Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Cptadder]

I mean how do they reload, or aim, or clear jams, or actually use the weapon beyond a rough point-and-shoot?

They have flexible tongues.
...
...very, VERY flexible tongues.

They'd need to be able to reach at least 8 inches around the sides of the weapon and apply force in several different directions. How they actually aim the guns without it being a thousand times clumsier than it would be for a human is..... A question better left unasked

No they need to reach around eight inches to the sides of a human weapon. Not a pony weapon which is designed with hooves in mind. They don't use tiny fiddly screws like we do, they would use big break open breaches.

Ever seen an arisika Paratrooper rifle from WWII?

See that odd metal in the middle? That's so the rifle can fold in half, with two quick twists you can take it apart or put it back together. Big obvious hinges to get at the insides, the fact that ponies can grip things with the inside of their hooves...

They have an extra joint there real horses lack to pull that double reversal.

Pony's can not break apart a human gun with just tongues and the extra joint... but they could break apart a pony gun which is designed to be broken apart purely with hooves force. Remember ponies are studier than humans and stronger so they can carry heavier guns with more big solid chunks than 500 tiny parts.

[Frost]

Ponies are, by most calculations, about 3 1/2-4 feet tall at the head, about 2 1/2 feet tall at the back-- about as tall as a pony you'd find at a fair. Those things can safely carry about 90 lbs. Equestrians can obviously carry a bit more than that, and can carry it longer due to their quadrupedal locomotion, but to say as a blanket statement that ponies are stronger than humans is probably false.

You mentioned that Arisaka. Well, I own a Mosin-Nagant which is pretty much the simplest, clunkiest weapon in the world. I can definitively say that a pony could not use it, and I'm having a hard time imaging how exactly they'd go about building the weapons that the ponies could use, let alone automatics, which have myriad other issues and complexities. Then, you have the wierd task of trying to fire aim a weapon that you're holding in your hooves (like firing a rifle one-handed while standing on one foot) or on a battle-saddle (like hip-firing, but worse)

[Cptadder]

Ponies are, by most calculations, about 3 1/2-4 feet tall at the head, about 2 1/2 feet tall at the back-- about as tall as a pony you'd find at a fair. Those things can safely carry about 90 lbs. Equestrians can obviously carry a bit more than that, and can carry it longer due to their quadrupedal locomotion, but to say as a blanket statement that ponies are stronger than humans is probably false.

Ahem
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Ponies are stronger than humans, we have dozens of examples in the show of ponies pulling weights at speed that no human could manage plus lifting feats. Not to mention Pegasuses flying with weights or Earth Pony's like Big Mac pulling houses. You could argue this is comedy but quadruped stance offers you a lot of relative weight and strength increase.

You mentioned that Arisaka. Well, I own a Mosin-Nagant which is pretty much the simplest, clunkiest weapon in the world. I can definitively say that a pony could not use it, and I'm having a hard time imaging how exactly they'd go about building the weapons that the ponies could use, let alone automatics, which have myriad other issues and complexities. Then, you have the wierd task of trying to fire aim a weapon that you're holding in your hooves (like firing a rifle one-handed while standing on one foot) or on a battle-saddle (like hip-firing, but worse)

The Arisaka is simpler and designed to be broken down without tools, the Grease gun is even clunker than a Mosin-Nagant which at least contains sanded wood. And again, human designed guns not pony designed. We put tiny little screws in our guns, they would use threaded latches or interlinking drop bars.

[222222]

@MrFrost: you are missing the whole point that pony guns are designed from the ground up for pony use in mind. They don't use human guns as much as Ironmonger loves to put human guns into FOE, it's not actually canon. We have very little actual details to work off of, so we can assume that whatever guns ponies built may be similar to, but at a mechanical level are vastly different from, human guns.

[IncoherentOrange]

I posit ponies at three feet tall at the torso in my stories, but I did no measurements. Anyway, their body structure and foot structure is much more supportive of carrying heavy loads for longer periods of time than a human's. A human is built to be somewhat nimble and taller than their competitors, while able to grasp and manipulate tools, as well as use their strength in usage of these tools and for making these tools.

Ponies, on the other hand, are built for speed and hardiness; to outrun the competition rather than fight it or hide from it, though their weight, power, and speed give them some ability to do both. But they are not agile, quick to turn, able to climb well, or manipulate minute objects well. (Often simply ignored in the show, as Adder has clearly indicated.)

I'm quite possibly flat wrong, but that's how my mind stands on that matter.

[Downloaded Skill]

I mean how do they reload, or aim, or clear jams, or actually use the weapon beyond a rough point-and-shoot?

Thing is we're assuming that ponies developed guns in the exact same way humans did. We're not taking things into account like mouth grips and "hoof hands" that pop up in the show now and again. There is also the fact that because of unicorns the military had access to an enchanting system more broken than the one in Oblivion. I'm personally a fan of the idea that the targeting systems were built into a HUD like interface in the helmets because I remember Calamity talking about how he couldn't fire his enclave tech weapons without the helmet, accurately at least.

I also remember from the 1st chapter of Heroes that Silver has a scope that she flicks down infront of her eyes that is calibrated for the rifle on her saddle. That is also a plausible idea.

[Sindri]

Topic time. Big Macintosh doesn't die. Discuss the effects.

Well, that was documented everywhere as his last mission; he was resigning when he returned. Based on what I remember of the lake orb, I think he was planning on marrying Maripony and settling down. Meaning Twilight would be dropping out of the ministries. No Twilight, no alicorn project, and the biggest push (according to Kkat, outside of official canon) for the zebra megaspell strikes goes away. Best case? The war stops escalating, and after a few more years (decades) and a lot of negotiations, peace happens. Worst case? Apocalyspe is triggered by something else. The Wasteland happens, but without power armor, alicorns... or the Gardens of Equestria, because Twilight was raising her daughter instead of spending months at a stretch on secret projects.

That's something I've been meaning to ask you lot of writers about. How long does it take you all to writer a chapter normally?

*gets a folding chair and sits, folding hands in thought*

Solid writing? About three pages per hour, including first round of editing.
Actively working on a story? About one day per page of final product, on average, because I keep writing, rewriting, mapping things out, developing parts of the world and the characters that will probably never actually be evident, fine-tuning the rules of magic...
Critically thinking about the story? Maybe a page a week if I'm lucky. I do a lot of thinking, okay?
Total time taken to release a goddamn chapter? Let me get back to you on that in a few months. Maybe. Realistically, I'd say there's at least a 20% chance of dropping my attempts at writing altogether, and 40% on top of that of never actually uploading even if I finish something.

What happened to Fillydelphia after the Return of the Sun? (aside from the city getting molested to death by that sun-laser) Hopefully this one lasts for a bit before I decide to flip a table.

I believe it was inducted into the NCR. Red Eye'd done a lot of good work there, with the schools and hospitals and all, and part of his great big Xanatos gambit was that even if someone managed to remove him from power entirely the work he left behind would save the Wasteland. The sun-laser strikes aren't all that relevant in the grand scheme of things because they were all surgical strikes at military targets rather than just frying the area.

Monger, Sindri, the ritual has succeeded (it's a fairly short ritual, as it turns out.) and all I need to take upon me the great and terrible power that is Dread Lord Tchernobog is two blood-sealed high priests/sycophants. You guys in?

Kinda busy tonight; not sure I can fit another flaming iron in this web. Maybe a little advanced warning next time? I mean I don't even know this Tcherno guy...


[edit:] and apparently I do not want to. Keep your Slanneshii abominations away from me and mine, or I may be so moved as to take action. And you will learn precisely what a few dead virgins and wings shaped of your own feces amount to in the grand scheme of things.

Ponies are, by most calculations, about 3 1/2-4 feet tall at the head, about 2 1/2 feet tall at the back-- about as tall as a pony you'd find at a fair. Those things can safely carry about 90 lbs. Equestrians can obviously carry a bit more than that, and can carry it longer due to their quadrupedal locomotion, but to say as a blanket statement that ponies are stronger than humans is probably false.

And yet we have, in the cartoon itself, observed them carrying boulders at least four times their volume with strain, towing loads that diamond dogs (larger than ponies and built like gorillas) strained against, and in one case pulling an entire two story building without slowing down. I believe ponies have been amply established to be much stronger than humans, terrestrial ponies, or pretty much any other land-dwelling animal our world has to offer.

[Frost]

Most of FoE's guns are based on/ function like modern ones, to the point of sharing the same calibers and operating systems. Open up any assault rifle made since the '40's and imagine it workin with anything just a little bit bigger, let alone the giant hoof-operated parts Adder's talking about.

As far as ponies with tools goes, they've been seen.... Holding large objects. Like books and hammers. There's no magic or extra joint involved, they're just grasping the object between the fetlock and the hoof. This would also preclude actually doing simultaneous tasks with their hooves such as holding a gun and pulling the trigger, for those instances where it's not in their mouths (which is a whole other can of worms)

[222222]

Crackpot Theory: Ponies actually exist on a one centimeter to one meter scale in the show, so what appears to be a three foot pony is approximately one centimeter tall. Being so tiny, they have strength very high in proportion to their bodyweight, much like ants. All their houses and such not are tiny houses built by their teeny tiny little hooves.

Edit: this post is in reference to ponies incredible strength, not guns. If that wasn't obvious.

[Sindri]

Gun maintenance, clearing jams, etc. would probably have to happen slowly, probably on a bench, using proper tools and both hooves to manipulate every part. But normal operation? Almost everything mechanical is easily automated. A battle saddle requires you to align your whole body with the target, but grants stability beyond what any human would have and as long as enough of the thing is rigid you can put a scope on your hat or hook the whole thing into EFS and have as good or better accuracy than any human infantryman can get. Increased carrying capacity means reloading is a thing you don't worry about much, because the magazines would be bigger than a human's to start with and the saddle does it all for you if you have a spare magazine and you tap the right button. A properly equipped pony would have no problems whatsoever unless something broke, and would have a second rifle even in that case on the other side of the saddle.

Pistols do present a problem, but mouthgrip weapons are generally only used as civilian defense weapons, a last resort, or for short range splattering. The grip itself isn't as much of a problem as you're thinking; a pony's jaw and teeth would have no trouble with the recoil of anything remotely reasonably sized (humans have the weakest jaws for their size in the animal kingdom. Trufax.) Unicorns are the only ones who use weapons in warfare which aren't mounted, melee, or in saddles, and levitation means you get less sheer dakka than an EP with a saddle but more flexibility and maneuverability.

[222222]

@MrFrost: based off very loosely, as in have a resemblance to. We don't get much description beyond 'revolver' or 'shotgun' usually, certainly not enough information to make informed guesses about their internal workings. What we can infer, from the fact that ponies use guns, is that they have mastered the art of pony gun making, certainly better then we have.

[Caoimhe]

Cripes I go out to enjoy Halloween and come back to... well, this. I can't leave you alone for a minute! BE NICE FOR SOMBIEKINS.

[Stringtheory]

don't make me pull out Bellisario's Maxim (Don't examine this too closely) and smack you guys with it

[Sindri]

don't make me pull out Bellisario's Maxim (Don't examine this too closely) and smack you guys with it

But it all does make sense! Stopping thinking about it is only a valid response when thinking about it makes it worse, and here it doesn't.

[Sindri]

Now see, those typewriters? Those are something you don't want to examine too closely.

[Stringtheory]

don't make me pull out Bellisario's Maxim (Don't examine this too closely) and smack you guys with it

But it all does make sense! Stopping thinking about it is only a valid response when thinking about it makes it worse, and here it doesn't.

so you're pulling Moff's Law on me? fair enough...but I still think this discussion is completely ridiculous, probably because I can't contribute

[Stringtheory]

Now see, those typewriters? Those are something you don't want to examine too closely.

they run on the same principle as google tap

seems legit...

[222222]

No you see the typewriters do make sense, because they have a magical enchantment that picks up on the letter thought projected by the typer, and pressing the buttons generates kinetic energy which spins a small turbine hooked into a magical generator to power the device. It all makes perfect sense.

[Frost]

In PH we get specifics. Duty and Sacrifice are 45/70 (a real caliber, and the guns are based off of the Ranger Sequoia from NV)

Automation of the processes just means you're inviting Finagle's Law in. Everything that can break will, probably as you're face-to-face with a zebra.

Battle Saddles just mean you need a computer (that needs batteries and costs money and so much other logistical problems) just to aim your rifle. Human infantry can fire on the move, fire moving sideways, fire from behind cover and fire up and down. Pony physiology in general and the use of a battle saddle make taking cover difficult, aiming up and down very difficult, and, say, maintaining your weapon when it jams almost impossible.

As far as the comparison to human infantry goes... Every time we see ponies running in the show, they don't seem to be going as fast as real-life horses. They seem to be going as fast as real-life ponies. That's faster than most humans, but certainly not super-speed. Realistically, they don't have a ton more muscle mass than us, so if we're playing by real-world rules the raw strength should be about equal, and in close combat humans are orders of magnitude more agile than ponies. Humans can climb rubble and trees and just about anything while ponies would, realistically, be stuck. As far as endurance goes, humans are adapted to walk for a long, long time. Before the days of bows or even thrown spears, humans took down prey through persistence hunting. In fact, dogs sharing this trait is part of the reason we domesticated them. If what you're saying is true, then pony weapons would be massive and clunky, as would any equipment they build. By contrast, human equipment can be ridiculously small, compact and user-friendly.

Call me a racist, but I'm rather a fan of humans.

[222222]

@MrFrost: I'm a fan of humans as well, and I believe a human infantryman would beat a pony infantryman in most cases. But that's not the argument, the argument is whether or not ponies can use guns. And while 45/70 ammunition is a detail, we still know nothing about the inside of the gun except for the barrel diameter. While a pony gun may seem clunky to us, to a pony it would just be a gun. Besides, any gun design where be optimized to the high heavens, decades of research and millions of bits went into the developement of these guns, I'm sure most of the pieces would be streamlined to maximum effiency. Human guns have been optimized for human use, but if I went to a gun manafacturer and offered proper incentive and a year to work on the issue, they could develop rudimentary guns that a pony could use.

[Sindri]

don't make me pull out Bellisario's Maxim (Don't examine this too closely) and smack you guys with it

But it all does make sense! Stopping thinking about it is only a valid response when thinking about it makes it worse, and here it doesn't.

so you're pulling Moff's Law on me? fair enough...but I still think this discussion is completely ridiculous, probably because I can't contribute

No, Moff's Law is about a story being stupid if you're incapable of enjoying it without turning your brain off. Basically when Bellisario's Maxim is no longer an excuse. I'm saying that neither of these things is required because the story actually does make sense, and the more you think about it the more you enjoy things.

Call me a racist, but I'm rather a fan of humans.

Nah, you just have an extremely anthronormative world view. You look at ponies, you look at human tech and tactics, and you conclude that these things don't work together so ponies must not be as good at it as humans. You need to build things up from the bottom for every different context.

[Frost]

Huh. Just had a massive bout of Fridge Brilliance.

Of course ponies would develop powered armor. For humans, it's ludicrously impractical because we can take cover, we can just make equipment lighter, we can make stronger, lighter body armor.... Ponies can't even simultaneously take cover and aim. They might have difficulties taking cover at all. Their equipment's big and bulky, of course they need help carrying it.

[222222]

^ Now you're thinking with ponies

[Sindri]

Huh. Just had a massive bout of Fridge Brilliance.

Of course ponies would develop powered armor. For humans, it's ludicrously impractical because we can take cover, we can just make equipment lighter, we can make stronger, lighter body armor.... Ponies can't even simultaneously take cover and aim. They might have difficulties taking cover at all. Their equipment's big and bulky, of course they need help carrying it.

Plus all the balance problems and most coordination issues get easier with a quadrupedal frame. And a pony in power armor goes from a pair of rifles to a pair of artillery cannons without losing much, while the human would need to have completely different equipment designed for the armor and lose almost all their manual dexterity because all our current guns either fit squishy hands or mount on vehicles.

[Frost]

Ponies do have one advantage in that the flanks and back are good mounting points for weapons, while our mid-riding center of gravity and agility/dexterity-adapted body shape means there is no place we could mount weapons realistically to a human frame.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

jumping on the pony sizing thing... ponies are up to 14.2 hand high which roughly translates to a maximum of 58 inches tall. one hand is four inches with .1 .2 and .3 being one inch respectively. once they are 14.3 inches they are horses... in category.if celestia is the maximum size of a pony 14.2 hands or 58 inches tall. that would make her at the shoulder 4'10" tall with her head going a bit higher so she would be close to about what 6'2" at eye level with her head in an alert posistion, or rather when she would be poised for dressage?

going from there... ponies can b small and get pretty large, don't think just because the only pony you associate as being pony are those small ones you see at fairs to be the only size out there.

[Cptadder]

Have fun with the next forty posts, I lose internet in a few hours for a few years(hours) as my move is still ongoing. The mine craft server is on hiatus for 24 hours as are likely my comments.

OAN:Griffins have hands, they can use human guns, griffins like bits, they would sell the ponies a gun they could use if they were the inventors. Point is Pones need to go directly to cartridges, they would not bother with a muzzle loader at all. Only our monkey hands make muskets seem like a good idea.

[Ketchup]

I think we've gone over pony size many times already with no real conclusions. Once it involved trains, as I remember, and apples.

Anyway, almost everything there is to be said on the operation of firearms in the context of the infantry pony has been mentioned. Battle saddles for the big ones, and mouth grips and shoulder stocks for rifles and other small arms. Pump action is kinda iffy, though I suppose one could do it with a hoof provided the pump is made in such a way to facilitate easy... traction, I guess? Can't find my word. Though that wouldn't help with chambering them on the move.

What kinda intrigues me is how ponies would load small cartridges like those used in pistols or intermediate-caliber rifles into box magazines or cylinders, aside from the easy answer of "very carefully".

Need to sleep now.

[Caoimhe]

Ponies wouldn't invent pump action shotguns, or they would be created in a special way, probably with a handle sticking out the side to kick to rack a shell. Even though there's been cool examples of what pony gun triggers look like, people need to really think about more practical designs.

mech does a pretty good job but every time i see a standard looking pistol or something for a pony weapon I grimace a little. C'mon doods, be creative!

[Ketchup]

mech does a pretty good job but every time i see a standard looking pistol or something for a pony weapon I grimace a little. C'mon doods, be creative!

Too often. Ponies wouldn't be able to operate our weapons to great effect and maybe not at all.

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