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[GreatWyrmGold]

((In that case, I have no idea how a gas spring works. I should look that up.))
((I was right. Why wouldn't it work?))

[PyroDesu]

Sean, unless you want to make some kind of explosive leash or whatever and semi-trust one of the captured workers? Drone is the way to go, if you really, really don't want to go in yourself. If the one you're developing is taking too long, why not try a simpler design, rather than try to make a telepresence? Something one could drive around with a datapad from some ways away? Some of the programming for that even already exists in the scout eye coding.

Aresteve, remote command is good, if it doesn't take too long to make modified drones. If you command them yourself, that's even better. Same with swarm mapping. Still, make a few drones with local control, in case it turns out we don't have remote command capability in the area. Make the ones you'll use first and go ahead and send them down as soon as you can.

Simus, while talking, pulls up the map Anton sent her and examines it - looking for where the area is compared to surface features, as well as any damage above or around it, to try and make out whether it could be the flesh monster some idiot let live on her planet.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Sean, unless you want to make some kind of explosive leash or whatever and semi-trust one of the captured workers? Drone is the way to go, if you really, really don't want to go in yourself. If the one you're developing is taking too long, why not try a simpler design, rather than try to make a telepresence? Something one could drive around with a datapad from some ways away? Some of the programming for that even already exists in the scout eye coding.

"Well, we do have that guy... whatshisname. Leo? He did want to blow this place up, so we can give him a chance to do so in a more controlled and beneficial fashion. Heh.

And I think the last Sean I remember had gone with the ship, or at least I thought so. Who are you referring to?

Anyway, the reason I wanted telepresence is because, well, we really don't know what we'll need to be doing there. Regular drones are limited in their capabilities, so they'll need to be made specifically for the task we want them to do. Humanoids are more versatile."

[PyroDesu]

((This is what, the second or third time someone's called Anton Sean?))

Anton, sorry. Not sure where Sean came from.

And we could send Leo, but he might prefer the 'or die' part implicit in some kind of explosive collar or whatever. After all, he was certainly willing to perform that part himself with a bomb, yeah?

And I already have Aresteve making, and sending, scout eyes to the area so we know what we're dealing with - in fact, he's also going to make it so they can dynamically map by swarm function. I'd like to have something we can start making and send down as soon as we start getting a decent amount of telemetry back from them. And give me good reason we should take the time for your telepresence rig when we could get a fairly flexible drone design in production in not much time while you're still designing. Again, nothing against the idea or your implementation - I simply think that it might not be the most appropriate thing for this situation - especially considering it's still in R&D.

[Sean Mirrsen]

((This is what, the second or third time someone's called Anton Sean?))

Anton, sorry. Not sure where Sean came from.

And we could send Leo, but he might prefer the 'or die' part implicit in some kind of explosive collar or whatever. After all, he was certainly willing to perform that part himself with a bomb, yeah?

And I already have Aresteve making, and sending, scout eyes to the area so we know what we're dealing with - in fact, he's also going to make it so they can dynamically map by swarm function. I'd like to have something we can start making and send down as soon as we start getting a decent amount of telemetry back from them. And give me good reason we should take the time for your telepresence rig when we could get a fairly flexible drone design in production in not much time while you're still designing. Again, nothing against the idea or your implementation - I simply think that it might not be the most appropriate thing for this situation - especially considering it's still in R&D.

((First time it was acknowledged in-character though. ))

"Yeah, sorry, no good reasons come to mind. If I can't get it working right now I think I'll can it and start working on normal drones. It'd be a neat thing to have down there, but you're right, we're kind of short on time at the moment.

And nobody says he won't get a chance to do the "or die" thing. Hell, maybe even "and die". If he can't be trusted, we don't exactly have a prison ship to put him onto, so...

Maybe if he wants to die so much, he can treat this as his last mission."

[PyroDesu]

Thank you. I know that a full telepresence rig might be useful, but not now - now, we need something that we can put together and go. I can help with a normal drone, if you want.

And I meant he might try to intentionally force us to use the 'or die'. Of course, we can't really keep him in a cell forever, but I'm still not sure what we could do with him. Could send him to a certain prison ship we'll be shipping supplies to, I hear they can find constructive uses for traitors, terrorists, and other such unsavoury folk.

[piecewise]

Anton Chernozorov

>The Anomaly is effecting the 23rd mineral extraction sector and reducing our production capacities by limiting our ability to extract resources from the planet's crust. Access to it is possible. Fastest route utilizes maintainence tram E-122 along the projected route.
The display shows what looks like a track diagram more complex then the circulatory system and then projects a red line along one set of the tracks.
>From there, substation MES-22, and then climbing down into the damaged area. The damage is quite large in size. I recommend flight capacities and powerful lights.

"Well... that answers that question. XO, it seems we can take an internal route after all. I'm sending it to you now, although I still have a few problems with the remotes. Do we have a backup option that doesn't involve personally wading into that mess, just in case?"

Send the route to Simus. Check if the destination section has any atmosphere.

In other words, something like this?

http://boxcar2d.com/

or this

http://gencar.co/#

Or various other genetic algorithms designed to take the body and move it in lots of different ways and then figure out which is the best?

((Not exactly. The VR system can imitate the behavior of humans, correct? It can create an opponent to fight against, or some allies to fight with you, and it can also create bystander NPCs that do their own little things. What I want is a building populated with NPCs, all run by the VR system. They don't need to have personalities, they just need to move around and do stuff. The idea is the same that Saint used to create his movement library, except he did it with one subject over a large amount of time. I'm taking that concept and applying Naruto logic to it (i.e. shadow clone training) - more people going through their daily motions and providing data means less time spent accumulating a complete data package.))

Most of the drones run on either wheels, lots of legs or fly. Biped motion isn't terribly effective and prone to falling over, after all. But there are a few biped libraries, though they are...strange, to be honest.

I meant more to use the drones as-is, not copy their programming. Examine some of the flying drones. What models there are, and what functions do they have?

You can...sort of. See, it's like the above genetic algorithm stuff. That will take a long time to run, but we can abstract the time. But I would like you to at least outline the experimental process by which you would like to get to the end goal. Not just "Go to my lab and tinker till I make adamantium". Does that make sense?

((Yep, perfect sense. So I need to use verisimilitude and/or technobabble to formulate my approach to solving the problem, before I can try to actually solve it. Can do. ^_^))

Destination has an atmosphere but...yeah should probably wear a suit.

The problem with that is that the VR people aren't accurate representations. They're just canned animations, much like the NPC's in videogames today. The library saint created, if I remember right,was done by physically allowing his tankspider to wander around and test out walk cycles it generated dynamically. I may be thinking of the wrong thing though...if he did it in the same way as you're trying to now then he really shouldn't have been able to.

They're basically just scout eyes with tools attached. Various tools but mostly just little balls of metal and maneuvering thrusters with bare bones everything else.

5. What the uwm has in terms of what?

In terms of the stuff that they have that's better than ours. Let me rephrase that.
What, exactly, does the UWM have that makes their armaments superior to ours, and what barriers are there to our reproducing their design?

6. The only real drawbacks to the rifle are the fact that it is kinda overkill against unarmored targets (Shooting someone in the leg is less of a incapacitating action and more an amputating action.) and it is too heavy and has too hard a kick for most normal humans to use.
7.Sibilus is probably better then it's UWM Main Battle Rifle equivalent. LESHO is, well it's hard to compare. It's rarely used by the UWM, but they still use it rather then any alternative.  It's just kinda too unique to have warranted a new version, very much a remnant of the times.

Sounds like if we can solve weight and recoil issues, we'll have a superior main battle rifle.
Alright, first a bit of idiot-checking: The Sibilus isn't prohibitively expensive/difficult to make, is it?

9. Think coral.

...Could the natural Samsonite Abyss critters un-harden after hardening? If so, what's the difference between natural and artificial ones that prevents the synthetics from un-hardening? If that's unknown, do we have samples of the originals we could experiment on?

10.Maybe. You'd have to play with them. We can send you some of the raw sand, if you request it.

Neato.

12. You want to keep it as weak and questionably useful as before but just turn it into a pistol rather then a glove? Because that can be done.

I remembered it being fairly useful. The wiki page made it sound like it could fire lasers or electric...thingies. Sounds like it might need a modification...
What, exactly, makes it "questionably useful"? Is it somehow weaker in laser or something than the default laser pistol, or is it just inferior to non-sidearms?


Now onto fun stuff.

1. How long would it take to make a homunculus that was more like the size of a child? Would that lead to a combined discount of a month?
2. Look into that biochemical forge thing. How hard would it be to create and master? What, exactly, do you mean by "something that isn't just rolls"? How flexible would it be?
3. See if I can install a recoil buffer in the Sibilus, ideally of the gas-spring variety. Also add a muzzle break to help avoid barrel deflection. EDIT: Also add a padded stock and good grips. Would such a Sibilus be wieldable by a human, or at least a sod?
4. Before I start working on some kind of powered armor system to help soldiers wield a Sibilus, what kinds of powered suits already exist? Anything on the scale of the Mk X suits, or just battlesuit/exoskeleton-size and up?
5. Work on implementing anything obvious from the first question.
That should be enough for one turn.

Didn't I answer that Already? In like the same post?

It's more expensive then a standard Gauss rifle, but not prohibitively so, and not terribly hard to make. Once you reduce the weight and force so newbies can handle it, it should be just about perfect.

No, it hardened by dying. Like the Calcified skeletons of Coral.

It's a hand laser with taser attached. Hand lasers are weak as hell.

1.It would make it faster. You could probably whittle it down to a month or two by creating little undernourished children to experiment on.

2.It would take a long while to create. Master depends on the user. I mean I would sit down and create a system for use and you would, with your man brain, try and figure out how to use it. Pretty flexible.

3.If I understand the mechanism right, gas springs utilize the expanding gas of the propellant to counteract the force of recoil. While the sybillis does use rocket propulsion, it also uses gauss coils, so the recoil would only be partially counteracted by this. It would reduce Recoil a bit, but probably not enough for use by the average newbie. Sods could already use them, being the 7 foot tall supermen they are.

4. You could probably just use one of those discount sub-exoskeletons that Nik made.

5.Well that would need some new genetic programming for the flesh labs.

First, and this is more important than the tinker at this point, charge a MED bonus, and ask ARESTEVE to start producing all the hospital equipment we lack.  Enough to make our medical area as advanced as the sword's, but only make sufficient facilities to treat five people at a time, at most.

As to tinkering stuff: I specifically said to put a safety on the back of each glove.  A button or switch or something, so that it only shocks things when the safety is off.  If possible, allow it to be turned on and off with a switch in the helmet or something hands free like that.  Failing all of that, put something like a RFID chip in the hilt (the chips they put in pets), and have the glove only power on when it finds an appropriate chip.  FAILING THAT, just attach a standard 4 TPU generator to the thing, and scrap the suit power idea.

As far as testing, I primarily want to see how the gun itself performs.  Compare it to our standard infantry weapons (lasrifle, gauss rifle), but especially stuff like gauss assault rifles.  Set the units using this weapon to not worry about ammo conservation, and be liberal with suppressive fire.  A standard squad should have at least one of the back-mounted magazines.

Spoiler: Currently unnamed crystal rifle- 'snipped' information (click to show/hide)

Fires a small crystalline shard, about two inches long, and probably about a quarter inch thick in the middle, tapering to sharp points.
Damage: Penetration and electricity do most damage, detonation does local damage but isn't as spread as larger rounds.  Still probably fatal or at least really damaging if you manage to hit someone in the chest
Power draw: Far less than standard PSL, which draws 4 TPU on average.  Supplies 4 TPU anyways, dial allows semiauto shots to take advantage of higher charge level.

Rifle sized.

Has a fire selector with five settings:  Auto at 480 RPM - Semiauto - Safe - 4 shard fluid volley - 16 shard fluid volley

'Assault' magazines, presumably a little larger than real magazines, 1728 (12³) shots.
'Gunner' magazines, back mounted, a third the size of a propane tank, 17280 shots.  Assault magazines can refill from this, without interrupting fire of a weapon attached to the gunner magazine.

How much more powerful is a semiauto shot fired at 2, 3, and 4 TPU?

((I hadn't intended this to take this long.  Oh well.  Saint should actually be helping soon.

@GWG, neither of those recoil methods are gonna do much of anything for the sibilus.  IIRC, it's a hybrid gauss/gyrojet rifle, so there's no gasses for a muzzle break to deflect, or to press on a gas spring.  Almost all of the recoil comes from the gauss portion.))

As advanced as the swords? Does that include the doc's realm? Because thats...thats gonna take a while.

Oh, missed that. Alright. One thing to keep in mind: damage to your hands may have shocking results. You may want to incorporate some sort of failsafe in the event that damage to the system would render it dangerous to you.

The rifle performs admirably. Great penetration against most forms of armor and quite effective if the shard detonates inside the target. Against completely unarmored targets it has a habit of just piercing straight through and not detonating till after, but it's still punching straight through them, so it's at least as effective as a normal, smaller caliber Gauss rifle.

You probably wanna go with the 4tpu.

Sean, unless you want to make some kind of explosive leash or whatever and semi-trust one of the captured workers? Drone is the way to go, if you really, really don't want to go in yourself. If the one you're developing is taking too long, why not try a simpler design, rather than try to make a telepresence? Something one could drive around with a datapad from some ways away? Some of the programming for that even already exists in the scout eye coding.

Aresteve, remote command is good, if it doesn't take too long to make modified drones. If you command them yourself, that's even better. Same with swarm mapping. Still, make a few drones with local control, in case it turns out we don't have remote command capability in the area. Make the ones you'll use first and go ahead and send them down as soon as you can.

Simus, while talking, pulls up the map Anton sent her and examines it - looking for where the area is compared to surface features, as well as any damage above or around it, to try and make out whether it could be the flesh monster some idiot let live on her planet.

>As you wish. Shall I begin searching as soon as they are made?

And yeah, it's the fleshhorror. It's current location and the damage can be traced back to the one hole they cut down to get into it. You could even use that hole to get there, though it would be rather a long and inefficient manner of doing it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Didn't I answer that Already? In like the same post?

It was implied, but...I don't want to assume.

No, it hardened by dying. Like the Calcified skeletons of Coral.

Dammit, space stuff, why can't you be as cool as I thought you were?

1.It would make it faster. You could probably whittle it down to a month or two by creating little undernourished children to experiment on.

Yay!

2.It would take a long while to create. Master depends on the user. I mean I would sit down and create a system for use and you would, with your man brain, try and figure out how to use it. Pretty flexible.

Would it be fair to assume that I'm not getting more details unless I actually start working on it?

3.If I understand the mechanism right, gas springs utilize the expanding gas of the propellant to counteract the force of recoil.

According to Wikipedia, they're pistons filled with compressible gas which can be compressed. They work like springs, except that they're easier to maintain (and a bit more complex to make, I assume). While it didn't state so specifically, it seemed that recoil suppression systems with springs or gas springs were used to compress, absorbing some of the force which would otherwise kick the firearm backwards into the user.
With such a system, plus the other minor factors (padded stock, good grips) mentioned last post, how much would the recoil be reduced? Would this be enough to reduce the strength requirement by a few points?
Heck, it's already down to 5. With a Confidence sub-exoskeleton, all but the weakest ARMembers could use it. I mean, assuming that they didn't want to overcharge shots.

4. You could probably just use one of those discount sub-exoskeletons that Nik made.

Yeah, that'll probably work.

5.Well that would need some new genetic programming for the flesh labs.

I meant the very first question.


Look into integrating a Confidence-model exo with basic Mk I armor. Would there be any kind of unexpected difficulties with this? Or does the sub-exosuit already include what few benefits the Mk I provides?
What would it take to, instead of making a completely different piece of equipment, "upgrade" an existing type of equipment in the armory--that is, replace all future (say) Mk I suits obtained through the Armory with the upgraded product? If we did something like this, would players who already have such equipment be allowed to trade in the obsolete version?
For that matter, could we add things to the "starting package"--say, give people not only a Mk I suit and clothes but also a free sidearm?
What percentage of the sod-production capacity would be required to create just a couple test homunculi?
Are the limitations on the hand laser's power something inherent in the size of the laser itself (e.g, to make more powerful lasers you need bigger lenses/laser-bulbs/whatever) or merely power-based (e.g, you could hook up a bigger power supply and have a more powerful laser)?

Create a new folder, called ARMor. In this folder, I'll be working on various more advanced types of armor.
To start, let's make an A-1 Basic Powered Suit. It's the abovementioned Mk I/sub-exo combination.
Then, create an A-2 Basic Powered Armor. As above, but add the kind of stuff a Civic Defender Longcoat is made out of as a layer on top.
Before going further, make sure these both work as intended.

[syvarris]

1.First, I don't need it to be quite as advanced as the doctor's stuff, I don't think.  All the stuff that's used for treating and healing people, yes, not the stuff that's used for insane fleshhorrorrobotsurferzeuslightningfishhorror stuff.  And keep the med bonus charged, I can't yank myself away just yet...

2.Next: the gloves.  I want to test how bad four TPU being shoved into someone is, first.  The Tesla arc uses ten TPU, and the tesla saber eight, for reference. 

3.After that, I want to put in a system that keeps track of whether electricity is reaching the hand.  If the power to the hand drops notably, or turns off, the power to the corresponding arm turns off entirely.  Also, make the safeties turn off power to the whole arm, rather than just the hand.

4.Did I manage to make the safeties hands free?

5.Can I give the safeties a secondary mode, that only charges them with enough TPU to stun/taze someone grabbed by a glove?

About the rifle...

The rifle performs admirably. Great penetration against most forms of armor and quite effective if the shard detonates inside the target. Against completely unarmored targets it has a habit of just piercing straight through and not detonating till after, but it's still punching straight through them, so it's at least as effective as a normal, smaller caliber Gauss rifle.

6.I assume this is only for the highly charged semi-auto shots?  Because all sizes of shards except the maximum stuck into targets when I first tested it.  If this is standard shards somehow, reduce the minimum power for shots so they stick into unarmored targets, but retain the armor-piercing mode with the dial. 

7.Can I make the automatic shards this powerful, without dropping rate of fire?  If so, make the power dial affect the automatic rounds too.

8.Test the armor piercing mode against a defender longcoat, milnoplate, and a standard battlesuit for the heck of it.  Can it even damage a battlesuit's joints?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov

Destination has an atmosphere but...yeah should probably wear a suit.

((Not what I was worried about. ^_^))

They're basically just scout eyes with tools attached. Various tools but mostly just little balls of metal and maneuvering thrusters with bare bones everything else.

Look through the database for anything that can function as a flying gunnery platform, or upgrade an existing drone design so it can carry a typical handheld weapon.
Find/make another drone design that can carry a device the size and weight of a 10-kiloton nuke.

Quickly sketch up several designs for drones.

• Armed with a standard Laser Rifle, with extended battery.
• Armed with a simplified Red Hand (i.e. all the same thing but no longer a gauntlet).
• Armed with a canister of Simus's green fire (ClF₃) grenades.
  
• Carrying a 10-kiloton nuke.
• Carrying a fusion device of Simus's design, at most 10 kiloton yield.

Check if we can manufacture all of those, and how quickly/in what quantity we can do it.

Get a comprehensive damage test of the Red Hand done while I'm at it. (Make a copy of myself and have him do the tests to save time) Compare how effective a full-power shot is at stopping, in order - a pitbull, a civilian-clothed human, a SWAT-armored human, a tiger, a rhinoceros, and a tyrannosaurus - each charging at the shooter with murderous intent. Test perfect "headshot"/center-mass accuracy as well as arm/leg/other extremity hits.

The problem with that is that the VR people aren't accurate representations. They're just canned animations, much like the NPC's in videogames today. The library saint created, if I remember right,was done by physically allowing his tankspider to wander around and test out walk cycles it generated dynamically. I may be thinking of the wrong thing though...if he did it in the same way as you're trying to now then he really shouldn't have been able to.

((No, I think he used a real, physical suit with sensors attached, and collected data by just moving around himself. I'll sort this problem out later then.))

Anton contacts Simus.

"Okay XO, I think I'm done trying to get this thing to work for now. Let's stick to what works. I'm sketching up a few drone designs we could use, including nuclear kamikaze ones, so we should be able to start production as soon as we find out exactly what we're going up against in there. That place has some atmosphere by the way, so we could likely try to use an implosion bomb of some kind - I hear those are pretty good at dealing damage to organics. Or as another alternative, maybe funnel this whole base's power output down there and just fry the thing with electricity. What do you think?"

[Xantalos]

Be glad I left a copy of me here, however incomplete.

[Empiricist]

Charles saunters over to the ARESTEVE terminal and inquires: "Are there any speech decompensators here? If not, what is required to make one?"

>I have spoken to Anton on the matters of making one, but we may have some in storage. My records are somewhat incomplete due to damage from the recent events. Would you like me to direct you to where they would be, if we have them?

"Perhaps... later; I'd rather have a CO accompany me, just in case."

[PyroDesu]

Yes, please. And send a few down the hole it drilled, as far as you can - I don't want us to find out if it's left any surprises for us if we go for a plan involving its destruction.

Anton, thank you. I'm not sure what you mean by implosion bomb, though - and attempting to electrocute it could burn out all the electrical cables anywhere near it rather than kill it. And one more thing - if you're making a nuclear kamikaze drone, please make another with a neutron warhead - we'll use that kind first. Just remove the neutron reflector from the normal NK drone.

Be glad I left a copy of me here, however incomplete.

((Still gotta wait for Steve or someone else to report your demise to me, my resident monster-on-ice.))

[piecewise]

Didn't I answer that Already? In like the same post?

It was implied, but...I don't want to assume.

No, it hardened by dying. Like the Calcified skeletons of Coral.

Dammit, space stuff, why can't you be as cool as I thought you were?

1.It would make it faster. You could probably whittle it down to a month or two by creating little undernourished children to experiment on.

Yay!

2.It would take a long while to create. Master depends on the user. I mean I would sit down and create a system for use and you would, with your man brain, try and figure out how to use it. Pretty flexible.

Would it be fair to assume that I'm not getting more details unless I actually start working on it?

3.If I understand the mechanism right, gas springs utilize the expanding gas of the propellant to counteract the force of recoil.

According to Wikipedia, they're pistons filled with compressible gas which can be compressed. They work like springs, except that they're easier to maintain (and a bit more complex to make, I assume). While it didn't state so specifically, it seemed that recoil suppression systems with springs or gas springs were used to compress, absorbing some of the force which would otherwise kick the firearm backwards into the user.
With such a system, plus the other minor factors (padded stock, good grips) mentioned last post, how much would the recoil be reduced? Would this be enough to reduce the strength requirement by a few points?
Heck, it's already down to 5. With a Confidence sub-exoskeleton, all but the weakest ARMembers could use it. I mean, assuming that they didn't want to overcharge shots.

4. You could probably just use one of those discount sub-exoskeletons that Nik made.

Yeah, that'll probably work.

5.Well that would need some new genetic programming for the flesh labs.

I meant the very first question.


Look into integrating a Confidence-model exo with basic Mk I armor. Would there be any kind of unexpected difficulties with this? Or does the sub-exosuit already include what few benefits the Mk I provides?
What would it take to, instead of making a completely different piece of equipment, "upgrade" an existing type of equipment in the armory--that is, replace all future (say) Mk I suits obtained through the Armory with the upgraded product? If we did something like this, would players who already have such equipment be allowed to trade in the obsolete version?
For that matter, could we add things to the "starting package"--say, give people not only a Mk I suit and clothes but also a free sidearm?
What percentage of the sod-production capacity would be required to create just a couple test homunculi?
Are the limitations on the hand laser's power something inherent in the size of the laser itself (e.g, to make more powerful lasers you need bigger lenses/laser-bulbs/whatever) or merely power-based (e.g, you could hook up a bigger power supply and have a more powerful laser)?

Create a new folder, called ARMor. In this folder, I'll be working on various more advanced types of armor.
To start, let's make an A-1 Basic Powered Suit. It's the abovementioned Mk I/sub-exo combination.
Then, create an A-2 Basic Powered Armor. As above, but add the kind of stuff a Civic Defender Longcoat is made out of as a layer on top.
Before going further, make sure these both work as intended.

It would be fair to say that you're not getting more details until I work out the  exact details of it.

Hmm, compressible gas things would require some redesign of the rifle, but are possible.

Really you're probably best off with just getting everyone into sub-exoskeletons. Better to give bonuses than attempt to work around the glaring weaknesses of a few people. Otherwise we'd have to round all the sharp corners on the ship and make sure everyone wears a bike helmet at all times.

5. I've completely lost track of whats being asked here.


No, that would be easy. It doesn't have the capacities of the MK1, but integrating it would be easy.

It would really just take Simus and the AM's permission. We could to trade in services, trade in the old for the new, though keep in mind that you're probably gonna end up mass manufacturing these things for a while to build up a stock of them for the ship.

Sure, though they might cost money, depending on how good they were. But if you just wanted to create like a basic "Welcome aboard" package that everyone could get exactly one of in their entire time here, then that would work.

Depends on how many you wanna make, really. If you're good with just having one, you only need one tube. If you want 100, you need 100 tubes. Or 50 and twice the time. OR 25 and four times the time, etc.

It's limited by both power output and the focusing chambers. Thats why it's only 1 token: It's made of cheap, low power parts. Higher power batteries would melt the focusing chamber on their own. You'd need to upgrade the whole thing to the point that it would be much easier to just buy a laser rifle.

Ok.
Ok. Thats easy.
On top of the exoskeleton or on top of the MK I? Because one is gonna look like an ambulatory tent.
They should, they're pretty simple.

1.First, I don't need it to be quite as advanced as the doctor's stuff, I don't think.  All the stuff that's used for treating and healing people, yes, not the stuff that's used for insane fleshhorrorrobotsurferzeuslightningfishhorror stuff.  And keep the med bonus charged, I can't yank myself away just yet...

2.Next: the gloves.  I want to test how bad four TPU being shoved into someone is, first.  The Tesla arc uses ten TPU, and the tesla saber eight, for reference. 

3.After that, I want to put in a system that keeps track of whether electricity is reaching the hand.  If the power to the hand drops notably, or turns off, the power to the corresponding arm turns off entirely.  Also, make the safeties turn off power to the whole arm, rather than just the hand.

4.Did I manage to make the safeties hands free?

5.Can I give the safeties a secondary mode, that only charges them with enough TPU to stun/taze someone grabbed by a glove?

About the rifle...

The rifle performs admirably. Great penetration against most forms of armor and quite effective if the shard detonates inside the target. Against completely unarmored targets it has a habit of just piercing straight through and not detonating till after, but it's still punching straight through them, so it's at least as effective as a normal, smaller caliber Gauss rifle.

6.I assume this is only for the highly charged semi-auto shots?  Because all sizes of shards except the maximum stuck into targets when I first tested it.  If this is standard shards somehow, reduce the minimum power for shots so they stick into unarmored targets, but retain the armor-piercing mode with the dial. 

7.Can I make the automatic shards this powerful, without dropping rate of fire?  If so, make the power dial affect the automatic rounds too.

8.Test the armor piercing mode against a defender longcoat, milnoplate, and a standard battlesuit for the heck of it.  Can it even damage a battlesuit's joints?

1.Alright. It's gonna take a while to get it all set up. Probably two real life weeks. Remind me when that time is over and you'll have it. Assuming you actually want to do it.
2. Yeah, lets put it this way: 8 tpu is enough to melt the metal the tesla sabre arcs into. 4 TPU is gonna be enough to kill or at least severely injure a normal human with a single pulse. Let alone if you keep it pressed on them.

3. I was thinking something more along the lines of your hand getting damaged, which could damage the electric mesh and open your suit up. If you got shot in the hand, for instance, the suit might keep pumping 4 tpu into you and not notice any drop in power.

4.The manual on/off? Yeah, if voice activated/chin switch is good enough.

5.You could give the gloves a variable setting, sure.

6. Basically,  I was telling you what the overshoot penalty could be.

8.Long coat gets pierced, Milno plate is strong enough to prevent it getting through most of the time, but concentrated fire or a good hit will get the shard in far enough to detonate internally. Battle suit is too thick unless you wanna just sit there and spray shots till you drill through. It can damage the joints though, if you get a good shot.

Anton Chernozorov

Destination has an atmosphere but...yeah should probably wear a suit.

((Not what I was worried about. ^_^))

They're basically just scout eyes with tools attached. Various tools but mostly just little balls of metal and maneuvering thrusters with bare bones everything else.

Look through the database for anything that can function as a flying gunnery platform, or upgrade an existing drone design so it can carry a typical handheld weapon.
Find/make another drone design that can carry a device the size and weight of a 10-kiloton nuke.

Quickly sketch up several designs for drones.

• Armed with a standard Laser Rifle, with extended battery.
• Armed with a simplified Red Hand (i.e. all the same thing but no longer a gauntlet).
• Armed with a canister of Simus's green fire (ClF₃) grenades.
  
• Carrying a 10-kiloton nuke.
• Carrying a fusion device of Simus's design, at most 10 kiloton yield.

Check if we can manufacture all of those, and how quickly/in what quantity we can do it.

Get a comprehensive damage test of the Red Hand done while I'm at it. (Make a copy of myself and have him do the tests to save time) Compare how effective a full-power shot is at stopping, in order - a pitbull, a civilian-clothed human, a SWAT-armored human, a tiger, a rhinoceros, and a tyrannosaurus - each charging at the shooter with murderous intent. Test perfect "headshot"/center-mass accuracy as well as arm/leg/other extremity hits.

The problem with that is that the VR people aren't accurate representations. They're just canned animations, much like the NPC's in videogames today. The library saint created, if I remember right,was done by physically allowing his tankspider to wander around and test out walk cycles it generated dynamically. I may be thinking of the wrong thing though...if he did it in the same way as you're trying to now then he really shouldn't have been able to.

((No, I think he used a real, physical suit with sensors attached, and collected data by just moving around himself. I'll sort this problem out later then.))

Anton contacts Simus.

"Okay XO, I think I'm done trying to get this thing to work for now. Let's stick to what works. I'm sketching up a few drone designs we could use, including nuclear kamikaze ones, so we should be able to start production as soon as we find out exactly what we're going up against in there. That place has some atmosphere by the way, so we could likely try to use an implosion bomb of some kind - I hear those are pretty good at dealing damage to organics. Or as another alternative, maybe funnel this whole base's power output down there and just fry the thing with electricity. What do you think?"

They can be modified to do that fairly easily. Some stronger engines, modified targeting program, no big deal.

Depends on which weapons are being used, but they should be pretty fast. Maybe one turn worth of waiting.

Not great. Does alright against unarmored, organic opponents, of about human size or smaller. Anything bigger or tougher and you're still gonna damage it but not a lot.

His movement library might work then.

Yes, please. And send a few down the hole it drilled, as far as you can - I don't want us to find out if it's left any surprises for us if we go for a plan involving its destruction.

Anton, thank you. I'm not sure what you mean by implosion bomb, though - and attempting to electrocute it could burn out all the electrical cables anywhere near it rather than kill it. And one more thing - if you're making a nuclear kamikaze drone, please make another with a neutron warhead - we'll use that kind first. Just remove the neutron reflector from the normal NK drone.

Be glad I left a copy of me here, however incomplete.

((Still gotta wait for Steve or someone else to report your demise to me, my resident monster-on-ice.))

Yes, please. And send a few down the hole it drilled, as far as you can - I don't want us to find out if it's left any surprises for us if we go for a plan involving its destruction.

Anton, thank you. I'm not sure what you mean by implosion bomb, though - and attempting to electrocute it could burn out all the electrical cables anywhere near it rather than kill it. And one more thing - if you're making a nuclear kamikaze drone, please make another with a neutron warhead - we'll use that kind first. Just remove the neutron reflector from the normal NK drone.

Be glad I left a copy of me here, however incomplete.

((Still gotta wait for Steve or someone else to report your demise to me, my resident monster-on-ice.))

>Beginning construction. Please stand by.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Otherwise we'd have to round all the sharp corners on the ship and make sure everyone wears a bike helmet at all times.

Actually, that's not such a bad idea.

[Upgrading Mk I:] It would really just take Simus and the AM's permission. We could to trade in services, trade in the old for the new, though keep in mind that you're probably gonna end up mass manufacturing these things for a while to build up a stock of them for the ship.
[Starter's Package:] Sure, though they might cost money, depending on how good they were. But if you just wanted to create like a basic "Welcome aboard" package that everyone could get exactly one of in their entire time here, then that would work.

That sounds...easier than anticipated.
What kind of things would the AM probably want in things designed to be in a Newbie Package? Obviously, not being highly destructive is important, and I shouldn't expect her to give out high- or even mid-tier gear for free, but aside from that, what guidelines would I follow?

Depends on how many you wanna make, really. If you're good with just having one, you only need one tube. If you want 100, you need 100 tubes. Or 50 and twice the time. OR 25 and four times the time, etc.

How many tubes, total, do we have? One tube is a pretty major cost for a test subject if we only have a dozen, but a hundred is minuscule if we have millions.

On top of the exoskeleton or on top of the MK I? Because one is gonna look like an ambulatory tent.

Outside both, as an external layer. Well, except maybe the heat fin things; seems like those would cause more problems than they'd solve by being covered.
Yes, it'll look silly, but with the protection a Civic Defender's Longcoat provides plus the toughness of a sub-exosuit should provide enough overall protection to outweigh that.
Thanks to Syv's reminder, I'm also going to stick a small generator in each of the two suits. Also see if I can't remove the heat-radiating fins entirely, replacing them with something less vulnerable and silly.

How much would the combined things I designed cost, in tokens and in material costs (compared to Mk I suits)? Are there, by chance, any secondary features I could cut out to reduce costs?

So, Pyro. Note what piecewise said about upgrades and newbie packs. What kinds of things would you/Simus require about them?