See poll. I hope that there is not another topic like this, and if, I apologize. So, what do you think about an option of black holes/wormholes? I think they could be used in both ways mentioned in the poll, but I do not know how it would be implemented. Thanks for reply, Puga1999
BH as weapon would be nice... like in one of my favorite series: http://andromeda.wikia.com/wiki/Point_Singularity_Projector or destroying a planet with an BH could be fun
Funnily, black hole projectors may be the most unstoppable weapon we are able to imagine so far. Yes, even worse than throwing antimatter. Well, a RKV may be harder to hit, but nothing prevents you from using a micro-black-hole as a RKV. IRL, a micro-black-hole has a limited life, depending on its mass. The lighter they are, the faster they evaporate and the more energy they emit, until their mass drops to around 28 μg (a dust grain), at which point they either cease to be interesting or entirely turn into energy, depending on who you asks. A micro-black-hole would actually emit lots of energy, so it would burn anything it passes through. And the more time passes, the more energy it emits, up to the point where it is at least as bright as a nuclear weapon. But the most interesting element is, you can't really deflect it. A solid projectile? You stop it with another solid object. A laser? You stop it with an opaque object. A charged particle beam? You stop it with magnetic fields. A neutral particle beam? Trickier, but a thick enough object should stop it. A micro-black-hole? Well, it goes through all that. One way we would have to stop it would be to feed it with a heavy particle beam, so the momentum of the particles would add to its own, and its trajectory would change (and hopefully avoid what you're trying to protect). It implies reliably hitting something smaller than a proton, whose mass is measured in tons if not more, that is emitting extremely high energies and who is approaching very fast, with enough strength to change its course. A slightly less hard way that may or may not work would be to feed it with charged particles so it becomes charged itself, and then use very powerful magnetic fields to deflect it. Only slightly less hard. The only other method would be to manipulate gravity. Either you can move planet- if not star-sized masses just for close-range protection or you manipulate gravity without needing mass. In either case, you're so high in the Kardashev scale that Ctuhlu is praying you, so micro-black-holes may be the only thing we can imagine that may attract your attention at all. That was for the surprisingly awesome IRL facts. tl;dr, if you aren't interested in RL details Now, what with a PA weapon? Well, having sucking black hole is both cheesy, cliché and unrealistic, all of which make it as un-awesome as you can get. But a black hole gun closer than how RL micro-black-holes could be quite fun. In fact, I'd see it as a variant for the U-gun or another superweapon of the like: it can be fired across anything and causes damage at anything on its way. How I'd like to see it is an end-game Commander-only weapon, whose ammo is very expensive and produced in a specific, expensive building. So you can't spam it (only the Commander can have it, and probably one at the time) but you can't use it to Com-rush or negate any early army (you need a huge economy to use it). But that's just me. The end damage is fixed (and nuke-like) as well as the damage function, what changes is the initial damage right out of the gun. So if you fires at max range, it cause relatively weak damage right in front of you. If you fires closer, the initial damage is higher. But the damage at impact is always the same, as well as the damage 5m before impact, 10m before impact... In any case, damage should begin far enough so the Commander isn't damaged by its AoE (apart, possibly, for the final impact if fired at point-blank range). Range should be relatively short probably, or it would become a nightmare to balance. If you want a RL explanation, well, the mass of the created black hole is limited.
Here is a thought - Why not use them as both a combat Option and a Teleport option? Here is why - In the Galactic war lets say you are losing a battle in a system. You could have your commander leave system via a nearby black hole and collapse the star in the recently left system with your remaining forces. The resulting supernova would then destroy all of the planets in that system. Wiping out the enemy and giving you time to regroup, rearm and repair your forces that have fled with you. Once again just a thought
Yea, exactly, as I said, I would want it in both ways, but I did not know ('til now) how it could be implemented. Thx mate, Puga1999
A planet shredding singularity weapon? Why not! It is, in fact, one of the ideas for a Commander ability. An experimental structure builds the charges, and the Comm shoots them out, like some sort of Uber-uber gun. It's kind of lethal. :lol: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I can't see any way that cosmic phenomena can be useful during the game. The scale of planets and asteroids is simply insignificant compared to the scale of stars and black holes. It is no more difficult to push a planet into a star than compared to a black hole, so doing it the other way around is kind of dumb. They can end up interesting for the galactic metagame. Who knows what might happen there?
Such a device could only be built in a galactic war setting. Since black holes are simply unstoppable, a projector would have to take the resources of a Paragon, or something along those lines in order to be balanced. But the payoff of complete awesome would be totally worth it. EDIT: Agreed. However, at the heart of every galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole. What if in the galactic war, there was a scaled down version of one? It could make combat at the center interesting, but extremely risky.
