>setting develops bullets
>armor gets better to compensate
>bullets get better to compensate
>continues until armor is impenetrable by bullets, lasers and other projectile weapons
now what?
>setting develops bullets
>armor gets better to compensate
>bullets get better to compensate
>continues until armor is impenetrable by bullets, lasers and other projectile weapons
now what?
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No idea.
Your idea already stretches so far outside the bounds of conventional physics as we understand them that you might as well be asking "what if literally everyone and everything could fly?" or something similar.
In other words, we can give you a vague guess but it'd be a pretty shaky one because truly projectile invulnerable armor would logically be invulnerable to most other forms of harm as most other forms of harm operate on identical principles, that if you dump enough kinetic energy into something it either breaks or dies.
1. weakpoints in the joints or whatever
2. dunemode where the armor really is impenetrable but it unwieldy for regular use for whatever reason
Bullet technology would look into ways to bypass armor, such as shooting contained miniature black hole tipped rounds or mono-molecular shot. Then armor would have to up its game by developing reality shifting weave and such.
Up to you. Given that you're writing the setting, the laws of physics and the rules of the world are entirely in your hands. There's no reason to adhere to strict realistic standards, despite what a decently sized chunk of Veeky Forums thinks. I'd go with whatever seemed cool and created interesting combat scenarios for people to enjoy.
It's pretty damned hard to make armor that can protect a wearer against shaped charge warheads.
Now?
We fuck.
>what if literally everyone and everything could fly
YES
WHAT IF??
Too bad, my armor is impenetrable!
Mono-molecular shot with time delayed black hole generation.
Fucking metal.
This is going off of whatever physics, so if we have armor that generates a null field and disperses all kinetic force into another dimension it's no longer an argument.
>not familiar with Red Queen theory
Behold, a plebian.
Is... that what I fucking think that is?
Future dark age castles mixed with flying castle ships?
Fucking christ thats awesome.
This happened in real life, idiot.
The fatal conceit you make is that full plate is actually good armor to begin with.
You'd end up looking like a bomb defusal squadmember. Not a fucking knight.
There are ways you can conceive of armour that's virtually invulnerable to ranged attacks without it being literally invulnerable.
A classic idea is the incredibly strong, dense and tough super-metal which is so incredibly expensive that making bullets out of it just isn't viable on a large scale. You might have the very occasional sniper used to take down a high profile target, but generally the only way to bring down someone in armour of the substance is close combat, using a melee weapon of the same substance which is capable of damaging the armour, or relying on blunt force trauma, electricity or fire to try and bypass their defences up close.
I guess people stop using projectile weapons and it's RIP AND TEAR melee all the time? Assuming somehow a dude can swing a melee weapon hard enough to get through this nigh-on invulnerable armor.
Or people don't settle shit with wars, but like some lameass shit like rap battles or dance-offs.
Whatever will make you most happy, really. It's your bullshit setting, OP.
Microwave guns.
You attack your enemy with things that wreck the dude inside the armor without having to pierce the armor. Poison gas, radiation, heat, restraining him until he surrenders or starves, etc.
>This happened in real life
please show me which army I can join to wear armor that is impenetrable by bullets, lasers and other projectile weapons then.
Think he's referring to medieval armor vs. bows then crossbows.
Yeah lets just take energy from our dimension and dump it into another one. What could possibly go wrong?
>"QUIT DUMPING SHIT IN OUR DIMENSION YOU DAMN FLESHBANGS"
>universe-wide nuclear explosions
>campaign is over, players super-armor has saved the day
>invasion by parallel dimension, pissed off because of all the ordinance they had dumped on them
I like this.
>phase shifting weapons
>probability altering weapons
>extra dimensional bombs
>space-time translating your target into the sun
How would you fight such monsters.
By building monsters of your own.
Biological warfare.
But there is no such thing as impenetrable armor. It is much easier to develop a piercing kinetic projectile than it is to create an armor that is light enough to be carried by an unaugmented human, and invulnerable to such arms.
I read a short Science Fiction story based around a concept like this. It basically involved small groups of corporate, bio-engineered soldiers teleporting to new planets so that they could kill any opposing corporate soldiers and claim the planet. Armor was effectively impervious to bullets so they would just beat each other to death with mediaeval weapons. Wouldn't strongly recommend it, but it was called Ymir Forgotten if anyone wants to look it up.
What if augmented humans in heavy armor becomes the norm? Then we can introduce the lightly armored, unaugmented troops who have a speed advantage.
...
>50 story tall single cell monster
>better armor = bigger and heavier armor
why is this always the same conclusion? Better armor would be the same protection or more at the same weight or less, and then you can upscale it. But the main reason we don't have GI's running around in EOD suits is because of weight. Better armor would have to weigh less in order to be truly better.
>this is bacteria
>that shoots fuckin' lasers from its nucleus
It could also just weigh the same but provide more protection.
Mega-damage Weapons
>the laser impacts generate more laser bacteria
Klein fields?
Project Lazmoeba is go.
people who cant afford armor will simply stay very far away from anyone they cant harm, and focus on the people they can
people who have to go head-to-head will treat armored people as just armor, and deploy anti-tank weapons on them, like special designed AP missiles
Mini-nukes on a stick
Blunt force trauma still work OP?
Bulletproof vests exist, imbecile.
>BUT IT'S NOT LIKE I PICTURED IT IN MY HEAD
And?
>bulletproof
>impenetrable
Ooh, somebody's salty!
Better hope nobody shoots at your bulletproof vest with lasers, now. Lasers aren't bullets, you see.
Ablative armor designed to explode and push the molten charge away from the armor? Would work once, just like tanks have now.
Sonic guns that shoot out the resonant frequency of the human spine.
They melt you
Just imagine what the wearer would feel though.
Both physically and emotionally. The shock, the searing heat, the stench of various explosive residues, the adrenaline. The kinetic force throwing you rolling across the ground.
I'm getting excited.
What is red queen theory?
Clausewitz said that firepower is matched by mobility. So probably detection, prevention, avoidance, maybe stealth? Drone swarms and other forms of effective distraction come to mind. Either way, indirect combat would ramp up to match direct combat.
Microwaves, roast the fuckers inside their armor
>armor is impenetrable by ... projectile weapons
But not by other armor! Thus the heavily-armored warriors of the far future of the setting launch themselves from cannon-railguns towards the enemies, hoping that their armor holds against theirs, and pulverizing the enemy where they stand!
Of course, the other side also have the same idea, so you'll see a literal rain of men and cannon fodder in battlefields.
>But not by other armor!
Here is a man who thinks with his head!
So, heavy metal jousting?
Now I'm just imagining knights in power armor riding turbojet sky bikes with artillery lances that they trigger just as they connect with each other.
Generally, world building questions like this are answered by resource rarity. Perhaps you have a setting that has little in the way of cobalt or tungsten so combating heavy armored infantry with infantry is more expensive then it is useful. Which would make power armored infantry effective and commonplace but the means to combat them reliant on air to ground warfare and mechanized mobile units like tanks which can be just as mass produced as the armor they battle?
This brings up the question of "well why isn't everyone in tanks then?'" Well, perhaps environment can be an answer to that? power armor is easier to use in forested areas or specifically tight urban sprawl and perhaps this setting does not have the technological means to drop tanks from the air yet.
Wait for them to take it off, of course.
Armor doesn't and hasn't ever provided perfect protection against the weapons in common use at the time.
So nothing happens, because the scenario you proposed wouldn't ever happen to begin with.
You can't move and die of suffocation/heat exhaustion.
please show me which army I can join to shoot lasers then.
I pull out a fucking flamethrower.
Mortar bombardment
>Armor made of Immovable Rods
What now, /k/?
Knock em onto their backs
Hypothesis.
It is not a theory.
You dingus.
...Isn't what you just said 40k?
Alternatively, dig holes.
Also flamethrowers and Molotov cocktails. Cook them in their armor.
Cost. Your fancy impossible armour is probably expensive as fuck.
Definitely not melee weapons, that's fucking retarded.
Guns firing tangling nets made from the same magic material as your faggoty armour.
World Peace?
World Peace.
...
You know what works better than any bullet or laser and can have the payload to punch through armor? A missile fire from halfway across the world.
>muh missile defense system
These don't work too well in real life, but let's say they do in your setting. What if they fire a hundred missiles?
What if they trick you into thinking they fired a hundred missiles and then you find out you wasted all your money on stupid crap you didn't need?
This. Werf the shit out of their flammen until you smell ribeyes.
That would actually make an interesting rock-paper-scissors dynamic: flamethrower cooks suit-wearer, suit-wearer is invulnerable to guns and bullets, guns and bullets can detonate fuel-packs of flamethrowers.
You make a game based around peaceful debate and political discourse as war has become pointless. Your characters goals are to enter the realm of debate their cause.
The projectile weapons improve again, obviously, until they can penetrate armor again.
>Gothic
>Dark Age
Besides, we all know the ships in 40k are churches.
EVERYTHING is a church in 40k.
Even the fucking gun emplacements.
>The imprenetrable armor becomes extremely valuable and highly prized, so it's worn only by the wealthy and the most elite of units
>The rank-and-file grunts keep shooting at eachother with bullets while powersuitfags whack at eachother with maces
>Some English sheepshaggers will pretend a thousand years later that their bullets could penetrate three suits of power armor at the same time, and will cite a battle in which nobody died due to bullet wounds as proof
KOMM SUSSER TOD
You fly off into space.
Guns and amour become so fucking expensive that all wars boil down to one man wearing the armour vs one guy using the gun
After each round they switch items
But what if you coat the fuel pack in same bullshit invulnerability? Then it's just flamethrower vs flamethrower.
Or plasma spewer given that we're going scifi.
That's why I'm telling you, turn the flamethrower into a rocket jetpack.
That way, when an armored soldier wants to crash into the enemy lines, they don't need the cannon-railguns!
Or better yet, get two of them, a normal flamer in front, and a jetflamepack behind!
looking at this wants me to play degenesis rebirth
never gonna happen
Armored wrestling.
So the Three Rocketeers then?
My rp setting have a different tackle on it.
>Magic is a multiplier power, and the less moblie parts, the better.
This means that guns and shit, while powerful, cannot bypass armor, magically enhanced melee weaponry becomes the norm, however only things like battleship shells can harm magic plate, this way, convential gunfights become something for foot soldiers
Of course, arms and magic remain expensive and rare, and only nobles and shit would able to field full plates of magic armor, foot soldiers are on similar position as the guard in 40k
Armor weights. It always weights. And basic ballistics says - it's easier to develop better guns than better weapon
In short - your idea makes no sense.
Maybe nonconventional warfare becomes more common. I mean, it kinda doesn't matter how impenetrable your armor is if someone fills the room with killing gas, or sets the area in enough fire to give you a heat stroke inside your armor. In such a case, guns probably become more of a sidearm to finish someone off once you have them unconscious and can unlatch a bit of the armor.
Clearly the bullets get better so they are capable of piercing the armour.
How can you move?
90% of war doesn't even revolve around shooting mans anyway. Can this uber-armour protect farms, factories or cities? No? Then its strategic value is extremely limited.
Depends on the style and doctrine of warfare used by the parties involved
How much does that armour cost and weigh though?
They probably wouldn't have a speed advantage unless they were also similarly augmented. What they WOULD be is dramatically cheaper to arm, supply, and deploy. If you want speed, look into motorized infantry instead of people.
By making the universe around you move?
you mean like magic or something?
If we can't kill their soldiers, we kill them before they can become soldiers.
Cripple their ability to feed themselves, poison their land, collapse their mines, blow up their homes.
Alternatively, if we can't penetrate their armor, we wait for them to leave it, or kill them before they can get in.
>armor too heavy to move about it
>world too dangerous to take it off
>hang some nice curtains inside the faceplate and install a minifridge
>t. frenchman still butthurt about agincourt
You shoot the armor operator when he's taking a shit or when he's eating.
Slums in 40k are pretty much slums today except they're built inside of other fuckhuge constructions
>now what?
Quantum tunnelling allows the bullets to phase directly through matter, including whatever armor you come up with.