Things that happen in game differently from my headcanon:
- During a dive, destroyers just hang around over player heads
- Even worse, there’s an actual game mechanic that causes orbital stratagems to have an AoA at 90° at the center of the map but lower it at the edges, like the ships were actually hovering over the center (realistically, all orbital stratagems calls would have roughly the same AoA)
- I say “even worse”, because I have to actively ignore a decision the devs made for the sake of realism rather than just tell myself “eh, they didn’t think about this too much”
- Even worse, there’s an actual game mechanic that causes orbital stratagems to have an AoA at 90° at the center of the map but lower it at the edges, like the ships were actually hovering over the center (realistically, all orbital stratagems calls would have roughly the same AoA)
- Orbital stratagem timings make no sense, and are strictly a gameplay balance issue that cannot be realistic: the loading screen shows the first helldiver drops well outside the atmosphere and take several minutes to reach the ground, but turrets take 3 seconds to deploy? This game sucks, literally unplayable
- Surely Eagles must be capable of atmosphereless flight, if the cheap ahh shuttle is?
- At the beginning of the loading screen, the destroyer doesn’t have an atmospheric re-entry fire effect which would be countered by shields or whatever
Things that oddly do make sense:
- Hellpods do have the atmospheric re-entry fire effect immediately after launching, which wouldn’t make sense in the absence of (less than extremely thin) atmosphere
- … that’s it, actually
The reason I made this nerd emoji of a post:
I’ve played KSP and my suspension of disbelief towards games or shows with spaceships is completely broken.
Orbital stratagem timings make no sense, and are strictly a gameplay balance issue that *cannot* be realistic: the loading screen shows the first helldiver drops well outside the atmosphere and take several minutes to reach the ground, but turrets take 3 seconds to deploy?
I assumed this was because equipment can endure acceleration that would make a person pass out, or at least be combat-ineffective on landing. A trip from the Karman line to the ground in a few seconds would involve some deeply unpleasant G-forces…in opposite directions, back-to-back.
Come to think of it, this might explain why different gear has different call down times, as more fragile stuff might require a slower and (relatively) gentler drop.
Lol I saw your graphics and thought “someone’s been playing too much KSP” then saw your last line:
I’ve played KSP and my suspension of disbelief towards games or shows with spaceships is completely broken.
I’ve got the exact same problem. Having a rudimentary knowledge of orbital mechanics is a curse.
You are crazy for doin such heck of an analysis.
I really like it.
Relevant stack exchange world building post: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/258058/could-you-actually-do-orbital-deployment
I’ll pile on and add a relevant YouTube video: https://youtu.be/mr7ttLAVEfI?si=8NS8xbuxWzJ09BF6
The ability to “FTL Jump” through space time seems like they have the ability to manipulate gravity. I wonder if that could play a role in the ability to remain geosynchronous from such a low altitude. ??? Just a thought.
I believe the Halo universe has something like that, although inconsistently (see the PoA in Halo: Reach vs FuD in Halo 3 (the latter scene is awesome but makes absolutely no damn sense at all)).
Personally I find that to be an OP cop-out – why bother with orbital deployment, if you can just GMod noclip over enemy bases and shoot them in the face with 380s?
Pretty sure that’s how super earth actually fights its wars.
For clarification, the Helldivers are not the regular earth military, that’s the SEAF. The helldivers are some sort of cannon fodder citizens high as fuck on propaganda, deployed on completely reckless complementary missions deep behind the actual front lines that have by default a low chance of success or survival and mostly only serve the role of cavalry: barge into the enemy supply lines, wreck shit and bail again, to take pressure of the main army.
As for the FTL (alcubierre) drive, according to the lore we encountered a third faction in hd1 that was initially peaceful but very technologically advanced, and essentially exterminated them and stole their tech. As far as I know the alcubierre drive model requires dark and/or anti matter to function, so I would guess humanity has also learned (stolen the knowledge) how to harness these substances.
