Post by Insano-Man on Sept 19, 2018 0:58:15 GMT -5
This topic is a child of the Loonies article directory.
NUCLEAR POWER & RAILGUNS
The Loonies are, even at their most ill-supplied, some of the best-equipped communities on Set. Each bunker provides its own equipment produced from resources harvested and processed on-site. Few bunkers ever maintain a perfect balance of resources, but most strive for - and often achieve - a standard well above that of their expected opponents. As isolated communities restricted to condensed infrastructure, the edge that the Loonies maintain is often sorely needed.
INDUSTRY & POWER
The most critical piece of equipment in a Looney facility is the High-Precision Four-Dimensional Refining, Assembly, & Printing Station. While these printers are officially known by the abbreviation of "H-RAP", most Loonies refer to them as the "Happy Box". For how joking its nickname is, "Happy Box" is an apt description for the machine; all good in a Looney base begins at the Happy Box, be it mining tools, basic foods, or small arms. No successful Looney facility is without one or more Happy Boxes. Many rely on them as their sole source of industrial capacity, and the device's modular nature has led to the development of the Casper networks present in most facilities.
A Casper network is a series of smaller printers dispersed throughout a Looney bunker. The network affords them easy access to food, ammunition, medical supplies, and spare parts anywhere in their base. Implementations of the Casper network vary considerably; some rely on individual resource stores, others on centralized caches. Some facilities even maintain external Casper stations in nearby towns as part of trade relationships. In these situations, the Casper station often serves as an electronic merchant, where printed items are sold for base credits.
Above the Happy Box and its related Casper networks are countless varieties of industrial equipment. These range from base-spanning blast furnaces to micro-manufactured molecular separators. A handful of Looney facilities are even capable of producing matter-to-energy and energy-to-matter conversion stations, but the power requirements for their use mean that most bunkers go without them. In the end, no matter their level of development, the industrial section of a Looney facility is typically its largest and most impressive.
Mining in a Looney facility relies on a mix of conventional tools, high-precision explosives, and converted energy weapons. In a Looney mining operation, it is not uncommon to see jackhammers and shaped charges working alongside particle cannons and sustained lasers. Likewise, Looney miners are regularly supplied with exoskeletons and robotic mining drones to assist work in dangerous or unexplored caverns. The prevalence of combat-ready equipment and personnel in Looney mining caverns often makes them the strongest defensive positions in any given bunker.
The power facilities of a Looney base are often indicative of a facility's success. As the technology behind them advances, so does the likelihood of a resource surplus. Some Looney bunkers begin life with no more than hand-cranked generators. Early development sometimes includes coal, natural gas, or geothermal power plants. Established facilities often improve to fission, fusion, or even antimatter reactors to sustain their exponentially-increasing power demands. Even when rendered obsolete, older power facilities are often mothballed and retained for potential emergencies or expansion. Many of these "abandoned" sections have earned reputations as haunted or cursed - with varying levels of sincerity - due to their lack of daily traffic.
COMMUNICATIONS
Communications in Looney facilities are primarily handled by internal base networks or through radio communication to the outside world. Use of satellite communication outside of the MASTER Network is rare due to their unreliability and lack of security. Security issues are particularly significant with regards to interception by the Space Loonies, who command a relative monopoly on orbital infrastructure. Moreover, the Loonies' isolationist nature ensures that few facilities have much need for communications equipment. Overall, the only equipment produced is often for the express purpose of communicating with patrols or other bunkers nearby, and its use is heavily restricted to avoid attention.
A small handful of Looney facilities develop disproportionately large communications centers in order to connect multiple nearby bunkers together. This is often a planned, negotiated development between multiple bunkers in a region. The host of the expanded communications network is used as a relay, either to transmit and receive signals from more distant bunkers, or to communicate with similar facilities much further away. Under most circumstances, these communications-oriented installations are used as neutral ground for meetings between the officers of their related bunkers. Some may even be staffed jointly by the bunkers associated with them.
Due to the power requirements of the system, the MASTER Network's primary uplink and access stations are located close to the bunker's primary power plant. Similarly, the facility's primary communications systems run in conjunction with any MASTER systems. Due to the fact that most power plants are buried deep below any given Looney facility, most bunkers with a connection to the MASTER network elect to utilize a central communications spire. The spire extends between the facility's uppermost communications center and the network uplink itself. In bunkers that do not maintain a MASTER uplink, use of a central spire is rare.
ROBOTICS & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The use of robotics in Looney facilities is primarily restricted to niche applications, such as automated sentry turrets or industrial machinery. The skittish nature most facilities show towards drones stems from multiple sources. The foremost is the demand for versatility, as human personnel are expected to be able to reliably perform any task they have been trained for. In comparison, a mining drone could not be expected to serve as an effective infantryman or scout. Additional resources would therefore be needed to produce and maintain drones for each independent task, as opposed to the relatively negligible footprint that food production occupies.
Behind it is a general disdain for artificial intelligence, which goes hand-in-hand with the Loonies' human-centric convictions. An automated labor force would be vulnerable to direct subterfuge by an AI in ways that a human population could never be affected by. Examples are startlingly common; disasters provoked by invading or overly-ambitious AIs were recurring incidents during the Big Split between the Loonies and the Space Loonies. Further examples can be seen around the AI-dominated Cloneston in Darimesa, where no less than sixteen major bunkers are estimated to have collapsed or been abandoned due to aggression from the city's ruling artificial intelligences.
This does not, however, mean that all Looney bunkers adhere to the same set of restrictions surrounding automation. Some facilities allow domestically-developed artificial intelligences to assist with tasks around the bunker. A notable example is Montgomery, a quasi-sentient remnant of the Pioneer Network's command infrastructure. Dozens of bunkers continue to maintain Montgomery as a general-purpose electronic assistant and systems administrator thanks to his reliability. Similar examples exist in various states across Set.
ARMOR & WEAPONS
Defense is a well-charted element of Looney discipline that many areas of their military philosophy are honed towards. Automated turrets, hidden doors, spike pits, and even on-demand discharge from their industrial facilities - if there is something that will keep the bunker safe, the Loonies are ready to do it. Even inside the bunkers themselves, defensive hardpoints or sentry guns - often in tandem - stand watch at virtually every corner. When finally pushed to the edge, the Loonies are ready to bring any potential invader down with them; complex self-destruct routines are common. Examples are endless in number and left solely to the imagination of the facility's inhabitants.
In combat operations or intensive mining work, a typical Looney is outfitted with a suit of combat armor capable of performing in roughly any environment. Be it long spacewalks or the bottom of a caustic ocean, a Looney's combat equipment is expected to stand up to any environmental task. Even in resource-strapped facilities, suit quality is vastly preferred over quantity. As a result, most Looney armor is able to stand up to incoming fire from everything up to and including their own small arms. Loonies in standard combat armor are known as "riflemen" in official parlance, regardless of their branch, equipment, or current task.
Despite the prevalence of exoskeletons in their mining and engineering branches, powered armor is uncommon in live combat. This stems primarily from the commonly-held belief that most situations do not warrant the additional resources an exoskeleton would demand. The relative handful of fully-plated suits are mostly given over to heavy weapons specialists or assault teams. To further those roles, many suits feature directly-integrated weapons systems that offer them an incredible level of potential firepower. As a result of their scarcity and significance, wearing a suit of powered armor is considered a mark of prestige in Looney combat troops. Those outfitted with powered armor are known officially as "assaultsmen", but most - including those wearing the suits - prefer the nickname "fatboys".
Weapons technology for the Loonies primarily emphasizes railguns, coilguns, and particle cannons, with notable exceptions in some areas. Railguns make up the bulk of small arms and intrude significantly into heavy weapons production. The most common weapon given to ordinary riflemen is an automatic railgun carbine, often with modular furniture and attachment points for additional equipment. Coilguns, meanwhile, are primarily heavy weapons, featuring as anti-vehicle or anti-fortification weapons on Looney fighting vehicles. Particle cannons fulfill similar niches and are often deployed in conjunction with coilguns. Assaultsmen, in particular, are regularly deployed with particle cannons fitted to their suits as arm-mounted projectors.
Exceptions in the technological standard of the Looney arsenal are typically specialist equipment, but not entirely. Assigned to most personnel, regardless of discipline, are handheld electrolaser pistols, meant to be used as both tools and self-defense weapons. Special operations personnel and patrolmen on lengthy routes are regularly outfitted with suppressed firearms firing subsonic ammunition. Heavy weapons regularly incorporate high-velocity missiles or unguided rockets when particle cannons require specific resources the bunker does not have at its disposal. Similar situations require the Loonies to fall back on mass-production of conventional firearms patterned on their core equipment. This includes tank and artillery guns, where the low velocity of powder-fired shells is sometimes preferred regardless.
VEHICLES
Vehicles produced by Looney facilities are often lightweight armored cars intended for reconnaissance or transportation. Heavier vehicles are rare and typically produced only by exceptionally-successful bunkers. Tanks, mobile artillery, and even heavy trucks are widely seen as unnecessary excesses that could only serve their purpose in the event of an incredibly-unlikely catastrophe. Facilities in regular contact with the Cult of Meat, however, are often forced to produce heavy combat vehicles to safely navigate meatscapes or densely-populated battlefields.
Aircraft, however, are regular elements of Looney facilities both small and large. Looney dropships and gunships are among the most common air traffic over Set and are often the primary means by which Looney facilities exchange personnel. Smaller bases often hide their aircraft in secluded, well-patrolled areas, while established bunkers may construct concealed hangars directly on top of their base. A Looney installation with substantial air traffic may even "uproot" to become a surface airbase to further accommodate arriving and departing aircraft.
Ships are infinitesimally rare for Looney bunkers. This is primarily due to their binary nature for the Loonies; rather than occupying bunkers, seaborne Looney groups inhabit fleets of sea-going vessels. These fleets maintain semi-nomadic lifestyles loosely tethered to a central mining and service station, maintained in a similar fashion to conventional Looney bunkers. Some may operate as migrant fleets entirely, wandering from port to port for repairs, supplies, and trade. Fleet composition varies heavily and can range anywhere from flotillas centered on mobile fortresses, to wholly-underwater submarine fleets that comb the seafloor for resources.
NUCLEAR POWER & RAILGUNS
The Loonies are, even at their most ill-supplied, some of the best-equipped communities on Set. Each bunker provides its own equipment produced from resources harvested and processed on-site. Few bunkers ever maintain a perfect balance of resources, but most strive for - and often achieve - a standard well above that of their expected opponents. As isolated communities restricted to condensed infrastructure, the edge that the Loonies maintain is often sorely needed.
INDUSTRY & POWER
The most critical piece of equipment in a Looney facility is the High-Precision Four-Dimensional Refining, Assembly, & Printing Station. While these printers are officially known by the abbreviation of "H-RAP", most Loonies refer to them as the "Happy Box". For how joking its nickname is, "Happy Box" is an apt description for the machine; all good in a Looney base begins at the Happy Box, be it mining tools, basic foods, or small arms. No successful Looney facility is without one or more Happy Boxes. Many rely on them as their sole source of industrial capacity, and the device's modular nature has led to the development of the Casper networks present in most facilities.
A Casper network is a series of smaller printers dispersed throughout a Looney bunker. The network affords them easy access to food, ammunition, medical supplies, and spare parts anywhere in their base. Implementations of the Casper network vary considerably; some rely on individual resource stores, others on centralized caches. Some facilities even maintain external Casper stations in nearby towns as part of trade relationships. In these situations, the Casper station often serves as an electronic merchant, where printed items are sold for base credits.
Above the Happy Box and its related Casper networks are countless varieties of industrial equipment. These range from base-spanning blast furnaces to micro-manufactured molecular separators. A handful of Looney facilities are even capable of producing matter-to-energy and energy-to-matter conversion stations, but the power requirements for their use mean that most bunkers go without them. In the end, no matter their level of development, the industrial section of a Looney facility is typically its largest and most impressive.
Mining in a Looney facility relies on a mix of conventional tools, high-precision explosives, and converted energy weapons. In a Looney mining operation, it is not uncommon to see jackhammers and shaped charges working alongside particle cannons and sustained lasers. Likewise, Looney miners are regularly supplied with exoskeletons and robotic mining drones to assist work in dangerous or unexplored caverns. The prevalence of combat-ready equipment and personnel in Looney mining caverns often makes them the strongest defensive positions in any given bunker.
The power facilities of a Looney base are often indicative of a facility's success. As the technology behind them advances, so does the likelihood of a resource surplus. Some Looney bunkers begin life with no more than hand-cranked generators. Early development sometimes includes coal, natural gas, or geothermal power plants. Established facilities often improve to fission, fusion, or even antimatter reactors to sustain their exponentially-increasing power demands. Even when rendered obsolete, older power facilities are often mothballed and retained for potential emergencies or expansion. Many of these "abandoned" sections have earned reputations as haunted or cursed - with varying levels of sincerity - due to their lack of daily traffic.
COMMUNICATIONS
Communications in Looney facilities are primarily handled by internal base networks or through radio communication to the outside world. Use of satellite communication outside of the MASTER Network is rare due to their unreliability and lack of security. Security issues are particularly significant with regards to interception by the Space Loonies, who command a relative monopoly on orbital infrastructure. Moreover, the Loonies' isolationist nature ensures that few facilities have much need for communications equipment. Overall, the only equipment produced is often for the express purpose of communicating with patrols or other bunkers nearby, and its use is heavily restricted to avoid attention.
A small handful of Looney facilities develop disproportionately large communications centers in order to connect multiple nearby bunkers together. This is often a planned, negotiated development between multiple bunkers in a region. The host of the expanded communications network is used as a relay, either to transmit and receive signals from more distant bunkers, or to communicate with similar facilities much further away. Under most circumstances, these communications-oriented installations are used as neutral ground for meetings between the officers of their related bunkers. Some may even be staffed jointly by the bunkers associated with them.
Due to the power requirements of the system, the MASTER Network's primary uplink and access stations are located close to the bunker's primary power plant. Similarly, the facility's primary communications systems run in conjunction with any MASTER systems. Due to the fact that most power plants are buried deep below any given Looney facility, most bunkers with a connection to the MASTER network elect to utilize a central communications spire. The spire extends between the facility's uppermost communications center and the network uplink itself. In bunkers that do not maintain a MASTER uplink, use of a central spire is rare.
ROBOTICS & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The use of robotics in Looney facilities is primarily restricted to niche applications, such as automated sentry turrets or industrial machinery. The skittish nature most facilities show towards drones stems from multiple sources. The foremost is the demand for versatility, as human personnel are expected to be able to reliably perform any task they have been trained for. In comparison, a mining drone could not be expected to serve as an effective infantryman or scout. Additional resources would therefore be needed to produce and maintain drones for each independent task, as opposed to the relatively negligible footprint that food production occupies.
Behind it is a general disdain for artificial intelligence, which goes hand-in-hand with the Loonies' human-centric convictions. An automated labor force would be vulnerable to direct subterfuge by an AI in ways that a human population could never be affected by. Examples are startlingly common; disasters provoked by invading or overly-ambitious AIs were recurring incidents during the Big Split between the Loonies and the Space Loonies. Further examples can be seen around the AI-dominated Cloneston in Darimesa, where no less than sixteen major bunkers are estimated to have collapsed or been abandoned due to aggression from the city's ruling artificial intelligences.
This does not, however, mean that all Looney bunkers adhere to the same set of restrictions surrounding automation. Some facilities allow domestically-developed artificial intelligences to assist with tasks around the bunker. A notable example is Montgomery, a quasi-sentient remnant of the Pioneer Network's command infrastructure. Dozens of bunkers continue to maintain Montgomery as a general-purpose electronic assistant and systems administrator thanks to his reliability. Similar examples exist in various states across Set.
ARMOR & WEAPONS
Defense is a well-charted element of Looney discipline that many areas of their military philosophy are honed towards. Automated turrets, hidden doors, spike pits, and even on-demand discharge from their industrial facilities - if there is something that will keep the bunker safe, the Loonies are ready to do it. Even inside the bunkers themselves, defensive hardpoints or sentry guns - often in tandem - stand watch at virtually every corner. When finally pushed to the edge, the Loonies are ready to bring any potential invader down with them; complex self-destruct routines are common. Examples are endless in number and left solely to the imagination of the facility's inhabitants.
In combat operations or intensive mining work, a typical Looney is outfitted with a suit of combat armor capable of performing in roughly any environment. Be it long spacewalks or the bottom of a caustic ocean, a Looney's combat equipment is expected to stand up to any environmental task. Even in resource-strapped facilities, suit quality is vastly preferred over quantity. As a result, most Looney armor is able to stand up to incoming fire from everything up to and including their own small arms. Loonies in standard combat armor are known as "riflemen" in official parlance, regardless of their branch, equipment, or current task.
Despite the prevalence of exoskeletons in their mining and engineering branches, powered armor is uncommon in live combat. This stems primarily from the commonly-held belief that most situations do not warrant the additional resources an exoskeleton would demand. The relative handful of fully-plated suits are mostly given over to heavy weapons specialists or assault teams. To further those roles, many suits feature directly-integrated weapons systems that offer them an incredible level of potential firepower. As a result of their scarcity and significance, wearing a suit of powered armor is considered a mark of prestige in Looney combat troops. Those outfitted with powered armor are known officially as "assaultsmen", but most - including those wearing the suits - prefer the nickname "fatboys".
Weapons technology for the Loonies primarily emphasizes railguns, coilguns, and particle cannons, with notable exceptions in some areas. Railguns make up the bulk of small arms and intrude significantly into heavy weapons production. The most common weapon given to ordinary riflemen is an automatic railgun carbine, often with modular furniture and attachment points for additional equipment. Coilguns, meanwhile, are primarily heavy weapons, featuring as anti-vehicle or anti-fortification weapons on Looney fighting vehicles. Particle cannons fulfill similar niches and are often deployed in conjunction with coilguns. Assaultsmen, in particular, are regularly deployed with particle cannons fitted to their suits as arm-mounted projectors.
Exceptions in the technological standard of the Looney arsenal are typically specialist equipment, but not entirely. Assigned to most personnel, regardless of discipline, are handheld electrolaser pistols, meant to be used as both tools and self-defense weapons. Special operations personnel and patrolmen on lengthy routes are regularly outfitted with suppressed firearms firing subsonic ammunition. Heavy weapons regularly incorporate high-velocity missiles or unguided rockets when particle cannons require specific resources the bunker does not have at its disposal. Similar situations require the Loonies to fall back on mass-production of conventional firearms patterned on their core equipment. This includes tank and artillery guns, where the low velocity of powder-fired shells is sometimes preferred regardless.
VEHICLES
Vehicles produced by Looney facilities are often lightweight armored cars intended for reconnaissance or transportation. Heavier vehicles are rare and typically produced only by exceptionally-successful bunkers. Tanks, mobile artillery, and even heavy trucks are widely seen as unnecessary excesses that could only serve their purpose in the event of an incredibly-unlikely catastrophe. Facilities in regular contact with the Cult of Meat, however, are often forced to produce heavy combat vehicles to safely navigate meatscapes or densely-populated battlefields.
Aircraft, however, are regular elements of Looney facilities both small and large. Looney dropships and gunships are among the most common air traffic over Set and are often the primary means by which Looney facilities exchange personnel. Smaller bases often hide their aircraft in secluded, well-patrolled areas, while established bunkers may construct concealed hangars directly on top of their base. A Looney installation with substantial air traffic may even "uproot" to become a surface airbase to further accommodate arriving and departing aircraft.
Ships are infinitesimally rare for Looney bunkers. This is primarily due to their binary nature for the Loonies; rather than occupying bunkers, seaborne Looney groups inhabit fleets of sea-going vessels. These fleets maintain semi-nomadic lifestyles loosely tethered to a central mining and service station, maintained in a similar fashion to conventional Looney bunkers. Some may operate as migrant fleets entirely, wandering from port to port for repairs, supplies, and trade. Fleet composition varies heavily and can range anywhere from flotillas centered on mobile fortresses, to wholly-underwater submarine fleets that comb the seafloor for resources.
