Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[spazyak]

We do have a flame thrower, a really good one at that. Universal chem thrower with namite loaded. Burns just about anything short of a literal alien god (though we haven't tried to torch the lurker yet, so even that might still be on the table).

Oh okay,, maybe this could workas a cheaper option for the poor people. Fill the liquid container with namite.

[Radio Controlled]

One problem might be that, knowing pw's lack of detail, anything that namite can't burn through would probably also be resistant to any other flamethrower-like weapon/ammo. And it's already about as cheap as these things come without just loading up on pure ethanol (free of charge). But you can try, of course, just pointing it out.

[Parisbre56]

@Syv,NAV: I just wanted to add that one-shot-ing a battlesuit with the new armor Syv has developed should be almost impossible, since hexsand can stop almost any bullet. The problem is that it can only do so once before it shatters. So you might need some sort of bullet that breaks apart or a burst of bullets for multiple simultaneous devastating offensive deep strikes that can break apart the armour before penetrating it. That, of course, doesn't take into account that piecewise might have forgotten the exact properties of hexsand.

[syvarris]

So how expensive and how long do you think each hexbug dart would have to be to pierce a battlesuit?

...

I don't want to answer this question.  I don't know enough about the relative properties of hexbug and BS plate to make a good decision.

I'll just go out on a limb and say you need a flechette type projectile that's seven inches long, because I like that number and it should be plenty, so you should get reliable kills.  Also, five minute charge time.

Let's say... four flechettes to the token.  That's assuming they're fairly thick, to maximize damage even against targets who aren't behind two feet of metal.  Also, they have no stabilization, and are thus inaccurate beyond closeish range.  Finally, they're traveling at several km/s, but not anywhere near as fast as an equivalent metal slug, so no worries about atmospheric ablation.

You can choose to make them thinner, which'll tend to cause less damage to less heavily armored targets because more of the energy will overpenetrate through.  Shouldn't change effectiveness against BSs though, because you're essentially turning their armor into more projectile mass, by dumping a crapton of energy into it.  The flechettes'll be cheaper if you make them thinner.

You can also choose to give the flechettes stablizing fins, which will increase accuracy at range.  That would increase cost.

Also, you can choose to run the design past the council, which will let people actually use the weapon in game, but will also significantly increase cost.  It might be better as NPC equipment.


LAST THING: This gun doesn't work in alternate universes.  It only works in the universe we're abandoning.

Gonna leave this ideal here, space super soaker flamethrower.

Okay... do you want me to run this post?  If so, please bold it.  Do you want to just suggest the tinker concept to someone else?  Post in Heph OOC.

Regardless, we already have a space super soaker.  It's called the Universal Chemical Thrower, and is capable of shooting napalm sufficiently hot to melt battlesuits, acid sufficiently strong to melt battlesuits in a different way, and gooop sufficiently sticky to trap battlesuits.

Spoiler: Less-than-lethal electrolaser sniper rifle (click to show/hide)

1: Primarily for NPC police-force use.

1.You misspelled "Will never be seen again".

2: Electrolaser rifle. Very low laser power, not enough to hurt, but enough to ionize or whatever science magic air cable electricity. Only usable in-atmosphere.

2.'Kay.  1t laser.  Still effective enough to boil flesh, it just doesn't do much cutting.  Excrutiating pain it'll do, but you won't cut off an arm without a long wait.

3: While low-power, the laser is very focused, allowing the weapon to be used at long ranges.

3.How much longer?  2t for assault-rifle type range, 3t for sniper type range.

4: Only fires electricity at about taser level. Can be manually dialed down, but the hardware itself limits this weapon to Less-than-lethal.

4.Only taser level?  ...+0t, I guess.  Ineffective against any real insulation, including space suits, at least until the laser's melted through.

5: Comes with a computerized scope, with variable zoom levels and a variety of sensors that can measure a human's emotional state by reading the subject's heart rate, breathing, etc. (in a manner similar to this.)

5.I'm... fairly certain Milno's suit was just asking Feyri's suit for vitals.  Even if not, that sort of technoology would be very difficult to use at significant range.  +5t for the scope, works to sniper range, and only sees in the visible spectrum.  Alternatively, you could hook the gun up to cameyes, but that would only work to... let's say short range.  Sniper scope doesn't work against people in bulky armor, but cameyes do.

6: Firing mechanism is computerized, and tied directly to the scope, so that the weapon will not fire if:
  The weapon is not pointed at a human.
  The weapon is pointed at the human wielding it.
  The weapon is pointed at a human who the computer does not consider to be a threat.
  The weapon is pointed at a human who is part of ARM, or is an affiliate.
  The weapon is pointed at a human that the computer considers to be unconscious.

6.Okay.  This could be a problem for snapshots because the gun refuses to fire until it's fully analyzed a person.  It would also be a massive problem because the computer would almost certainly get false negatives, leaving its operator defenseless, but you probably realize that.

7: Safety can be remotely disabled by the mission commander (Steve, general, or local police-chief equivalent) for use against particular targets or in general.

7.Okay.  That's very good.

Hidden "features":

8: With some messing with the computer inside the gun, the safety can be fairly easily removed

8.'Kay.

9: With some modifications equalling one token, the weapon can be raised to lethal power, though this will drain the battery very quickly.

9.'Kay.

1: Yup, that's pretty much the plan.
2: Not sure how powerful the laser has to be to create the plasma channel, but if it could be lower power than that, that would be good.
3: Sniper. Like it says in the name of the weapon.
4: Not too worried about insulation, this is for use on defenceless civilians. (As we already have a method for electrocuting rowdy spessmen.)
5: Dunno. I was asking PW in the poke thread if this was possible and he said yes after me and Nav pointed out that quote. 5t seems like a lot for a visual-spectrum camera and a computer, but fine.
6: Fine.
7: I agree.
8: Kay.
9: Kay.

1. Don't respond to my bullets unless you have questions.
2.I don't know either, and it's difficult to find data on how powerful a laser needs to be to create a plasma channel.  Also, it's difficult to find how powerful a laser needs to be to harm a person.  So I'm just gonna make both numbers up and say that your laser needs to be of high enough intensity to hurt people, even if it hurts less than a hand laser.
5.It's high because spotting someone's heartbeat with a visual camera would be really, really hard.  You'd need it to have excessively high definition AND a very strong computer to process the images to figure out the heartrate.  I feel like it should cost even more than that, but then again cameyes are more multifunctional, much smaller, and have binocular vision.

Anything else?

A list nine points long isn't too bad--Go look at Radio's post.  He isn't even giving me real questions to answer.  However, posting twice without consolidating posts is annoying...

I shall henceforth be known as His Wallness, the Sultan of Prose.

Spoiler: speaking of walls (click to show/hide)

Okay.  For the ships which do have humans on them, how will they interact with the AIs?  Will there be a captain which has supreme authority?  Does the AI have its own moral system which can't be completely overridden by said captain?  How much can the AI say "no" to?  Can it say no to indefinitely detaining or permafreezing a human?  Murdering someone?  Murdering almost everyone on the ship?

I think a sort of 'benevolent dictatorship', like what we have going with Steve right now, would do the trick. The AI has final authority, but is programmed to allow as much freedom to colonists as possible unless it hampers the colony overly much. How the colonists organize themselves will be up to them, but again the AI acts as a sort of buffer against excesses (if the colonists prefer a hereditary 'king' like person to lead them, they can have it, but if said king starts to demand too much or hampers the optimal functioning of the colony too much, the Ai intervenes).

For example, if the colonists decide that permafreezing is the punishment for irredeemable violent criminals, the AI might allow that, but if they then start to use that for petty crimes like a drunken brawl, it will intervene to prevent a lot of useful people getting locked away.

So basically the Ai is a sort of enlightened despot (or benevolent dictator) who tries to give freedom when he can, but will reign it in when necessary (eg. it won't intervene if the colonists wanna do things in a way that's slightly less optimal, but if there's a crisis that needs everyone to act this exact way right now or the colony is destroyed, then it will go full tyrant mode until the crisis is averted).

We will probably want to try and have some failsafes though (next to the safety from the rigorous testing phase, of course). Such as making input/direct orders from Steve override anything else. We could also try to see if we can work out a sort of 'civilian counterbalance' in case the AI goes overboard, though I'm not sure how to go about that (might clash with the benevolent dictator aspect, especially in extreme circumstances). And if the AI indeed goes overboard I'm not sure if it could realistically be stopped anyway (unless we neuter the AI's capabilities, but that would make it less capable for dealing with crisis and problems).

Either way, we could ensure that the 2 or 3 universes where colonisation would be easiest don't get one of these AI's, or a much more restricted one, so that even if there's long term problems with it that won't cripple literally every colony. 

Okay.  I think you should ask PW how much EUEs can be pre-assembled, though.  Can a large one send a medium one to another verse, which then successfully sends a small one to a third verse, which then successfully sends a USB to the home verse?  Or will the EUE just fizzle when it changes verse?  Would preconstructing all the parts at home but assembling them in a different verse solve fizzling?

Yeah, probably best we ask him what the deal is with this. Though I've hit a lil' bit of a wall in the poke thread, if you've been keeping up with that.

Do you mean "small, medium and large" as in the EUE sizes?  I thought "small" in that case meant "USB size"?  Though, maybe with sharkmist, a couple tiny embryos, an a bit of luck, you could actually colonize a verse with that...  Hmm.
As for fuel/reaction mass, we can just use automated force infusers and blushard batts, assuming both function in alternate 'verses.  That should be more efficient than any traditional system.

No, there was no direct correlation between ship sizes and EUE size, though if we add the category 'tiny' in the EUE options (for the usb senders) we could make it so it does work out (hell, we could then scale the small-medium-large EUE's against the ship of the same size they can transport). Might even be more convenient and lower the chance of miscommunication with pw and others, good idea.

Included reaction mass because just blueshard batts would probably still need something as reaction mass (unless we go for something like a photon drive, which isn't ideal though). In combination with Force infusers it might work, though I dunno if those work well on a big scale, and it would mean relying on yet another 'special arrangement of matter' which might not hold true in another universe.

Finally, there's this little thing from the poke thread:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, in reality you could condense it to

"Make things habitable for humanity"

But the reason I put it like this is because the thing is gonna take what it knows, the world around it and use evolutionary systems to try and create the best possible solution. And without any baseline parameters it might create a base without doors, because that provides the best radiation shielding; and the base is self contained so there's no reason to let anyone outside!


Really we just need a list of basic features you want all bases to have. Not like power generators, but less obvious things. Windows, or rec rooms or quarantine rooms or things like that.

((when it comes right down to it I just want an outline of what kind of base you want so I don't have to spend a while thinking about it and possibly leave things out like a tard))

Well, thing is, in some situations it really might be better to keep the people closed in if there's lethal radiation storms outside, whereas in other said storms might be weak enough to warrant letting people outside. I'll quote something from the tinker thread to try and give you a better idea of what I mean:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Okay.  For the ships which do have humans on them, how will they interact with the AIs?  Will there be a captain which has supreme authority?  Does the AI have its own moral system which can't be completely overridden by said captain?  How much can the AI say "no" to?  Can it say no to indefinitely detaining or permafreezing a human?  Murdering someone?  Murdering almost everyone on the ship?

I think a sort of 'benevolent dictatorship', like what we have going with Steve right now, would do the trick. The AI has final authority, but is programmed to allow as much freedom to colonists as possible unless it hampers the colony overly much. How the colonists organize themselves will be up to them, but again the AI acts as a sort of buffer against excesses (if the colonists prefer a hereditary 'king' like person to lead them, they can have it, but if said king starts to demand too much or hampers the optimal functioning of the colony too much, the Ai intervenes).

For example, if the colonists decide that permafreezing is the punishment for irredeemable violent criminals, the AI might allow that, but if they then start to use that for petty crimes like a drunken brawl, it will intervene to prevent a lot of useful people getting locked away.

So basically the Ai is a sort of enlightened despot (or benevolent dictator) who tries to give freedom when he can, but will reign it in when necessary (eg. it won't intervene if the colonists wanna do things in a way that's slightly less optimal, but if there's a crisis that needs everyone to act this exact way right now or the colony is destroyed, then it will go full tyrant mode until the crisis is averted).

So, it would basically try to give the colonists as much freedom and quality of life as it can afford without endangering the long-term survival of the colony.

That's why I have difficulty setting up a standard requirements list, because different universes might ask for radically unconventional base designs. From the Wikipedia page on 'Colonization of Mars':

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Habitats
Storage facilities
Shop workspaces
Resource extraction equipment—initially for water and oxygen, later for a wider cross section of minerals, building materials, etc.
Energy production and storage equipment, some solar and perhaps other forms as well
Food production spaces and equipment.
Propellant production equipment, generally thought to be hydrogen and methane through the Sabatier reaction[39] for fuel—with oxygen oxidizer—for chemical rocket engines
Fuels or other energy source for use with surface transportation. Carbon monoxide/oxygen (CO/O2) engines have been suggested for early surface transportation use as both carbon monoxide and oxygen can be straightforwardly produced by zirconium dioxide electrolysis from the Martian atmosphere without requiring use of any of the Martian water resources to obtain hydrogen.[40]
Communication equipment

So, a list like this would be the minimal requirements for any colony, but how each item is achieved is difficult to predict.

For example, on a planet with good, livable conditions outside, the colony might decide not to build a real rec room and instead just let colonists entertain themselves outside, saving resources for other projects. But then in another universe, where due to circumstances usable space is really limited, it might decide to provide all leisure through VR machines because there just isn't any room for a real life rec room. And in a third it might decide that a regular rec room is an acceptable use of resources. But that all depends on the circumstances, which vary so wildly (at least, from what I've seen from the universes explored already) I dunno if any 'standard requirements list' would be worth anything.

If you are afraid that you won't be able to come up with a good base design for a particular universe, you could always just ask us for inspiration. Or, ask yourself the question 'what are the main difficulties and limitations for this universe? How do they relate to filling need X? How could that need still be fulfilled then?

Remember that you won't have to describe (or even work out) every colony in every universe we send these to, just when necessary.

Fair enough. You can leave this entirely in the computer's hands then, if you want.  But it's gonna at LEAST need a prime directive. Some overriding goal for its construction and management. Just in case it runs into things it has no background for.

So, I propose we work out what that 'overriding goal for its construction and management' would be in here so we can save pw's precious sanity a little, unless you really prefer I keep it directly with pw.

((I really wish we could nest spoilers like quotes, would be soooo convenient).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think a sort of 'benevolent dictatorship', like what we have going with Steve right now, would do the trick. The AI has final authority, but is programmed to allow as much freedom to colonists as possible unless it hampers the colony overly much. How the colonists organize themselves will be up to them, but again the AI acts as a sort of buffer against excesses (if the colonists prefer a hereditary 'king' like person to lead them, they can have it, but if said king starts to demand too much or hampers the optimal functioning of the colony too much, the Ai intervenes).

For example, if the colonists decide that permafreezing is the punishment for irredeemable violent criminals, the AI might allow that, but if they then start to use that for petty crimes like a drunken brawl, it will intervene to prevent a lot of useful people getting locked away.

So basically the Ai is a sort of enlightened despot (or benevolent dictator) who tries to give freedom when he can, but will reign it in when necessary (eg. it won't intervene if the colonists wanna do things in a way that's slightly less optimal, but if there's a crisis that needs everyone to act this exact way right now or the colony is destroyed, then it will go full tyrant mode until the crisis is averted).

We will probably want to try and have some failsafes though (next to the safety from the rigorous testing phase, of course). Such as making input/direct orders from Steve override anything else. We could also try to see if we can work out a sort of 'civilian counterbalance' in case the AI goes overboard, though I'm not sure how to go about that (might clash with the benevolent dictator aspect, especially in extreme circumstances). And if the AI indeed goes overboard I'm not sure if it could realistically be stopped anyway (unless we neuter the AI's capabilities, but that would make it less capable for dealing with crisis and problems).

Either way, we could ensure that the 2 or 3 universes where colonisation would be easiest don't get one of these AI's, or a much more restricted one, so that even if there's long term problems with it that won't cripple literally every colony.

Okay.  I've always had a soft spot for benevolent dictators.

Good idea with changing the specifications of things between universes.  At least that way no single apocolypse will befall everyone.

*syv stamp of support*

Yeah, probably best we ask him what the deal is with this. Though I've hit a lil' bit of a wall in the poke thread, if you've been keeping up with that.

I keep up with it to a degree.  Not as well as threads I'm involved in, but I rarely get several days behind poke.

...And to the snarky guy saying I get several days behind Tinker, I don't.  I read it generally every time someone posts.  I just tend to procrastinate about posting.  A side benefit of this is that I tend to put a lot of thought into my answers long before I write them down.

No, there was no direct correlation between ship sizes and EUE size, though if we add the category 'tiny' in the EUE options (for the usb senders) we could make it so it does work out (hell, we could then scale the small-medium-large EUE's against the ship of the same size they can transport). Might even be more convenient and lower the chance of miscommunication with pw and others, good idea.

Okay then. 

*syv stamp of support*

So, I propose we work out what that 'overriding goal for its construction and management' would be in here so we can save pw's precious sanity a little, unless you really prefer I keep it directly with pw.

Okay.  Suggest something and I'll try and think of a way to shoot it down, like I've been doing.  Or do you want to do this some other way?  I'm open to suggestions.

((I really wish we could nest spoilers like quotes, would be soooo convenient).

Yes, yes it would be.  These machines are too simple, IMO.

I was thinking of making a grenade based off the crystalline projector. It has the shape of a pineapple grenade

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With crystalline projector seed crystals set in each section of the pineapple grenade.There is aster ex in the center and when it explodes it sends the seed crystals everywhere like your standard frag grenade.

Hmm.  This is a pretty good idea.  It'd be a great method of area denial in addition to the normal role of area murder--step on the crystals, they eat your foot.

Cost is hard to say, because it's black box tech--I don't know how crystalline projectors work.  If you're essentially just copying the same design, minimum cost per grenade would be 2t, because that's the cost for a CP magazine.  However, you could ask PW if you can get it cheaper because the magazine doesn't need to function with the gun--maybe the two tokens of cost are for propulsion or something.

Alternatively, the council might give you a discount, though they tend to err on the side of too expensive.

Oh, and I'll just say you make this a brisant grenade.  There's no loss compared to the pineapple design, and it makes the grenade more useful.

@Syv,NAV: I just wanted to add that one-shot-ing a battlesuit with the new armor Syv has developed should be almost impossible, since hexsand can stop almost any bullet. The problem is that it can only do so once before it shatters. So you might need some sort of bullet that breaks apart or a burst of bullets for multiple simultaneous devastating offensive deep strikes that can break apart the armour before penetrating it. That, of course, doesn't take into account that piecewise might have forgotten the exact properties of hexsand.

Well, he's not trying to one-shot an assaultsuit.  That's one of the primary reason I gave my design a different name.

In any case, he could at least two-shot an assaultsuit, assuming both shots hit near each other (which would be trivial with a two-shot burst, due to the lack of recoil).  Yeah, hexbug has great resistance to kinetics, but he's shooting it with an absurdly high velocity hexbug flechette.  The hexbug layers in an assaultsuit cost about the same as a layer of BS plate, and resist a little over twice as well... but an AS only has two of them, plus one layer of BS plate.  The hexsand/sharkplate layers don't contribute much because even if they have great properties, they simply aren't on the level of hexbug.

Oh, and NAV?  If you want your gun to be able to one-shot an assaultsuit, you only need use a higher power shot.  AS armor is only nine inches thick, and its average density is only a little higher than BS armor; your obstacle is only energy, not penetration depth.

[Radio Controlled]

Guess what?

Spoiler: It's a spoiler! (click to show/hide)

Good idea with changing the specifications of things between universes.  At least that way no single apocolypse will befall everyone.

Well, a core principle behind the idea of seeding across many universes was to spread our eggs among so many baskets it'd become statistically unlikely for all of them to fail, so switching the basic premise up a little might help.

One (kinda extreme) step further is that I thought, once we have a few good colonies going in different universes, we could send 1 (or just a few more, but not a lot) autonomous colonies (carrying people in one of the 3 ways) to a habitable universe somewhere, but then cut off all communications with it, and even erase the existence of said colony from our archives and relabel that universe as a null one.

Basically ensure that, even if we ever encounter an entity which can instantly control our mind and which then starts to use our own tech and EUE's to spread to other dimensions to infect every human colony in existence, that there would still be a pocket of humanity out there that stays safe (dunno how we'd deal with the fact that some humans would know about the plan, though something like a drug that temporarily prevents new memories from forming might at least ensure said invading entity couldn't figure out which of the many null universes is the one hiding another human colony).

So, I propose we work out what that 'overriding goal for its construction and management' would be in here so we can save pw's precious sanity a little, unless you really prefer I keep it directly with pw.

Okay.  Suggest something and I'll try and think of a way to shoot it down, like I've been doing.  Or do you want to do this some other way?  I'm open to suggestions.

I'm not even sure why we're doing this like tinker, this is mostly the same as our discussions of old on various technical topics, except I get a nice little stamp whenever we reach a conclusion.

Ahem, anyways, let's try and see what we can come up with.
Overarching goal of the AI is (as stated before) to try and ensure humanity survives as a species. There'd be a bunch of side-requirements, such as 'survival in a way that ensures humans themselves are still independent agents capable of acting and exhibiting a wide range of activities' yadayada and so forth, but that's the idea we start from.

To achieve that, it provides colonies that could accommodate human life as we know it, by building infrastructure for providing them with the needed resources (food, air, etc.) and the habitation units themselves. These units should allow humans to express their various natural behaviors and fill their natural needs, such as allowing them to get physical exercise, provide leisure opportunities, provide sleeping units adapted to whatever social structure the current colonists use, , but also try and make it so they all have a job and can contribute to their society in a productive way (which is a good source of self worth, if nothing else). All protected from the elements and other harmful circumstances/influences, with safety being a primary concern, but weighed so that some risk is allowed (to prevent them just getting hooked to VR machines for eternity when the risk is minimal) if it leads to better quality of life and freedom of movement.

Once the initial colony is set up and is self sufficient with enough reserves and back-ups to deal with crises, it starts to expand to new sites in the same universe to set up secondary colonies or to find interesting resources to exploit.

Gonna edit in more later, maybe, bed now.
 

[syvarris]

Spoiler: Radio Reply (click to show/hide)

Well, a core principle behind the idea of seeding across many universes was to spread our eggs among so many baskets it'd become statistically unlikely for all of them to fail, so switching the basic premise up a little might help.

One (kinda extreme) step further is that I thought, once we have a few good colonies going in different universes, we could send 1 (or just a few more, but not a lot) autonomous colonies (carrying people in one of the 3 ways) to a habitable universe somewhere, but then cut off all communications with it, and even erase the existence of said colony from our archives and relabel that universe as a null one.

Basically ensure that, even if we ever encounter an entity which can instantly control our mind and which then starts to use our own tech and EUE's to spread to other dimensions to infect every human colony in existence, that there would still be a pocket of humanity out there that stays safe (dunno how we'd deal with the fact that some humans would know about the plan, though something like a drug that temporarily prevents new memories from forming might at least ensure said invading entity couldn't figure out which of the many null universes is the one hiding another human colony).

All this does sound good.  A minor addition to it would be to use a different variant of EUE--IIRC, the Doc said that the EUE could be altered to access a different set of universes.  If we had some scientists make variant EUEs, then send the super secret colonies to universes only accessible by those variant EUEs, and then we killed the scientists and destroyed the EUEs, it would be essentially impossible to ever deliberately hunt down those other human colonies no matter how determined and powerful an intelligence was.

Even better, if we programmed those colonies to replicate the trick, we'd essentially be forkbombing the multiverse with the human virus.  Eventually, humanity would be almost ubiquitous throughout all possible multiverses.  We'd make humans the only constant in a multiverse of infinities.

...Anyway, unless you have something more to add, *syv stamp of support*

I'm not even sure why we're doing this like tinker, this is mostly the same as our discussions of old on various technical topics, except I get a nice little stamp whenever we reach a conclusion.

Well, you started posting these questions in Tinker before I took over, and I just haven't said anything.  Discussing this in Heph OOC instead wouldn't be a bad idea, and could potentially speed up my replies to this thread.  Also, it would open up the discussion to more people than just us two, which is a good thing.

Overarching goal of the AI is (as stated before) to try and ensure humanity survives as a species. There'd be a bunch of side-requirements, such as 'survival in a way that ensures humans themselves are still independent agents capable of acting and exhibiting a wide range of activities' yadayada and so forth, but that's the idea we start from.

We can *probably* just use whatever Steve defines as human, so my opinion is probably irrelevant, but I could see this resulting in some very nonhuman humans.  For instance, do limbs really need bones if we can make tentacles with greater strength and flexibility?  Is skin important if we can biomod humans to have hexsand surfaces which allow them to eat light and energy, despite making them look like holes in reality?  Must humans have organic brains, if we can make streamlined computer simulations of humans which run at much higher speed with near-perfect simulations of emotions and such?  If those humans edit themselves so that they don't experience emotions such as anger or sadness, instead remaining constantly euphoric, should the AI consider them humans?  If it does, and if it values happiness, could it decide that it should replace all humans with computer simulations that are happy?

Alternatively, if you're very strict and accurate on the definitions of a human, does the AI start to enforce genetic purity, or enslave mutant children which are just *slightly* outside the definition of a human, despite not appearing too different to our own eyes?

Personally, I doubt any of these will ever be problems, but I'm trying to list everything I could possibly see going wrong.

To achieve that, it provides colonies that could accommodate human life as we know it, by building infrastructure for providing them with the needed resources (food, air, etc.) and the habitation units themselves. These units should allow humans to express their various natural behaviors and fill their natural needs, such as allowing them to get physical exercise, provide leisure opportunities, provide sleeping units adapted to whatever social structure the current colonists use, , but also try and make it so they all have a job and can contribute to their society in a productive way (which is a good source of self worth, if nothing else). All protected from the elements and other harmful circumstances/influences, with safety being a primary concern, but weighed so that some risk is allowed (to prevent them just getting hooked to VR machines for eternity when the risk is minimal) if it leads to better quality of life and freedom of movement.

Okay.  All this seems logical and good.

I'm unsure if it's what PW was asking for--I think he wanted more aesthetic descriptions?  I remember him asking whether you wanted windows everywhere or something.

One possible issue is the definition of "natural".  One could argue that it is very natural for humans to kill things--would the AI create animals for them to kill?  Or let them kill each other, because it's "natural"?  Another question would be about the "natural" behaviors of deviant individuals; If a sociopath naturally wanted to eat the flesh of his fellow man, would the AI allow it?  If not, what of an artist who had an unusual method of self expression--could they be defined as having an unnatural behavior, and be prevented from expressing themself in some way not approved by the AI?

Then we've got the current crazies' definition of natural; Is it natural to enjoy video games and movies?

What of genemodded humans?  Can the AI genemod humans to naturally want to be unconditionally kind to others, never harming another human's enjoyment of life?  How about making them naturally want to sleep twenty hours a day and repetitively play Jenga for the remaining four, all the while being blissfully happy?  You said the AI would allow some risk to be allowed, but what if the AI genemodded the humans to feel no desire for risk, or to have the desires, but have them be met by aforementioned Jenga (THEY MIGHT COLLAPSE OH MY GOD!)?

How about the risk?  Does it have to be included, or is it only a "if the humans ask for X, allow them to do so if it carries low risk"?  If it's a guarantee, can the AI cheat by providing fake risk, or can it provide risk by mixing in a small amount of toxic chemicals into the air supply every now and then?  If it's not a guarantee, is it okay if the AI just locks everyone in VR anyway, because it's made VR as good as real life?

Once the initial colony is set up and is self sufficient with enough reserves and back-ups to deal with crises, it starts to expand to new sites in the same universe to set up secondary colonies or to find interesting resources to exploit.

Okay.  Try as I might, I can't come up with a way to make "stockpile resources, then set up secondary colonies once you've got enough" logically result in "MURDER EVERYONE".

Just FYI to readers, you can join in this discussion if you want.  I don't believe I have any special weight in this, and even if I did, I'm fine with just saying "they're right", even if everyone disagrees with me on some issue.

[NAV]

You can also choose to give the flechettes stablizing fins, which will increase accuracy at range.  That would increase cost.

Yes.

Oh, and NAV?  If you want your gun to be able to one-shot an assaultsuit, you only need use a higher power shot.  AS armor is only nine inches thick, and its average density is only a little higher than BS armor; your obstacle is only energy, not penetration depth.

Yes!
What do you think it could do to an AoW? Killing the pilot is obviously a bad idea because the you have to deal with an unchained avatar, but crippling a limb?

Also, you can choose to run the design past the council, which will let people actually use the weapon in game, but will also significantly increase cost.  It might be better as NPC equipment.

LAST THING: This gun doesn't work in alternate universes.  It only works in the universe we're abandoning.

Correction: It doesn't work in any of the 4 alternate universes we've tested so far. There are almost certainly infinite alternate universes where it does work.
Still, I don't like the chances of this thing ever seeing use and it's probably not worth asking the council about right now. At least it was fun to design.




"Spider Pod"
Like a tripod, but probably has more legs. Attaches to bottom of your gun. Automatically adjusts to terrain, can change height, walks when you push it.
Maybe have separate light and heavy versions for rifles and cannons respectively. Depends mostly on size and costs.

[Radio Controlled]

Well dang, thought I'd have a coupe days to keep working on that post before you'd respond. If it seemed a bit sloppy or that it left more opening for critique than usual, that'd be why.

Anyways, taking it to the Hep ooc. Not today though, bed time now.

[syvarris]

You can also choose to give the flechettes stablizing fins, which will increase accuracy at range.  That would increase cost.

Yes.

Oh, and NAV?  If you want your gun to be able to one-shot an assaultsuit, you only need use a higher power shot.  AS armor is only nine inches thick, and its average density is only a little higher than BS armor; your obstacle is only energy, not penetration depth.

Yes!
What do you think it could do to an AoW? Killing the pilot is obviously a bad idea because the you have to deal with an unchained avatar, but crippling a limb?

Also, you can choose to run the design past the council, which will let people actually use the weapon in game, but will also significantly increase cost.  It might be better as NPC equipment.

LAST THING: This gun doesn't work in alternate universes.  It only works in the universe we're abandoning.

Correction: It doesn't work in any of the 4 alternate universes we've tested so far. There are almost certainly infinite alternate universes where it does work.
Still, I don't like the chances of this thing ever seeing use and it's probably not worth asking the council about right now. At least it was fun to design.




"Spider Pod"
Like a tripod, but probably has more legs. Attaches to bottom of your gun. Automatically adjusts to terrain, can change height, walks when you push it.
Maybe have separate light and heavy versions for rifles and cannons respectively. Depends mostly on size and costs.

Accurized flechettes cost 1t for two.  They make avatars angry and are the equivalent of stabbing a pencil deep into someone; Hurts, might be really bad if you strike a vital organ, but overall not too bad structurally.  Considering Avatars feel no pain and only get angrier if you kill their one vital organ, it isn't a very good weapon for avatar hunting.  Remember, this is penetrating armor with directed energy, not dumping so much energy that you're cratering things.

Spider pod... 4t.  I'm comparing to the remote hand which has many more useful included items, but is much smaller as well.  Yes, 4t is vastly cheaper than PW's walkabout tripod which presumably inspired this.  Remember that both the walkabout and this are useless.

[piecewise]

Ok guys, it's time.

We've reached a point in the game where we're getting close enough to the end and the cessation of missions that continued invention is gonna be...well it's gonna feel awful anti-climatic if you work on some giant weapon only for the game to end a mission or two later and no one uses it.   So the Tinker workshop is shutting down. And so soon after I let Sy run it too. Should have done that years ago.


However, don't leave just yet.  As you know, I want to include a crafting system in the next game, so I want to hear from you tinker addicts as to what you would like to see in it? Or just name some good crafting systems you've seen elsewhere.

[Radio Controlled]

One thing you could do is limit the ability to tinker/craft to the relevant skill of a character.

For example, any person could propose putting together items A, B and C, and the gm (or co-gm tinkermaster) could say if it has any chance to work at all. But to see if it leads to a really workable product or find out unforeseen problems, one would have to actually roll to make it for the first time, and the skill level could both/either influence the chance of making it correctly or influence the difficulty level a char can work at (eg level 1 handiwork means you're limited to using 3 different items/resources at once when crafting, but level 3 handi means you could use up to 7 different things).

I wouldn't make it so that every item needs to be rolled for every time though, but make it so that when you crafted it successfully for the first time, it can then be bought from npc 'shops' standard. Whoever originally invented it would get a discount to buying it, or could still just make it themself somewhat cheaper than buying it. And perhaps we can make it so npc shops have a certain level, and said level is determined by the level of development of whatever base/outpost you are at, or perhaps limited by the type of resources that are available in the vicinity.

Basically, make it so tinker oriented chars need to have the skills to back it up (not like now where a dolt with -2 mind and -2 gen knowledge and -2 aux and handi could tinker up thermonuclear laser guided dongs), but anyone can still think about and ask about possible designs.

[syvarris]

I like most of Radio's suggestions, but I'm unsure if you should be able to just mass-produce something after making it only once.  Maybe you could get a bonus, but if it were sheer luck you succeeded the first ttime, that shouldn't mean you always do perfectly in the future.

As for shopkeepers, I don't think they should sell completed items unless those items have gotten really popular and common.   That would make the whole system essentially identical to our current tinker system, just with the caveat that it's parts based rather than infinite-resources based.  Instead, at most there should be NPCs with handi skill, who you can pay if you don't want to risk making something with your own -2 handi.  Maybe make them charge more based on how high their handi skill is.

Of course, if you want things to be less safe you could say there's no NPCs, and that players are the only ones who can craft.  Might make sense if some parts are demonic, and thus can corrupt people if mishandled.


As for systems I like... well, Fallout 4's system is pretty good, from what I've seen.  Different gun parts which can be assembled into a larger whole.  The system probably isn't granular enough for that.  A more gamey system is the type where various parts have specific alignments; say, you can get a gun barrel, but it might be aligned to holy or unholy or fire or insanity.  Then, if you mix parts from different alignments your gun might be degraded or unstable or something, but if you mix parts from one alignment, it gets a powerful effect from that.  Do you assemble this gun right now, using both holy and unholy parts, because those are all you have and you need the gun now?  Or do you wait until you can get holy versions of the unholy parts, making your gun entirely holy and granting it a unique effect?

[Radio Controlled]

Keeping most of the crafting player based could be a good idea, though it might also lead to the world feeling a bit 'smaller' if player chars are the only ones ever doing anything.

I do like the idea of the holyness, but unsure if there should be types beyond holy and unholy/corrupt. Maybe just have items have a holyness score, the higher the better (and rarer). And maybe have it so items become more corrupt over time (like a degrading mechanism for guns in some games). But maybe make it so items can be 'cleansed' by something (eg holy water) to bring them back to their original holyness level.

Also/alternatively make it so demonic items are more powerful, but increase the 'attention' the city and its inhabitants give you, and/or increase the chance for corruption of the wielder.

[syvarris]

I agree pretty much completely with the above post.  Having more than two alignments allows for more of a collection game, but just holy vs. occult would probably be more fun.  I was really just spitballing, anyway.

I do think holy shouldn't be intrinsically better than occult--rather, it should be safer, but have less power to compensate.  Or perhaps holy items could only be used by pure characters--who would generally be newbies--while occult items are equal, but can be used by anyone AND advance their user's corruption.  That would work well with our balancing system, no?

[renegadelobster]

Unholy's power could be somewhat based on what your current "faith" is at. The lower it is, the more damage it could inflict.