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[Tavik Toth]

Sounds good. I think I'll have Jack load the design onto the VR when he get a chance.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Again: I wish I knew more about ceramics. I'm willing to bet that battlesuit plate isn't as brittle as common pottery, though. And hm...conducts heat pretty well. Melts, obviously, but at high temperatures. And plasma is about the only non-esoteric way to get to those high temperatures. I'll try something...different.

I think I'll try something slightly 40k-inspired.

Title Project "Monobolas".

Connect two weights with the thin wire stuff a monorazor's "blade" is made out of. Include some kind of vibrator mechanism in the weights to make the wire oscillate (one retracts while the other releases).
Create a launcher which launches them at high speed. Perhaps a Gauss thing?

Test on a human, a wooden pillar, and a battlesuit. Determine price.

[syvarris]

>Listen to PW ramble about unrelated stuff.


GWG, that's already been done.  Look up Bishop's MBL design.  It's fairly effective against battlesuits, assuming they don't react quickly and break the cord.

[Unholy_Pariah]

((Didnt they need to smash the actual bolas? Trying to break the wire itself seems like kind of a bad idea.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((Didnt they need to smash the actual bolas? Trying to break the wire itself seems like kind of a bad idea.))

((There's a finite speed they can cut at, at the thickness where they can be used in bolas, and they are fundamentally fairly fragile when not taut - a battlesuit has enough armor to stay together long enough to wiggle itself until they break.))

[Parisbre56]

((There are varieties of monofilaments I think, with some being able to cut much faster than others. Of course, that means they're a lot more expensive too.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

GWG, that's already been done.  Look up Bishop's MBL design.  It's fairly effective against battlesuits, assuming they don't react quickly and break the cord.

Goddammit. Someone really needs to...wait, someone already indexed all the tinker stuff, didn't they? Where did that go and has it been updated lately?

Hm.

Determine how hot you need to get to melt or soften battlesuit armor. Ideally, this information would come with a suggestion or two on what (other than plasma) could easily reach such a temperature.

[Corsair]

okay but not quite good enough

put the big laser thingy away and begin anew!

Spoiler: new design (click to show/hide)

Spawn a Gauss rifle and extend the barrel by 20 cm and shrink the diameter to 3 mm and increase the number of turns on the coils as much as possible and have the system powered by a generator which is stepped to provide extremely high current with low voltage. Set any limiters to the highest setting as the new default and test loaded with tungsten and plutonium rounds, with the rounds being tapered at both ends and loaded into a magazine that holds 20 rounds

record effect on battlesuit from close to extreme range with both projectile types and the recoil from single shot and extended firing

[/b]

[piecewise]

Again: I wish I knew more about ceramics. I'm willing to bet that battlesuit plate isn't as brittle as common pottery, though. And hm...conducts heat pretty well. Melts, obviously, but at high temperatures. And plasma is about the only non-esoteric way to get to those high temperatures. I'll try something...different.

I think I'll try something slightly 40k-inspired.

Title Project "Monobolas".

Connect two weights with the thin wire stuff a monorazor's "blade" is made out of. Include some kind of vibrator mechanism in the weights to make the wire oscillate (one retracts while the other releases).
Create a launcher which launches them at high speed. Perhaps a Gauss thing?

Test on a human, a wooden pillar, and a battlesuit. Determine price.

Read...mission 3? I think it was. Zako made that exact thing. Literally that exact thing.

>Listen to PW ramble about unrelated stuff.


GWG, that's already been done.  Look up Bishop's MBL design.  It's fairly effective against battlesuits, assuming they don't react quickly and break the cord.

Quiet worlds are probably one of the more interesting ideas, in my mind, when it comes to this game. It's a sort of fundamentally different vision of the end of the world; one not of big old nukes or viruses but where people just sort of went extinct in a quiet, peaceful manner and left behind a world of high tech, self sufficient machines. I really like the concept of exploring one of them; in fact on of the original ideas that come from ER was a sort of roguelike set in a quiet world where the objective would be to penetrate as deep into the substructure as you could. Perma death, of course, with people going on on their own or in groups; making your own weapons with high tech junk, plunging the increasingly strange and magical depths, etc.

GWG, that's already been done.  Look up Bishop's MBL design.  It's fairly effective against battlesuits, assuming they don't react quickly and break the cord.

Goddammit. Someone really needs to...wait, someone already indexed all the tinker stuff, didn't they? Where did that go and has it been updated lately?

Hm.

Determine how hot you need to get to melt or soften battlesuit armor. Ideally, this information would come with a suggestion or two on what (other than plasma) could easily reach such a temperature.

Around 3500 c. Try some Dicyanoacetylene or oxygen lance.

okay but not quite good enough

put the big laser thingy away and begin anew!

Spoiler: new design (click to show/hide)

Spawn a Gauss rifle and extend the barrel by 20 cm and shrink the diameter to 3 mm and increase the number of turns on the coils as much as possible and have the system powered by a generator which is stepped to provide extremely high current with low voltage. Set any limiters to the highest setting as the new default and test loaded with tungsten and plutonium rounds, with the rounds being tapered at both ends and loaded into a magazine that holds 20 rounds

record effect on battlesuit from close to extreme range with both projectile types and the recoil from single shot and extended firing

[/b]

So basically a higher speed, lower mass gauss rifle?

[syvarris]

Sigh, and create the following thing.

Spoiler: SS/BEARD-9 Demonstration (click to show/hide)

I don't think Piecewise needs to read this.  It's stuff I'm setting up in VR for Pyro to read, so some of it might be stuff that wouldn't actually work well in VR, but most of it is really just RP fluff.

Create a semi-seperate area, and section it into ordered rooms. 
First room has floating designs of the SS/BEARD-9- exploded view and normal, wih the various specifications visible.  Make sure that there's similar displays for plasma projectors and shard launchers, although tweak how the info is displayed so that my weapon's advantages are displayed prominently, and he weaknesses are less obvious.  Place several copies of all three weapons on racks next to a few loyal sods.  Attach a shooting range with dummy battlesuits at various ranges.

Save it, then order the sods to disable several battlssuits with the weapons.  Take the wounded battlesuits and give them exploded views showing where damage is, and floating readouts showing what repairs would be necessary to get the suit working like new.  Set them up next to the range, then reset the other bits of the room.

Second room is a protected observation post over a pitched urban battlefield.  Have two equal UWM forces continually spawning at either side of the battlefield, equipped mostly with small arms and MKI suits.  Some battlesuits, and mix specialist troops armed with Shard launchers, plasma projectors, and BEARDs into the rank and file troops.  Inflate the number of BEARD troops a bit, to emphasize my design.  Run this room for a few minutes, to get a good battle going, then pause the sim.

From the main battle room, make three doors.

First door leads to a observation post with lots of cameras monitoring a large building garrisoned by a small UWM force equipped with small arms and BEARDs.  Outside the building is a much larger force that wants to capture the building with minimal collateral, and standard gear.

Run this sim a few times, and tweak it to make sure it's set up so that the defending side tends to win.  Make sure BEARDs are used to great effect, keeping in mind that their large radius allows one to affect other floors, and that it's effective against infantry in choke points.

Second door leads to an observation room tuned to a highly trained improved synthflesh sod equipped with a silenced pistol, a BEARD, several extra rockets, replacement launch rockets and adhesive, and good stealth tech.  Spawn him into a very large scale battlefield covering a whole city, and set him to just run disruption focusing on battlesuits and other hard targets.  Have him take out squads if he thinks he can take them all out, but only if it's low risk.

Run this sim a few times, just watching him.  If it generally flatters my weapon, keep it.  If the operative keeps getting killed, try replacing him with a normal human.  If that doesn't work, just scrap this section.  Also scrap it if the operative is effective, but because of the synthflesh- if he rambos through whole squads with his bare hands, then it's not what I want.  Save the video to my wristpad as entertainment though.

The last door coming from the main battle room leads to a museum style area, with various unusual tactics that the weapon could be used for being displayed.  For example, shooting a battlesuit with the BEARD, then leaving the device on it to frag any troops that use the battlesuit as cover or try to help the pilot.  Demonstrate good deployment locations that keep the actual device hidden, but still allow it to affect enemies that walk through some nearby high traffic area.

Show how, because of the weapon's activation mechanism, it's useless for the enemy to grab one from a downed soldier because they can't activate the device.  And how our force can activate the device while an enemy is still holding it, potentially taking out a whole squad.  Show how if a soldier goes down, his corpse effectively becomes a mine that other soldiers can activate to take out advancing enemy troops.  Show how this weapon can be used to take out a rampaging synthflesh soldier, just by sacrificing the guy holding it.  Ect.



Save alllll that as a VR scenario entitled "SS/BEARD-9 Demonstration".

Then record a video of myself going through the whole thing, demonstrating and examining everything I set up in detail.  Send an invitation to Simus to join the scenario with me, along with this text and the recording I just made.

I have set up a full VR demonstration of my SS/BEARD-9 prototype.  I would like to walk you through it so I can detail its capabilities, so I have sent you an invitation.

However, in case you are too busy at the moment, I have also sent you a recording of myself walking through the demonstration and examining all the important things.  I still recommend you join the demonstration yourself, simply so you can ask questions and test things that I have not thought of.

((Also: this quote, in case Pyro missed it.))

Spoiler: SS/BEARD-9 (click to show/hide)

Steve Saint's Battlesuit Elimination And Recovery Device
Total cost: 9 tokens
Part cost:
     6: Automated microwave manip (heats four meter radius by twenty degrees) (multi-use)
     2: Rocket propulsion, non-conductive adhesive, and projectile casing (single-use)
     1: Launcher tube (multi-use)

Functionality: Projectile is launched at 150 mph directly forwards.  Proven to be able to reliably survive impact and stick to surfaces.  Manipulator is activated via encrypted radio signal transmitted from default MKI suit or robobody.  Heat from manipulator proven rapidly fatal to human targets.

Notably, projectile can be used as a deployable bomb by simply setting it in place and activating when something walks over.  Alternatively, you can deploy the trap by firing it at a wall.

In theory, cost of the weapon is mintigated if the manip is recovered after firing.

Ineffective against entirely robotic targets; relies on damage to target's brain.  Low effective radius limits use against infantry unless placed at chokepoint.  Direct anti-vehicle capability is limited by its low projectile speeds- quick pilots can dodge or intercept the projectile.

Send the schematics to Simus, along with the following message.

I have completed your assigned project.  My device has proven to be four tokens cheaper than the piezoelectric shard generator, although combat simulations have shown it to be somewhat less effective as well.

Notably, it leaves the battlesuit mostly recoverable, and has the capacity to be used as a trap.  Frankly, the latter function is probably more useful than firing it- its primary reason for being conventionally launched is to fulfill your assignment's requirement.

Finally, if PW is willing, relax and pull up more data on quiet worlds.  Are there any that have been really extensively explored?  Any interesting stories from exploration expeditions into these worlds?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Around 3500 c. Try some Dicyanoacetylene or oxygen lance.

Right after I look up what those are.

Alright, here we go...

1. Attempt to construct a thermal lance which can be used as a projectile. In the front is hot, directed with some kind of small hole in the middle is a rube full of iron rods, and in the back is a canister of pressurized oxygen. The whole thing is encased in a protective sheath of plastic or something, as aerodynamic as it can be with a hole in the front for the burning iron to come out. Call it the Thermal Pike.

2. Attempt to make thermite with tungsten replacing the iron; if that fails, try niobium, osmium, rhenium, uranium, and zirconium; and if that fails try boron, carbon, lanthanum, and neodymium. I'm a bit fuzzy on the mechanics of oxidation, but Wikipedia says thermite can reach temperatures close to the boiling point of iron or whatever metal is oxidized in its place, and the aforementioned elements have boiling points near or well above 3,500 C.

Dicyanoacetylene's Wikipedia article is surprisingly uninspiring.
3. Fill some kind of light blue plastic sphere with dicyanoacetylene and include a lighting mechanism which can be remotely triggered. Call it the Cyan Bomb,  or the DEAD (short for Dicyanoacetylene Explosively Armed Device).

Fire a Thermal Pike at a battlesuit with an appropriate gauss thingy.
Detonate any successful quasi-thermite near a battlesuit. Did I mention that I'm a bit fuzzy on how people use thermite?
Throw a DEAD or two at a battlesuit.

Determine effectiveness and cost of such weapons.

[Spinal_Taper]

((I don't know whether this goes in here or the on-ship thread, but I'll put it here because it will likely evolve into tinker.))

Test the effectiveness of different weapon types against different types of armor and other defensive measures. Include the crossbow from far back with the different bolt tips.

[Corsair]

((It is more of a sniper weapon that could sustain fire and the gauss array has been maximised by running just a hair less current through it than would melt the wiring, making the coils bigger and using larger rounds so it is much more powerful and the impact is smaller))

[smurfingtonthethird]

Analyse stinky fungus.

[PyroDesu]

I would say each model wouldn't be more expensive than their nuclear counterpart, for the same yield. Maybe 1 token more for the clean-bomb effect.

Resource-wise, these things could potentially be cheaper than nukes, I think. Compare the rarity of near and trans-uranic elements, especially the isotopes that are actually any good for use in nuclear weapons, to deuterium, or aluminium. About the only complicated part is the firing mechanisms. And higher yields won't really be that much more expensive since the yield goes up if you increase the mass of the aluminium liner.

I will be judging when everyone's designs are done.

In the meantime, Anton, come and show me this idea you want to prototype.