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[Parisbre56]

Small clarification: Hexsand eats all energy via space magic. HexPLATE reflects all energy via space magic (although we have no data about whether or not it causes any diffusion or if it is a perfect mirror). Sean's PEW uses bedplates to focus the wide beam into a narrow one.

[Nikitian]

Honestly, if you believe this, why don't we just design twenty different weapons that are all different in their method of operation, but essentially identical in role and effectiveness?  Since every weapon could be entirely different in actual ability, we just cull the ones that are less effective, and keep those which are thrice as effective.

Deathtube-tinkerer in me wants this so much... 
And seriously, we need more diversified weapons to deal with various resistances, immunities and whatnot. See how well our armor was "eaten" by chemical weapons of Haebi on this mission. I'm pretty sure we could engineer our own weapons to do exactly that (even if we cannot recover that particular acid), and create yet another new generation of "cheap Battlesuit killer-weapons".

On MCP-jackets: yeah, I mainly figured that since it does not need to have any advanced features, even a "ERverse-mundane" stiff fabric could fit for creating such clothing, and as such it should be about as expensive as on-ship clothing is. As in, really really close to "free" not to matter.

[syvarris]

The Hephaestus wiki article has been updated.

We have three construction crews.  I was going to have two of them build Nik's apocalypse lab.  Any suggestions for the third?

We have been producing warships since Jan.10th.  I have no idea what type of warships we've been producing.  I'd love it if Sean could tell me.

The second third of gratesplosion artifacts has been completed.  We can choose which four artifacts we want to have been in that third, so here's a list:

Spoiler: Grate-9 artifacts (click to show/hide)

Researched:
Flaming golden rebar surrounded by forcefield  (Forcefield effect is replicable.)
Feather shaped rod with yellow glow. Broken in half. Used to project much heat before broken.  (Useless)
Extremely corrosive gas  (Replicable.  Untested.)

Unresearched:
Hexagonal spike, glows blue with black swirls
Blackish gray crystals
Giant lump of spiky pollen with red glow
Piece of staircase railing with a thin coating of moving black stuff. (warning, may cause tissue damage and massive shadowy tornadoes)
Metal cylinder. Resonates dangerously well.
Neon green humming spikes. Explode when struck

Unless others object, I'm just going to select the second three.

Also, it doesn't really matter, but we now have several hundred heavy robosods on base.  Feel free to use them for testing.


@Paris

Are you sure about hexplate?  As far as I'm aware, we've never created any specialized hexplate.  Assuming you mean the original, unaltered hexground from the AP, are you sure about its capabilities?  I thought it was good at reflecting, but by no means perfect.  For one, IIRC it looked like normal stone, so it doesn't reflect visible light.  For two, you cut it out somehow, so it had to absorb some heat.  For three, if it were already perfect at resisting energy weapons, we would have just used it instead of hexsand, because it also had good ballistic resistance properties.

Of course, I could be wrong.  I looked up the original notes on the hexground, and they were vauge.  I did not sift through the mission to find the actual tests that were done on it.  If you're correct, that would be very nice because we'd have a new type of armor.

[Comrade P.]

I want my body moved there, and then transplanted into one of the superheavy robot bodies.

Can I have some details on these?

[syvarris]

It's just a standard assaultsuit, modified to have extra powerful flight rockets capable of lifting the extra weight.  The cockpit was modified to carry a trio of braincases and a quantum entanglement communicator, instead of a person's body.  It probably won't become standard equipment, sorry.

Also, it's not entirely better than the standard HRB.  It's worse at fitting indoors, for instance.

[Comrade P.]

I was just wondering. I'm rather happy with standard-issue HRB for now.

[Radio Controlled]

For construction crew: a production line making cost-effective (FTL chokepoint focused) space defense platforms and mines and sensor posts. For shipping and getting some eyes out there. Shouldn't take them too long.

[Parisbre56]

I think you should ask Sean. I remember him asking purgatory about using hexsand on the PEW and piecewise replied that they were already using hexplate to condense the beam. It was mentioned in the Hephaestus thread, And, as I said, it might blur reflected light which is why it appeared grey instead of being a perfect mirror. And I cut it by making a hole in the ground beside it and using a mono razor on its side. It might not be as strong on its side and even if it is, we know it's vulnerable to kinetics and a mono razor essentially hits whatever it's cutting many times per second with a tiny vibrating filament.

As for the construction crews, make a station (ground or space) for launching small non-FTL capable projectiles through the jump gate. That way you can launch probes through it and attack people behind it without risking ships

[Unholy_Pariah]

I say you research tge hexagonal spike or tge glowy green explosives, they seem readily weaponisable.

Also have the glowworm hive controllers been researched yet? I really want to use that gun.

[syvarris]

@con crew suggestions

I'll let Sean decide which of those ideas to use.  They're more under his domain.

@Unholy

I went with the staircase railing over the hexagon, because it seemed to more obviously have a harmful effect.  Otherwise, I agree with you, and went with the green explosives.  I also chose the metal cylinder, because I seem to remember someone getting a finger chopped off or something.

As far as the glowworm gun, I don't believe we ever figured out how to make them command things.  However, I believe we did reproduce the termite effect.  Currently, further glowworm research isn't a priority of mine, so if you want it soon you'd have to convince a differenr Hephaestian, or bribe me.

[Nikitian]

@syvarris Thank you! Yeah, it's fine by me; you're obviously having more work done with Gratesplosion artifacts anyway. I'm really haven't quite found out yet how to handle setting research tasks with our GM, as evident by results so far. Hopefully that will come fine with a few more tries; maybe you could give some tips on how to ask Piecewise in a way that gets things done without additional delays and troubles?
Also, to make sure: can construction be done without any crews assigned? I recall there being some kind of construction time reduction mentioned on wiki even for a single crew assigned, but I'm not quite sure how it works otherwise.

@Unholy_Pariah Well, glowworm is one of the techs I want to get my hands on, but given the trouble it gave us last time (=grey goo scenario potential) I am postponing any research on that until the Apocalypse Lab (thanks for the name, syv!) gets completed.

[syvarris]

No problem.  70% of my reasoning for maintaining the Heph page is because I personally like keeping track of it.  As for setting tasks, well, my method is pretty much just bugging PW to give me a completion date until he does so and then ask what the research results gave after that date passes.  Sean's method is usually to periodically check with the research crew in-character, and he gets progressive updates like that.  My method is easier, but isn't really as interesting or logical in-character.  Either works.

Any yes, construction can be done without crews, because we have literal fleets of construction robots.  Although, only simpler stuff can be done like that; Biochemical forges, for instance, are too complex to be built by automated drones.  Generally, most things that can be done by drones aren't really things which are truly important.  Else we'd just built thousands of everything and zerg rush the UWM.

EDIT: I just rewrote the assaultsuit page on the wiki, trying to make it more readable, and fit more with how the battlesuit page was written.  I'm not really sure how well I did, especially considering a lot of my writing tends towards being somewhat confusing and misleading.  It would be nice if people looked it over and checked for ambiguities, mistakes, and generally any rough spots.

Will do the HRB page tomorrow, and probably the Heph research page.  Something comprehensive like that has been needed for awhile.

[Comrade P.]

I wonder if we should merge HRB page with assaultsuit. It is a complex derivative of it, after all.

[AoshimaMichio]

And assaultsuit is derivative of battlesuit. So no.

However if we consider HRB to be simply variant of assault suit (like mobility type of battlesuit), then maybe.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The HRB isn't a modification of the assaultsuit. Built using similar technology, but nowhere near a "variant".

Speaking of, we really should define some variants for the assault suit. As in, actually define them. So far the only one I know the specs for is the one that doesn't actually exist yet - the Energy Weapon variant.