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[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, you got a good clue on the second to last hit there, but it's actually in Anton's inventory on the Wiki.

The Red Hand is - was - a Hand Laser. A Hand Laser is normally an armored glove with a built-in micro laser. The Red Hand is a Hand Laser expanded into a full armored gauntlet, with a powerful generator - more powerful than what powers the Gungnir - custom-built into the forearm portion. The practical upshot of that is a ridiculously heavy gauntlet with a puny laser that doesn't need to be recharged.

Oh, and whenever it's in atmosphere it will shoot lightning. And you can lightning-punch people even in space. And it has a nonlethal "taser" setting that I recommend you keep it on by default.

It can also act as a weak laser cutter and an arc welder. It's a neat little thing.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, you got a good clue on the second to last hit there,

*checks again*
Whoops.

Anyways, the Red Hand sounds...neat, but as you noted I don't see Grate having a big need for it. Especially if he can build his own, larger one with the...whatever we want to call it.


On that note, anyone have any idea of what would need enough power to fully utilize it? Or at least make it...great?

[Sean Mirrsen]

How large is it exactly? Depending on the size you could conceivably use it for some kind of Iron Man-like power armor. Get some superconductors and create an electric rocket flight system, compact and powerful but monstrously efficient. Get cracking on creating compact high-yield energy weapons. It'll all depend on how much we can get away with during the accelerated production time on Hephaestus.

Also the Red Hand cost me like 5 token. Even if Anton never managed to hit anything with it, the sheer utility of it is quite good for that price. And I'm planning on perfecting that aspect of it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Electric rocket? How does that work? Wouldn't you need propellant?

[Lenglon]

On that note, anyone have any idea of what would need enough power to fully utilize it? Or at least make it...great?

((The only EXO item I've noticed anyone try to develop in tinker could use that kind of power to upscale its size, range, and duration to terrifyingly high levels and yet the core design would only need minimal changes to make proper use of it. see below.))

((The lack of telekinetic fireballs and monofilament bolas in my tinker repository saddens me greatly

Why the lack of interest? It would help piecewise not forget your creations.))

((incomplete design, I have some options for how I want to go to handle the token costs, my current plans involve removing the automanip and making having a microwave amp/manip mandatory for useage. here's the relevant quotes from a notepad doc I keep around:

Spoiler: Wall of Old Tinker Posts (click to show/hide)

ok, plan 1) try to just take a microwave amp and modify it, when this raises red flags message the AM and Steve

How can I make a microwave amp have continuous output without killing the user?

if i get useful advice, follow it. if not, next plan.

plan 2) automanip wired to accept input for position (forbid positioning it where it touches the user), size (with limits on the max size), and (if possible) color, from standard prosthetic inputs. attempt to add a input port to the automanip so that it can be hooked up to a small generator for periodic recharging. attempt to add a battery life display to the automanip. if the automanip cannot be rigged up for recharging then attempt to configure the design for easy battery replacement.

message the Doctor to ask for help with this design, attaching a copy of the work i've performed to the message.

((no, Lyra doesn't know how bad an idea this is))

How should I configure prosthetic controls for this design? Is there a form of training control already designed to teach the user how to handle this new "limb" with something less lethal than a fireball?

if this doesn't work or is impratically priced, on to plan 3.

plan 3)

break the task down into subtasks and attempt to solve each problem individually.

subtask 1: generation of fireball

potental inital sources of the fireball: electric sparker, microwave amp, microwave manip, automanip, CLF3 (i'm pretty sure all of these will work, just use whichever is needed for compatability with later tasks, if several are compatible, use the one that is least likely to kill the user.

subtask 2: maintaining fireball

amp, manip, automanip, seem like the three most viable options. a robot would melt itself if surrounded by real fire, have scout eye maneuvering problems, and probably be to expensive to be viable if armored enough to avoid the above two issues.

subtask 3: controlling fireball

input from standard prosthetic systems seems likely, if nothing else the Doctor has shown that he is very used to adding additional limbs to people and would know how to configure input for something like this. if not viable for some reason then my best bets seem to be either a microwave amp or vector amp, depending on the other systems.

attempt to find viable methods for each of the above subtasks and then attempt to find a compatible combination of the above. if several options are available attempt to minimize price and risk to the user. if this is going to be in continuous use then it needs to not kill me every 3rd turn.

if none of the above ideas boil down to something usefull message Nyars with my failed designs attached, noted with why they will not work:

Do you have a device that would perform similarly to these failed design's intentions?

Plan 1
The armory master basically tells you that you can't have continuous output, that there is always a limit to how much a manipulator or an amp can throw out before the batteries or user is drained.

Plan 2
Automanips never except anything but an activation and deactivation signal. Their actions cannot be altered.

plan 3

This all depends on how strict you are in how it looks. I mean, if all you want is a flying fireball we could just do the equivalent of duct tape a Bunsen burner to a quad-copter and call it a day.  But if you want to actually look like a free floating fireball then it's gonna be more complex.

Also, nyars doesn't know whats in his capsules, or at least he's not telling anyone.

well, blast. that limit on automanips is a major problem, although workarounds are still possible.
((and i knew Nyars would refuse, it just was the logical follow up so...))

plan 1) the hard way
look up various forms of immaterial containment and/or shielding fields developed. particularly look for methods of containing either heat or plasma effects that do not require surrounding the effect but instead curve their shielding around it, probably by having an array of devices clustered together, a few forming the shield itself, initially aimed mildly off-center, and the rest forming modifying fields that act similarly to prisms upon the shield effect, causing it to curve  as it passes the target area, forming a hollow sphere.
attempt to either duplicate or develop such a device, activate it, then have a dedicated automanip cause there to be a specific heat level or plasma ball inside the shielded sphere.
create a program to adjust the angles, shield strength, and prism strengths, to automate the process of moving the sphere around so that all it needs is directional input.
test the maximum range the device can handle the sphere being from the emitters before the containment shields are too diffused to be functional, and make the program not allow moving the sphere that far from the emitters. also disallow suicidal fireball placement, such as on the user or on the emitters themselves. teach it that the initial fireball position must be a fixed direction and distance from the device array, to allow the automanip to function. treat this position as the default position for the fireball to go throughout design.
check size, price, and power constraints, and attempt to remove excess and specialize the device array to make more portable and cheaper to produce, reducing fireball size as needed as well, and updating the program as needed to compensate for this process.
do not stop downsizing until it either stops working or is both realistically man-portable and cheap enough in materials i think it would cost about 5 tokens or less. check how much this has reduced performance, and note exactly when it became man-portable, and when i think it would only cost about 5 tokens, if either point is reached during this downsizing and efficiency work.
((i'm assuming here that the field itself will keep the fire/plasma ball going through simple conservation of energy, since it doesn't have anywhere to go to dissipate itself. also since the automanip is set to cause there to be a specific amount of heat/plasma in the area, instead of adding a specific amount of heat/plasma to the area, it should be able to simply be triggered again to bring the fireball back to full strength))

refinements:
if the device takes significant battle damage, make it refuse to activate the automanip anymore for any reason, set the shields on a middling-strong setting, and turn off the prisms, reshaping the shields into an outward facing cone, and expelling the fireball away from the user. after the fireball has had three times the time normally needed to dissipate,the rest of the device turns off and stays that way until repaired.
attempting to trigger the automanip causes the shields to return to the default position, then triggers it. the automanip will not trigger if the shields are out of position.
give the device a physical switch on it, which is covered and latched to prevent accidental use, which will disable the safeties with the exception of the auto-shut-off listed above. it defaults to have the safeties on, is a toggle, and if damaged (without the rest of the device being damaged) locks itself with the safeties on.
make the device compatible with prosthetic limb inputs. (remember it only receives directional movement input, and the automanip trigger request, there is no other input to this device)

plan 2) stupidly expensive
first, test each of the various amps, manips, and automanips. find which ones can make the fireball, and which of those have the longest battery life when set to keep it going as long as possible.
next, go through the amps, manips, and automanips again, take the longest lasting result from the above test, and see which amps, manips, and automanips can move it around. for now ignore practicality (if necessary use 6 automanips (one for each dimension) to move it for example).
next, attempt to find a way to reduce the price tag of the system by specializing it to this one purpose, removing unnecessary versatility options, unneeded inputs, etc.

Hmm, well theres a gun in the armory called the Plasma Projector that fires big old balls of plasma contained in magnetic fields. SO what your doing here is by no means new or out of the question. However, out still have the problem that if you do such a thing with a automanip it would basically just project this ball of plasma x feet away from itself at Y angle and have it stay there in relation to itself. And maintaining the ball would still drain battery power over time, so it's not like it would be a permanent solution.

it shouldn't have to do any maintenance work actually. the only reason for the automanip was to insert the heat/plasma into the containment sphere, maintenance and movement is handled by the sphere itself. the automanip only has to turn on for a single burst. the reason i needed an automanip for it was to be able to generate it is because the way i was building the containment sphere, there wasn't a safe way to insert the plasma into the containment field.

i had forgotten about the plasma projector over there, that actually makes things a ton easier. i noticed that the plasma projector's problem isn't maintaining the plasma over distance and time, but getting it to hit the target at long ranges because of the slow speed it has for a projectile. essentially the system i'm trying to build could piggyback off the plasma projector tech and is basically using a plasma projector plasma ball with an immaterial leash on it. the low end speed mentioned in the plasma projector entry (90 MPH) is plenty fast for my purposes.

and i do expect the fireball to degrade over time, but since i'm keeping a permanent leash on it. i'm pretty sure the aforementioned leash will help reinforce the containment field and keep the loss to a minimum, and even without this reinforcement the plasma projector's field listed in the armory was able to keep the plasma ball effective for extended periods (90 MPH + extreme range means signifigant travel time means long duration).

also, i'm fine with a much smaller fireball than the plasma projector, reducing it from basketball sized to a simple 5 inch diameter, or possibly smaller (down to a minimum of 2 inches, although 3 is much preferable) if necessary. that has got to greatly reduce the demands on the system. i also dont need the extreme range of the plasma projector, limiting it to a maximum of medium range is just fine with me. additionally the plasma projector is capable of having multiple shots in the air at one time, i only want one fireball active at a time.

also, now that you pointed that out (seriously, thank you so much for pointing out the plasma projector, that's a major help here) i'd like to look into using the plasma projector's firing mechanism to generate the ball, instead of an automanip, and see if that reduces size/price/power requirements, if it is the more efficient generation system, use that instead.

i do expect this system to drain power over time, the projectors for the containment field / leash are going to be pretty much constantly on after all. so:

test the maximum duration of a single fireball under this system, assume infinite power available to the containment field but no additional power to the automanip/plasma projector firing mechanism after the fireball has been generated.
test power drain rate of the system, look into a generator/battery system that starting from a fully charged state can generate and maintain a constant state of having one fireball active, replacing them as they dissipate, for 1 hour, then 4 hours, then 12 hours. (i think this system will be most efficient with a generator attached because of the long duration i'm working with here, if not, just use a battery and list the price tag and normal recharge time please)
test how long it takes for the generator part of the power system to fully recharge the battery from a fully drained state, without outside help.

oh, and what color is the plasma ball? can i make it blue?

Well, the plasma projector uses an automanip to maintain the magnetic field, which is the problem. Pretty much the only way to have these free floating balls of plasma is automanip usage, and in that case they're not very maintainable. If you, say, were ok with it being on the end of a staff, then it could be done with more simple means, but just having it float around like you want is hard.

As per color, the plasma projector's spheres are many colors at once, most of them blinding. Not sure if we could get pure blue unless from plasma-fying a specific substance, like how neon lights work.

WAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT...
the automanip on the plasma projector for the containment field works on a Moving Target?!?
how??? it's not like the user of the gun holds perfectly still while the plasma ball is in the air after all.
shouldn't it run into the same problem i did when i wanted to be able to maneuver the plasma around via automanip?


ok, since the plasma projector uses a variation of automanip for the containment field, and those have a lifespan problem, i'll simply use the directional containment field/beam + prism field/beam from last time, quoting the relevant part for convenience:

look up various forms of immaterial containment and/or shielding fields developed. particularly look for methods of containing either heat or plasma effects that do not require surrounding the effect but instead curve their shielding around it, probably by having an array of devices clustered together, a few forming the shield itself, initially aimed mildly off-center, and the rest forming modifying fields that act similarly to prisms upon the shield effect, causing it to curve  as it passes the target area, forming a hollow sphere.

here, let me give you a visual, although i'm not any good at drawing:
{spoiler=ugly image}{/spoiler}
the more traditional repulse field (aka, a simple directional magnetic field) is optional if the shields can be crossed as shown in the image, however if they interfere with each other then uncrossing them and having the repulse field in the middle will be needed to protect the near side.
the prism is actually the entire area between the brown lines, i left them open to show what happens inside that area.
as shown, the far side will in general be much weaker, and this setup will have a lot of leakage into the area behind the fireball, probably interfering with electronics in the area.

this kind of design will have a significant problem traveling long ranges, but i'm not trying for anything like the long-range-artillery the plasma projector qualifies as. the nice thing about it is it shouldn't require any automanips to maintain the plasma ball, and it should be able to be moved in any direction by slowly adjusting the emitters' angles. it also simply uses a conventional power supply instead of needing the special batteries of manips, although it will probably be a bit of a power hog.

the plasma itself will be generated via automanip, but will not be contained or controlled by it.

Well, in that case the automanip create the field and then propels it forward. It doesn't continue to maintain it after that so the field degenerates quickly.

This was pretty much what I was talking about when it comes to putting it on the end of a stick or on top of a drone or something. You can contain the plasma but you need a physical base for these magnetic field emitters to sit on. And they need to be close to the ball itself. So with a staff or a drone you can have that. And in that case you can have the plasma ball and maintain it for relatively little energy, though you will need to keep it supplied, since the plasma will lose energy via heat and light, regardless of how shielded it is.

hmmm, how far away can i get it to go? for example if i placed the emitters on a belt could i get it to go anywhere within 5 feet of me or so? or are we talking more in inches than in feet? it seems like the range would be variable, based on how strong the emitters are. and like i said, i'm using a MUCH smaller amount of plasma.

EDIT:

what i'm thinking of here, it is seems the power drain rate would be variable depending on the distance the fireball is from the emitters. if i keep the fireball very close normally (maybe carry it directly above my hand? the same way i was carrying it most of the time in the illusion?), and only move it away from my person for short time periods (generally to either illuminate or ignite something), i think i'd be able to maintain the fireball a lot of the time without having to have a drone or stick or whatever.

The drone or the stick is where the emitters will be placed; you need some sort of physical base for them to be put onto. Thats not a matter of lowering power drain, thats a matter of it working at all. You could have the emitters in a glove, for instance, to just keep it above your hand. Although it's gonna be a pretty big glove. And one that fucks with electronics around it since it's spraying concentrated magnetic fields around.

hmmmm...
ok, from your description i'm guessing the glove version would end up looking less like the nintendo power glove and more like the warhammer or fallout power fist?
unless...

test idea)
a backpack-style setup for the emitters. that should be a far more stable place to have them, and keeps me more weight-balanced, as well as allowing me to move my hands freely without moving the fireball with them.

test specific problem areas:
1)
identify which parts of the the suits have significant problems if i have the emitter's fields pass through them, which simply are disrupted but have no long-term effects, and which function normally.
2)
identify if there is danger to a human that stands between the emitters and the fireball itself, assuming the fireball is far enough away to not pose a burn risk.
3)
test power drain rates over distances, determine how close the fireball needs to stay for acceptable drain rates long-term, how close i can let it wander around short-term without issue, and at what point the power drain rate becomes exorbitantly high, such that i can probably only move the fireball out that far a couple times before the battery will be completely drained.

((hopefully these tests will put us on the same page, and let me finish the core design work and get more into finalization work (safeties, interfaces, etc)))

missed me, although i didn't use bold at the time i guess

sorry about that.

Yeah, the glove would be pretty big.  Even bigger if you want the power supply in it rather then on your back or something.

1.
Anything electronic and not shielded might get fucked up, though not permanently.

2.Nah. Magnetic fields of this magnitude won't hurt anyone.  Well, unless they're a robot.

3. Oh, foot or two shouldn't take too much energy. Anything beyond that though and it's gonna go up exponentially.

ok then, Still tinkering to make my floating fireball

physical design and appearance:
place all the parts for this into a backpack design, batteries, emitters, the works. I just need to keep the fireball near the emitters, right? if i want it to float over my hand that's still within a couple feet of the emitters, and it doesn't force me to wear a "glove" bigger than my head. something as big as a power fist is way too big for me to use at my size. the emitters themselves need to be in a sphere of sorts, that rotates to allow it to be aimed at any angle, and the casing needs to include some stabilizers and shock absorbers, to protect the equipment from the inevitable large amounts of vibration this device will  encounter in normal use.

power:
use an integrated pair of batteries for power, on opposite ends of the device (so if the fields have one temporarily disabled, the other works just fine), include some retractable recharging/power cables for the various standard generator/battery designs, and a battery indicator both on the device itself and on a connected suit's HUD.

control:
message the doctor for help with this. design it to use prosthetic limb inputs, so that creating, dismissing, and moving the fireball around is done as an extension of the user's body. the user does not manually handle each of the emitters separately, but simply controls where the unit as a whole aims them. assume the device will be attached to the user's back, but that it (like other prosthetics) can be removed if detached properly. if at all possible, i want the user to have the same kinesthetic sense of the fireball's location that people have with any other limb. if the doctor gives advice on how to refine this control scheme, take it.

Could you please help me refine the control scheme for this device?

safeties:
if the device takes damage that might compromise the emitters, it immediately begins the shut-down process, and will not restart until repaired.
the device will not trigger the automanip if the emitters are not in the right position to contain the resulting fireball, and will attempt to move the emitters to the proper position if this is attempted.
when the device is shutting down, it turns off the prism emitters first, then waits a few moments for the fireball to dissipate, before shutting down the rest of the emitters. this will result in the fireball dissipating in a cone of flame directly away from the emitters.
the device outputs to the user's suit the location the fireball is currently at, which the suit then uses to darken a small section of the user's visor anytime the fireball would be visible, protecting the user from blinding themselves.

give the device a physical switch on it, that is encased and latched down normally to prevent accidental changes to it.
the switch is a "training mode" switch, that limits the device's permitted movement area such that it cannot get within arm's reach of the user, except to create a new fireball. it also does not permit the fireball to go directly beneath the user. when a new fireball is made in "training mode" it is immediately moved outside this safety radius after it has been made, and without the control of the user. i am fully aware this will drain power much faster, but when working with a new prosthetic you need to have an acclimation period where you can't kill yourself with it. if the switch is damaged, the device disables training mode rather than risk locking it in training mode.

assuming all the above design steps go well, message Steve and the AM:

I would like help building this design. I believe it would be more versatile than most currently available equipment. Is there a way to make this? I do not have the skills to assemble the pieces.

All This looks fine and dandy, although you may want to consider shielding the electronics of your suit, since you're basically gonna be waving those fields around willy-nilly.  And yeah, you can get the armory master to make it for you, though you'll still have to pay for everything. But hey, thats what missions are for.

how expensive would this be?

price check?

((shielding isn't free, and i'm trying to keep the price as low as i can. i'll just suffer with it while i'm in a MK1 suit, but i know i'll need to do something about it if i get a MK2 or MK3))

Well, here's the thing Automanips have a low end cost of about 5-6 tokens. And then there's the 3 or so for the power system, the 3-4 for the magnetic field projectors, and the 2-3 for assembly and misc parts. So it's already not cheap.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Electric rocket? How does that work? Wouldn't you need propellant?

Well, theoretically you could create protons out of energy and accelerate yourself on those, but I meant the kind of electric propulsion that exists IRL - magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, for instance.

You spend massive amounts of energy to accelerate your propellant (more like reaction mass) out of your engines, so you get more acceleration per unit of mass spent. It only makes for rather weak engines IRL, because power requirements are massive and there are other issues - but we have automanipulators and an alien power source here. You could have a backpack rocket pack with a flight time measured in days.

In retrospect, it's a little like strapping yourself to a giant particle cannon and flying on the recoil. The Kzinti Lesson and all that, but who cares for bystanders and collateral damage, right?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Ooh, neat.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll be making multiple things with a slot for the power source. I also wonder if I could reproduce it...that would be AWESOME.

[Toaster]

If it's a big enough power source to power an entire alien base, it should power any equipment you're carrying.  Perhaps a DIY battlesuit with no regard for power efficiency?

[piecewise]

Just a reminder that piecewise goes on ehhh probably about a week's vacation starting march 11. Which is, at current count,

14 days, 13 hours and 53 minutes away.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Will you try and wrap up the invasion by then?

[NAV]

Will you try and wrap up the invasion by then?

Unlikely unless someone overloads a manip. That tends to make missions shorter.
I am NOT suggesting to overload a manip.

[Toaster]

Yeah, that sort of win only works when you're the away team.  Now we're the home team.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Unless we all use gravity manipulators and smack the incoming fleet with the moon.

[NAV]

Actions for the timeskip:
-Go to Simus and create a copy of my brain with my personality. Excrete it with enough biomass to build a body the size of a Golden Retriever and give it to Simus to store in a hidden box or something.
-Then head back to the ship and spend the year practicing shapeshifting so I can do it more times before I run out of biomass reserves.
-Oh, and kill and consume that goddamn fishman.
-Test out that katana I recieved from the Christmas draw on various targets.
-Search up that Halstrom effect or whatever it was that synth flesh exhibits in large amounts.
-Buy and get a Mass Manipulator Amp installed (7 token).

A dog sized brain copy was created. It is of...questionable correctness.
Will increased to 25.
You eat him with eel sauce.
It's just a normal katana, from what you can see.
I believe  we already went over that, if not in character, but it basically means that synthflesh defies physics at an increasing degree as more of it gets together.
Bought and installed.

Shouldn't the Fishman be added to the wall of rememberance? He was technically a player character.

[Toaster]

Algis save us all.