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[Parisbre56]

((Oh, sorry, misunderstood that. It's hard reading tone from text.))

[piecewise]

(If you're wondering, I do roll for stuff like this)

((I wouldn't have it any other way. ^_^))

Anton Chernozorov

"Мда. That's certainly a thing. A thing that shouldn't happen, but a thing nevertheless."

Anton contacts Saint through the comms.

"Saint, this is Chernozorov. I could use a hand here with rewriting the base AI of an Artee to work in a biped. I seem to recall you doing some work in a similar direction, and the thing I'm doing here is likely to go much better and much quicker with your help."

Strip the quadruped movement libraries from the AI entirely, and start writing new ones from scratch. If Saint chips in with his own research, gladly accept the help. Absolute minimum requirement is the ability of the body to navigate a typical building interior - turns, slopes, staircases, low obstacles.

Write a feedback subroutine that determines the position and orientation of the held weapon from the positioning of the arms, and sends that to the drone OS as aiming data. At the same time the drone OS gives the desired aiming direction and sends it to the body's motion AI, so that incompatibilities are minimized and each side works with what it's used to working with.

Keep working, and don't forget about the VR control mode.

You spend a while rebuilding the ARTEE OS but the bastard thing keeps failing. Eventually it gets trapped in some sort of fatal loop which just causes it to keep crashing and deleting itself.

Hmm, maybe theres a better way then attempting to manually program this...

((Alright.))

If I haven't, gather critters and materials for Metamorphosis Device* testing. Specifically, ten of the little native bug-rat-things (which I called cabeiri) and (if currently available) four rats/guinea pigs/whatever Terran rodents we have on hand; if we don't, figure out how we would get some. Importantly but simply, some gauss bullets and spoons, seven of each if I got the rodents and five of each if not, for turning into pills. Also get small cages or boxes or something, one for each subject (so 10 or 14). Finally, locate some kind of pistol capable of accurately striking and killing a rodent-sized creature at close range.
*That's the technical term I've given the pill machine, in case you missed/forgot that.

Once I've brought all this stuff into the isolation chamber, make pills with the Metamorphosis Device. Specifically, five or seven made with a single gauss round and a pinch of Grate's hair, and the same number made with nothing but a spoon. Make sure I keep the two types of pill separate.
Having made the pills, feed them to the subjects. Five of each go to five cabeiri, such that each gets precisely one pill. Once the cabeiri have all gotten a pill, if I have rodents, give each of them one pill, two getting bullet/hair pills and two getting spoon pills.
Note results. In particular:

-Did all members of a given species given a specific type of pill receive the same abnormalities? If not, how different were they?
-For that matter, what abnormalities were they? How similar were they to the results of equivalent pills on humans (tentacle-hair and metal-scale club-arms for the hair/bullet, pseudohelmet for the spoon)?
-How easy was it to get the subjects to consume the pills?


If the subjects refuse to consume the pills, cover them in some sort of foodstuff appealing to the subjects (we did some research on what the cabieri ate, right? Or it's in a database somewhere?) and try again. Like how you get pets to do the same, except with heartworm pills or something replaced by heavily mutagenic compounds.
If the subjects turn violent after ingesting the pills, or otherwise appear to be too dangerous to keep, execute them with the pistol as quickly as is possible. If they merely appear to be in distress from the transformation, do not execute them unless they turn violent or otherwise dangerous. (I don't expect this to happen, but hey--doesn't hurt to be prepared.)


Record all observations and results. Compile into a report and submit it.

hmm how should I put this...

Your test subjects explode. All of them. Like, POP, fuzzy blood filled balloons that have been overfilled. All of them. Without exception. Hmm. Perhaps they can't handle the pills?

What size & shape is the PSL?  Do you have any pictures of something that's kinda similar?

Where is the magazine/tank of crystal fluid, and how big is it?

Does the PSL have any secondary secret functions like all the other guns?  ((Hating myself for not asking this earlier))

Actual project stuff:

This is pretty simple.  Remove the magazine, electrical stuff, and power supply from the PSL, then shrink it to a twelfth of the size, so that it would fire two inch shards.  Lengthen the barrel, and reorganize how the entire thing is put together so it's more in a traditional rifle shape, or submachine gun if it's small enough.  Then re-add the electrical things, at a size that they'll draw 4 TPU.  Don't truly re-add the generator & mag to the design yet- just attach them wherever works for the basic operation of the gun; I have plans for them later.

Next, modify the firing mechanism so that it can be changed between several settings on the fly, with a simple fire selector.  I want five settings:
1:A 'true' automatic, in which it fires at 8 rounds per second.  Instead of firing a continual stream, I want it to just be repeating semi-automatic shots quickly, as long as the trigger is held.  The comparably massive electrical power should be plenty sufficient for this.
2:Semi-automatic.  Self-explanatory, with the only difference from the normal PSL being that if you hold the trigger nothing happens.
3:Safe.
4:4 'Burst' fire, fires four crystal's worth of fluid.  There shouldn't be too much of a charge time on this, again because of the massive power supply, and the small number of shards.
5:16 'Burst' fire, fires sixteen crystal's worth of fluid

Lastly, adjust the electrical repulsion thing to be able to use the additional energy it has, when firing in semi-auto.  Put a dial adjacent to the fire selector for this.  Minimum setting is equal to a shrunken PSL, and should do the same damage as one ("probably fatal or at least really damaging if you manage to hit someone in the chest"), but maximum should be, well, whatever you think maximum would do.

Now review the whole thing and look for what I F'd up.

"Saint, this is Chernozorov. I could use a hand here with rewriting the base AI of an Artee to work in a biped. I seem to recall you doing some work in a similar direction, and the thing I'm doing here is likely to go much better and much quicker with your help."

Saint replies with a happy tone "I'd be happy to help!  I'll pause my work on a crystalline light support weapon."

Pause the PSL work, and join Anton's VR session, then use the AUX bonus I charged last turn to help out with his programming.

Think like Old painless from predator but a bit bigger near the back because of the tank of fluid.

It's in the back. Propane tank sized.

I DUNNO

hmm...All this seems perfectly reasonable. So  you basically want to take the PSL and make it into something like this but with more firing options.

Hm. Hey Saint, up for an autopsy, when you have some spare time? Grate died when he tried to touch his orb artefact, I'd like to know how. Maybe that iteration of him can still give us some clues about it. Cause of death looks like some kind of seizure, from the recording.

Simus sends someone to fetch the body from that chamber into the medical bay (surely there's some sort of place to store bodies there), then bolts down that chamber.

Aresteve, please keep me up to date on this sensor blackout. I want to know if anything happens around it, or if anything happens with it itself - like it expanding.

Simus then leaves the control room (staffed, hopefully, with other workers) and goes into VR, and pulls up modern UWM military handweapons and compares them to the ARM's current arsenal. She also pulls up and sets aside the various videofeeds she had in the control room.

You get some unfortunate worker to transport grate's body to the morgue and lock the door.

>It is expanding, but the rate of expansion is stable. Nothing to report so far.

Handweapons? Such as sidearms or what?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Spoiler: Report on Project Asartes, Phase 0a (click to show/hide)

Test subjects were nonviable. Hypothesized cause: Effects of pills inversely proportionate . Conclusion: Further testing will require either reducing dosage or increasing subject size.

Examine remains of subjects. Do the remains of subjects who ate each type of pill look the same as the other subjects who ate that type of pill? Are they all different? Or are they all fleshy?

Look deeper into making homunculli. Specifically, how much quicker and cheaper could it be to make a mindless, weak, slow, and otherwise cheap-but-human/sod-sized being than to make an actual sod? Give or take.

Get more test subjects. Weigh them and determine the approximate fraction of median human body mass that they are. Make and weigh one of each type of pills created last time, then grind them up and put the dust into labelled jars. Remove an appropriate dosage--that is, (mass pill)*(mass subject/MHBM)--from the jars for each subject, dissolve it in water, and feed the water to the subjects. Observe results.


Gather more cabeiri unless those didn't end up anything like the similar human consumers of the pills. In that case, gather more lab rodents.

Spoiler: Form--Project Asartes, Phase 1 (click to show/hide)

Goal: To attempt to determine the mechanism of the pills created by the Metamorphosis Device more precisely, to allow simpler or more effective utilization of such pills in future experiments and projects.

Materials Needed:
Access to Metamorphosis Device
3 subjects (see action above form)
1 dose of available standard radioactive chemical tracer
Some kind of sensor that can determine the location of radioactive materials (I'm pretty sure these exist already)
Radioactive waste disposal container
Remote Control Robobody or similar device

Intended Procedure:
Section 0--Create tracer pill. Grind and place in labelled jar. Remove dosages as needed. All further steps will be performed with the robobody.
Section 1--Place subject 1 in a location where the sensor can be used on it; activate sensor and feed subject appropriate dosage of pill juice.
Section 2--One subject has stabilized and data is recorded, place subject in radioactive waste disposal container.
Section 3--If deemed safe, repeat steps 1 and 2 on the subjects 2 and 3.
Section 4--Analyse data in an attempt to determine how the pill particles and changes spread.

Further Experimentation: Will proceed once we have data from previous experiments.

If Simus doesn't veto the above procedure, and the pill-juice above worked, do the above procedure. In an isolation chamber, mind.

Spoiler: Little Stuff (click to show/hide)

Learn what the UWM has and any barriers there are to copying them.
Are there any backpack*-mounted power generators? If not, why not? Are smaller generators sufficient solutions, are backpack-mounted generators problematic in some way, or did no one feel the need implement it? (A backpack generator could be a fair size without impairing combat ability too much, compared to other positions, and it could still be connected to a weapon fairly easily.)
*Well, not an actual backpack, but on the back like a backpack.
Look into the possibility of adding a small laser to gauss rifles and other low-ammunition/short-range weapons, possibly with some kind of man-portable generator attached, to improve their ability to function in situations where a laser would be superior to a gauss weapon. Would it be plausible to have it double as a laser sight, or would that just be silly/overcomplicated?

Investigate the Sibilus rifle. What kinds of drawbacks does it have that prevent it from being used in general combat? It seems pretty useful, overall.
How practical would giving a LESHO rifle to a sod be? That is, do they have enough Strength to fire it effectively?
On the LESHO subject, how hard would it be to shorten the barrel or something to make it more of a battle rifle and less of a sniper rifle, and still have railgun-propelled minimissiles being used? It seems that an assault LESHO would be more wide-ranging than many weapons, effective at ranges from short to extreme.
How close are Sibilus and LESHO rifles to the cutting edge of UWM military technology? How close are they to generally-used UWM military equipment?

Once we get a Space Magic Factory, would it be plausible to make a sod "amp specialist," or would, I dunno, sods being unabile to use space magic or something prevent us from doing that?

Not related to improving ARM weaponry, but...why are CamEyes and synthlimbs under Exotic weapons?

I don't suppose you're willing to share a bit of data on the Samsonite Abyss and what makes the synthsand creatures unable to change form after hardening?
On a more practical note, is it possible to make sand critters that can reproduce rapidly in the field so they can be turned into bullets? Is it possible to modify them to, say, produce some kind of explosive substance, so that they can act as gunpowder or solid rocket fuel or something? Basically, I'm trying to find way to let us get more ammo in the field (ideal world, you shovel some appropriate organic material or something into some kind of container, which would let the critters grow, and when you needed more ammo the sonic device would control the creatures so they made ammo. I'm not expecting this from day 1, I'm just letting you know the kinds if things I'd like to be warned if they're flat-out impossible.)

How practical would it be to outfit all our sods with cameyes, fibroblast enhancers, and so forth, to make our sods inherently superior to the UWM's? Or, for that matter, to build more fleshpits so we could zerg rush their armies?
On the subject of sods, do you have general guidelines on how changing the "base sod" in various ways would affect its cost/time-to-grow/etc? Such things would be helpful for future planning.

Also, see if I can't redesign the Red Hand to be a more conventional pistol. Sure, a gauntlet is cool, but there's a reason sidearms are pistol-shaped--it's easier to aim. (Also, it looks less comically villainous.)
Make it a pistol-shaped bit connected to a generator on the forearm. Maybe let the electric part allow electro-pistolwhipping or somesuch, but it isn't a priority by any means. Call it the Crimson Electrolaser Pistol (CELP). Compare it to the Red Hand as far as price and such goes; would it be about the same? Could I make it a longarm-addition like I thought making a normal laser in the above spoiler (probably a more integrated one, with the generator on/in the stock or something)?

I told you I'd be getting in multiple days of stuff! If you're going to limit me, the experiments are top priority, followed by the stuff in the spoiler, followed by the CELP.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Also, see if I can't redesign the Red Hand to be a more conventional pistol. Sure, a gauntlet is cool, but there's a reason sidearms are pistol-shaped--it's easier to aim. (Also, it looks less comically villainous.) Call it the Crimson Electrolaser Pistol (CELP). Compare it to the Red Hand as far as price and such goes; would it be about the same? Could I make it a longarm-addition like I thought making a normal laser in the above spoiler?

I told you I'd be getting in multiple days of stuff! If you're going to limit me, the experiments are top priority, followed by the stuff in the spoiler, followed by the CELP.

((The reason the Red Hand is a gauntlet is because it has a custom generator attached to the forearm. Well in my depictions I make it look like it's a generator array wrapped around the forearm, but the principle is the same. You need a lot of raw power to run the spark gap, which means a large generator. A pistol just plain won't work, unless you restrict it to nonlethal taser level of power - and even then it's probably going to be a bit large.

Also, pistol-shaped sidearms require being wielded, and can be knocked out of your hand. A gauntlet-shaped sidearm remains on your hand at all times, and can even provide protection. And is easier to electro-punch with. ))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Noted. Editing CELP design.))

[PyroDesu]

Simus, having left Anton to his own devices regarding the current issue for a bit, checks in on him in VR (and when Grate's request pops up, she approves it).

Anton, perhaps we might get eyes on the damaged area faster if we used existing hardware? Not to belittle your project, but we're losing contact with an increasingly large area of the deep facilities, and we need eyes there as soon as we can get them to find out what's happening. I understand you've not had very much time, but it's a pressing issue and you can continue to work while we make some scout eyes, or something similar.

[syvarris]

Basically, yes, I'd like it to be similar to that crystal rifle.  It occupies a different role (That's a DMR, vs my gun's LSW), but the principle is similar.

Now.  Take the PSL's huge tank, and shrink it to a thirtieth of it's normal volume- not size.  It should be able to only hold one standard PSL shot now.  Modify it to fit directly into my design, like a traditional magazine.

Next, take the PSL's huge tank of fluid, and shrink it to a third the volume.  Link it to the rifle in the same way the standard PSL's is linked, with whatever modification is required to make it fit into the new magazine port.  If the standard PSL can't detach the magazine from the gun, modify mine to do so.  Lastly, modify the back portion itself to be able to refill the smaller magazines that I designed earlier, preferably without interrupting operation of the weapon linked to the large magazine.

Make sure all that works then save the project for now.  Move on to the MK1 suit.

This is pretty simple.  Get a small 4 TPU generator, and incorporate it into the back of the MK1 suit, between the shoulders.  Then run a cable down each arm, to the suit's hands.  Modify the gloves so that they are fully insulated from electricity, except for the palms which should have conductive material woven in, directly linked to the generators.  Design it such that it should be able to transfer electricity to something held in the hand.  Lastly, add a safety to the back of each hand, and only link the palms and power when the hand squeezes something while the safety is off.  Hopefully that should avoid accidental shocks.

Design a quick electrical sensor, utilizing a hilt to grab, and a simple readout.  Grip it with the hands of the new suit, and check how much power is transferred.  If there's usually less than 4 TPU, enlarge the generators in the suit until it mostly stays above that threshold.

Finally, go back to the mini-PSL thing.  Remove the placeholder generator, and redesign the gun to charge from the grip, utilizing the system I added to that suit.  Add a small half-TPU battery, that charges when there's a surplus of energy, and discharges when the energy drops below the minimum.  Hopefully that should allow the gun to have continuous automatic fire without any errors.

Lastly, lightly insulate the outside of the gun, so that if an idiot grabs it with the safety off, he doesn't fry his weapon.

And... done.  Make sure the thing functions and has no pressing issues.


Oh, also, use my AUX wizardry (with dyyynamic bonusss!) to help Anton with his movement library stuff.  I should actually have one of those, compatible with both exoskeletons and robobodies, because I made a program that recorded all the movements several peope made over the entire year-long timeskip.  And during that timeskip, I specifically said to practice a lot of unusual movements so the library would be quite versatile.  I had an action that amounted to the same thing last tur, but you missed it.

((Cookie to the first person who accurately guesses why I made this rifle.))

Spoiler: Also, answers to some of GWG's questions (click to show/hide)

Are there any backpack*-mounted power generators? If not, why not? Are smaller generators sufficient solutions, are backpack-mounted generators problematic in some way, or did no one feel the need implement it? (A backpack generator could be a fair size without impairing combat ability too much, compared to other positions, and it could still be connected to a weapon fairly easily.)
*Well, not an actual backpack, but on the back like a backpack.

They exist.  Thomas bought one a long time ago.

Look into the possibility of adding a small laser to gauss rifles and other low-ammunition/short-range weapons, possibly with some kind of man-portable generator attached, to improve their ability to function in situations where a laser would be superior to a gauss weapon. Would it be plausible to have it double as a laser sight, or would that just be silly/overcomplicated?

Nikitian made several variants on this awhile ago.

How practical would giving a LESHO rifle to a sod be? That is, do they have enough Strength to fire it effectively?

In terms of accuracy, they're perfect, of course.  In terms of carrying the damn thing, not without an exoskeleton.  During the attack on Hephaestus, a sod needed an exoskeleton to carry a cutting laser, which only has a str requirement of 5.  LESHOs need a str of 16 to fire safely.  Since sods don't have a str less than three, because they don't get penalties to str rolls, an exoskeleton would raise their str enough to fire a LESHO safely.

On the LESHO subject, how hard would it be to shorten the barrel or something to make it more of a battle rifle and less of a sniper rifle, and still have railgun-propelled minimissiles being used? It seems that an assault LESHO would be more wide-ranging than many weapons, effective at ranges from short to extreme.

I can't give you a perfectly accurate answer here, but it's probably not a good idea.  LESHOs are railguns, and they counter the wear on the rails by using a really fancy metamaterial that snaps back to place when it's shocked.  That metamaterial is very expensive.  Not only that, but from the description, the aiming system is very complex, and more suited to sniping than normal shooting.  We might be able to make an effective DMR using the design, but there's probably cheaper ways.  And an assault rifle is almost certainly out of the question.

Once we get a Space Magic Factory, would it be plausible to make a sod "amp specialist," or would, I dunno, sods being unabile to use space magic or something prevent us from doing that?

I asked PW a similar question in the plug.dj room fairly recently.  Sods are entirely incapable of using amps or manips.  It's flat out impossible for them.  We may or may not be able to make different clones that have more free will, and can use space magic.

[tryrar]

((sean, if I may make a suggestion? Try simply getting the bot to autobalance bipedally and then remotely pilot it with a joystick or something))

[Parisbre56]

((sean, if I may make a suggestion? Try simply getting the bot to autobalance bipedally and then remotely pilot it with a joystick or something))

((Or you can just put adhesive wheels on a scout eye and send that. Then start producing sods, arm them with flamethrowers and surgically fill them with explosives so that if the thing tries to eat them, they'll detonate.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

Thanks to syv for answering some of my questions. Questions updated.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov

"Yeah, I was afraid of this. Programming a body to move as you want it to, when it's had thousands of years to learn to move naturally, doesn't seem to be an afternoon's worth of work. Hmm. Could always just copy though."

Anton, perhaps we might get eyes on the damaged area faster if we used existing hardware? Not to belittle your project, but we're losing contact with an increasingly large area of the deep facilities, and we need eyes there as soon as we can get them to find out what's happening. I understand you've not had very much time, but it's a pressing issue and you can continue to work while we make some scout eyes, or something similar.

"Yes, XO, I'm kind of thinking the same here. Though the problem is actually caused by using existing hardware, since it's the software for it that gives me trouble. If we had an Artee production line, I could have used the programming we've built up during our stay here, but right now I need to hammer out some replacement movement logic.

No reason why we can't start with something smaller though. We need to find out where to enter the area from, and probably make some custom drones, but we can do that pretty quick around here."

Anton queries Aresteve.

"Aresteve, what section is the anomalous breach occurring in? Please project the location onto a map of the area, and point out any known anomalies that may be the cause. Also, is there any way to access the anomaly from inside the facility? Send the results to my VR scene."

He addresses Simus again. "XO, I've asked Aresteve about details on the anomaly's location and access routes, so we should have a better idea of what we need soon. You could probably have some scout drones produced and check it out. I need to keep working here, because I suspect we won't be able to solve the problem with scout drones alone. Need something bigger on the scene, and I'd rather not have any of us risk ourselves just yet."

Stop trying to program movement libraries directly. Instead summon an office building and a hundred or so robot-body NPCs instructed to mill around doing various everyday tasks. Have the VR system collect movement data from them and build up a library of bipedal movement for the RC Sod AI to use. Walking, running, navigating stairs and obstacles, picking up and carrying objects, etc.

While the system is busy doing that, look up any existing AI libraries (like Saint's existing biped movement library - use it if it's available and compatible), and any automated robots we might be capable of building right now. This planet is an automated self-sufficient factory and mining complex - it should at least have designs for mining, construction, and repair drones available, and we can probably use those right now, especially if the RC Sod thing fails to work out.


((By the by, PW, a question. Will we be able to do abstracted long-term research? As in, specific goals but nonspecific means? For instance, if I were to try and develop a new kind of high-strength synthetic myomer, to replace synthflesh for use in large bipedal mecha (i.e. a piloted equivalent of the Avatar, kinda like a Gundam), would I be able to do so? Since there isn't really any real-world science to base it on, can I just build a lab and say I try to do it, and just treknobabble the working principles later?))

[syvarris]

((Hey, Sean?  I have one of those.  A bipedal movement library that collected a ton of information during the timeskip.  Saint offered to share it with you just last turn.))

[Parisbre56]

((Or you could just copy the data directly from the VR mainframe and then compress it and trim it down a bit to make them lighter. Why analyze a program to get data off its database when you have direct access to that database?))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((Hey, Sean?  I have one of those.  A bipedal movement library that collected a ton of information during the timeskip.  Saint offered to share it with you just last turn.))

((Yeah, I know. I mentioned that I'd accept any help from Saint, but apparently PW skimmed over that part. And/or your offer of participation. I'll edit the action to make use of it if it's available.))

((Or you could just copy the data directly from the VR mainframe and then compress it and trim it down a bit to make them lighter. Why analyze a program to get data off its database when you have direct access to that database?))

((The program has to build the database before I can access it. In a sense, I am doing exactly what you're proposing - with the added first step of having the database created. I can't just run the VR simulation and read data off it in real time, I need the simulation to complete so that the database is done and can be made portable.))

[Parisbre56]

((No, I meant that, unless the VR runs some complex neural network simulation or similar to allow things to walk in it, then it probably already has that data that allows things to walk in it and thus you could probably copy them directly. Even if it uses a neural network or similar simulation to allow things to walk, you could see about copying that and trimming it down a bit to fit in robot bodies if it's too large.))