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[Comrade P.]

Collective effort around my idea created a new weapon design. Here is a final and illustrated description, starting here was the discussion on this concept. Piecewise, have a look, please.

[Nikitian]

By the way, what is wrong with clones (on the observable physical/social level, without taking complicated secret space magic rules and such into consideration)? Is there, perhaps, any noticeable degradation of intelligence? Can wetware AIs be made of cloned brains?


And what is the difference between cloning, vat-growing (like sods) and bioforge-printing a person/a brain? Are they all practically the same person, or would there be noticeable differences (or lack of differences due to much better duplicating tech) in mind, personality, thoughts, abilities, etc.?

[Xantalos]

((That can be helped by my case - Xan's stats were changed somewhat by the cloning process because original Xan fucked it up by getting a 4, so there can be differences.))

[Nikitian]

Well, Xan-hatching is a whole another method of producing quasi-genetically-identical creatures, I am led to believe

(Especially since I strongly suspect you have a tiny bit of space god's flesh in your genes, as a base for all that fleshwarping, and thus it's not exactly bound by regular rules of cloning)

[syvarris]

Collective effort around my idea created a new weapon design. Here is a final and illustrated description, starting here was the discussion on this concept. Piecewise, have a look, please.

Just to be sure, I want to clarify one major assumption I made in that discussion.  I assumed that kinetic amps run on the same stuff as manipulators, rather than electricity, because:

A.They have tiny batteries, which either draw a miniscule amount of electricity per use or store nearly as much power as a lasrifle's battery.  The latter would imply lasrifle batteries are inefficiently large, and the former seems unlikely, unless electricity isn't the only power source.

B: Whether they draw 0.04 TPU, or 2 TPU, it's still a trivial power draw and completely breaks conservation of energy.  To my knowledge, space magic is needed to break CoA.  Also, drawing only electricity would mean that hooking up a small 1 token generator would provide infinite uses.

[Xantalos]

Well, Xan-hatching is a whole another method of producing quasi-genetically-identical creatures, I am led to believe

(Especially since I strongly suspect you have a tiny bit of space god's flesh in your genes, as a base for all that fleshwarping, and thus it's not exactly bound by regular rules of cloning)

((It explains all the seas of flesh I keep exploding into.))

[Nikitian]

Well, Xan-hatching is a whole another method of producing quasi-genetically-identical creatures, I am led to believe

(Especially since I strongly suspect you have a tiny bit of space god's flesh in your genes, as a base for all that fleshwarping, and thus it's not exactly bound by regular rules of cloning)

((It explains all the seas of flesh I keep exploding into.))

((Wait. You, of all people, don't know?
I really cannot believe that. You must have meant that as "it would explain, hehe".

...Because otherwise we might be actually useful to each other. As partners, colleagues or something like that. Let's discuss it later IC, if both of our characters survive. ))

[Xantalos]

((No, I've as little idea as you do how my fleshwarping works. I recall asking the Doc but I don't think he'd tell me, likely because Big Space Conspiracy.
Yeah, if you survive I'll meet up with you at some point, either after the crisis or whenever my clone gets back from Haephestus.))

[piecewise]

So, what is the highest power we could cram into a laser or gauss rifle sized package using a blueshard battery? Assume only a few shots (3-5 or so) and that it works in pulses.

Same question, but for a pistol sized weapon. Same parameters otherwise.

Depends on two things 1. what is the size limit you have on the shard and 2. Does the rifle have to survive the shooting? A "Burner" rifle can be much more powerful.

I'd like to know for the following four designs please:

1) a pistol that still can be fired one-handed, blueshard size so that it still fits into one hand comfortably and isn't too heavy to get a decent shot off. Shard would be in the grip (and maybe partly protruding into body, depending on how much space is needed for optics and whatnot). 5 Shots, can be reloaded.

2) a pistol that still can be fired one-handed (same size as previous), blueshard size so that it still fits into one hand comfortably and isn't too heavy to get a decent shot off. Shard would be in the grip and partly in body. 1 Shot, needs no reload (aka is destroyed after use).

3) a laser rifle sized weapon, shard a big as can fit into a stock or magazine size of an assault rifle or something. 10 Shots, can be reloaded.

4) a gauss rifle sized weapon, shard a big as can fit into a stock or magazine size of a weapon that's still wieldable without an exoskeleton. 1 Shot, needs no reload (aka is destroyed after use).

1 About as powerful as a rifle.
2. About twice as powerful as a cutting laser.
3. About cutting laser power, probably higher actually.
4.So propane tank sized shard strapped to a rifle. One shot with something like that is probably good enough to go straight through a battlesuit. The gun is gonna melt to molten slag in the process though.

Can I tinker if I don't have a character?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCI15QojoA

((@RC: Try a battlesuit/exoskeleton usable one next. Or maybe a one time use gauss rifle/cannon as a sort of extreme anti-tank weapon for use against one of our own battlesuits.
Oh, and you've got 3 twice.))

Okay, take a blackship-equivelant ship. A ship that can travel to other star systems and hold a few men (let's say around 6-10), equipment for them, communication systems, some weapons, etc. Then replace its armour with hexsand in the following configuration:

The red, green and blue things are hexsand. They can open and close as necessary to reveal sensors, engines, doors and whatever else needs access to the outside of the ship.

The design is simplified, assume it has whatever shape makes it easier to function. Or perhaps a shape that will allow it to fly better in atmosphere. It's not necessarily egg shaped.

With that design, only the plates that need to be opened are opened, allowing maximum protection and stealth for any given circumstance.

Finally, give the ship a self sustaining gravity or vector automanipulator or a combination of the two (whatever is the most efficient) that can be used in combination with the acceleration automanipulators (the ones used to allow the ship to accelerate to jump speed) to move the ship in stealth mode, without use of its engines. Make it at least strong enough to allow it to land on an earth-like planet without need to use engines until the ship is close to the ground. Stronger if I can get away with it.

Also make sure it has accelerometers/gravity sensors and that its flight computer is good enough to allow it to fly around without external sensor data to the best of its ability so that it can fly around while in stealth mode reasonably well.

Could we build something like that? Could our black ops teams use it? Any problems with it?

Looks theoretically possible and potentially useful.

Collective effort around my idea created a new weapon design. Here is a final and illustrated description, starting here was the discussion on this concept. Piecewise, have a look, please.

So lets see if I got the idea right. You have a metal thing in a chamber. This metal thing is accelerated via gauss coils into a kinetic amp. This amp amplifies the impact force, which is used to fire a bullet made of sharkmist.
Correct?

By the way, what is wrong with clones (on the observable physical/social level, without taking complicated secret space magic rules and such into consideration)? Is there, perhaps, any noticeable degradation of intelligence? Can wetware AIs be made of cloned brains?


And what is the difference between cloning, vat-growing (like sods) and bioforge-printing a person/a brain? Are they all practically the same person, or would there be noticeable differences (or lack of differences due to much better duplicating tech) in mind, personality, thoughts, abilities, etc.?

Cloning a single individual through one iteration is fine.  We use that crap for sods, after all. The problem is when you start having clones of clones. There are degenerative effects. Especially when you start increasing their maturation rate so they're actually useful.

Well, bioforge doesn't "Grow" things. It prints them on a molecular level. One is a biological process, the other is advanced 3d printing.

[Comrade P.]

So lets see if I got the idea right. You have a metal thing in a chamber. This metal thing is accelerated via gauss coils into a kinetic amp. This amp amplifies the impact force, which is used to fire a bullet made of sharkmist.
Correct?

Yep, pretty much correct. Except maybe the amp is attached to the metal thing and moves as well.

Spoiler: Here's a sketch by Sean Mirrsen for mechanism part (click to show/hide)

Disregard the clip position and absence of barrel, we fixed those later.

[Nikitian]

Can I tinker if I don't have a character?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCI15QojoA

Oh, I am sure it's our GM's way of saying "Welcome! Sure you can." He's probably off making a feast to celebrate you finally joining us here, even if only in this timid and non-corporeal way!


On cloning: Let's see, and if we specifically introduce some slight genetic variation somehow, would that preserve the stock? Also, what if we had a couple of clones (either of different people, or... you know) reproduce the old-fashioned way, would the resulting child be effectively 'reset' as far as genetic degradation goes? Or would the accumulated degenerative issues of the parents make him just as sub-par material?

By the way, can sods reproduce with regular humans? Also, are there only male sods? If not, can sods have sod children?

How long do the sods live? Aren't the (fleshy) sods currently stationed on Hephaestus going to die of old age before they ever see any engagement? Or are they kept in stasis pods most of the time?

Generally, what is the life expectancy of an unmodified human today, provided the medi-tech (non-Doctorial) we have on the Sword? What else can be done to prolong life (in fleshy body; once again, without Doctor's intervention)?
What is the life expectancy of braincase-bound people, and what can be done to prolong that?
(I know of "a couple hundred years", I am interested in a little bit more specific statistics and maybe a couple of well-known boundary cases)

[Parisbre56]

((@Nikitian: Check if we can put people in the Matrix to produce DNA suitable for amp construction. It will be ethical, since they'll be in a simulated world not too different from the real one and it will be cheap, since we'll just have to give them the bare minimum of nutrients and run a VR simulation.))

Okay then, final check. How plausible are limpet probes? By that I mean small probes that attach themselves to other ships to make their way through jump points undetected.

Related question: even the hexsand ship I previously described would emit radiation when jumping through a jump point, correct?

[Radio Controlled]

I'd like to know for the following four designs please:

1) a pistol that still can be fired one-handed, blueshard size so that it still fits into one hand comfortably and isn't too heavy to get a decent shot off. Shard would be in the grip (and maybe partly protruding into body, depending on how much space is needed for optics and whatnot). 5 Shots, can be reloaded.

2) a pistol that still can be fired one-handed (same size as previous), blueshard size so that it still fits into one hand comfortably and isn't too heavy to get a decent shot off. Shard would be in the grip and partly in body. 1 Shot, needs no reload (aka is destroyed after use).

3) a laser rifle sized weapon, shard a big as can fit into a stock or magazine size of an assault rifle or something. 10 Shots, can be reloaded.

4) a gauss rifle sized weapon, shard a big as can fit into a stock or magazine size of a weapon that's still wieldable without an exoskeleton. 1 Shot, needs no reload (aka is destroyed after use).

And what about the cost for these? I'd like to know for both the base item, and the ammo.

And if we made a battlesuit/cutting laser variant of both the 5 shot reusable and 1 shot discardable, what kind of power (and cost) are we looking at then?

Finally, would a tiny shard inside something that looks like a pen work as a black ops assassination/covert weapon?

[Egan_BW]

Can I tinker if I don't have a character?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCI15QojoA

I'll take that as a yes. (given you didn't say no.)
Can the HEP fire even more powerful shots if we give it more power? (from say, a great big BlueRad chunk.)
This is with the goal of inventing, using unknown, alien technology, an absurdly destructive single-shot, anti-armer, rocket-launcher-shaped weapon that melts into slag as soon as it's fired, as well as both igniting and irradiating everything nearby.

[piecewise]

Can I tinker if I don't have a character?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCI15QojoA

I'll take that as a yes. (given you didn't say no.)
Can the HEP fire even more powerful shots if we give it more power? (from say, a great big BlueRad chunk.)
This is with the goal of inventing, using unknown, alien technology, an absurdly destructive single-shot, anti-armer, rocket-launcher-shaped weapon that melts into slag as soon as it's fired, as well as both igniting and irradiating everything nearby.

Do you know about the Council of people I keep to advise me on matters of gameplay? Well, I've had two of them warn me about the precedent of a non-player using tinker. And about how that might mean other people would want to start using tinker. And then I'd have to start purging things with fire.

So I don't mind you posting here, talking to people, giving them ideas for stuff to do, etc. But I'm not gonna accept any actions unless you're actually in the game.