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[Parisbre56]

You want to do that on a canvas or you wanna go paint it on a wall as a great big mural?

((There's Flint's mural next to the entrance to Aresteve's core. You can paint it there. Aresteve seems like the sort of AI who would appreciate art.

Unless you want it to be seen by workers like some sort of soviet propaganda poster.))

[Nikitian]

Look over the data for the Doctor. Do whatever needs to be done.

Acquire a modernised flight variant Milnoplate from the armory. That would incur a debt of 8 tokens, which is fine. I leave my new-system Nyartifacts as collateral anyway, those would sum up to quite more. Copy over the symbol of Algis upon it.

Have my suit right glove and corresponding underwear section modified: a small (closeable) opening on the little finger allowing the flesh contact for purposes of using the Dissector (Cursed) Knife plus an additional iris on the base of said finger of the suit glove. Due to the Counter-Pressure Underwear it should allow exposing a small bit of skin even in vacuum of space without much long-term consequence (especially since the skin will not be breached).
[ADMIN OF SCIENCE][DEPUTY ADMIN OF ENGINEERING]

• Appove for prototyping mass-production and addition to armory stock the following equipment:
  
  • Counter-Pressure Suit Underwear
    Cost: 0 tokens
    Gives the benefit of MCP-type suits to older types of suits. Given out for free to all current owners of Mk-II & Mk-III suits, as well as future buyers of Mk-III suits. Temporary solution for a temporary problem, thus a partially limited production run.
  • S.Saint's modernised Milnoplate variants (light/flight/full variants)
    Cost: 6/8/10 tokens; 1 for helmet-only
    Light:Chestplate, including backplate, abdomen and all around torso protection.
    Flight: Chestplate, helmet, shoulder/hip protection, along with thin hexsand coating across the entire body including limbs
    Full: Full suit of Milnoplate.
    Note: Because the old one was never officially introduced into the armory, and new kinda skipped that either.
  • Mono-Forceblade, classic variant
    Kinda. Hopefully. Waiting on Council confirmation.
• Oh, so the Science Teams assigned to different projects started working on a single project on their own initiative? This better be worth their joint time, and make use of team effort.
  Afterwards, Science Team Gamma is to work upon:
  
  • Pink mist/Pink trees (Mission Anomalous Planetoid)
  • Zone Storm sand samples (Mission Anomalous Planetoid)
  • Anomalous crystals (Mission Space Hellwasp)
  • Frictionless spere (Mission Space Hellwasp)
  Science Team Delta is to work upon:
  
  • Radiation Predators (Mission Anomalous Planetoid)
  • Haebi brain sample (Mission Planet-Brain Theft) [Apocalypse Lab]
• Has the Science Team Alpha, working on the God-Computer, made any progress? Regardless, afterwards it is to work upon:
  
  • Crystalline Technology applications (Mission Very First) [Apocalypse Lab]
    (weaponry and explosive use, detailed psychic properties study, etc.)
  • Soundworm data (Mission Soundworm) [Apocalypse Lab]
    (including recreation of the Puddle in an autonomous section of the AL)
• Steve Saint is officially appointed Deputy Admin of Science in my absence. He shall make sure the research orders are fulfilled, but he holds the right to change them using his own judgement. This also means overseeing ongoing scientific projects like the Project Wunderkinder (within clearance, of course).
• While I have time, refine the education and the upbringing system. We are not raising Spartans of physical might, but Spartans of mental and creative abilities. Push to the edge, but don't break; let them continuously hone their intelligence. Oh, and yeah, no robots: human touch is good and fooling the supervisors can be another good practice for their minds. More abstracting!
  Also, make sure ARESTEVE has full camera surveillance of the children, and make sure to install the shock implants at the earliest age where that would not stunt their growth; they are not to be allowed to work with the Science Teams and/or get to the experimental science facilities without said shock implants. ARESTEVE is the overseer, same as with Steve aboard the Paracelsus Sword.
  

((So many words! Such a long action post! And so little work from GM requested! I think I just broke several different records here. ))

[Unholy_Pariah]

We have the apacalypse lab now, finish the gosh darn glowworm research please.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov, Admin of Defense | Resident Mad Scientist Engineer

> The Experiment remains running as a background process - it doesn't require constant monitoring, but will interrupt any ongoing work if something interesting happens.

> Begin working through the side-projects list. Start with plasma thrusters.
>>- Specifics: Chemical rockets are fine and dandy, even cheap, but they tend to explode easily, and aren't quite top-notch in regards to efficiency. Work out a design based on the Plasma Stake weapon - a rocket engine powered by a Blueraditite shard and a large metallic rod being slowly fed into the plasmarization chamber, the expansion of the dense metallic plasma constrained by magnetic fields and the exhaust accelerated out the nozzle additionally by electromagnets.
  - Cons: More complex system requiring power as well as fuel. Exhaust is corrosive as well as hot, regular thermal insulation won't protect against direct exposure. Higher cost. Not as compact for the same delta-V ("fuel reserve").
  - Pros: Not explosive if punctured. Higher efficiency per mass than chemical rockets with Bluerad shards providing power. Exhaust is basically lower-energy plasma (hence the name) - may be usable as a weapon at melee range.
>>- Expected end result: Slightly bulkier and rather more expensive, but non-explosive and lighter alternative to chemical rockets, with a weaponizeable side-effect.

edit:
Addendum:
> The Mk3-Aero exosuit needs a final confirmation to be added to the Armory.
>>- Specifics: A Mk3-like suit with all rocket components removed, and replaced with an assembly of electric ducted fans - two large "main" ones over the shoulders, two small maneuvering ones on the ankles. The large fans are articulated, and can fold down to allow the wearer to fit through doors. The power is supplied either by a rechargeable battery pack (a few hours of flight), or a single-use Bluerad cell (1-2 days of flight, depending on usage).
  - Cons: Compared to a Mk3: Much less speed and lifting power. Just enough lift capacity to carry another person's weight with the pilot. Even less armored than the Mk3. The ducted fans are fairly large and easily damaged, even with duct armoring. Useless in space or where there isn't enough atmosphere (or other medium such as water) to achieve enough thrust. Lacks rocket-assisted EMM.
  - Pros: Compared to a Mk3: Vastly improved staying power, easily renewable "fuel" for the rechargeable model. Less noise, much less heat emission, nil light emission, all contribute to being less noticeable overall. Operates underwater with equal ease and even less visibility. Less cost? (I recall 8 token?) Uses the MCP suit as base.
  - Other/misc: Uses the exoskeleton overcharge in place of the original EMM. Saves weight by using the new exoskeleton systems (doesn't increase strength). Battery pack and Bluerad pack are swappable? (Previous discussion wasn't clear on this)
>>- Overall: 8 token? Aero-only flight, aquatic mobility. "Several hours" of operation with battery, "1-2 days" with Bluerad cell. Limited carrying capacity (about 80kg, this includes the pilot's gear). Slower (some 200-ish kph max), less able to rapidly dodge. Same strength/dex bonus as Mk3. MCP-based.

    This was all discussed previously, I just want to confirm that it still works, and get an IC confirmation from the Heph Administrators, because whatever the Joker team is doing may be a long sneaky mission on an atmospheric world, so they could potentially have a use for it.

[syvarris]

Answers:

1.Yes, did I manage to get a recording of the 'secret' meeting between the Doc, Anton, and Maurice?  Saint was certainly aware of it; The Doc practically drug Maurice away from Saint, and had Anton come down too.  So, yes or no, could I get to know what happened in that meeting?

2.Yes, we want human caretakers.  We're raising children, robots aren't gonna be sufficient if you want predictable and controllable humans!  And the size of the facility is "Big enough to comfortably house all the children we'll be raising", because you didn't give OOC information on how many kids that means.  We should have IC knowledge though.  None of it really matters anyway--Can I just assume that we get decent, qualified human caretakers, and a sufficient facility?  The timeskip should provide plenty of time for them to be recruited, and for the facility to be built.

Heavy Robotic Body (Mini-battlesuit) forcefield armor:

3.You've given partial tinker power to the council.  You said "the stuff with Sy that I've been doing, the materials science and all, or any experiments or that sort of thing would be handled by me, but things like the number of shots a weapon would have, the price, the size, etc would be handled, for the most part, by the council.".  Question 4 is an armor question, about the forcefields.  Partially, it's a materials science question ("Production-wise, can we make this cheaply"), but also a price question ("HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?!").  Does it fall under the council's domain, or yours?  If the council's, just ignore it.

4.Okay, I'll accept that we can't get complete forcefield armor.  What level of forcefield coverage could be attained, without raising the armor's price above that of the standard three layers of battlesuit?

VARIOUS:

5.You know the 'hand cannon' that was added to the armory with the sudden reality shift we had awhile back?  It's essentially identical to another armory item (the brisant grenade launcher), except less effective, and with more munition types.  I want to take every grenade type that the hand cannon can use, and make a version that would work with the Brisant.  I don't believe there is any reason why we couldn't do this trivially, unless the hand cannon has a barrel wider than two inches.

6.Both the price and explosive power of a forcefield projector scale 'exponentially'.  Are their exponential scales similar? I.E. If a given piece costs 1 token, and explodes with a force of 0.1 kilotons, would a piece that costs 10 tokens explode with a force of 1.0 kiloton?

7.If the answer to 6 is yes, then is this cost per unit of explosion better than non-nuclear explosives?

8.Very simple modification: I want to modify our pure-gauss weapons (gauss rifle, brisant, and heavy gauss cannon) to have a switch which makes them fire their ammo at a subsonic velocity.  This should be a trivial modification, since all of said weapons have an in-built power control system already, for the overcharge feature.  It's mostly useless, except for blops, but there's no good reason not to have it.  Also, all future gauss weapons should have a similar mechanism added.

9.Check your PMs, please?

[Sean Mirrsen]

((Action edited to include checking for the Mk3-A (actually MCP-3A) exosuit's addition to the Armory))

[Parisbre56]

((Just a reminder to Syv that making the rounds subsonic is not that important. It's much more important to mask the sound of the gun charging and discharging. I've got a quote of piecewise saying so, I'll try to find it when I get home and put a link here.))

[Radio Controlled]

Lets just say all that is already set up, because I feel like we've been talking about it for months. So I think thats a long enough wait time.

Great! So if a UWM deathfleet is rolling in, we'll know about it?

You know how, at long range, lasers diffuse (thus losing penetration power)? And how you cannot re-aim a laser beam once fired, while a kinetic projectile can use thrusters to adjust course (and thus 're-aim several times in-flight if needed)?

Would it be possible to put a series of lenses of sorts in the Hep system, after which something (say, a spaceship) could fire through at lenses (several lightseconds/minutes/hours away), who could re-focus the beam and re-aim the laser at that point?

Think something like this for the refocus:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But big and in space. Would this work in basic principle? One could build a massive laser cannon and use the lens system, or just use it to extend the range of our current spaceships with laser weapons.

[piecewise]

Look over the data for the Doctor. Do whatever needs to be done.

Acquire a modernised flight variant Milnoplate from the armory. That would incur a debt of 8 tokens, which is fine. I leave my new-system Nyartifacts as collateral anyway, those would sum up to quite more. Copy over the symbol of Algis upon it.

Have my suit right glove and corresponding underwear section modified: a small (closeable) opening on the little finger allowing the flesh contact for purposes of using the Dissector (Cursed) Knife plus an additional iris on the base of said finger of the suit glove. Due to the Counter-Pressure Underwear it should allow exposing a small bit of skin even in vacuum of space without much long-term consequence (especially since the skin will not be breached).
[ADMIN OF SCIENCE][DEPUTY ADMIN OF ENGINEERING]

• Appove for prototyping mass-production and addition to armory stock the following equipment:
  
  • Counter-Pressure Suit Underwear
    Cost: 0 tokens
    Gives the benefit of MCP-type suits to older types of suits. Given out for free to all current owners of Mk-II & Mk-III suits, as well as future buyers of Mk-III suits. Temporary solution for a temporary problem, thus a partially limited production run.
  • S.Saint's modernised Milnoplate variants (light/flight/full variants)
    Cost: 6/8/10 tokens; 1 for helmet-only
    Light:Chestplate, including backplate, abdomen and all around torso protection.
    Flight: Chestplate, helmet, shoulder/hip protection, along with thin hexsand coating across the entire body including limbs
    Full: Full suit of Milnoplate.
    Note: Because the old one was never officially introduced into the armory, and new kinda skipped that either.
  • Mono-Forceblade, classic variant
    Kinda. Hopefully. Waiting on Council confirmation.
• Oh, so the Science Teams assigned to different projects started working on a single project on their own initiative? This better be worth their joint time, and make use of team effort.
  Afterwards, Science Team Gamma is to work upon:
  
  • Pink mist/Pink trees (Mission Anomalous Planetoid)
  • Zone Storm sand samples (Mission Anomalous Planetoid)
  • Anomalous crystals (Mission Space Hellwasp)
  • Frictionless spere (Mission Space Hellwasp)
  Science Team Delta is to work upon:
  
  • Radiation Predators (Mission Anomalous Planetoid)
  • Haebi brain sample (Mission Planet-Brain Theft) [Apocalypse Lab]
• Has the Science Team Alpha, working on the God-Computer, made any progress? Regardless, afterwards it is to work upon:
  
  • Crystalline Technology applications (Mission Very First) [Apocalypse Lab]
    (weaponry and explosive use, detailed psychic properties study, etc.)
  • Soundworm data (Mission Soundworm) [Apocalypse Lab]
    (including recreation of the Puddle in an autonomous section of the AL)
• Steve Saint is officially appointed Deputy Admin of Science in my absence. He shall make sure the research orders are fulfilled, but he holds the right to change them using his own judgement. This also means overseeing ongoing scientific projects like the Project Wunderkinder (within clearance, of course).
• While I have time, refine the education and the upbringing system. We are not raising Spartans of physical might, but Spartans of mental and creative abilities. Push to the edge, but don't break; let them continuously hone their intelligence. Oh, and yeah, no robots: human touch is good and fooling the supervisors can be another good practice for their minds. More abstracting!
  Also, make sure ARESTEVE has full camera surveillance of the children, and make sure to install the shock implants at the earliest age where that would not stunt their growth; they are not to be allowed to work with the Science Teams and/or get to the experimental science facilities without said shock implants. ARESTEVE is the overseer, same as with Steve aboard the Paracelsus Sword.
  

((So many words! Such a long action post! And so little work from GM requested! I think I just broke several different records here. ))

We'll say you get the stuff you asked for there, but as per the other stuff here, the various admin things and set up, make sure to stick that up on the wiki somewhere with the current projects and stuff, just in case.

Anton Chernozorov, Admin of Defense | Resident Mad Scientist Engineer

> The Experiment remains running as a background process - it doesn't require constant monitoring, but will interrupt any ongoing work if something interesting happens.

> Begin working through the side-projects list. Start with plasma thrusters.
>>- Specifics: Chemical rockets are fine and dandy, even cheap, but they tend to explode easily, and aren't quite top-notch in regards to efficiency. Work out a design based on the Plasma Stake weapon - a rocket engine powered by a Blueraditite shard and a large metallic rod being slowly fed into the plasmarization chamber, the expansion of the dense metallic plasma constrained by magnetic fields and the exhaust accelerated out the nozzle additionally by electromagnets.
  - Cons: More complex system requiring power as well as fuel. Exhaust is corrosive as well as hot, regular thermal insulation won't protect against direct exposure. Higher cost. Not as compact for the same delta-V ("fuel reserve").
  - Pros: Not explosive if punctured. Higher efficiency per mass than chemical rockets with Bluerad shards providing power. Exhaust is basically lower-energy plasma (hence the name) - may be usable as a weapon at melee range.
>>- Expected end result: Slightly bulkier and rather more expensive, but non-explosive and lighter alternative to chemical rockets, with a weaponizeable side-effect.

edit:
Addendum:
> The Mk3-Aero exosuit needs a final confirmation to be added to the Armory.
>>- Specifics: A Mk3-like suit with all rocket components removed, and replaced with an assembly of electric ducted fans - two large "main" ones over the shoulders, two small maneuvering ones on the ankles. The large fans are articulated, and can fold down to allow the wearer to fit through doors. The power is supplied either by a rechargeable battery pack (a few hours of flight), or a single-use Bluerad cell (1-2 days of flight, depending on usage).
  - Cons: Compared to a Mk3: Much less speed and lifting power. Just enough lift capacity to carry another person's weight with the pilot. Even less armored than the Mk3. The ducted fans are fairly large and easily damaged, even with duct armoring. Useless in space or where there isn't enough atmosphere (or other medium such as water) to achieve enough thrust. Lacks rocket-assisted EMM.
  - Pros: Compared to a Mk3: Vastly improved staying power, easily renewable "fuel" for the rechargeable model. Less noise, much less heat emission, nil light emission, all contribute to being less noticeable overall. Operates underwater with equal ease and even less visibility. Less cost? (I recall 8 token?) Uses the MCP suit as base.
  - Other/misc: Uses the exoskeleton overcharge in place of the original EMM. Saves weight by using the new exoskeleton systems (doesn't increase strength). Battery pack and Bluerad pack are swappable? (Previous discussion wasn't clear on this)
>>- Overall: 8 token? Aero-only flight, aquatic mobility. "Several hours" of operation with battery, "1-2 days" with Bluerad cell. Limited carrying capacity (about 80kg, this includes the pilot's gear). Slower (some 200-ish kph max), less able to rapidly dodge. Same strength/dex bonus as Mk3. MCP-based.

    This was all discussed previously, I just want to confirm that it still works, and get an IC confirmation from the Heph Administrators, because whatever the Joker team is doing may be a long sneaky mission on an atmospheric world, so they could potentially have a use for it.

Ok sean, once the missions get started, remind me about the device and we'll get the results of that. I want to give it a bit of time because, well, potential hellmouth and all. We don't need maurice getting sucked into the fire dimension and our mission 1 folding without his leadership.

That plasma thruster looks fine.



If you get the council to ok it, then I'll ok it. Hey council, is this one Codename: Fat Sparrow?

Answers:

1.Yes, did I manage to get a recording of the 'secret' meeting between the Doc, Anton, and Maurice?  Saint was certainly aware of it; The Doc practically drug Maurice away from Saint, and had Anton come down too.  So, yes or no, could I get to know what happened in that meeting?

2.Yes, we want human caretakers.  We're raising children, robots aren't gonna be sufficient if you want predictable and controllable humans!  And the size of the facility is "Big enough to comfortably house all the children we'll be raising", because you didn't give OOC information on how many kids that means.  We should have IC knowledge though.  None of it really matters anyway--Can I just assume that we get decent, qualified human caretakers, and a sufficient facility?  The timeskip should provide plenty of time for them to be recruited, and for the facility to be built.

Heavy Robotic Body (Mini-battlesuit) forcefield armor:

3.You've given partial tinker power to the council.  You said "the stuff with Sy that I've been doing, the materials science and all, or any experiments or that sort of thing would be handled by me, but things like the number of shots a weapon would have, the price, the size, etc would be handled, for the most part, by the council.".  Question 4 is an armor question, about the forcefields.  Partially, it's a materials science question ("Production-wise, can we make this cheaply"), but also a price question ("HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?!").  Does it fall under the council's domain, or yours?  If the council's, just ignore it.

4.Okay, I'll accept that we can't get complete forcefield armor.  What level of forcefield coverage could be attained, without raising the armor's price above that of the standard three layers of battlesuit?

VARIOUS:

5.You know the 'hand cannon' that was added to the armory with the sudden reality shift we had awhile back?  It's essentially identical to another armory item (the brisant grenade launcher), except less effective, and with more munition types.  I want to take every grenade type that the hand cannon can use, and make a version that would work with the Brisant.  I don't believe there is any reason why we couldn't do this trivially, unless the hand cannon has a barrel wider than two inches.

6.Both the price and explosive power of a forcefield projector scale 'exponentially'.  Are their exponential scales similar? I.E. If a given piece costs 1 token, and explodes with a force of 0.1 kilotons, would a piece that costs 10 tokens explode with a force of 1.0 kiloton?

7.If the answer to 6 is yes, then is this cost per unit of explosion better than non-nuclear explosives?

8.Very simple modification: I want to modify our pure-gauss weapons (gauss rifle, brisant, and heavy gauss cannon) to have a switch which makes them fire their ammo at a subsonic velocity.  This should be a trivial modification, since all of said weapons have an in-built power control system already, for the overcharge feature.  It's mostly useless, except for blops, but there's no good reason not to have it.  Also, all future gauss weapons should have a similar mechanism added.

9.Check your PMs, please?

1. Are you sure you wanna do that? The doc might not like it if he finds out about it, and you are stuck on a planet with him. And he does have that chunk of cells imbedded in your brain.

2.Fine, roboracist. Yeah, you can assume they're well taken care of.

3.I'm basically gonna let the council handle pricing if I can help it, since I am bad at it.

4. You could probably cover the vital areas, head, chest, back, that sort of thing. After all, completely covering the limbs adds a lot of area, so not worrying about them will greatly scale the price back.

5. Well I feel you are kind of confusing the purpose of the hand cannon since it was designed as less of a straight explosive tube and more as a utility device. 

6. The explosive scales "faster" then the price. But it has an upper limit.
7. Thats a bit hard to say, but for the most part, using shield projecting material as an explosive device probably isn't as cost effective as standard explosives. There might be areas or applications where it might be the better choice, but in general, no.

8. A device to lower the power of a shot? Ok.

Lets just say all that is already set up, because I feel like we've been talking about it for months. So I think thats a long enough wait time.

Great! So if a UWM deathfleet is rolling in, we'll know about it?

You know how, at long range, lasers diffuse (thus losing penetration power)? And how you cannot re-aim a laser beam once fired, while a kinetic projectile can use thrusters to adjust course (and thus 're-aim several times in-flight if needed)?

Would it be possible to put a series of lenses of sorts in the Hep system, after which something (say, a spaceship) could fire through at lenses (several lightseconds/minutes/hours away), who could re-focus the beam and re-aim the laser at that point?

Think something like this for the refocus:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But big and in space. Would this work in basic principle? One could build a massive laser cannon and use the lens system, or just use it to extend the range of our current spaceships with laser weapons.

Assuming they come in that way and in a normal manner, then yeah.

Sure

Sure, that makes sense to me. Would certainly confuse the fuck out of UWM ships coming in when we start curving lasers around.

[Radio Controlled]

Sure, that makes sense to me. Would certainly confuse the fuck out of UWM ships coming in when we start curving lasers around.

Coolio. So, to what detail do you want me to define this project? Or can I just put some construction crews on it and we'll say it works?

And could we, for example, put a few very large solar collectors around the Hep star, which would collect power, store it in a capacitor, then once build up use the energy to create a large blueshard battery, after which these batteries are stored and (eventually) used to fire big-ass laser turrets stationed somewhere around the sun (or somewhere else, and use small transport ships to ferry the batteries) that would use the lens system to actually reach the enemy ships? And if we build up too many batteries, we just ship them off somewhere else for other uses.

So basically, a system of turrets using solar power to operate (cheap energy!), and using the network of lenses to strike anywhere the lens net has coverage.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov, Admin of Defense | Mad Scientist Engineer

Will do on the experiment reminder. Shall we make it a once-a-week thing? ((It's not as if the Heph thread is updated any faster anyway ))

>>Plasma Thrusters: Wait, hold on. Scratch that. I've reread what I wrote and I think I've got something wrong. Lighter for the same power, but bigger? Means they'd be less dense, which would make sense for hydrogen-powered MPDs with huge tanks, but not for the system I had in mind with metal rods and huge magnet arrays. I need to lay off KSP for a bit.
REVISING Plasma Thrusters: Compared to a regular rocket, a plasma engine of the same power would be larger and heavier(a rocket engine is just a combustion chamber and nozzle, after all), but the fuel is denser and more efficient, ending up more compact and giving more burn time for the same mass. Practical upshot: All plasma engines are larger than rocket engines of similar power, however the difference in fuel efficiency means that above a certain size, a fully fueled plasma engine of the same mass will have "more fuel" than a fully fueled rocket engine.

Does that make sense? There is basically a "sweet spot" where, for the same power and burn time, a rocket and a plasma engine will have the same mass. Longer burn time, a plasma engine is better. Shorter burn, a rocket is better. Exact numbers don't matter given that we're kinda fudging real physics for this, so maybe set the "sweet spot" from a balance perspective? I.e., say the plasma engines are applied as an upgrade for the Mk3. The thrusters get bigger and stop blowing up when hit. Would the flight time increase, decrease, or stay the same, if the suit's cost and mass remain the same?

>> Assuming the above works, and recalling the troubles of the past mission, work on designing "planetary extraction packs" for our robotic overlords. Nothing more than a pair of huge-ass Plasma engines, a frame to hold them together, a clamp to secure the robot in question to it (Battlesuit, Assaultsuit, Avatar of War), and a simple remote drone AI to allow the suit's pilot to fly himself into orbit. Pack should be detachable, so the robot can, but doesn't "have" to walk through the whole mission with it strapped on. How large, heavy, and expensive would such a pack be for the three kinds of our robot suits?

----------------
EDIT:
>> So I don't forget, Anton will pay a visit to the lab where Saint was torturing scientists with the forcefield material testing, and ask for a few more cases to be tested, on account of being potentially interesting:
>>>- A pane of glass. Regular silicate glass. It's an amorphous solid, lacking a structured molecular lattice. Is the field produced by it any different from that of, say, a metal of equal density?
>>>- A Prince Rupert's Drop, a little teardrop-shaped globlet of glass that is under a ridiculous amount of internal tension due to having been rapidly cooled. A case of the material not having a uniform strength, and being pre-stressed, it might have an effect on the field produced. Or the explosion after the field breaks.
>>>- Ice. Less a matter of what kind of field is produced, and more what happens with the material's tendency to melt. Once the field is up, does the ice keep melting due to heat, and what happens with the field if it does?
>>>- Dry ice, solid CO₂. Same questions as with regular ice, just with a material that sublimates directly into gas instead of melting.

I forget, did the process only ever work on solids? Or was it not tested? If it wasn't, persuade the scientists to try to run the activation process on some liquid, such as mercury or water. Observe results.

[piecewise]

Sure, that makes sense to me. Would certainly confuse the fuck out of UWM ships coming in when we start curving lasers around.

Coolio. So, to what detail do you want me to define this project? Or can I just put some construction crews on it and we'll say it works?

And could we, for example, put a few very large solar collectors around the Hep star, which would collect power, store it in a capacitor, then once build up use the energy to create a large blueshard battery, after which these batteries are stored and (eventually) used to fire big-ass laser turrets stationed somewhere around the sun (or somewhere else, and use small transport ships to ferry the batteries) that would use the lens system to actually reach the enemy ships? And if we build up too many batteries, we just ship them off somewhere else for other uses.

So basically, a system of turrets using solar power to operate (cheap energy!), and using the network of lenses to strike anywhere the lens net has coverage.

Just define how much of the system you want to be able to be covered by this array. Like, just the area around the planet? Or the entire system? because you start having logarithmic increases in the number of reflectors needed to cover the area when you expand the scope.

Anton Chernozorov, Admin of Defense | Mad Scientist Engineer

Will do on the experiment reminder. Shall we make it a once-a-week thing? ((It's not as if the Heph thread is updated any faster anyway ))

>>Plasma Thrusters: Wait, hold on. Scratch that. I've reread what I wrote and I think I've got something wrong. Lighter for the same power, but bigger? Means they'd be less dense, which would make sense for hydrogen-powered MPDs with huge tanks, but not for the system I had in mind with metal rods and huge magnet arrays. I need to lay off KSP for a bit.
REVISING Plasma Thrusters: Compared to a regular rocket, a plasma engine of the same power would be larger and heavier(a rocket engine is just a combustion chamber and nozzle, after all), but the fuel is denser and more efficient, ending up more compact and giving more burn time for the same mass. Practical upshot: All plasma engines are larger than rocket engines of similar power, however the difference in fuel efficiency means that above a certain size, a fully fueled plasma engine of the same mass will have "more fuel" than a fully fueled rocket engine.

Does that make sense? There is basically a "sweet spot" where, for the same power and burn time, a rocket and a plasma engine will have the same mass. Longer burn time, a plasma engine is better. Shorter burn, a rocket is better. Exact numbers don't matter given that we're kinda fudging real physics for this, so maybe set the "sweet spot" from a balance perspective? I.e., say the plasma engines are applied as an upgrade for the Mk3. The thrusters get bigger and stop blowing up when hit. Would the flight time increase, decrease, or stay the same, if the suit's cost and mass remain the same?

>> Assuming the above works, and recalling the troubles of the past mission, work on designing "planetary extraction packs" for our robotic overlords. Nothing more than a pair of huge-ass Plasma engines, a frame to hold them together, a clamp to secure the robot in question to it (Battlesuit, Assaultsuit, Avatar of War), and a simple remote drone AI to allow the suit's pilot to fly himself into orbit. Pack should be detachable, so the robot can, but doesn't "have" to walk through the whole mission with it strapped on. How large, heavy, and expensive would such a pack be for the three kinds of our robot suits?

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EDIT:
>> So I don't forget, Anton will pay a visit to the lab where Saint was torturing scientists with the forcefield material testing, and ask for a few more cases to be tested, on account of being potentially interesting:
>>>- A pane of glass. Regular silicate glass. It's an amorphous solid, lacking a structured molecular lattice. Is the field produced by it any different from that of, say, a metal of equal density?
>>>- A Prince Rupert's Drop, a little teardrop-shaped globlet of glass that is under a ridiculous amount of internal tension due to having been rapidly cooled. A case of the material not having a uniform strength, and being pre-stressed, it might have an effect on the field produced. Or the explosion after the field breaks.
>>>- Ice. Less a matter of what kind of field is produced, and more what happens with the material's tendency to melt. Once the field is up, does the ice keep melting due to heat, and what happens with the field if it does?
>>>- Dry ice, solid CO₂. Same questions as with regular ice, just with a material that sublimates directly into gas instead of melting.

I forget, did the process only ever work on solids? Or was it not tested? If it wasn't, persuade the scientists to try to run the activation process on some liquid, such as mercury or water. Observe results.

Sure.

Ok.

The flight time would probably increase overall, but wouldn't be as powerful or as fast.

Fairly large; but the expense would vary because the speed needed would vary. In other words, the faster you need them to get off planet, the more expensive it would be. If you're ok with them slowly rising like 2 meters a second, then it can be quite cheap.

The field is stronger, but not by a whole lot

same as glass

The ice melts and the field dissipates. The dissipation releases a great deal of heat, but over time and non-explosively.

Mostly the same effect as ice.

It will work on liquids, but only as long as the liquid is kept contained. If the liquid is allowed to spread out or break up, the field breaks into countless tiny fields. This produces a sort of "foam" of tiny, weak fields.

[tryrar]

When I reviewed the after action footage of Mission 20, I came to the conclusion we need a shuttle that can take a hit or two, is very fast, and can fight back. Basically, a Hot-Extract shuttle that is designed to get into firefights, evac the troops, and get out, preferably with extreme speed. I've attached to this message a design I feel qualifies for this on all counts:

Ares Combat Transport

The Ares is a roughly triangularly-shaped shuttle for extracting troops from a hot LZ. It is a very large(large enough for Avatars+troops to embark into the cargo area with a little squeezing), roughly Triangular shuttle with a chin-mounted heavy weapons turret, two rails for assorted munitions/weapons, and 4 "wing" mounted PD turrets(two Testament, two laser turrets in an alternating laser-testament arrangement) with lightweight armor(forcefield armoring if possible, Hexsand+Sharkplate if not) and as many engines as can be physically stuffed onto the frame; the engines also take advantage of the new plasma thruster technology to increase thrust and power while rendering the engines non-explodable.. It comes equipped with a small cockpit big enough for three people to squeeze into(one pilot, two weapons officers), and has an autopilot and computer control for the weapons.

Keep in mind that this design is tuned for speed, and not so much maneuverability. This is a combat transport, not a fighter, and should include a note on that.

[Sean Mirrsen]

When I reviewed the after action footage of Mission 20, I came to the conclusion we need a shuttle that can take a hit or two, is very fast, and can fight back. Basically, a Hot-Extract shuttle that is designed to get into firefights, evac the troops, and get out, preferably with extreme speed. I've attached to this message a design I feel qualifies for this on all counts:

Ares Combat Transport

The Ares is a roughly triangularly-shaped shuttle for extracting troops from a hot LZ. It is a very large(large enough for Avatars+troops to embark into the cargo area with a little squeezing), roughly Triangular shuttle with a chin-mounted heavy weapons turret, two rails for assorted munitions/weapons, and 4 "wing" mounted PD turrets(two Testament, two laser turrets in an alternating laser-testament arrangement) with lightweight armor(forcefield armoring if possible, Hexsand+Sharkplate if not) and as many engines as can be physically stuffed onto the frame; the engines also take advantage of the new plasma thruster technology to increase thrust and power while rendering the engines non-explodable.. It comes equipped with a small cockpit big enough for three people to squeeze into(one pilot, two weapons officers), and has an autopilot and computer control for the weapons.

Keep in mind that this design is tuned for speed, and not so much maneuverability. This is a combat transport, not a fighter, and should include a note on that.

"Ares" is taken. We already have one, at least in spirit. Given role and design, I propose "Valkyrie". Otherwise, the idea seems sound. Forcefield armor likely not practical for a variety of purposes (cost being one, explosion potential being another), but LZ clearing may require some dedicated area-effect firepower. I propose salvo-firing grenade launcher bays, in addition to the rails for larger munitions, so that it can benefit from the variety of grenade types we have available. Opinions?

[tryrar]

I figured Forcefield armor might not be practical, that's why I included a hexsand+sharkplate alternative. The grenade launcher bays idea is actually pretty interesting and I like it. I'll mod the design to include that. As for the name...blast, Ares is taken? By wha...oh wait. ARESTEVE. Of course. I like Valkyrie as an alternative, though it doesn't have quite the snappy acronym as Ares (ACT versus VCT).

Valkyrie Combat Transport

The Ares is a roughly triangularly-shaped shuttle for extracting troops from a hot LZ. It is a very large(large enough for Avatars+troops to embark into the cargo area with a little squeezing), roughly Triangular shuttle with a chin-mounted heavy weapons turret, two rails for assorted munitions/weapons, twin grenade launcher bays configured to be able to fire multiple different grenades and also room for plenty of ammo, and 4 "wing" mounted PD turrets(two Testament, two laser turrets in an alternating laser-testament arrangement) with lightweight armor(forcefield armoring if possible, Hexsand+Sharkplate if not) and as many engines as can be physically stuffed onto the frame; the engines also take advantage of the new plasma thruster technology to increase thrust and power while rendering the engines non-explodable.. It comes equipped with a small cockpit big enough for three people to squeeze into(one pilot, two weapons officers), and has an autopilot and computer control for the weapons.

Changes in red for clarification.