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Self-Destructing Weaponry


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Just to point out, the "references" (Wikipedia isn't a valid reference) all point towards smart weapons which simply deactivate.

The link to the the Hainan Island incident is mearly what the military (and civilians) have been doing for hundreds of years: Scuttling.

In none of those references is there a mention of self destruction.

However, I can see and agree with the logic that weapons could deactivate themselves, rendering them useles in combat for xenonauts to pick up, but no military would seriously consider a weapon which can self destruct.

The chance, even minute, of a weapon self destructing of its own accord or if it recieves damage in combat, would see soldiers not want to go near it, and get it viewed as a very unsafe weapon.

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You may not find wikipedia to be a valid reference but the linked sources absolutely are.

That said, the point of detailing smart gun technologies, as repeatedly stated earlier in the thread, is that we, mere humans, have such technology already at our disposal which is planned for deployment to military and law enforcement agencies. Further, if we, mere humans, can develop and deploy such technology, the aliens can surely do better, including their own smart weapon technology that is cheaper and significantly more reliable to the point of being basically foolproof which could both deny unauthorized usage, and self-destruct on operator death.

Surely we would not add self-destructing mechanisms to our weaponry, but the aliens likely would since:

A: Their small arms are orders of magnitude more advanced than our most sophisticated weapon systems, and thus we have a great deal to gain from reverse engineering them, thus such mechanisms are invaluable in minimizing human resistance which is clearly an objective of the aliens.

B: Virtually all of the alien species are considered disposable even in the extremely remote chance there were any kind of malfunction of the self-destruct mechanism which would furthermore be exceedingly unlikely per their technology.

The point of bringing up the Hainan Island incident is to prove that our militaries routinely feature doctrines of scuttling and denial of technological capture, to those who, for some reason, inexplicably seem to believe that these require ineffable foresight beyond even aliens far more intelligent than we are. That said, because we do routinely implement such policies, it's clearly only reasonable that the aliens would implement similar doctrines with respect to their armed forces, particularly in light of the exponential gulf between our technology and theirs; i.e. it's all the more important to feature them in their case.

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@Surrealistik:

I will explain my take on this:

From a human point of view applying human logic there is no good reason for them not to have self destructing weapons.

But the keywords here are human logic. Human logic may very well not apply here. We are talking about an alien race, with very likely completely different thought patterns and a different evolution. There might be tons of reasons for them not to implement this.

Maybe its unthinkable for them rig their own weapons this way. Maybe there are religions reasons or it conflicts with their code of honour or their thoughtpatterns are so different it doesn't occour to them as benefitial.

So I have no problem with it being in the game or not.

edit: There also might be technical reasons that its just not doable with their kinds of weapons. Maybe because of the power source they are using or trigger mechanisms. Its a plasma gun.. I have no idea how it works or how to disable it safely. Maybe its impossible.

Edited by StK
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Citation provided (as it was earlier in the thread):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personalized_gun

For future reference, when someone jokingly says "citation needed" probably the last thing you should link is a Wikipedia article.

...so your argument then is that biometric imprinting on weapons for instance, something currently in the process of implementation on a wide scale in many militaries...across the world,

This particular claim is not in any way supported by either the Wikipedia article or its referenced sources. If you find a source that does, feel free to link an actual quote along with the article. If you can't find any real-life precedent of militaries endorsing self-destruction or fire-lock technology, maybe stop and think for a second about why that might be the case.

The point of bringing up the Hainan Island incident is to prove that our militaries routinely feature doctrines of scuttling and denial of technological capture, to those who, for some reason, inexplicably seem to believe that these require ineffable foresight beyond even aliens far more intelligent than we are. That said, because we do routinely implement such policies, it's clearly only reasonable that the aliens would implement similar doctrines with respect to their armed forces

There is a big difference between a policy of scuttling technology and implementing literal self-destruct / fire-lock mechanisms on pieces of otherwise functioning equipment. That's why basically every military in the world uses the former, and to my knowledge very few, if any militaries use (or even plan on using) the latter.

If your argument is that advanced aliens will have super advanced technology that works so well that implementing self-destruction triggers on all weapons would benefit the armed forces instead of hurting them, fine. But that's a completely separate claim from what you initially said. I don't have any problem, game-balance-wise, with self-destructing weapons, but it was a little tough to sit back and watch someone vehemently defend something no with real-life military precedent as realistic.

So, unless you can find, like, you know, a source... Peace.

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For future reference, when someone jokingly says "citation needed" probably the last thing you should link is a Wikipedia article.

Sources contained within the article. Also this is a forum argument, not an academic treatise.

This particular claim is not in any way supported by either the Wikipedia article or its referenced sources. If you find a source that does, feel free to link an actual quote along with the article. If you can't find any real-life precedent of militaries endorsing self-destruction or fire-lock technology, maybe stop and think for a second about why that might be the case.

Smart guns technology is in the process of military implementation. As stated in the wiki article, per the Weapons Act, Germany plans to make it a legislated requirement for _all_ small arms produced by the country without any military specific exception when such technology meets viability/performance thresholds, _including_ retrofitting of existing German weapons; this alone implies a significant and international pending military adoption of the technology (given the prolific and international scope of German manufactured weaponry). Law enforcement adoption, which you admitted as being both viable and existent, also features military units that engage in peacekeeping and law enforcement capacities.

There is a big difference between a policy of scuttling technology and implementing literal self-destruct / fire-lock mechanisms on pieces of otherwise functioning equipment. That's why basically every military in the world uses the former, and to my knowledge very few, if any militaries use (or even plan on using) the latter.

Again, I never claimed that literal self-destruct mechanisms are or were ever used by any military per their small arms. Firelocking technology is absolutely being developed for military use however, and is pending implementation.

If your argument is that advanced aliens will have super advanced technology that works so well that implementing self-destruction triggers on all weapons would benefit the armed forces instead of hurting them, fine. But that's a completely separate claim from what you initially said. I don't have any problem, game-balance-wise, with self-destructing weapons, but it was a little tough to sit back and watch someone vehemently defend something no with real-life military precedent as realistic.

So, unless you can find, like, you know, a source... Peace.

Show me where I said/claimed that self-destructing small arms have a real-life military precedent; please. I challenge you to pull even a single quote actually stating this. The closest I've ever come in asserting it (despite ultimately not doing so) is by pointing out that the current state of smart gun technology suggests that biometric locking mechanisms and by extension, death triggered self-destruct mechanisms, are not particularly outlandish and would be easily realized by aliens with vastly superior tech more than a century ahead of our own.

And yes, my argument is, and has always been with respect to small arms self-destruct mechanisms, that they would be used by the aliens to prevent reverse engineering on the basis that the technology of their small arms is worth insulating against reverse engineering (completely unlike our small arms), and that they'd have the technology to create such mechanisms with acceptable durability, reliability and performance.

Again, as repeatedly stated, I brought up the Hainan Island incident to highlight that militaries adopt and practise policies of technological denial where warranted, so the aliens would probably act likewise, including with respect to their small arms which indeed have technologies worth protecting. Hopefully this latest repetition will be enough to allow that fact to become apparent to you.

Edited by Surrealistik
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One question: why would non-combatants have specific weapons assigned to them along with various safeties such as a heart/lifesign monitor that destroys a designated weapon?

Does it make sense that wepons aren't interchangable if one malfunctions?

Would it really not make more sense to have some kind of weapon locker or armoury on their ships that anyone can pick a gun from if they need to defend themselves?

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Well, technically the alliens have such a huge amount of resources that they can throw light scouts around at random and seemingly not really care how many non-combatans of light plasma weapons are lost. You could argue that if they have self destruct mechanisms(their light fighters seem to always explode spectacular, so do the drones) then it really would not a problem for them to put that on every single weapon they build. We are talking about aliens that can build intelligent robots and other things outside the human grasp of understanding. Self destruct weapons could simply be military standard.

That said, I don't think the weapons should self destruct simply because it was stupid idea in Xcom enemy unknown, the fact that you can research completely functional laza weapons from the leftovers of an exploded weapon(and that a rocket would destroy the weapon more then just the weapon exploding) is rather silly. It kinda made the whole exploding pointless if it doesn't stop your research at all.

So you would need to be unable to do anything with the weapons till you find a way to take them intact(aka stunning), at which point the whole tech tree and timing of the alien invasion had to be readjusted to account for the later weapon upgrades. So I really don't think it is worth the effort.

It also simply draws too many of the other factors out, if they aliens are willing to go that far, why don't they have a guy wait in the power-room of every UFO and just blow it up the moment the Xenonauts breach the UFO? Why doesn't the alien base self detonate the moment the aliens breach the final room?

If the aliens were thinking clearly enough to do any of this there wouldn't even be a war.(there might be reasons I don't know, but whatever reason you apply to this would also apply to the weapons)

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I don't like the point that the alien weapons should self destruct because they are significantly better than ours and so the aliens would not want us to use them.

That would suggest that the aliens knew when designing their weapons that they would have a large technological advantage over any enemies they face and that weapons they dropped in battle would be of enough value to their opposition to make installation of a self destruct system and a complicated bio monitoring system worthwhile.

The increased costs, complexity, and potential risk to the user would all have to be justified by this decision.

Bio monitoring weapons will not be used by human military forces until they are not only proven to be completely reliable (no army wants news channels showing how they kill their own troops with a faulty sensor) but also the cheapest alternative.

For a comparison have a look at currently available body armour types and see how many national armed forces use the most protective option regardless of cost and complexity.

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@ Gorlom: Why would they be biolocked to an individual alien so they're not interchangeable? That argument doesn't make sense; assuming biolocking were to be in place, all aliens would be authorized operators, with authorization likely being verified via implants. Further, the self-destruct mechanism could easily be imprinted to the last authorized operator; when it dies, the mechanism kicks in.

@ Sapare: Agreed, there shouldn't be much of a war at all if the aliens are smart, but it's about achieving the balance between realism/versimilitude and gameplay, so yes, while the aliens could be smart in some ways (self-destruct mechanisms), they have to be stupid in others (the entire logistics/execution of the war) for there to be a game at all. The idiocy of the latter doesn't mean that they should never exhibit intelligence.

While I agree that self-destructing weapons would require a limited revision of how tech progression is handled, I believe it's worth it.

Lastly, I also agree that X-Com's handling of self-destructing weapons was questionable in some ways (some meaningful technology could be reverse engineered from their fragments). To its credit though, you could not reverse engineer plasma technology from the alien weapon fragments, so in that regard, the scuttling technology was absolutely successful. Either way, the flaws of X-Com's specific implementation of the element does not mean that other, better implementations should be overlooked/dismissed.

@Gauddlike: #1: Yes, military deployment of biolocking/smart gun technologies would require almost total reliability and would require them to be low cost for mass deployment outside of specialized peacekeeping and policing roles, agreed, was not disputing this. It's a pending technology, not a currently adopted one.

#2: For the aliens not to be aware of the technological value and superiority of their weapons vis a vis humanity would require unfathomable stupidity in contrast to their leadership's obvious intelligence (its obligatory stupidity that allows Xenonauts to be a playable game aside).

As before, I sincerely doubt whether either reliability or cost of self-destruct mechanisms are at all concerns for the aliens in light of their vastly superior technology and scientific understanding.

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@ Gorlom: Why would they be biolocked to an individual alien so they're not interchangeable? That argument doesn't make sense; assuming biolocking were to be in place, all aliens would be authorized operators, with authorization likely being verified via implants. Further, the self-destruct mechanism could easily be imprinted to the last authorized operator; when it dies, the mechanism kicks in.
Oh I wasn't even talking about the lockout function, I was only talking about the selfdestruct function. I see a lot of problems with that last "imprint on the last user" bit. It's likely to either destroy more weapons than it should (because noone new imprinted before the operator died) so aliens may end up without a weapon or if the imprint is temporary some weapons get left in the storage locker so the whole exercise is pointless since the humans get their hands on weapons anyway.

And this is assuming the whole concept works flawlessly (The more "user friendly" or interchangable you make something the more prone it is to bugs/malfunction). Worst case scenarios has the equipment malfunctioning in various devestating ways after overheating or misuse by noncombatants.

Noncoms wouldn't even be educated in the maintenence of these high tech weapons, would they?

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Noncoms wouldn't even be educated in the maintenence of these high tech weapons, would they?

As someone pointed out in another topic unrelated to this. noncoms technically are still military personal, they just are not front line soldiers.(if we are going by that logic) I am confident in my assumption that a pilot or a navi engineer would still have a basic understanding of how his nations military equipment would function, even if he was not expected to use it.

I really feel there are plenty a way to explain self destruct weaponry. It really is not a far reach and that was one of the FEW things in Xcom Enemy unknown that did not make me say 'this is so stupid'. But I still hold by the opinion that it is a no needed addition, I just think it wouldn't be difficult to explain if it had been added.

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Oh I wasn't even talking about the lockout function, I was only talking about the selfdestruct function. I see a lot of problems with that last "imprint on the last user" bit. It's likely to either destroy more weapons than it should (because noone new imprinted before the operator died) so aliens may end up without a weapon or if the imprint is temporary some weapons get left in the storage locker so the whole exercise is pointless since the humans get their hands on weapons anyway.

And this is assuming the whole concept works flawlessly (The more "user friendly" or interchangable you make something the more prone it is to bugs/malfunction). Worst case scenarios has the equipment malfunctioning in various devestating ways after overheating or misuse by noncombatants.

Wait, what?

First, the self-destruct mechanisms would only ever be armed during periods of engagement. If a weapon self-destructs during an engagement after its user dies for whatever reason, that's exactly by design, working as intended.

As for locker stashed weapons, they wouldn't be imprinted, but it's trivial for a weapons locker (usually in a heavily fortified area to begin with) to send self-destruct signals to its contents in the event of an unauthorized breach/handling/proximity depending on how paranoid the aliens are.

I'm not sure what self-destruct mechanisms on the weapon have to do with mishandling having devastating consequences (again, it isn't a bottle of nitro strapped to the weapon), especially since that mishandling is unlikely to occur in the first place being as the non-combatant aliens are essentially puppets of leader consciousnesses.

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#2: For the aliens not to be aware of the technological value and superiority of their weapons vis a vis humanity would require unfathomable stupidity in contrast to their leadership's obvious intelligence (its obligatory stupidity that allows Xenonauts to be a playable game aside).

As before, I sincerely doubt whether either reliability or cost of self-destruct mechanisms are at all concerns for the aliens in light of their vastly superior technology and scientific understanding.

As I said that only applies if the aliens knew when they designed and built their weapons that they would be facing lower tech enemies who would have the capacity to understand and use their weapons against them.

Maybe they arrived, looked down at humanity and thought 'yep better build a whole new set of weapons just in case they pick one up' or maybe they just decided to use the cheap and reliable ones they already had.

You can choose to ignore reliability and cost amongst other things that would not support your belief that this type of system would be an absolute certainty but I don't choose to ignore them.

Our current tech level is pretty far ahead of the swords of the dark ages yet cost and reliability is still a concern for us so I don't see why it should cease to be a concern another step up the tech ladder.

Technology has so far failed to remove those concerns for us at least.

To summarise, this kind of tech could definitely have been used but I don't really see what it would have added to the game.

If it makes you feel better just assume only the sights/aiming device locks out or self destructs leading to the poor accuracy of the weapons when used by humans.

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Why do you imagine that retrofitting is such an insurmountable obstacle? It's a strawman to assert that they have to build new weapons from scratch to feature biolocking and self-destruct mechanisms. Further, you're also assuming that these systems wouldn't already be standard issue, especially for an armada that is seeking out worthy sentient life to take traits from and incorporate into its empire; such an assumption by itself doesn't make a great deal of sense to start.

Further, I'm not ignoring reliability and cost considerations so much as I'm making the argument that they'd be highly unlikely per alien tech levels relative to the specific tech being discussed; biolocking and automated scuttling mechanisms. Of course reliability and cost are enduring concerns, but that's besides the point in this specific case where it can be reasonably expected that those particular pieces of technology would meet such criteria, particularly when we're not far from being able to implement similar tech which does.

If you don't think that it adds anything to the game, that's cool, to each their own, and there's a subjective element to be sure. In my view it adds some sorely needed verisimilitude, tactical depth and tradeoffs/interesting choices (though I will grant that stunning at the moment is probably too easy via Electroshock nades).

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I am assuming they are not standard issue for an imaginary alien enemy and you are assuming they are standard issue.

You are assuming these imaginary aliens have not only developed this technology but perfected it while I am assuming that they may have either not developed it or not bothered to use it.

There are plenty of assumptions on both sides as there have to be as none of the things under discussion actually exist.

I am enjoying the discussion though ;)

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Back to the discussion...

My suggestion that the weapons would need to be designed with your self destruct systems in mind is not a strawman.

You have suggested that the aliens would have such technology all along and as standard, I was pointing out that if they did not normally use it then it made little sense to rebuild their equipment in order to add a complicated system that was of little real benefit simply because they were fighting lower tech enemies.

The same applies to retrofitting said complicated system into a weapons package that is likely designed to be as small and ergonomically fitting as possible.

It would be possible either way but the benefits would have to be proven beforehand to make it worthwhile.

If simply knocking an enemy out or removing the weapon from his hands while he was still alive was enough to completely circumvent this technology then the benefit does not appear to outweigh the potential problems inherent in a weapon that self destructs without user input.

If the weapon leaving the users hands is enough to trigger a self destruct then what if the user drops the weapon or gets knocked out?

The system is either pretty much pointless or a liability in those scenarios.

I don't feel the case for self destructing weaponry is cut and dried in favour and I imagine a highly advanced race weighing up the pros and cons may have come to the conclusion that the technology was not worth implementing.

Plus who would believe the monkeys on the receiving end would be able to get hold of enough of their weapons to make a difference or be able to reverse engineer them in the time scale featured in Xenonauts or x-com.

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