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[Sean Mirrsen]

Ordinary convicts where? Ordinary convicts on Hephaestus probably have hearsay of the major projects being done because various facilities are in plain sight and whatever human workers we have are still human and a lot of what we do isn't terribly secret. The expanding Sod production, the new spaceship facilities, new ships being built, those things would be known, though with limited specifics and numbers. "Some alien artifacts are being researched and some new weapons are being made from them" is probably also a known fact, though details would likely not be available.

Ordinary convicts elsewhere would only get whatever news they can through the personnel on the transport ship, and maybe Steve. ARM conscripts would have general hearsay, plus news of any definite things coming in the near future (i.e. the MCP suits, the first round of personal weapons). Not even the generals would be likely to know of what exactly is coming with the transport ship besides the already-determined things like sods, since the new developments are mostly prototypes, and generally aren't advertised ahead of time.

[Unholy_Pariah]

Hey sean, whats the stat block on those plasma stakethrowers look like?

Also can you do me a favour and post an action to ask the heph scientists about the lifespan of fired termites and any ways to destroy them other than atom smashing?

[Nikitian]

Well then, now I know what to ask if I get a chance.
Because that barrier is sorta counter-productive as far as tinker-loving tech-curious convicts remaining on the Sword go. Of course, we have the Heph OOC, but it only feels bitter when one could just as well participate in the discussion IC as well as OOC.

Oh well. "Lords of the Tinker: Return of the Queen's higher brain functions" is still in production, unfortunately.

[piecewise]

Looking it up, apparently he died to a previously unknown allergic reaction.  That's a crappy thing to die to.  At least he went without pain.

...Not sure about this specific case, but death by allergic reaction can be quite horrible as far as I know. Anaphylactic shock ain't no joke.

Well, they said he was comatose so chances are he wasn't even capable of feeling it, regardless of what it was.

[syvarris]

...Not sure about this specific case, but death by allergic reaction can be quite horrible as far as I know. Anaphylactic shock ain't no joke.

Oh, I know, I've known people with pretty horrible allergies.  The post I found said he hadn't been in pain, so I assumed he was already under anesthesia or something when he had the reaction.  He was already in the hospital for an unrelated sickness, and the reaction happened during a routine procedure.

Question to the ARM staff: how known are specifics of what is being researched, constructed, done at the Hephaestus by ordinary convicts? Do they have any idea of the troubles and successes of the Hephaestus team, and how things go there, in general?

Dunno.  Saint would be perfectly happy to talk about most of his work, as would Anton I imagine, but almost nobody has contacted either of us IC, and even then it's not conversational stuff- more like "I MADE A VIBRATING PENETRATOR! MAKE A PROTOTYPE FOR ME XOXOXO".

I imagine Miyamoto has a pretty good idea, since Radio is practically one of our staff, but aside from that... I doubt there's much information dissemination.  Plus, IC, you guys are only able to contact us for a few weeks out of the year, so we probably don't talk much at all.

Not sure if you grasped the concept entirely with the bed of nails idea, the whole point of using the nails is that you inset the solid mass of hexsand between the nails and rising to just below the tips of the beetlespikes. When shot by a gauss rifle the bullet would impact upon the spikes instead of the sand and channel the kinetic energy into the proper plate section of the beetleplate layer.

The idea isnt to combine the materials but rather to combine their strengths, so i dont see why it would be more expensive then simply stacking one plate atop another.

Oh, I didn't grasp the concept at all.  That's kinda interesting.

Hmm.  I still doubt it would work well, because the 'nails' would melt to any energy weapons pretty quick.  Since the hexsand can't cover the holes the nails occupy, it wouldn't be able to 100% protect from plasma, although they would limit damage somewhat.  On the other hand, it might still prevent small amounts of kinetic damage from breaking the hexsand, which is useful.

I think it might be useful, but it's less 'combining' their abilities, and more rebalancing them.  Plus, it would almost certainly be more expensive than two simple plates, because the manufacturing is more complex than making raw slabs of material.  Thanks for the idea though; I'll add it to my ever-growing list of experiments.

[AoshimaMichio]

Question to the ARM staff: how known are specifics of what is being researched, constructed, done at the Hephaestus by ordinary convicts? Do they have any idea of the troubles and successes of the Hephaestus team, and how things go there, in general?
By passive "common" knowledge, not through directly asking the residents, I mean.

IC my character knows nothing, being newbie and all. Doesn't even know Heph exists.

OOC I keep watch on it so I have vague overall idea what is going on, but every now and then i get this "I missed something important here" feeling. Like sudden appearance of newest energy weapon cannon. I have no idea where it came from, but it melted quite nicely.

[Parisbre56]

through the personnel on the transport ship

There are personnel on the transport ship? Ow, that must be rough. Being stuck in stasis for years just to perform docking, undocking and the occasional repair doesn't sound very pleasant. Not to mention that humans are wasted there, since you don't get many of them on Hephaestus.

[Radio Controlled]

Looking it up, apparently he died to a previously unknown allergic reaction.  That's a crappy thing to die to.  At least he went without pain.

...Not sure about this specific case, but death by allergic reaction can be quite horrible as far as I know. Anaphylactic shock ain't no joke.

Well, they said he was comatose so chances are he wasn't even capable of feeling it, regardless of what it was.

That's good to hear. Dying in your sleep is probably one of the better ways to go (aside from a fighting death against ninja assassins perhaps).

[Harry Baldman]

That's good to hear. Dying in your sleep is probably one of the better ways to go (aside from a fighting death against ninja assassins perhaps).

I suspect going down fighting isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially against ninja assassins, since if you detect them in the first place, that probably means that very messy things are going to be done to you shortly.

[Radio Controlled]

That's good to hear. Dying in your sleep is probably one of the better ways to go (aside from a fighting death against ninja assassins perhaps).

I suspect going down fighting isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially against ninja assassins, since if you detect them in the first place, that probably means that very messy things are going to be done to you shortly.

Yeah, but imagine your eulogy!

[Parisbre56]

Good idea. I'll have people write "Died protecting his family from ninjas." on my gravestone.

[piecewise]

That's good to hear. Dying in your sleep is probably one of the better ways to go (aside from a fighting death against ninja assassins perhaps).

I suspect going down fighting isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially against ninja assassins, since if you detect them in the first place, that probably means that very messy things are going to be done to you shortly.

Yeah, but imagine your eulogy!

True, but it's not the best way to go. (Warning, monty python link that is NSFW)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Hey sean, whats the stat block on those plasma stakethrowers look like?

I don't... think I have a stat block as such. I do have what seems to be an approved writeup and some testing data on it:

Anton Chernozorov

Okay, barring intervention from the Council or Simus, build a prototype of the Jet Magnum. Test it to record its actual performance for simulation, then copy it to VR and put it on a VR battlesuit. Test how much damage it'll do on a perfectly connected hit to the limbs or torso of an enemy Battlesuit, and see what it can do against an Avatar. Test to see how much damage a glancing blow can inflict, and what are the best areas to aim for against either target. Test against a group of Sods, at very short range - how close would the Sods have to be for the expanding cloud of plasma to inflict any damage on them?
...
((Repeating the writeup of the Jet Magnum, for PW's benefit (and the Council's perusal):

Spoiler: "Jet Magnum" plasma stake weapon (click to show/hide)

Description: Designed to mimic the deadliness of a Plasma Projector without all the requisite physics-breaking technology, the Jet Magnum is a melee-range plasma stake weapon. Cheap and inobtrusive, the weapon fits over the forearm of a large robot such as a Battlesuit or Avatar of War, leaving the hand free for usual manipulation. Being overall larger, the Avatar-sized variant has somewhat greater maximum penetration, and deals rather more damage.
Function: The Jet Magnum uses ammunition, composed of a dedicated capacitor bank and a metal rod, to create and fire "plasma stakes" - short jets of superheated plasma intended to cleanly penetrate through nearly any physical armor up to two feet thick, and causing severe damage beyond that. It requires precise timing to properly use, as the stake's penetrating power rapidly diminishes with distance, and it must be fired at the exact moment when the robot's fist strikes the enemy for maximum damage.
Ammunition: Either single-shot reloads that fit into the weapon proper, or a five-round autoloader with dedicated battery bank, that makes the weapon slightly more obvious and vulnerable. The autoloader can be combined with a single preloaded round, giving a final capacity of 6 rounds at the cost of more time spent reloading.

Cost: 7 token for Battlesuit, 10 for Avatar.
Ammo cost: 1 token for 2 single-shot reloads. 3 token for 5-round loader.

Requirements: Requires a lot of strength and damn huge arms. Fundamentally unusable without a Battlesuit or Avatar of War, or equivalent.

Prototype built. Jet magnum sounds like an expensive brand of condoms. Just saying.
It does pretty good damage. Perfect hit on a limb can sever it, or at least render it extremely damaged. Against the Torso it could, with a good hit in the right place, kill the pilot in one blow. But thats a perfect hit. Still, pretty good.
Avatar is less bothered. It's bothered, don't get me wrong, but it could take the hit to any part and still keep going, albeit injured and very pissed off.
Glancing blows would probably only really damage the battle suit and even then only on more vulnerable parts. It's got enough armor to absorb the hits otherwise. imagine it as sort of a cone, about 8-10 feet long, and about 10 feet wide at it's widest before it peters out. If they're in that range, you're good.

So, it's cost: 7 token, stat requirement: Battlesuit, skill: Unconventional, range: Melee only. Ammo: 2 per token single-load, 3 tokens for 5-round loader magazine.

[piecewise]

Here's something that Fans of ER may enjoy.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/328740/

[kj1225]

Hm, I would have expected Deadnaughts to be honest.