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[Radio Controlled]

I just need to type up the final description, then it needs to do a final pass by pw, and the council of course. And yes, they'll probably go through prototyping. Seems fairest.

[Radio Controlled]

Spoiler: blaster pistol (click to show/hide)

Blaster Pistol
1 token
Stat Restriction: None
Ammo: Blueshard battery, 1 token per clip/battery, 20 shots (or 1 overcharged shot)
Description: The smallest cousin of the Blueshard Blasters line, the blaster pistol (or 'blistol') uses a blueshard battery to allow for 20 microsecond pulses per clip equaling about 5 seconds of laser rifle power per shot. It fires short, pulsed laser shots, not a continuous beam. Blueshard becomes grey dust once it's spent. It's a very small and inconspicuous sidearm, small enough for concealed carry or for pilots in tight vehicles.
Special: one can discharge the entire remaining battery power into one shot, melting the weapon to slag and delivering a beam of about cutting laser strength (if a fully charged battery was used). Try not to encase your hand in molten metal when using this feature.
Firing settings: there are 3 firing modes:
-Standard, a concentrated pulse of about a finger-thick at medium range
-Medium, giving a slightly dispersed pulse about the size of an orange at medium range, with less armor penetration than focused but larger damage surface
-Diffused, giving a majorly diffused pulse ('shotgun mode'), for short-range blasts

Spoiler: blueshard rifle (click to show/hide)

Blaster Rifle
4 token
Stat Restriction: None
Ammo: Blueshard battery, 1 token per clip/battery, 10 shots (or 1 overcharged shot)
Description: The second entry in the Blueshard Blasters line, the blaster rifle (or 'blifle') uses a blueshard battery to allow for 10 microsecond pulses per clip equaling about 5 seconds of cutting laser power per shot, enough to penetrate and kill a target armored with a single layer of battlesuit plate. It fires short, pulsed laser shots, not a continuous beam. Blueshard becomes grey dust once it's spent. About the size of a small gauss rifle.
Special: one can discharge the entire remaining battery power into one shot, melting the weapon to slag and delivering a beam as powerful as however many shots were remaining (so, up to 10x the power of a single shot). Try not to encase your entire arm in molten metal when using this feature.
Firing settings: there are 4 firing modes:
-Focused, an extra concentrated pulse, for long-range fire and better armor penetration
-Standard, a concentrated pulse of about a finger-thick at medium range
-Medium, giving a slightly dispersed pulse about the size of an orange at medium range, with less armor penetration than focused but larger damage surface
-Diffused, giving a majorly diffused pulse ('shotgun mode'), for short-range blasts

Spoiler: Blaster Bazooka (click to show/hide)

Blaster Bazooka
9 tokens
Stat Restriction:  Exoskeleton or higher level strength
Ammo: Blueshard battery, 1 token per clip/battery, 1 shot, each clip comes with 1 cooling block
Description: The biggest entry in the Blueshard Blasters line so far, this blaster bazooka (or 'blazooka') uses a blueshard battery to allow for only 1 microsecond pulse. This shot however is very powerful, and is capable of crippling, if not outright destroying, a battlesuit. After firing, the waste heat from the shot is dumped into a cooling block (which comes with every clip), after which this now very hot cooling block is ejected from the back of the weapon. Take care nobody you like is standing behind it. Blueshard becomes grey dust once it's spent. About the size of a big RPG launcher.
Firing settings: there are 3 firing modes:
-Standard, a concentrated pulse of about a finger-thick at medium range
-Medium, giving a dispersed pulse about the size of a HEP beam at medium range, with less armor penetration than focused but larger damage surface
-Diffused, giving a majorly diffused pulse ('shotgun mode'), for short-range blasts

[Sean Mirrsen]

I hope you don't mind your blasters not staying in their own power niche for long, though.

First thing Anton's going to do when he sees the schematics is realize he can upgrade the laser weapons line with the same technical solutions, and apply them to his own creations as well.

[Radio Controlled]

I hope you don't mind your blasters not staying in their own power niche for long, though.

First thing Anton's going to do when he sees the schematics is realize he can upgrade the laser weapons line with the same technical solutions, and apply them to his own creations as well.

Go for it!

You're basically gonna build blueshard bats for the existing laser weapons then? Or what did you have in mind?

Also, these are the full descriptions, the final armory entries might be snipped a bit to decrease length (eg 'has 3 firing modes, standard, medium and diffused. See own page for info.')

[Toaster]

Why not blueshards for the HEP to make a HEP machine gun?

[Radio Controlled]

Why not blueshards for the HEP to make a HEP machine gun?

We don't know how to dump energy into a hep to force it to reload faster. We aren't even sure if that can be done at all.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, basically that. Make no mistake, energy machineguns are coming eventually. The unique mix of penetrating energy blasts and kinetic force is too good to ignore.

And no, Radio, not exactly. I'm going to overhaul our laser weaponry to be more compact as well, though it will retain its higher price mostly. The laspistol will still be two token, and will be more of a laser SMG, size-wise, to allow constant firing at various intensities without overheating, as well as the use of the precision focusing option instead of the shotgun spread. The cutlas-rifle will be about the size of a Barrett, for similar reasons. The "big gun" slot will be filled by a conventional laser the size of a Raduga, delivering near-lascannon level firepower for disposing of really big groups of particularly nasty things.

Then I'll overhaul the Spektr and the Raduga. Both were created early on, before the new materials and upgraded powersystems became standard. I'll either increase the power output of both, or make them cheaper, depending on which niches end up being less filled in the armory. Could probably phase out the handlaser altogether and make the Red Hand cost a token as well. And maybe give it a less silly name.

[Nikitian]

I have to agree with Sean's approach; don't know whether the weapons should be made as expensive as they were, but complete overhaul is planned, and at the very least it would probably greatly decrease the weapon prices if their designs were left the same - or allow to improve on the designs while keeping the price, as Sean suggested.
We are entering Renaissance of Deathtube tinkering!


On HEP matter, I would like to add a single correction: as Sean can confirm, I've asked Piecewise whether its possible to use better generators to increase the "reload speed" of the HEP, and he confirmed it. Now, however, there are two tricky parts: it still overheats when firing, so 1-minute-cooldown is actually also "cooldown" period in the original meaning of this word (), and the energy inflow has certain criteria too match if it can be used to power the HEP (it was originally described as "continious" rather than "discrete" of our usual generators; and I can easily see that as a simplified explanation of a more complex matter).
That said, I can only quote the immortal words of the person who spoke before me:

Make no mistake, energy machineguns are coming eventually.

[Radio Controlled]

All well enough, as long as you don't forget about my beautiful navy! And please get those jump point defenses at the 4 Hep entrance systems in order, as well as the spy sattelites on systems approaching these. We're practically blind now, but we do have some transports we can use for this, as well as production capacity to spare. You are our defense administrator, after all, so those are primarily your responsibility.

Also, Nik, as head of science, any plans on how to tackle the teleporter gun?

[Nikitian]

I, uh, hm. No, haven't thought about it yet.
It is probably a safe bet to say I'm not going to test it personally (Hello, -2 Con!), but should I use sods, or have a simple machine pull the trigger?..
What to test: teleportee subject radius, effective range, teleportation through materials; possibly check for "before" and "after" teleportee consistency. Should I try dismantling it (again, not personally - this time probably with the help of a Science Team or somebody) to see what's inside and how it works, or rather not risk breaking it? Can we "copy" the object on molecular level (without looking into the insides), by the way?


Also, how should we tackle the "disappearing college" investigation? I'm not sure Paracelsus's Sword's mission schedule can be altered, and yet we do not have any other FTL-capable exploration ships available yet. Should we construct one with the purpose of such expeditions, or contact Steve and request to make a detour?

[Sean Mirrsen]

If all we need is a group of investigators, without heavy firepower, the Party Wagon will suffice. It can offer fire support as well, if heavy firepower ends up being needed.

[Radio Controlled]

Yeah, Sean's ship could work here, though I again voice my request for a mini-sword for us to expand our mission radius.

@nik: yeah, I'd first do extensive experiments on the characteristics of teleportation (check if air molecules at target switch places, or if you leave a vacuum, check if it works through smoke, test what happens when you shoot a mirror, ...). After that, try out some scanning equipment, see if you can figure out something about the inner workings. Then carefully take it apart, examine the pieces, maybe compare to the teleported tech Aresteve made. Then, put back together and fire again while doing scans, this time hopefully better knowing what you're looking for. Finally, let a science team try to re-engineer (or even just copy) the important pieces to try and recreate the effect.

Of course, all this can change as you do tests.

[Parisbre56]

About duplication: You could ask about the precision duplication  automanipulator they use in the space magic factory. It's supposed to be used with space magic, so it might work. Don't know what's it supposed to do though.

About probe network: If you're worried about losing ships, you can just shoot the probes through the jump gate.

About transporting troops/investigators: Since you don't care about the cost, why not use the Voidship or a bigger version of it that has research facilities and  containment systems and heavy weapons. A stealthed mini Sword, essentially. Maybe look at the other HMRC ships for ideas.

[Radio Controlled]

I asked pw about duplicating artifacts before, but he said no. Dunno if still the case.

[Parisbre56]

I asked pw about duplicating artifacts before, but he said no. Dunno if still the case.

He didn't say no, he said there are cases where it will not work or the duplicate won't be exactly like the original. He didn't say that it was completely impossible. At least of you're talking about the time I remember.