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[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov

"XO, it appears your plan is a go. The invading organism is too resilient to effectively kill with any chemical agents we have that we could produce enough of for its mass, and is actually resistant to fire, but seems sufficiently susceptible to radiation damage, with no potentially dangerous side effects observed in the samples, at least in short term. I'll order the production of the neutron bombs now, although we still need to determine the best way to deploy them in regards to collateral damage."

Order the production of five neutron bombs, adjusted to fit on the earlier produced heavy drone carriers.

For lack of better things that can be done, start doing some research on weapons technology:

1. Lasers. The existing technology resembles solid-state lasers, although obviously advancements have been made since the early years of humanity's experiments with them. What has become of free-electron lasers? In a free-electron laser, the photons are generated by a stream of electrons rapidly oscillating in sync, allowing high power levels and almost entirely arbitrary output frequencies. While more technologically complex than the solid state lasers, the FELs have some unique properties that could be used in a variety of ways - are they in use in any existing weapons at this time?

2. Piezoelectric Shard Launcher's ammunition. The shards are said to explode into electricity - check how workable the concept is in the context of an electrolaser. Will a shard explode if it crosses an active laser beam? Also check the usability of such shards as one-shot capacitors, for providing pulses of power to compact rapid-fire gauss or laser-pulse weapons.

3. Plasma weaponry. How much of a Plasma Projector will function if all automanipulators are stripped out of it? Is it possible to avoid the need for ammunition, or use compact solid material that is plasmarized when firing? If PSL crystals can work as capacitors to avoid power cell or generator issues, how compact could the resulting weapon system be made? In the context of Battlesuit-scale or Avatar-scale melee combat, could an arm-mounted plasma generator (sans manipulators) be used to generate and propel a momentary jet of hot plasma about yea long? How about human-scale?

All experiments and research performed in VR and via any databases available, of course.

[syvarris]

"What?  It even resists things like chlorine flourides?  How does it do that?  Did you try adding other chemicals that can break down the few things which resist it, such as chloryl flouride?"

((FYI, I highly doubt the PSL fluid will work as a capacitor.  Most obviously, the explosion's fragments can damage armor plating, so it would be difficult to contain.  Then comes the issue that the shards themselves expand a massive amount when you crystallize them, and don't take much energy.  From a quick calculation, a PSL volley charges roughly 2262 cubic inches of crystal, and doesn't even store a full 4 TPU.  A pair of gauss gens is roughly the same volume as a pair of playing card decks, and provides infinite power, so... yeah.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((FYI, I highly doubt the PSL fluid will work as a capacitor.  Most obviously, the explosion's fragments can damage armor plating, so it would be difficult to contain.  Then comes the issue that the shards themselves expand a massive amount when you crystallize them, and don't take much energy.  From a quick calculation, a PSL volley charges roughly 2262 cubic inches of crystal, and doesn't even store a full 4 TPU.  A pair of gauss gens is roughly the same volume as a pair of playing card decks, and provides infinite power, so... yeah.))

((The PSL shards are piezoelectric, meaning they generate electricity from mechanical force. Or at least it's a good enough approximation of what they do to be in the weapon's name. Point is, the crystallization process itself may create energetic potential in the material, or such potential could be chemically or otherwise stored in the liquid form of the material in the first place, with the onboard generator of the PSL only providing repeated acceleration of the shards. I want to know if that's the case.))

"What?  It even resists things like chlorine flourides?  How does it do that?  Did you try adding other chemicals that can break down the few things which resist it, such as chloryl flouride?"

"I've tried a number of things, including various chemical killing agents. While testing combinations of materials could be interesting, the defining feature of the samples was that they are able to very quickly adapt to the damage being dealt to them, and recover from it. Even a violently corrosive and toxic substance like the fluorides would still have to penetrate into the biological matter to deal damage, and this biological matter is proving very good at dampening the effects of fire and chemical attack alike, so we would need inordinate quantities of said highly dangerous and explosive substance to kill it. Penetrating radiation from a reduced-blast, augmented-radiation nuclear warhead seems like it will be far safer in comparison, especially now that no immediate unexpected side-effects have been determined.

The samples are still in the labs though. You're welcome to carry out any additional tasks yourself."

[Sean Mirrsen]

--oops, wrong button--

[piecewise]

"I'm happy to hear that you share my opinion on the matter, Simus!  I'll have all our sod production facilities switched over to brain manufacture.  Sod brains are much, much faster to produce than full bodies, so we'll have quite an army in a very short time.  Still, we may want to expand the fleshpits more, depending on how overwhelming we want our forces.

Also, I tested that remote body control program, and it works remarkably well, as long as you stay within built up areas.  Using drones to relay the signal does not work well however, so if we want to do things with the bodies deep underground, we'll need Quantum Entanglement Communicators.  I'm ordering a pair right now."

1.Ah, so since we actually only have one fleshpit, and I asked for a single fleshpit to be converted to produce sod brains, did the entire thing get converted?  If not, make it do so now.

2.Before I asked for a batch of thirty sods to be made, and you said they'd take thirty days.  Does that mean thirty tubes were producing at once, and they'd each take thirty days?

3.If so, I guess that means a sod brain takes a fifteenth or a tenth of the time to produce as a full body sod?  You said one would take two or three days.

4.Our medical facilities- does someone with medical skill have to personally transplant each brain into a body, or is it mostly automated?  Basically, will I, as our only doctor, have to personally oversee the sod conversions, or can it just happen in the backround?

5.Ask Aresteve to start a continual production of standard robotic bodies, to match the rate of production of the brains.  Five hundred per RL month, if I understand correctly.  If we can't do that, then lower the rate of brains to match the rate of bodies.

6.Brain that body that I sent flying away for testing back to me, and leave it in the medical area, equipped with an MK.III and flamethrower.  If I ever need to work on someone there, I can just switch to that body.

7.Lock my main (brain containing) body in my room, and keep a feed of any cameras watching my room in the corner of my vision.  From now on, I want to be wandering the base in a remote robotic body.  Wearing one of the MK.IIIs, and wielding a flamethrower, of course.

8.Order two Quantum Entanglement Communicator Backpacks

9.Get a completion date for 8

1. one week tilll the first brains are ready.
2. It takes thirty days to produce one sod, so you'd get 30 at once, not one a day.
3. About that.
4.It can be automated. I assumed you'd want that set up so it has been.
5.Bodies are not a problem. Mass production has already begun. You want them to just be normal robodies or have any specific modifications?
6.Done.
7.Done.
8. Be there by next turn.
9. see above.

Anton Chernozorov

"XO, it appears your plan is a go. The invading organism is too resilient to effectively kill with any chemical agents we have that we could produce enough of for its mass, and is actually resistant to fire, but seems sufficiently susceptible to radiation damage, with no potentially dangerous side effects observed in the samples, at least in short term. I'll order the production of the neutron bombs now, although we still need to determine the best way to deploy them in regards to collateral damage."

Order the production of five neutron bombs, adjusted to fit on the earlier produced heavy drone carriers.

For lack of better things that can be done, start doing some research on weapons technology:

1. Lasers. The existing technology resembles solid-state lasers, although obviously advancements have been made since the early years of humanity's experiments with them. What has become of free-electron lasers? In a free-electron laser, the photons are generated by a stream of electrons rapidly oscillating in sync, allowing high power levels and almost entirely arbitrary output frequencies. While more technologically complex than the solid state lasers, the FELs have some unique properties that could be used in a variety of ways - are they in use in any existing weapons at this time?

2. Piezoelectric Shard Launcher's ammunition. The shards are said to explode into electricity - check how workable the concept is in the context of an electrolaser. Will a shard explode if it crosses an active laser beam? Also check the usability of such shards as one-shot capacitors, for providing pulses of power to compact rapid-fire gauss or laser-pulse weapons.

3. Plasma weaponry. How much of a Plasma Projector will function if all automanipulators are stripped out of it? Is it possible to avoid the need for ammunition, or use compact solid material that is plasmarized when firing? If PSL crystals can work as capacitors to avoid power cell or generator issues, how compact could the resulting weapon system be made? In the context of Battlesuit-scale or Avatar-scale melee combat, could an arm-mounted plasma generator (sans manipulators) be used to generate and propel a momentary jet of hot plasma about yea long? How about human-scale?

All experiments and research performed in VR and via any databases available, of course.

What yield we talking here, friend?

1. Nothing UWM weaponized, though some of the laser cutters the fabrication machines here on the planet do use them, actually.

2. Yes, and well, yes, but you're going to basically be compressing and detonating a broken glass hand grenade in order to do so.

3. You'd basically get big old hyper hair dryer, since the manips contain and do a lot to aid in the production of the plasma. If you want to do manipulator free plasma, you're best going from scratch.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov

What yield we talking here, friend?

Something small enough to be flown on a drone, weak enough not to cause excessive collateral damage, yet still powerful enough to kill our uninvited guest. So, eighth kiloton?

1. Nothing UWM weaponized, though some of the laser cutters the fabrication machines here on the planet do use them, actually.

((Good to know. Expect weaponized industrial equipment to follow shortly.))

2. Yes, and well, yes, but you're going to basically be compressing and detonating a broken glass hand grenade in order to do so.

((So, basically the same as firearms? Nothing a few good moving parts can't fix.))

3. You'd basically get big old hyper hair dryer, since the manips contain and do a lot to aid in the production of the plasma. If you want to do manipulator free plasma, you're best going from scratch.

((Yeah, this goes on my to-do list.))

[Radio Controlled]

Saint speaks over the radio "Simus, I've begun the conversion of a single flesh pit so that it produces simple sod brains ready to be placed into a robotic body, rather than full body sods.  I figured one would be enough to produce a strong vanguard for Heph.  Anyways, what are our plans for the overall composition of our sod forces?  I know Miyamoto had ideas for the exact percentage of robotic versus normal sods, but I'm not sure if that ever advanced beyond the idea stage, or if it was even VR-tested.  We should probably figure it out soon, so that we can create a good supply of troops ASAP.

Also, I listened to Charles' speech, and I recommend it.  It's quite good."

I don't think most of it was tested at all - there wasn't really all that much time, at the time. I personally don't see much reason to use normal sods over the robotic kind - the only major issue I can see with it would have been cost, except that's kind of irrelevant here, with the facilities we have. The only cost is time. Now, if Miyamoto wants us to send him some biological sods, that's up to him - but for our planetary forces, I think we can do without.

((If Hep people want this in the OOC or tinker thread, just say so.

My proposal for still using full organic sods was basically this: we built three main kind of sod: full organic with low/some medium gear, robosods with an upgraded body (e.g. some armor and a jetpack) and medium/some high level gear, and 'no cost spared' synthflesh troops with high level/specialized gear. This next to 'special' troops like battlesuit troopers and the like.

There are several reasons for still using full organic sods (next to robosods, of course):

-if we go full robosod, then we are basically putting all our eggs in one basket. Major Kusanagi says it best:

If we all reacted the same way, we'd be predictable, and there's always more than one way to view a situation. What's true for the group is also true for the individual. It's simple: overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death.

So if the UWM has some unknown weapon/gadget/technique that's super effective against robobody sods, we'd be crippled when they used it. Could we develop countermeasures? Probably yes, but by then we might have suffered a devastating loss (e.g. losing Hep).

-Sometimes, you might just need a lot of cheap troops. For example, leaving a light garrison somewhere or to act as 'semi-sentient turnstiles'. Using (upgraded) robosods for that isn't optimally efficient.

But then, why not use full organic, normal robobody, upgraded robobody, and a plethora of other flavors of sod?
-ease of organization: having just a few templates of sod will keep things easier to manage and organise. Imagine having to keep track of half a dozen different kinds of sod, each with other characteristics (and different gear to boot, though this is a given). Having just a few with clear, distinct roles/uses will ease things up for PW and ourselves.

-Full organic sods are easier to 'maintain' than robobody sods, which is a plus if you want to ship them to less-advanced/organized enemies of the UWM (it lessens the strain on the supply chain, a very important factor in real armed conflict, but perhaps too abstract for ER).


The exact amounts however, that we would still need to work out. Was hoping to have a quote from pw in the tinker thread now to support my arguments, but eh, guess I wasn't clear enough.

[syvarris]

"I understand that, but the proper mixture of chemicals should be able to burn through just about anything.  You said that it quickly became immune to everything you tried, and becoming immune to something like that should be practically impossible.  Especially for something organic.

As far as damage, well, since it's in a deep pit, and all the dangerous chemicals we'd be producing are heavier than air, the damage should be entirely negligible.  Then again, a well-built bomb will probably work fine too, and would kill everything in an instant, rather than allowing the creature a chance to dig an upwards vault or something."

((Why's the payload have to be carried by drone?  We have several MK.III equipped bodies, so we could just adapt them to use drone navigation, and use however big a bomb we want.))

@Radio
((We shouldn't use just gauss assault rifles.  We should also use regular gunpower assault rifles, gyrojet assault rifles, mini-PSLs, and lots of other things that occupy the exact same spot.  Even if one is better in every way.

Now, sorry for the strawman, but I strongly disagree, even if flesh sods are immune to something that absolutely devastates robosods.  Robosods are: faster to produce (by ten times!), more versatile (switch body), cheaper to maintain (PW directly said so), more durable in combat, give more information to controllers, allow human specialists to possess them, and can be deactivated if a UE subverts it, without killing the sod, or compromising the platform.

Meta reason robosods won't be disabled (without disabling flesh sods): there's no reason such a hack wouldn't be able to target roboplayers.  I don't think PW would basically say "okay, all you guys can't play in any of the missions for the next three months.  Sorry."

Other problems with your ideas:
No robosods unless they're improved, and obviously different from fleshsods, which throws away the biggest advantage for having flesh sods.
You use a slippery slope argument to justify that 'imagine trying to keep track of a half dozen different types of sod' (BTW, that ain't that hard)

Using a fictional quote to justify that.  Honestly, if the best quote you can find is fiction, I'm not gonna trust it on principle.  Beyond that, the quote applies to tactics rather than equipment!  I'm sure there's plenty of real quotes that say basically the same thing.

Obviously having not read the posts that specfically convinced me of it.  Fleshsods are harder to maintain.

I apologize if this seems overly rude/aggressive.  I get like that when I argue.))


Actions coming later.

[Radio Controlled]

((We shouldn't use just gauss assault rifles.  We should also use regular gunpower assault rifles, gyrojet assault rifles, mini-PSLs, and lots of other things that occupy the exact same spot.  Even if one is better in every way.

((Now you're comparing lemons to pears jet engines. I'm saying that we should consider not having our forces consist of one type of sod only, but have a certain (reasonable) degree of variety to have some redundancy.

For example, if you have a good gps to navigate, is it a bad idea to also keep a map in your car, just in case?))

Now, sorry for the strawman, but I strongly disagree, even if flesh sods are immune to something that absolutely devastates robosods.  Robosods are: faster to produce (by ten times!), more versatile (switch body), cheaper to maintain (PW directly said so), more durable in combat, give more information to controllers, allow human specialists to possess them, and can be deactivated if a UE subverts it, without killing the sod, or compromising the platform.

Faster, but more expensive. Switching bodies or limbs and such means more expenses. And sometimes, you don't need all that extra power or versatility. Also cheaper to maintain, but more complicated (an issue when shipping to allies perhaps). Though I guess we could solve that by shipping a 'mechanic' sod and spare parts with every batch. Besides, What are you even trying to prove here? I know that robosods have superior capabilities one-on-one to organic ones, we agree on that, I'm saying we shouldn't only rely on them. Because I'm cheap and paranoid basically 

You use a slippery slope argument to justify that 'imagine trying to keep track of a half dozen different types of sod' (BTW, that ain't that hard)

Do you know what a slippery slope is?

a slippery slope is a logical device, but it is usually known under its fallacious form, in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any rational argument or demonstrable mechanism for the inevitability of the event in question.

I never said that allowing different kinds of sods would inevitably lead to having too much to keep track of, just that it's a possibility that we need to account for. It could happen, so we might want to try and do it right from the start, keep things clear. Just like how I waited to reveal the existence of the ER wiki until I had put some structure and editing guidelines in. Because without them the wiki might become obtuse or hard to navigate. And I ike to nip those kinds of problems in the bud, cause they're harder to fix later on once things are already there.
And you yourself know all to well that the more details pw needs to keep track of, the less precise he gets (which is entirely normal, by the way). And if players get control over different npc forces in the future, I think most wouldn't be all to eager to set up spreadsheets to keep track of what's what, seeing as how most players don't even seem to keep personal notes on stuff, or even bother to keep the wiki up to date. Hell, some don't even check it for info (which isn't an insult, this is, just a silly forum game after all).

So I think we should try to keep things reasonably easy to keep track of, both for our and pw's sake. Unless, of course, you state here and now that you will keep track of every sod in game, both what kind it is and what equipment it has, forevermore in a timely fashion so pw doesn't have any more work to do. I'm trying to lighten his work load, not increase it.

Using a fictional quote to justify that.  Honestly, if the best quote you can find is fiction, I'm not gonna trust it on principle. Beyond that, the quote applies to tactics rather than equipment!  I'm sure there's plenty of real quotes that say basically the same thing.

What are you even saying here? I used that quote because I like that movie and to give some flavor, of course I wouldn't rely on that to actually support an argument. But I didn't think someone would even think of it like that, because honestly, that's just pedantic. If you want someone to bicker over exact wording till the end of dawn, go find a replacement for GWG, cause I don't have time for that.

Meta reason robosods won't be disabled (without disabling flesh sods): there's no reason such a hack wouldn't be able to target roboplayers.  I don't think PW would basically say "okay, all you guys can't play in any of the missions for the next three months. Sorry."

Even assuming that's true, we have allies that we'll be supporting with materials (such as sods). UWM might target an important ally. And a lot of our missions aren't directly against UWM forces (see these batch of missions for proof. Even if roboplayers can't join direct combat missions against the UWM, they could have other things to do).
Also, remember the boarding operation? Remember how some got killed before even entering the ship, kicking them out of the game for a few weeks right of the bat, without any sort of input or possible defense from the players? You wanna bet money he wouldn't do something like that again (e.g. in the middle of mission X, half the team goes numb because they're robots.)?

Obviously having not read the posts that specfically convinced me of it.  Fleshsods are harder to maintain.

Yes, I did read them. And I still think we should consider it, which we are doing now basically.

I apologize if this seems overly rude/aggressive.  I get like that when I argue.))

No probs, you're still among my biggest super pony best friends forever. 

[Empiricist]

Charles staggers over to the ARESTEVE console, trying to ignore the colossal masses of bolded and double-parenthesized text clouding his vision.
He inquires as to the following:

• How receptive are sods to being trained by someone? Can they be modified to be more receptive?
• Can sods be modified to be good at public speaking, lying and/or persuasion?
• Can robot bodies or sods be operated by VR simulations of someone? Such as say, a VR!Charles controlling a robot body for persuasion?
• Can VR simulations of someone be given a scenario to speak about and have their speech transmitted back?

[syvarris]

Spoiler: Arguments with the Radio, Volume one, chapter one (click to show/hide)

((Now you're comparing lemons to pears jet engines. I'm saying that we should consider not having our forces consist of one type of sod only, but have a certain (reasonable) degree of variety to have some redundancy.

For example, if you have a good gps to navigate, is it a bad idea to also keep a map in your car, just in case?))

To be fair, I did point out that I was using a strawman there.

Anyways, it isn't a bad idea to pack a map just in case.  However, if you're supplying a group of eighty cars with navigation equipment, and you're buying from a store that sells 2$ GPSs, and 1$ maps, then you should probably get most of them GPSs, and spread some maps around.  Not give most of them maps, and a few GPSs.

I suppose I should probably clarify that I'm arguing against your original setup, with the fleshfodder, jumppack robosods, and synthetic spec ops.  I'm not averse to sprinkling fleshies in with the robots, if the robots outnumber them 3-to-1 or so.

Faster, but more expensive. Switching bodies or limbs and such means more expenses. And sometimes, you don't need all that extra power or versatility.

For now at least, the vast majority of the sods are just gonna be shoved in warehouses until we start needing to send them somewhere.  Which could potentially be months.  Feeding disconnected sod brains for six months is way, way, way cheaper than feeding and exercising and generally supporting full flesh sods.  Maybe once we're shipping sods off to war right after they're grown (and even then, is cost or power going to be our priority?) without so much as lunch before they're shot, fleshies will be an advantage.  But as-is, fixing a broken flesh leg is both harder and slower than fixing a broken robot leg.

Besides, What are you even trying to prove here?

Umm.  That I'm right.  I'd figure anybody that reads my arguments would know that much.

Do you know what a slippery slope is?

-wikiquote in a quote that I don't care to type-

I never said that allowing different kinds of sods would inevitably lead to having too much to keep track of, just that it's a possibility that we need to account for. It could happen, so we might want to try and do it right from the start, keep things clear. Just like how I waited to reveal the existence of the ER wiki until I had put some structure and editing guidelines in. Because without them the wiki might become obtuse or hard to navigate. And I ike to nip those kinds of problems in the bud, cause they're harder to fix later on once things are already there.

But then, why not use full organic, normal robobody, upgraded robobody, and a plethora of other flavors of sod?
-ease of organization: having just a few templates of sod will keep things easier to manage and organise. Imagine having to keep track of half a dozen different kinds of sod, each with other characteristics (and different gear to boot, though this is a given). Having just a few with clear, distinct roles/uses will ease things up for PW and ourselves.

(emphasis mine)

I interpreted this to be your argument for not including normal robobodies in your standard roster.  I.E. 'We don't want to include robobodies in our forces, because they would overlap with fleshbodies and lead to unnecessary complexity bloat'.  The leading to bit being where the slippery slope comes in.

So I think we should try to keep things reasonably easy to keep track of, both for our and pw's sake. Unless, of course, you state here and now that you will keep track of every sod in game, both what kind it is and what equipment it has, forevermore in a timely fashion so pw doesn't have any more work to do. I'm trying to lighten his work load, not increase it.

Sure, I can do that, on one condition: PW says the exact amount of time a single batch of brains takes to produce.   Currently, it's just "two or three days" which is amazingly frustrating.

What are you even saying here? I used that quote because I like that movie and to give some flavor, of course I wouldn't rely on that to actually support an argument. But I didn't think someone would even think of it like that, because honestly, that's just pedantic. If you want someone to bicker over exact wording till the end of dawn, go find a replacement for GWG, cause I don't have time for that.

Oh, sorry, I get a bit too into these things.  I act more like it's politics than a discussion.  Sorry.

And I thought I was GWG's replacement, at least for ER?

Even assuming that's true, we have allies that we'll be supporting with materials (such as sods). UWM might target an important ally. And a lot of our missions aren't directly against UWM forces (see these batch of missions for proof. Even if roboplayers can't join direct combat missions against the UWM, they could have other things to do).
Also, remember the boarding operation? Remember how some got killed before even entering the ship, kicking them out of the game for a few weeks right of the bat, without any sort of input or possible defense from the players? You wanna bet money he wouldn't do something like that again (e.g. in the middle of mission X, half the team goes numb because they're robots.)?

I doubt they'd deploy such an amazingly effective countermeasure only at one place.  As to the non-UWM missions, I have the feeling that if one mission is greatly anti-UWM, all of them will be; none of our current missions are anti-UWM, because the UWM has no real presence here.

And, IIRC, people were allowed to opt out of the boarding operation, had warning that it would be fairly lethal, and still had a relatively low chance of dying.  And it only lasted a few weeks.

Yes, I did read them. And I still think we should consider it, which we are doing now basically.

-Full organic sods are easier to 'maintain' than robobody sods, which is a plus if you want to ship them to less-advanced/organized enemies of the UWM (it lessens the strain on the supply chain, a very important factor in real armed conflict, but perhaps too abstract for ER).

4. Depends. They're more expensive from the outset, but they're faster to make and don't need to be fed anything beyond the standard brain nutrients and raw chemicals to keep it in a simulated body environment. So higher initial price, but very low maintenance. Plus, they'll survive more damage, meaning you'll have to make less of them.

Sorry for the confusion.

No probs, you're still among my biggest super pony best friends forever.

I'm... honestly not sure how to take that.  Thanks, I guess?

Also Sean's the brony; I, personally, dislike MLP.

1.Yes, I want the bodies to be perfectly normal for now.  We might make different bodies later, but normal's good for now.

2.Those flesh samples that Anton was testing on- I want to try something on them.  Take chlorine pentafluoride (ClF₅, basically it's ClF₃ but with 66.6% more concentrated hatred per mole.  It reacts with every element except noble gases, nitrogen, oxygen and fluorine.), and dump some on a flesh sample.  Does it resist that?

3.If the flesh does resist it, check how it does so.  Does it go the way of metals, and form a protective fluoride layer?  If so, dump water on the ClF₅- supposedly, that creates heat, hydrogen fluoride, and chloryl fluoride, which apparently dissolves that protective fluoride.

4.If it resists all that, then make note of how it does so.  That seems like it might be useful.  Yay for advanced chemistry where none of the participants actually understand what they're working with.

Now, finally, back to the Testament & power suit or whatever I named it.

5.About the powered gloves on that suit I modified, and making them safe:  I'm not certain what it's called, but there's a method to monitor the integrity of a conductive surface by having electricity flow into it from one side, and measuring it at the other.  It can detect holes and other abnormalities in the material.  I want to set up something like that, and as long as it doesn't detect any abnormalities, it transmits a 'safe' signal.  If it stops transmitting, the power is cut.  To make sure it stays working, at all times have a very tiny amount of electricity flowing, just enough to measure the integrity, but not enough to damage a person.  Also, make sure it's possible to override the shutdown, although make sure it gives a BIG warning.

6.Additionally, see if I can make a similar power transmission surface over the glove's knuckles, so that a person can punch rather than grab.

7.Lastly, I want to know if the crystal rifle can penetrate milnoplate/longcoats when fired in automatic mode.  And can it penetrate synthflesh sufficiently to damage the braincase?

[Radio Controlled]

((Should have access to an actual computer again in a week or so, we'll continue this discussion then, ok? Might even have some extra information from pw by then.

Oh, and remind me in case I forget.

[PyroDesu]

((If Hep people want this in the OOC or tinker thread, just say so.))

((Please. Can we try and keep this thread at least as in-character as the mission threads?

Also, missing updates sucks, at least for in-character interaction.))

Well, we already do know what Will rolls look like in the brain - we have a Will decompensator line, after all. All I really want to do is tweak detection settings to match the MkIV accuracy with MkI action, on a range that's broad enough to catch all (and only - not wiping out free will entirely, just making them autofail rolls. Maybe increase the power of the disruption so that it knocks out rather than autofailing attempted rolls) roll-level signals.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov

What yield we talking here, friend?

Something small enough to be flown on a drone, weak enough not to cause excessive collateral damage, yet still powerful enough to kill our uninvited guest. So, eighth kiloton?

1. Nothing UWM weaponized, though some of the laser cutters the fabrication machines here on the planet do use them, actually.

((Good to know. Expect weaponized industrial equipment to follow shortly.))

2. Yes, and well, yes, but you're going to basically be compressing and detonating a broken glass hand grenade in order to do so.

((So, basically the same as firearms? Nothing a few good moving parts can't fix.))

3. You'd basically get big old hyper hair dryer, since the manips contain and do a lot to aid in the production of the plasma. If you want to do manipulator free plasma, you're best going from scratch.

((Yeah, this goes on my to-do list.))

Addendum: Spawn an industrial FEL in VR, and miniaturize it as far as the current technology level will allow. Aim for output power of around the same as our standard laser rifle. How much larger/heavier is the resulting device? Disregard the power supply for now.

Build a VR test chamber designed to measure sheer electric output of the PSL shards. Disregard the physical damage the exploding shards deal - just make a sturdy chamber with electrodes. How large a shard will be enough to kill someone (i.e. as an electric discharge delivered by taser)? To fire a standard Gauss Rifle round? To fire a Gauss Cannon round? (measure in PSL ammo capacity units) What is the most... handle-able shape a PSL crystal can form into? Look for something that easily and efficiently fits into a rotation-body shell.

[piecewise]

Anton Chernozorov

What yield we talking here, friend?

Something small enough to be flown on a drone, weak enough not to cause excessive collateral damage, yet still powerful enough to kill our uninvited guest. So, eighth kiloton?

1. Nothing UWM weaponized, though some of the laser cutters the fabrication machines here on the planet do use them, actually.

((Good to know. Expect weaponized industrial equipment to follow shortly.))

2. Yes, and well, yes, but you're going to basically be compressing and detonating a broken glass hand grenade in order to do so.

((So, basically the same as firearms? Nothing a few good moving parts can't fix.))

3. You'd basically get big old hyper hair dryer, since the manips contain and do a lot to aid in the production of the plasma. If you want to do manipulator free plasma, you're best going from scratch.

((Yeah, this goes on my to-do list.))

How many you want? I assume more then one. Unless I haven't properly impressed upon you the size of this thing.

Charles staggers over to the ARESTEVE console, trying to ignore the colossal masses of bolded and double-parenthesized text clouding his vision.
He inquires as to the following:

• How receptive are sods to being trained by someone? Can they be modified to be more receptive?
• Can sods be modified to be good at public speaking, lying and/or persuasion?
• Can robot bodies or sods be operated by VR simulations of someone? Such as say, a VR!Charles controlling a robot body for persuasion?
• Can VR simulations of someone be given a scenario to speak about and have their speech transmitted back?

Sods will listen to anyone until their commander has been established.

Anything is possible, just not easy.

Yes, if you get everything working right, but it would have to be quite a sophisticated VR sim to do it, and the controlling computer would have to be near by. Plus, you'd need to use the movement libraries Anton has been working on, since VR sim's don't use "Real" movement, they just have animations. Good ones, mind, but put in a real environment they'd fall over a lot.

As above, yes, but not as they are right now.

Spoiler: Arguments with the Radio, Volume one, chapter one (click to show/hide)

((Now you're comparing lemons to pears jet engines. I'm saying that we should consider not having our forces consist of one type of sod only, but have a certain (reasonable) degree of variety to have some redundancy.

For example, if you have a good gps to navigate, is it a bad idea to also keep a map in your car, just in case?))

To be fair, I did point out that I was using a strawman there.

Anyways, it isn't a bad idea to pack a map just in case.  However, if you're supplying a group of eighty cars with navigation equipment, and you're buying from a store that sells 2$ GPSs, and 1$ maps, then you should probably get most of them GPSs, and spread some maps around.  Not give most of them maps, and a few GPSs.

I suppose I should probably clarify that I'm arguing against your original setup, with the fleshfodder, jumppack robosods, and synthetic spec ops.  I'm not averse to sprinkling fleshies in with the robots, if the robots outnumber them 3-to-1 or so.

Faster, but more expensive. Switching bodies or limbs and such means more expenses. And sometimes, you don't need all that extra power or versatility.

For now at least, the vast majority of the sods are just gonna be shoved in warehouses until we start needing to send them somewhere.  Which could potentially be months.  Feeding disconnected sod brains for six months is way, way, way cheaper than feeding and exercising and generally supporting full flesh sods.  Maybe once we're shipping sods off to war right after they're grown (and even then, is cost or power going to be our priority?) without so much as lunch before they're shot, fleshies will be an advantage.  But as-is, fixing a broken flesh leg is both harder and slower than fixing a broken robot leg.

Besides, What are you even trying to prove here?

Umm.  That I'm right.  I'd figure anybody that reads my arguments would know that much.

Do you know what a slippery slope is?

-wikiquote in a quote that I don't care to type-

I never said that allowing different kinds of sods would inevitably lead to having too much to keep track of, just that it's a possibility that we need to account for. It could happen, so we might want to try and do it right from the start, keep things clear. Just like how I waited to reveal the existence of the ER wiki until I had put some structure and editing guidelines in. Because without them the wiki might become obtuse or hard to navigate. And I ike to nip those kinds of problems in the bud, cause they're harder to fix later on once things are already there.

But then, why not use full organic, normal robobody, upgraded robobody, and a plethora of other flavors of sod?
-ease of organization: having just a few templates of sod will keep things easier to manage and organise. Imagine having to keep track of half a dozen different kinds of sod, each with other characteristics (and different gear to boot, though this is a given). Having just a few with clear, distinct roles/uses will ease things up for PW and ourselves.

(emphasis mine)

I interpreted this to be your argument for not including normal robobodies in your standard roster.  I.E. 'We don't want to include robobodies in our forces, because they would overlap with fleshbodies and lead to unnecessary complexity bloat'.  The leading to bit being where the slippery slope comes in.

So I think we should try to keep things reasonably easy to keep track of, both for our and pw's sake. Unless, of course, you state here and now that you will keep track of every sod in game, both what kind it is and what equipment it has, forevermore in a timely fashion so pw doesn't have any more work to do. I'm trying to lighten his work load, not increase it.

Sure, I can do that, on one condition: PW says the exact amount of time a single batch of brains takes to produce.   Currently, it's just "two or three days" which is amazingly frustrating.

What are you even saying here? I used that quote because I like that movie and to give some flavor, of course I wouldn't rely on that to actually support an argument. But I didn't think someone would even think of it like that, because honestly, that's just pedantic. If you want someone to bicker over exact wording till the end of dawn, go find a replacement for GWG, cause I don't have time for that.

Oh, sorry, I get a bit too into these things.  I act more like it's politics than a discussion.  Sorry.

And I thought I was GWG's replacement, at least for ER?

Even assuming that's true, we have allies that we'll be supporting with materials (such as sods). UWM might target an important ally. And a lot of our missions aren't directly against UWM forces (see these batch of missions for proof. Even if roboplayers can't join direct combat missions against the UWM, they could have other things to do).
Also, remember the boarding operation? Remember how some got killed before even entering the ship, kicking them out of the game for a few weeks right of the bat, without any sort of input or possible defense from the players? You wanna bet money he wouldn't do something like that again (e.g. in the middle of mission X, half the team goes numb because they're robots.)?

I doubt they'd deploy such an amazingly effective countermeasure only at one place.  As to the non-UWM missions, I have the feeling that if one mission is greatly anti-UWM, all of them will be; none of our current missions are anti-UWM, because the UWM has no real presence here.

And, IIRC, people were allowed to opt out of the boarding operation, had warning that it would be fairly lethal, and still had a relatively low chance of dying.  And it only lasted a few weeks.

Yes, I did read them. And I still think we should consider it, which we are doing now basically.

-Full organic sods are easier to 'maintain' than robobody sods, which is a plus if you want to ship them to less-advanced/organized enemies of the UWM (it lessens the strain on the supply chain, a very important factor in real armed conflict, but perhaps too abstract for ER).

4. Depends. They're more expensive from the outset, but they're faster to make and don't need to be fed anything beyond the standard brain nutrients and raw chemicals to keep it in a simulated body environment. So higher initial price, but very low maintenance. Plus, they'll survive more damage, meaning you'll have to make less of them.

Sorry for the confusion.

No probs, you're still among my biggest super pony best friends forever.

I'm... honestly not sure how to take that.  Thanks, I guess?

Also Sean's the brony; I, personally, dislike MLP.

1.Yes, I want the bodies to be perfectly normal for now.  We might make different bodies later, but normal's good for now.

2.Those flesh samples that Anton was testing on- I want to try something on them.  Take chlorine pentafluoride (ClF₅, basically it's ClF₃ but with 66.6% more concentrated hatred per mole.  It reacts with every element except noble gases, nitrogen, oxygen and fluorine.), and dump some on a flesh sample.  Does it resist that?

3.If the flesh does resist it, check how it does so.  Does it go the way of metals, and form a protective fluoride layer?  If so, dump water on the ClF₅- supposedly, that creates heat, hydrogen fluoride, and chloryl fluoride, which apparently dissolves that protective fluoride.

4.If it resists all that, then make note of how it does so.  That seems like it might be useful.  Yay for advanced chemistry where none of the participants actually understand what they're working with.

Now, finally, back to the Testament & power suit or whatever I named it.

5.About the powered gloves on that suit I modified, and making them safe:  I'm not certain what it's called, but there's a method to monitor the integrity of a conductive surface by having electricity flow into it from one side, and measuring it at the other.  It can detect holes and other abnormalities in the material.  I want to set up something like that, and as long as it doesn't detect any abnormalities, it transmits a 'safe' signal.  If it stops transmitting, the power is cut.  To make sure it stays working, at all times have a very tiny amount of electricity flowing, just enough to measure the integrity, but not enough to damage a person.  Also, make sure it's possible to override the shutdown, although make sure it gives a BIG warning.

6.Additionally, see if I can make a similar power transmission surface over the glove's knuckles, so that a person can punch rather than grab.

7.Lastly, I want to know if the crystal rifle can penetrate milnoplate/longcoats when fired in automatic mode.  And can it penetrate synthflesh sufficiently to damage the braincase?

Someone has pointed out the fact that your character is an idiot. An idiot with no technical skills. This is giving me pause for thought about if I should be letting you do all this without rolls.

I'm thinking that some technical training is in order.

And some reading of a mother fucking book, ya big dummy.

((If Hep people want this in the OOC or tinker thread, just say so.))

((Please. Can we try and keep this thread at least as in-character as the mission threads?

Also, missing updates sucks, at least for in-character interaction.))

Well, we already do know what Will rolls look like in the brain - we have a Will decompensator line, after all. All I really want to do is tweak detection settings to match the MkIV accuracy with MkI action, on a range that's broad enough to catch all (and only - not wiping out free will entirely, just making them autofail rolls. Maybe increase the power of the disruption so that it knocks out rather than autofailing attempted rolls) roll-level signals.

We could modify a mkIV version for that, sure. You gonna put Xan on a leash?

Anton Chernozorov

What yield we talking here, friend?

Something small enough to be flown on a drone, weak enough not to cause excessive collateral damage, yet still powerful enough to kill our uninvited guest. So, eighth kiloton?

1. Nothing UWM weaponized, though some of the laser cutters the fabrication machines here on the planet do use them, actually.

((Good to know. Expect weaponized industrial equipment to follow shortly.))

2. Yes, and well, yes, but you're going to basically be compressing and detonating a broken glass hand grenade in order to do so.

((So, basically the same as firearms? Nothing a few good moving parts can't fix.))

3. You'd basically get big old hyper hair dryer, since the manips contain and do a lot to aid in the production of the plasma. If you want to do manipulator free plasma, you're best going from scratch.

((Yeah, this goes on my to-do list.))

Addendum: Spawn an industrial FEL in VR, and miniaturize it as far as the current technology level will allow. Aim for output power of around the same as our standard laser rifle. How much larger/heavier is the resulting device? Disregard the power supply for now.

Build a VR test chamber designed to measure sheer electric output of the PSL shards. Disregard the physical damage the exploding shards deal - just make a sturdy chamber with electrodes. How large a shard will be enough to kill someone (i.e. as an electric discharge delivered by taser)? To fire a standard Gauss Rifle round? To fire a Gauss Cannon round? (measure in PSL ammo capacity units) What is the most... handle-able shape a PSL crystal can form into? Look for something that easily and efficiently fits into a rotation-body shell.

Before we do this, exactly what is the difference between these two systems and what sort of effect would it have on a weapon made using it? This is rather important because I'm not very knowledgeable on such things, so you're probably in the best position to describe how this thing should act.