"Do All ALIEN Troops Buy Their Weapons From EARTH?" Topic

I didn't say they wouldn't but why would they? They will have their own cultural motifs and norms. Pants might not have ever caught on. Maybe their warriors wear robes. When was the last time you saw an alien miniature wearing any sort of headgear?

-Eli

"Pants might not have ever caught on"

Maybe they prefer the fresh airy feeling of a skirt, kilt or robe!

Or, perhaps, nothing*! :)

CC
* TMP link

Lately around the Comfy Chair Creation sessions we have actually talked about this and how the opening is there to really flex your imagination.

We have been kicking around a few ideas of things to do to expand our lines and this was one of the options.

We felt that to create the gun/tanks/weapons you must first create the alien that the gun must accomidate. In order to create the alien you must first create the world that it has adapted to live on.
Needless to say, we had alot of fun with this. We actually came up with some very different and do-able designs, we just need to figure out if this is a profitable direction to travel.

Comfychair's got it -- that was my design plan on the Cnidarians too. I designed them naked (I mean they were naked, not me), then put them in their gel-steel battle dress, then designed their gun and sensor array around their tentacles and so on so that it fits them.

Despite all that, what consistently sells best is what we are most familiar with, and these guys are the biggest crap shoot yet for me. Time will tell whether it would have made more sense to have had them "buy their guns from earth," if you get my meaning.

"I designed them naked (I mean they were naked, not me)"

I am sooooo glad you clarified that for us. I was beginning to worry there for a second. :)

CC

Guys, you really need to stop selling weapons to these critters . . .

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CC

More on alien physiology:

link

CC

Sorry. Didn't mean to sound accusatory at all.

Do you guys think these opinions or ideas have merit, or may be useful?

cthreepo.com/physed1.shtml

No. It struck me as being a load of rubbish.

"A larger brain means higher intelligence."
The variation of weight of human brains is about 2:1. There's no evidence that people with fat heads are cleverer.

"Sex is necessary for fast evolution."
Not if you are bacteria, which evolve faster than anything else on Earth.

Fair enough, it's written as a resource for speculative fiction, but even so when it ignores basic scientific facts you have to wonder.

Also killkrazy, sperm whales brains are a great deal larger than humans'. Not sure that means they are much smarter than humans -- most scientists think that is to find prey by echo location (which requires processing a LOT of info).

Similarly, t Rex had a large brain, but that seems to have been used to process olfactory info, as t Rex had an amazing sense of smell.

On the other end of the spectrum, an octopus does not have a big brain in the overall scheme of things, but few animals can solve problems as well.

I see a bunch of Humans everyday that make me wonder about the whole brain size = smart debate.

Filthy creature the Human.

@Khurasan: I look forward to seeing how they come out.

I can actually describe them -- about eight feet tall, flat hemispherical head, three tentacles on either side of the head, long thick stalk body, six tentacles emanating from the base of the stalk, rather root like.

On the head are two nerve-net portals, which look like small eyes.

This makes the head vaguely similar to the salamander diplocaulus.

I think to bottom line this discussion – form generally fits function with style layered on top to reflect culture.

A Samurai sword and a European broadword are both cutty/choppy weapons made by two distinct cultures. They fit the same basic form with minor differences based on the technology involved in making them, minor variations in function and then visual aesthetic differences based on the cultures that created them.

-Eli

Considering Science Fiction is fiction, I see no problem with making aliens look however you want them and designing weapons accordingly.

In the very old SPI game Star Soldier, there was an army of intelligent slime moulds, the Rame, who had the ability to pool their action points when gathered in a single hex.

It made them more vulnerable if an enemy shot got through, but they got better defences by doing it. So it made for an interesting strategic choice in the game.

If you want "realistic" aliens, that requires some research into physiology.

I think to bottom line this discussion – form generally fits function with style layered on top to reflect culture.

And since gamers usually want humanoid aliens with just minor variations from humans, the weapons as a result will probably be quite similar as well.

A gun that does not look like a gun in at least some respect would probably find little exposure on the tabletop.

Same goes for aliens that don't look like combatants. Doesn't matter how many times you tell passersby that the thing that looks like a raisin with a button on the top is actually the dreaded Clambok warrior and its deadly heat ray, they will still laugh at the raisin with the button on top.

"the thing that looks like a raisin with a button on the top"

LOL. Don't they sell brain creatures like those already?

CC

The rifle of the fella on the right looks it meets the minimum level of alien-ness, I guess.

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CC

These weapons are alien enough, but still recognizable, don't you think?

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Dan

DAMN! Cacique Caribe THANX FOR TOPIC! Very inspiring ideas here!

I mean I've been sculpting 15mm squid alien and I was wandering what gun to use for him :)

Well … It would depend on their tech level … Plus their supply situation. They may have to use Humie weapons if they don't get resuppied ? Or like in some cases our Spec Ops units use "local" weapons, like AK-47s … for a number of reasons. In one of my fav SyFy series SG-1, the advanced aliens that looked like Little Grays, called the Asgard, asked the SG-1 Tm for help. Because the Human weapons(P-90s, .50 cals, etc.) were very effective against the machine aliens – The Replicators !

Yes, they all buy their guns on earth. Specifically, here:

hyattguns.com

SirFjodin,

Glad to see that this "old" topic can still help people a little.

Dan

I run out of ideas for how an alien weapon can work as the intended game effect without somehow resembling a human weapon. Maybe one worn on the head fired by thought (or even firing the thought?) or one stuck to a gauntlet (often happens in fiction but not so much in minis.) Spikes that fire?
Weapons that look like a mass of crystals may work but having a mass of crystals on a figure does not show that it has a weapon.
A lot of races may have only human levels of technology by the time we meet them, so while they may have some older weapons from their history which are decorated and styled in "alien" styles but when they have to supply armies, the guns have to work and be maintained in the field; like comparing a samba rifle to an M-16.
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The samba rifle shows the style of a culture while the M-16 is a machine, with no style of its own but the style of a machine.
Technological features may be the only thing that marks them as alien, maybe they have an optic nerve implant connected to the guns sights; or maybe they are built for a different average build eg. a large powerful frame might be able to carry much larger weapons than a human.
Otherwise only a unique design that doesn't correspond to any previous designs will appear alien, while something totally wierd would look silly and possibly work the same.

PS did you ever consider that in some of those settings the aliens trade with humans so it's not that they have mostly our stuff but us that buys theirs? It's not as if Naruni Enterprises pick and choose their customers, unless you're an ally of the Splugorth.

A more recent discussion on the problems with weaponry and alien anatomy:

TMP link

Dan

Killcrazy claimed -

"Sex is necessary for fast evolution."
Not if you are bacteria, which evolve faster than anything else on Earth.

ummmm . . . if you define sex broadly as exchanging DNA between individuals, then sorry, but bacteria *do*. They trade plasmids ( Small rings of RNA that carry information such as antibiotic resistance) among members of the same species and even between not closely related species as well. Of course, it's far faster than simple breeding and that is the strength.

Getting back to the point, several design schools in the past have set students this very problem – designing tools for trading to an alien race with different physical characteristics from humans. Having a look at websites and open days at these places would be useful for sculptors, I would think.

These would be cool weapons, and not too human-like:

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Dan

Well, I guess I had never noticed these guys here "Plutonian Avengers":

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That's the kind of stuff I want. Doesn't look like it has any parts made on Earth by humans.

I wish there were more than just three poses with weapons though.

Dan

My greatest disappointment ever with 'alien' weapons were the GW Tyranids bioweapons (from RT Zoats pistols on).
A few years (at least a decade?) ago someone complained about the silly idea of some new Tyranids having 'absorbed' genes for Eldar helmets! But the silliness dates from the earlier Tyranides, the bioweapons of which clearly had genes for naginatas, pistols and rifles.
A symbiotic bioweapon would not be held by a hilt or grip: it would be connected deeply inside its 'host' by a kind of placenta, a lot of tendrils… and from the outside would appear like a modified 'hand'.
At the very least, like a jellyfish or octopus gripping the 'hand', if you want it easily removable.

What if the alien's hand was deep within the weapon (glove-like), and the actual bonding took place inside and out of sight?

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Dan

Yes, Dan: the 2nd possibility "like a jellyfish or octopus gripping the 'hand'", but with the 'bond' protected.
Yet, at least on 'naked' creatures such as Tyranids, the 1st option (the bioweapon looking like a modified 'hand') looks more… biological, imho. Such creatures, like ants and bees, are the 'mobile cells' of the real organism, the 'hive'. Not much difference between an 'intrinsic' bioweapon such as the glue-throwers of some termites and the acid-throwers of some ants (not to speak of the bomabrdier beetle!) and a 'symbiotic' one, except perhaps some flexibility: bees play different roles during their life, so a 'warrior' could more easily change its type of bioweapon with age (like the 'progression' of Space Wolves, somehow…).

I'd like to challenge the OP….

1) Unless a weapon looks like a weapon from Earth's history/present, its hard to say that its a 'human weapon' or even 'unalien.' Maybe, within the series, they use the same weapons as humans, but maybe those are just the BEST (or more likely, cheapest) guns, and they could be made by ANYONE (human, alien, or whatever).

2) Most alien models I see (at least in 15mm) use what I'd describe as "future-y' guns… not really human (they aren't like an m16 or AK, for example), but with a lot of similar qualities to modern guns. So this is probably the result of a syncretic culture, where weapon designers make weapons for use by all species, and have adapted the best (or cheapest) elements from all of the original cultures.

So I don't think Aliens with human guns is much of an issue.

I dunno. I think it's all about having a little extra creativity.

Some got it. Some don't. Some want it. Some don't.

Dan

These guys look pretty interested:

Dan

Here's a human with an alien weapon:

link

Dan
TMP link

Kilkrazy wrote: "Fair enough, it's written as a resource for speculative fiction, but even so when it ignores basic scientific facts you have to wonder."

Actual quote from the site was:

"The ratio of brain to body weight is a generalized way of looking at intelligence. It makes sense that a large brain will mean a higher intelligence. A large body needs a larger brain to control it so you have to allow that an elephant's brain has more housekeeping to do than actual higher thought and might not be as smart as his large brain indicates.

Animals with the biggest brains are Whales, Elephants, Porpoises, Man, Chimpanzees, Baboons and Wolves. If you normalize the body weight, the order of size is Man, Baboon, Monkeys, Camels, Porpoises, Kangaroos and house cats.

If you rank animals by human type intelligence tests, the large water mammals fall off the list and Horses, Pigs, Dogs, Ravens and Parrots move up the list."