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[evilcherry]

8th Year of the Sovereign

The blasts were heard all over the land. The eternal state of ________ was invaded by foreign enemies, their cannons firing indiscriminately into cities, and bombs are burning forests and meadows. The government had hastily signed some papers conceding defeat, and while we still own our land, foreigners can now migrate onto our eternal state freely.
Meanwhile, the state had capitalized on this situation, and sent a few students to foreign countries to learn the latest technology.

Now answer a few questions.

What is your name?

What is the name of our holy, eternal state?

Which country you are studying in? Choose from:

1. Queenland: The most advanced country in the world, have very advanced technology, and their navy is second to none in terms of numbers. Their army are adequately armed, though just adequately. They have a trade hegemony over the world, but that also means unless under duress there is always a better party to trade with.
2. Gentleland: The land of all eccentric weapons, including the newly introduced ether cannon, volcanum thrower, etc. Their industrial capacity is much weaker comparatively, and their lack of a king means they usually got themselves on the wrong end of the gun.
3. Greyland: Greyland is a very hard working bunch, and their industrial capacity is similar to Queenland. They don't have fancy technologies but their capacity and scientific understanding is experiencing a boom. Historically they had a very disciplined army so some work experience there could be useful.
4. Eagleand: Eagleland might be the newest superpower, but as they are isolated from the rest of the bunch, they are more willing to sell technologies, provided the trade is mutually beneficial. Otherwise they are a middle-of-the-road state.
5. Bearland: Bearland is a large and backward country, but they have lots of material to spare, and certainly if you can supply some finished goods they won't mind. They also have a large army, though their equipment and training leaves a lot to be decided as they are still using levies, most of the only raised and expected to fight immediately.
6. Ball-land: It might be a state to be laughed at, now only one twentieth as large as they were 100 years ago. However, they had great cavalry tradition, and moreover they love allies, even they understand you are not going to help them much.
7. Your call.

What major are you in?

1. Etherlogy : understanding of the raw energy keeping the world one understands it to be. Recently weaponized.
2. Volcanology: understanding of heat and hot matter. Keeps engine running, and is the industrial backbone of this age
3. Machining: The understanding of all kinds of machine tools and precise construction, from the humble mechanical watch, to the analytic machine.
4. Military Science: because you know that the military organization back at home was centuries backward. You need to know how to integrate the newest creations into combat.
5. Exotic Science: You want to explore the frontiers of science. Explorations to the centre of earth, in the sky, and even to the moon and other planets are covered by this.
6. Other? as long as it makes sense.

What object had fascinated you most?
(design as you like)

Game can only continue once all the questions are answered...

[Funk]

What is your name? Sandor Mc Nash

What is the name of our holy, eternal state? Asgard

Which country you are studying in? Choose from:  Bearland

What major are you in? Exotic Science


What object had fascinated you most?
Long sword

[evilcherry]

11th Year of the Sovereign
Ah, Bearland. The land of all sorts of natural wealth; its great woods, copper, iron, vulcanium, sulphur, and all hot matter; and the famous vulcanium spirit. You, Sandor McNash, by any standard a reasonable drinker, was hungover for two days after you lost a drinking game against your best mate in Bearland, Igor.

Igor was the son of a Bearland Colonel, and you used the friendship to get close to the Bearland Military elites. You learnt of their weapons and tactics - and they are willing to share their new tactics and weapons with you. While you know that they are way behind the frontier of science, your experience there might later prove useful back in Asgard. And they certainly think Asgard will buy Bearland products sooner or later.

Speaking about the frontier of science, this is what you have been studying for a few years there. You participated in the first few high-altitude flights of Bearland, reaching the height of 30000 feet - 10 years ago, it was understood to be unreachable by any sane human being. You also had much understanding in the lowly material of steel, insofar you even created a prototype sword which is absurdly strong enough to be as light as a wooden pole and yet can damage vehicular armor.

However, the time would not last long. In the 11th Year of the Sovereign, you received a telegraph from Asgard, sent through the newly introduced ethero-plasma trunk telegraph network. You were told to go back to Asgard immediately. You understand you have little choice there, and you were back to Asgard in two months, by the way of the Ether-driven Zeppelins. You brought back nothing, except drawings you accumulated for a few years, foreign contacts and your outlandishly powerful sword.


Now you are back in Asgard. Asgard has changed a lot in a few years, and you come to understand why you were called back: the sovereign finally decided enough backwardness is enough and they had to modernize themselves thoroughly. All the students who were studying abroad were called back, and are installed as a new, modern cabinet. Seeing your talents, the sovereign named you the chief weapon designer of Asgard, with some speaking rights in the cabinet.

The cabinet will hold a meeting soon, maybe in the next week or so. Being a junior minister, You were expected to lay out your aims for Asgard's army in the next year. You are expected to satisfy the needs of the three armed force leaders, namely the Army Chief, Navy Chief, and Ether Force Chief, as well as working under the constraints of the finance Minister. Other members of the cabinet include the Prime Minister, Interior Minister, Foreign Minister, Economy Minister, Education and Science Minister, industry minister, so on and so forth.

You looked at the reports given by your subordinates:

Spoiler: "Junior Ministry of Weapon Design" (click to show/hide)

2 Labs, very poorly equipped
2 Prototyping Office, very poorly equipped
5 Engineers
5 Skilled workers
Adequate unskilled workers

Spoiler: "Asgard, End of Y11" (click to show/hide)

Population: ~3M
Industrial Capacity: Nascant
Agricultural & Fisheries Capacity: Produce barely enough to feed
Mining and natural resources: Good supply of Vulcanium, Copper; Adequate Iron, woods; need to import everything else including sulphur, saltpeter and other exotic materials
Main exports: raw materials, some cash crops
Main Imports: Machines, Consumer products
Political Unity: low, several local warlords effectively controls 60% of the land

Spoiler: "foreign relations" (click to show/hide)

Queenland: Okay
Gentleland: Okay
Greyland: Cool
Eagleland: warm
Bearland: warm
Ball-land: receiving end of a crush
and the nearby nations:
Dragonland: amity but they have too many problems to solve
Monoland: They seemed to have territorial aspirations on Asgard, but so far they are not preparing for war. Moving closer to Eagleland in relations.
Tuskland: They are Queenland-aligned, but wanted to throw off the yoke and let their tusks pierce the queen. Resource exporter.
Chililand: situated across the Asgard peninsula, they might one day become a naval threat. Are now building all sorts of ships.
Other states will show up in this digest if they become relevant.

Spoiler: "Armed Forces of Asgard" (click to show/hide)

Imperial Forces: 1000 Professional Infantryman, poor training
Can draft 100000 untrained men
500 Breech-loading Muskets
Adequate Muzzle-loading Muskets, of a design of a previous era (i.e. you can get as many as needed)
5 Up-to-date breech-loading Artillery pieces
~1000 Guns, various custom-made designs, mostly small calibers and muzzle-loaded, outdated
1 Medium Steam Tank /w Steam Cannon
5 Steam trucks
1 Experimental, outdated Blimp
1 500t Steamship
~100 sailboats of various design and construction
Provincial forces:
warlords can reliably call on 1000 - 50000 men in battles
they have mostly outdated weapons but they start to get armament smuggled in over time

Spoiler: "Issues you expect will come up in the Meeting" (click to show/hide)

The Army chief wanted more advanced weaponry to improve morale and make a larger standing army feasible.
The Navy chief wanted an up-to-date fleet to protect Asgard from being run over again
The Ether Force Chief wanted more blimps and exotic rocketry - he's Gentleland educated so no surprise.
The finance minister wanted to increase mineral exports and is seen pushing the industrial minister to sign contracts for foreign exploitation of resources
The PM wanted to prove to the Emperor he's capable and is looking forward to more centralization
The Interior minster wants the might of warlords clamped down and the police better equipped. He also wanted more foreign influence and hope the foreigners help with policing themselves
The foreign minister is inclined to let foreign government meddle in interior matters is good as long as they keep their own check and balances. He would rather not commit to allying with any country, and he seemed to be content with the central government confined to the capital.
The economy minister wanted to build up production and complains that the finance minister wanted too much immediate benefits.
The Education and Science Minister wanted to keep his share of income and noted that an educated workforce is needed for Asgard's future.
The Industry minister sides with the economy minister and noted they should import foreign production methods.

-------------------------

The essential question, now, is what you are going to propose on the cabinet meeting? what sort of promises you would want to make? And in what direction - as long as the suggestion do not sound like you wanted to be PM - the holy, eternal state of Asgard should go forward to?
Talking is a free action, so feel free to talk until you sound incoherent.

[Funk]

A steam / air powered machinegun anyone?

[The Froggy Ninja]

A steam / air powered machinegun anyone?

yes.

[evilcherry]

You proposed that you will direct your department to develop a machine gun.
Within a day or two, you drafted several possible designs for a machine gun, with a preliminary implementation plan and budget supporting development.

The army chief was impressed with your promised new firepower to the armies.
The navy chief was not happy as you don't give them new boats but they understand this gun will still be useful in brown water.
The ether chief is very upset and he thought you should not neglect your needs.

The Interior master hopes such a weapon will be enough to tell the warlords who's the boss.
The Economy minister is fine with this but he warned that this weapon might be too complicated for Asgardian industry. Industry minister concurred and he hoped for something simpler or reverse-engineered.

The finance minister find this acceptable but think you should provide him with more concrete plans before moving on. He also think if you only concentrate on one weapon he would downsize your department to the industry minister.

[Stirk]

Hmmm Perhaps we should upgrade the "Base" technologies first. Maybe instead we focus on designing a magazine that can be used for repeated guns? Steam/chemical/ whatever, just something that would allow us to easily upgrade the current infantry weapons and artillery. That should satisfy everyone, even if it isn't immediately useful we are not in need of weapons at the moment. Everyone is happy with higher rates of fire, after all.

[evilcherry]

You decided on putting effort into a general, reusable magazine.
All the chiefs are pretty unimpressed, as they wanted immediate benefits, but as you put up a pretty eloquent speech to convince them the benefits of a standard caliber/ammo/whatever for some weapons, they dropped their objection.

The industry minister suggest that you should look into utilizing copper and vulcanium from by Asgard.
The science minister suggest you import a foreign design and adapt that to local conditions.
The finance minster is happy enough and earmarks you with adequate funding for the year.

You can participate further in the meeting, like putting more ideas on the table or suggest the other ministers they should do their job differently. Or you can just keep silent and proceed to real work.
Remember that talking is a free action.

[Stirk]

I for one, can't think of anything else to suggest at the moment. I vote we keep quite, thinking of ways to make our ideas reality.

[Funk]

I' am not filled with a great number of plans, so lets just work on our base tech.

[evilcherry]

Be silent

Without much fanfare, the meeting ends. However, you were approached by the Navy Chief. He suggested that you should take him to bearland to find our if they can buy some western warships, or, if not possible, somewhere else. He think a new ship might be useful to project Asgard's power into blue water. The business trip will take about 2 months, thanks to the invention of flight and steamships, and another month if you want to travel somewhere else.

Otherwise, no one had high expectations on you. Apparently, everyone is learning on the job, so everyone don't really know what they will face from here. But as Asgard gains more modern steam technology and modernizes, your bar will be raised.

Let's get to the meat here.

You can now spend time on developing the projects. You can, of course, just tell the engineers to start right away, but while this option is free, without guidance they will not be very productive. On the other hand, if you personally work with them on the drafting table, then you will need 3 months to get development of a simple weapon, like a handgun, on full steam, then you will just need to check every now and then for results. However, this also requires you to provide the full specs (so for example, you will need to be quite specific of the reloading mechanism of a machine gun).

Of course you can, say, spend a month to start the project, and let them finish that up by themselves, but that also means you do not have full control of the project, and you may only be able to convey some vague points like "this boat should have shallow draft" or something like that. Or you can spend two months and you will have better say in it.

However, to keep my sanity, lets say the minimum time to be spent on anything is 1 month.

Other than developing, you can do other things. Talking is always a free action; going to a foreign country to do business always take 1 month/ country if you want to go to the "west", or half month/country in the East, plus another 1 or half month for the return trip. So if you want to go to Bearland and then Queenland, you will need 3 months before back in Asgard. Parleying in Dragonland and back will only take you 1 month.

Finally, you are expected to give some result to the cabinet after 12 months. Or earlier (and call a special meeting for this), if you can afford to.

You can either plan for as long or as short as you like, or perform free actions.
12 Months to your next cabinet meeting.

[Funk]

Ok let work on building a steam powered ironclad.
As it's steam powered it will have a short cruseing range but with out sails it can be much smaller and better armoured.

It will have a new cannon with a revolver style ammo feed, so  it can fire a fast burst of shots.
Two pairs of such guns should be mounted front and rear
Like wise it should be armored with 1 inch of iron sheets at the sides and 2 inch on top, and copper sheathing all over.
It should be long and narrow with engines and steering at both ends.

Size wise 10 by 60 meters

[evilcherry]

For how much time?

You calculated that even with both of your workshops on this it will take something like half a year to finish the plans, and another 2 years full time until completion.

You can plan otherwise or you can just steam ahead and hope that the ministers will understand your new plans...

[tryrar]

...yeah, that's a little too long for now. I think we should just go with our previous ideas for magazine and machine gun.


First, forget it being steampowered; in practice, compressed steam is a very poor way to propel bullets as the pressures required to hurl a chunk of metal at a decent speed are very difficult if not impossible to contain if using steam(as demonstrated by the mythbusters). Of course, unless evilcherry is gonna handwave it in the name of gameplay....


Next, we need to figure out how we're going to operate it. I propose creating a simple gas operation mechanism to clear the spent cartridge and advance the next one into the chamber. For the uninformed, gas operated weapons divert a portion of the high pressure gas away from the barrel and against a piston that operates the bolt, ejecting the spent brass and loading a new cartridge. This should, if nothing else, allow us to create a reliable semiauto weapon, and from there, step up to full auto.

As for a standard magazine, a springloaded 15 round detachable box mag should be sufficient for any rifle, pistol, and any other gun. The caliber should be around .30 inch(or whatver equivilant measurement)

[10ebbor10]

Let's not build such a big Ironclad then.

The first thing we need is multi-purpose infrastructure. Ie, things that can be used both for war, and for peace. For this, I propose we draw upon our earlier design experiences.

Now, in order for us to defeat our enemies we need to be able to hit above our weight. Defeat their superior units, with our more numerous but vastly inferior ones. This means that in first place (We're an island nation, right. Kind of steampunk Japan, if I get it correctly.) we need a way to defeat their navies, swiftly and decisively, and preferably from long range. (Because sailing vessels can't take hits). Therefore, I propose this agenda.

Torpedo : Used to blow up enemy ships with our smaller ships.
Airship : Multipurpose infrastructure : Cargo transport, Naval Spotting, Bombing operations
Steel : Multipurpose infrastructure
Start of Gun construction : Got to keep the army chief happy, and boost internal stability
Visit to Bearland (3 months) : Go visit Igor, obviously.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Month 1-3 : All engineers + Ourselves will work on preparing our Trademark Steel manufacturing technique for mass production
Month 4 : Workers will start construction of the prototype high temperature furnace for our advanced steel production (which I will hereafter refer to as Aeronautical Steel, as that sounds cool). We and our engineers start on a simple Breach loading Musket design.
Month 5-7: Trip to Bearland
Month 8 : Set-up project with engineers on building a Steam Powered Torpedo
Month 9-12 : Personally + Engineers work on Airship Project

Spoiler: Projects (click to show/hide)

Aeronautical steel production

- Workforce
     - All (Month 1-3)
     - 2 Engineers, 5 skilled workers, x unskilled workers (Month 4-7)

-Project Description:
     - We developed a high strength, low weight variety of steel back in Bearland. We should now try to adapt those systems for use here. The Aeronautical Steel is a significantly less advanced version of the alloy we used. Target values are to be 3 times as light as steel (considering our sword is 8 times as light) , while being just as strong, if not slightly stronger. It's ability to retain an unnaturally sharp edge is not focused upon, and might thus be compromised.

Breach loading Musket

- Workforce
    - Us + 3 Engineers (Month 4)
    - 3 engineers (5-7)
    - 2 Engineers, 5 skilled workers, x unskilled workers (Month

Description :

A simple, economic and standardized breach loading musket. Mass producible, reliable, and cheap should be priorities in it's design.

Steam Powered Torpedo

-Workforce
    - Us+ 3 engineers (Month
    - 3 engineers (Month 9-12)

Description:

A powerful, 2-3 meters long steam powered torpedo. Uses volcanium both as propulsion and warhead. Simple inertial guidance system. Relatively short ranged due to it's small size, which allows it to be launched from virtually any ship.


Airship

- Workforce
    - Us + 2 Engineers, 5 skilled workers, x unskilled workers (Month 9-12)

- Description :

Taking advantage of our newly developed aeronautical steel, this highly advanced airship (inspired by Bearland designs, which probably use some for cargo transport) is, rather than our previous blimp, a semi-rigid design. The aeronautical steel, which is significantly stronger than the duraluminum often used, but has the same weight, allows us to easily build a large airship without running into significant structural troubles. This increases structural integrity and crew protection, as well as allowing higher speeds.

Length: 230 m
Diameter: 24 m
Height: 28 m
Volume: 70,000 m3
Useful lift: 28 000 kg
Powerplant: - 6 x Steam Powered Turbine Engine (It's steampunk after all, no Diesel or Gasoline right?).
                  - 3 x 500 kW Volcanum Powered Steam boiler
               
Maximum speed: 120 km/h