenting today! I didn't look earlier! Wow! We are busy! And time does that... It is a rather abusive little... I mean, time is wonderful! Please speed up!... Please!? (Tears)<br />It is sad that i am actually partially serious here... (Though fairly exaggerated) (not crying! No! My computer can not get wet!)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14989263835513459156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-32130297995359964362015-11-07T12:02:18.996-08:002015-11-07T12:02:18.996-08:00My personal preference is having interesting ideas...My personal preference is having interesting ideas + good story. I like it when the characters are overpowered since the story isn't particularly focused on their power or getting more power. It kinda like, oh he got more powerful... Which is fun! But it isn't a major deal. The emphasis on the story should be the story. And everyone has their own preferences for that. Haha. To be accurate, i like to see HOW the MC is overpowered. The cool ideas the author came up with to make it so. I have to agree that Daniel's essentially bottomless energy is not too overpowered. Since it needs something to go with it to do anything. I like the scenes of this book in general. (Ok, I'm done with the tangents and unintentional rambling... Someone might find it interesting... Maybe... :) (the end of that parentheses is both a ":)" and an end parentheses make)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14989263835513459156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-33555085497448748982015-11-07T11:57:27.665-08:002015-11-07T11:57:27.665-08:00> Personally I am less interested in the relati...> Personally I am less interested in the relationship drama and I <br />> have zero interest in the sexual narrative.<br /><br />For my part i don't mind the pron. It gets a bit repetitive and the characters talking like refugees from a bad BangBros flick tends to put serious strain on my story immersion, but as long as it doesn't get in the way of or crowd out the actual plot i can roll with it. <br /><br />'Fimbulwinter' had the right, almost perfect, mixture titillation vs storytelling as far as i was concerned. <br /><br />With 'Black Coven' by comparison less would have definitely been more. Perhaps because the book as whole suffered a bit from a case of middle volume syndrome: too much setup and info front-loading competing for page space with and stalling out plot development. Trimming the fat on the bunga bunga might have freed up enough 'oxygen' to create a much smoother and natural overall story. Just my amateur 0.2 of course. YMMV.Grimmelhausenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00629289185884708740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-52628055099961586852015-11-07T11:47:38.925-08:002015-11-07T11:47:38.925-08:00Midnight PST, or 3 a.m. EST. Amazon's english ...Midnight PST, or 3 a.m. EST. Amazon's english ebook server is in California. You can try to get an account in Amazon Japan's system, but early releases were still greyed out on proper release day last time I checked. Some authors play this game with Amazon where they'll have an unposted active download link to the book, and the author will post it on his site for a day or 2. It's kind of dickish though.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16102742737741335795noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-21972553891190790362015-11-07T11:42:02.694-08:002015-11-07T11:42:02.694-08:00Good input. ThanksGood input. ThanksAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13179037297729072982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-46821147924231917482015-11-07T11:41:32.459-08:002015-11-07T11:41:32.459-08:00Time is moving sooooooo slowTime is moving sooooooo slowAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13179037297729072982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-81388711298701059862015-11-07T10:42:15.730-08:002015-11-07T10:42:15.730-08:00Sorry I can't help it. I just really want/need...Sorry I can't help it. I just really want/need to read it besides I bet your clock watching just as much as me :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2967522649851339919.post-77204762016696356512015-11-07T10:37:14.737-08:002015-11-07T10:37:14.737-08:00It's all your fault! Because you're watchi...It's all your fault! Because you're watching the clock it's going _slower_. Stop ruining things for everyone, mark! (c:<br /><br />Seriously though anybody have an idea when tomorrow to expect the release? Just past midnight ? Around noon? In the evening? EST? PST?<br /><br />I know last time it took about half an hour after the US release to filter down to the local Amazon shops around the globe. Grimmelhausenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00629289185884708740noreply@blogger.com