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[syvarris]

One of the very first tests I did was slipping a plate of hexsand between a forcefield and it's projector.  The hexsand could rest on the field with no ill effects.

Forcefields seem pretty OP to me.  I mean, if the plasma immersion test works, we might be able to have assaultsuits that can literally be thrown into a sun and survive.  I'm actually planning on only giving HRBs the armor, unless FFs turn out to be so cheap that we only have to trade one or two armor layers for them.  It's just far too worrying that there's some major vulnerability they're going to have.

[Nikitian]

*Nikitian suddenly wants to check out personally how the insides of a sun look like.*

Also, now that I think of it... *puts on a tinfoil hat* Could it all possibly be a ploy by Piecewise to do away with the armor thickness questions altogether? Note that for this to work, it should actually be quite cost-effective (but not just too much, or it would've roused suspicions) and have outstanding features to seduce away the affections of prominent tinkerers. Bonus points if it can distract them from deathtube-tinkering for some time.

Oh well. I've almost been bored by lack of attention from Piecewise's ninja assassin squads lately.

[Kriellya]

I love how you guys seem to casually disregard that the shields and the thing producing them explode when they are overwhelmed. That's a pretty serious downside to me, though I suppose it depends on the precise limits
Oh, and that it can't be deactivated, but you can design around that reasonably easily.

Speaking of, have you been keeping the wiki up-to-date on these experiments, especially with the shields?

[syvarris]

Well, they only explode when their resistance is exceeded, and their resistance is 500% that of a battlesuit plate.  Considering that a normal battlesuit has five plates... any kinetic shot that could break a fragplate forcefield could probably kill a battlesuit, or severely damage it.  Plus, forcefields are very resistant to the standard BS-killer weapons; Plasma just 'hits and stops'*, while PSL shards rely more on a very thin contact point rather than raw kinetic energy--IIRC, they actually have less kinetic energy behind them than a gauss cannon.

We do have the assaultsuit armors, but the problem with those is that they're good against one or the other weapon type, but weak to even small arms of the wrong type.  Also, forcefields are actually better than hexbug in kinetic resistance if they don't cost more than twice as much.  A 1" hexbug layer, IIRC, is damaged at 200% gauss cannon power, although it does stop the round.  When you account for the fact that a forcefield can't be taken out with a measly laser rifle, it clearly outclasses hexbug.  The same for hexsand, since even weak forcefields don't seem to care much about plasma or lasers, and won't break to a gauss rifle.

AND this isn't even accounting for the fact forcefields don't take permanent damage unless destroyed.  So, you can be hit with a hundred gauss cannon shots, as long as they hit different sections of the field, or if you have a short period of rest between them.

And forcefields are a quarter inch thick (or less if you really need it), which is vastly thinner than even our best armor, meaning that pretty much anything can be armored... and it's probably massively lighter than any remotely comparable armor, so our battlesuits can flit around like MK.III troopers...  and the standard UWM armory doesn't even employ any weapons which can one-shot a forcefield, aside from the LESHO (which is dodgeable), nukes (which would make a massive explosion regardless, natch) and the fission instigator (...).

And despite all that I'm still planning on only giving HRBs forcefields.  The robots who're intended to not be shot at by anything that costs ten or more tokens.  Primarily because I know I am highly vulnerable to hubris.

...Ahem, uh, yes, the wiki is mostly up-to-date on the forcefields, except for the last update on them.  And no, it's not nice information laid out in descriptive articles, it's just a few numbered links at the bottom of the Hephaestus page.  I promise I'll overhaul the Heph research page.  Eventually.

_{^{*Oh god I only specified plasma shots, not plasma projector shots.  Forcefields might break to lavalamp cannons because they use magnetic propulsion D:}}

[Parisbre56]

I'm assuming the thing will be given to sods suicide units only, preferably one or two maybe 3 man units. Because having this on a mission with the things we usually face is just begging for a TPK.

Could also be used for drones, I suppose, either remote controlled or gunnerbots. Now that I think about it, laser drones and gunnerdogs (or better yet gunnercats) might actually be the best choice for this. High speed and mobility so that they can get close to the target quickly, can take out small targets with their weapons and destroy big targets when they die. If forcefields are invisible and you only give it to one in ten, then you can cut costs while it could act as a terror weapon, making the enemy wonder if killing that drone would make it blow up in his face.

These things probably won't matter, but it's fun to think about.

EDIT: For missions, it might be better to go with either lower strength or some way to protect yourself from the blast. Maybe a way to use it as a handheld shield for protecting entire squads and/or blocking entrances? Can't think about what would be useful in a mission right now.

[syvarris]

Actually, depending on what the chain-reaction range is, I might issue it to all heavy robosods.  But, yes, it's risky to give to you operatives since you run up against infinite damage attacks fairly often.  Wouldn't want to give powerful enemies an AoE.  It probably wouldn't be that bad, since PW generally avoids unavoidable team killing explosions (See: every time we've faced UWM forces, despite how nuke happy they are in the backstory, and that time the black ops set off an entire nuclear cache in their own face and only one permadied).  I doubt he'd let anyone just buy a device that autokills all teammates when the user dies.

It's a great idea to use melee units with the forcefield, because it solves one of the largest inherent issues--armor's light but expensive, so you can have a fast unit with strong armor.  As you said, it also has the advantage of blowing up in the face of the killer.  Knowing that you'll go down with your target would be a powerful deterrent.

I don't think the one-in-ten idea would be very practical for more than one battle.  It would greatly increase how many allies are fragged when one shielded unit is fragged, and after the enemy is fought a few times they'll know to just shoot *everything* with weak weapons.  The shielded ones will just ignore it, but the unshielded ones will be easily slaughtered.

Lower power FFs would only really be useful for reducing the friendly frag range... maybe.  You lower the explosive power, but lower the resistance too, so maybe not.  In any case, all forcefield enchantments cost the same and the projector material would only get more expensive the weaker the field.  They'd also get heavier.

Large forcefield effects don't seem very practical to me.  They're expensive, the projector is still somewhat large (The range that a forcefield can be projected from the surface is 2.5x the thickness of the projector), and it can't be deactivated so it's quite bulky.  Also, it's probably really expensive.

...Blocking entrances and erecting invisible walls to support retreat might be very useful though...  Plus it can double as a landmine if you have remote controlled anything...  Hmm.

[Nikitian]

Maybe the stuff is so good, we should consider upgrading Avatars' armor with it? At least, they can certainly scoff at mere nukes, and it's not like anything that can remotely damage them comes lower than the "bang threshold" of fragplate.

Also, concerning the mission use... Funny thing, apart from invitation for Piecewise to TPK us with our own armor, I'd say it's near-perfect for our needs. It's so light and soft (by design, no less!) that a Mk III trooper could be armored* without losing the extreme flight manoeuvrability.
^{_{Now I think I know the main new feature of MCP-IV...}}
It offers excellent protection against various "uncommon" damage types we encounter every so often (perfect chemical resistance! thermal, electrical, fleshhorror, grey-goo, etc.! radiation shielding too, though I am not certain here); and it also gives reasonably good protection against "common" damage types. Really, apart from the fact it turns a single perma-death (and a hit that fits the "bang threshold" is deadly either way) into a likely TPK, it's actually perfect armor material for HMR-related needs. Maybe we should look into some kind of auto-manips designed to contain fragsplosions?

Really, after Syv's exposition, I am almost convinced that this is currently the best armor material available to us, explosive hazard notwithstanding. Piecewise must have really wanted to deal away with thrice-cursed armor thickness inquiries...


ADD: Oh, look, it appears I was ninja'd. Oh well. Yeah, armoring melee specialists might be another use for fragplate, but see the above on HMR-related use.

[Devastator]

To be honest, the stuff is so good that I'd declare you automatically victorious, save for the fact that you've been automatically victorious since the moment Steve declared it a war.

[syvarris]

@Nik

Yeah, fragplate is awesome.  Currently, I'm getting the price for custom milnoplate sets, but in the future, we can just armor all of our troops with forcefields.  They'll be invincible to anything short of nu-

Gah.  I suddenly have a disturbingly acute feeling of deja-vu.  I am suddenly afraid that forcefields will be nerfed into the ground.  Twice. 


...In all seriousness, though, remember to take my statements with a spoonful of salt.  All tinkerers overestimate things they feel they designed, and I'm no different.  I'm undoubtably wrong on some counts, and I am blind to any massive weaknesses--forcefield suits might find their new weaknesses being the friction pads on their hands and feet, or be one-shot by plasma projectors.  Perhaps enemy ampers will view them like we view red barrels in video games.  Perhaps the chain-reaction range is several thousand feet, or the cost is astronomical.  Perhaps the 'recharge rate' of the fields is a day.  There's plenty of room for unseen flaws.

@Dev
I've known that winning is a foregone conclusion, excepting remarkable allied idiocy, since before I joined the game.  I just think it's fun to design stuff, even if it's almost entirely superfluous.  Carpe Diem, and all that--nothing has inherent purpose or value, so enjoy what you can.


...Here's a few last thoughts before I go to sleep:

We don't need wheels when we have forcefields.  Almost the entire body is frictionless, so HRBs can slide around on their bellies like penguins.  "Some armies utilize tanks with wheels, others with treads.  A rare few armies have invented flying tanks, or even spacefaring ones.  But ours?  Our tanks slide around on their bellies!"

Remember the vibrating penetrator designed by the one guy?  Michael Bayson, maybe?  Well, forcefields could be great for that role if they can vibrate, since they should be able to be quite thin, are infinitely hard, and are almost certainly way cheaper than mythril.  Admittedly, they'd be irritatingly long; a 10" penetrator would need a 4" hilt, and a 25" penetrator would need a ten inch hilt.  Also, they'd explode if the hilt's broken, and the forcefield section would be invisible.  Such problems could be solved by choosing a more structurally sound projector than foam, and perhaps having some sort of collapsable baton-type sheathe built-in?  We might be able to use that resonance material we got, if it's a decent forcefield material.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You're still thinking of "winning" in terms of overthrowing the UWM. There's a reason Anton's in a BSOD right now.

Also, doesn't the forcefield completely surround the activated material? How do you "mount" a plate of it on something?
Alternatively, how do you interact with the environment if the field can't be turned off? You need the field to be absent on the bottom of the feet, otherwise you can't walk. You need the field to have gaps around your jump engines and any integrated weapons. You need it deactivated around your hands if you want to hold something, etc.

[Radio Controlled]

Those forcefields sound very juicy indeed, though we'll have to be careful not to trust too much on them. Maybe even consider not giving them to forces that are supposed to work in teams, since then the 'shields fails, everyone dies' problem becomes huge, something regular armor doesn't have (I could imagine a nuclear shaped charge could deliver enough energy into 1 spot to crack the shield, after which the shield going off handles the AoE a regular nuke would've had). But for melee peeps/units that work alone, that wouldn't really be a problem.

By the way, what happens when the projecting material gets damaged? And you mention a system to help cover the joints, but won't there always need to be space between the forcefields in order to be able to move the limbs and such? Cause unlike other materials, forcefields are fully rigid, right? So in the event of nukes, won't the explosion still be able to 'penetrate' through the cracks?

About the sliding, wasn't there talk of making a rocket powered hovertank?

Also, now that we have a way of letting sods use manips, I can imagine the UWM could create a similar system.

[Parisbre56]

The point is not merely to win. It's to make them lose so much and so badly they become winners.

And I think forcefields made from the same material can pass through each other.

[syvarris]

God, I am up too early...

@Sean

Uhm.  Forcefields can be projected in lots weird of weird shapes relative to the projecting material.  One of the simple shapes is just projecting in one direction.  You can just make a standard plate which only projects a FF on one side.  If you want details, look in the spoiler in my current turn post.

Forcefields can't be deactivated without exploding, far as I know.

My solution to frictionless hands/feet is to have 'friction pads' of a more standard material be Forcefield-riveted to the exterior of the suit.   Again, see the spoiler for details.

@Radio

I've been planning to test what the chain-reaction frag range is for a shielded HRB, after I actually have a design for a shielded HRB.  I figured that if it's fairly low (oh, maybe fifty feet or less?) then it would be fine to give the sheilded HRB design to most of our heavy sods.  Unless plasma projectors pop the fields, any weapon capable of one-shotting a field is already nuclear, or optionally nuclear in the case of a LESHO.  Popping sods should be fairly rare.

Of course, you have final say.  We design and build stuff, but you get to dictate what to do with it.

When forcefield projectors are damaged, they explode.  That's why the fragile metal foam projector in fragplate is completely encased in a structural metal.

As Paris mentioned, forcefields projected from the same material are non-solid to each other.  They provide minor resistance, but not much.  Also, forcefields that are projected from different materials are solid to each other, and we can probably vary the structure of the foam just slightly to create 'A, B, and C' types, which are solid to each other.  I don't have an exact image in mind, but I'd imagine that this all would allow pretty much any mechanical design achieveable with standard materials--and many that aren't.

[Radio Controlled]

Well, as always, I'll try to go with the most rational approach, even if that's not to my personal tastes (fucking crystals) but still, I get the feeling we're missing something here. Either way, thanks for the answers.

Now, I am apparently wrong, but wasn't there a test result with forcefields from two blocks of steel that said they had trouble passing through each other? "Like shoving through sand" or something? And he said you were limited in the shapes one could create, right? I can see that not be a problem for, say, a big chestplate, but how would you armor fingers that need to move independantly, for example? Just small individual shields phase through each other and just force through the innate resistance?

Also, you are using metallic foam, right? Tried exotic things like aerogel yet? Just curious.

Finally, what about lasers in the visual spectrum? PW said it 'blocks' them, even though the field isn't visible. It 'distorts' them, right? Did you follow up on that? Is it anything above a certain intensity that gets blocked? What about electrons and such? Could a particle beam penetrate?


Also, pw said it explodes with kilotons, right? Well, this: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Says a 5 kiloton explosion has a 20psi blast radius of 0,78 km, and a fireball radius of 150m. Yeah. Yeaaaah.

[syvarris]

You only get a feeling that we're missing something?  I'm pretty much certain that I am.  Everything is too nice for me to not have missed something.

Yes, PW likened it to 'shoving through sand'.  I figured a BS strength exoskeleton could compensate just because it's so strong.  Also, normally there's loads of heavy armor weighing the exo down, and this shouldn't be too heavy.

The shapes are limited, but nothing that I've seen would prevent a finger from working.  We can make spheres, and slopes above flat surfaces.  It stands to reason that we can have elongated spheres.  If I can't make fingers it'll probably be mentioned.

Yes, using metallic foam.  Haven't tried other materials because I asked for the weakest material we can make (=strongest forcefield).  I figure that testing a bunch if things like aerogel would just irritate PW, and probably wouldn't get better capabilities.

From what I can tell, forcefields block harmful lasers.  All of them.  But they don't block visible light.  They distort it.  Possibly 'unless it's focused into a harmful beam', using a similar operating mechanic to 'forcefields neutrilize kinetic energy from high velocity projectiles, but can be pushed by slow stuff'.  Regardless of the case, I'm giving the armor a hexsand coating so even if visible lasers penetrate they won't damage it.  Also, hexsand just looks cool.

Isn't a particle beam just super high velocity matter?  Transferring kinetic energy?  Why wouldn't it block kinetic energy?  It's worth testing just to be sure, I suppose, but it doesn't seem like a likely counter.

PW said it exploded with 'low kiloton forces'.  For some reason I've been thinking of that as 'fraction of a kiloton forces'...  Hmm.  Well, maybe it's tough enough that it can survive inside the fireball?  It's pretty amazing so far.