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[Corsair]

AUX idea:
Jetbike upgraded with some of our new armour so it doesn't explode along with a crystalline piloting computer/controls so that the bike can more rapidly react to your commands by predicting what you are likely about to do. Possibly use hardlight to generate lifting surfaces / cockpit / additional armour. Possibly have a single use auto-manip of some variety that flings it into/toward space as a "screw this" button.

[Nikitian]

5. Exo battlesuit/robobody, YASDesign!

Aw man, is that a dig at my flesh-suit idea? Dang :p

Also dang, had my mind-controlled crystals idea ninja'd by a few hours :p It's okay, you can have it, you're doing better things with it anyway ^^

Edit: Think we might be able to recreate the god-computer in its entirety, controlled by Steve? To be used in case of extreme need?

Naaah, we just had so many "Exo-battlesuit" ideas so being a little ironic seemed like a good idea.

Also, what did you want to do with psy-crystals? Because, as I said, I am really grasping at ideas for what to do with the tech. You can have the inventor's rights if you wish, I care about properly developed ideas more than any 'royalties' that might never see the light of the day because the item never reached the Armory/never got bought.

Not sure about the God-Computer. I'm currently working on it.

uncon- do we  have anything that fires needles that heat up as they are thrown to the point that when they impact the target they burn and boil the surrounding flesh away?

I think such needles would fare very poorly against any sort of armor. Including bare MkI, I think (melting iron cannot damage it, after all - M1). Also, wouldn't it be Con, because it's something you shoot, not "do anything else but shoot"? Or do you mean "throw" as in "literally throw"?

AUX idea:
Jetbike upgraded with some of our new armour so it doesn't explode along with a crystalline piloting computer/controls so that the bike can more rapidly react to your commands by predicting what you are likely about to do. Possibly use hardlight to generate lifting surfaces / cockpit / additional armour. Possibly have a single use auto-manip of some variety that flings it into/toward space as a "screw this" button.

I think that we can already do this better with a MMI (and possibly radio or something like that). Crystals might work better if the radio is jammed, though.
But I really like the "screw this" button. Even though it's of very narrow use, just the ability to skip the surface of a planet in case of imminent danger might be worth it, I guess.

[NAV]

Do you think we can give blaster weapons a serious nerf while we're changing up the armoury? They are massively overpowered and underpriced. I really have no idea how they got past the council...oh wait

[spazyak]

So an exo suit with a shark mist add on for an extra couple tokens? Something that would take a medic to heal otherwise.

[Nikitian]

Do you think we can give blaster weapons a serious nerf while we're changing up the armoury? They are massively overpowered and underpriced. I really have no idea how they got past the council...oh wait

     Don't you!..

They are not overpowered/underpriced. Everything else is underpowered/overpriced. It's the price of innovation, and the sooner the Council accepts that scientific advancement is marching on, and we're getting better and better items, the sooner this disbalance would disappear. Until then - enjoy the only up-to-date entries in the Armory, the blaster weapons.
(Thought Testament is sort of close, as well as a few other items. Oh well.)

[Hapah]

I always thought that line of reasoning was a steaming pile, myself.

[Devastator]

Nik, that sounds a lot like "shut up, my opinion is truth" there.

I mean, really, if everything is overpriced, the obvious solution is to hand out more tokens, making everything cheaper.  Not reprice everything instead of one thing.

[Toaster]

Can Pimpcane Metal be used as the focus for forcefield projection?  I'm not sure if there are practical applications, but having something controllable as the focus medium strikes me as an interesting concept.

[Nikitian]

It's... augh, I admit that I am biased. I am biased towards the notion of progress existing. And the blaster weapons, in my mind, exemplify that notion.

I don't want 'cheap' power to everyone. I just feel that, as science advances, and new things are discovered, better things - sometimes cheaper, sometimes just of about same cost - can be created.
Do blaster weapons stand in contrast with almost every other entry in the armory? Yes, they probably do.
Do they have to be nerfed just on basis of "too good compared to everything else"? No, that was the whole point of creating more advanced weapons.
Do they have their drawbacks? Yes, they do, even though sometimes those are overplayed and sometimes downplayed.
Could they have been "written" (as in, from narrative sense/balance) in less contrast to everything else? Yes, they could, and I could even get behind the idea as long as it was still reasonably powerful. Kugelblitz is reasonably powerful. Force monosword is reasonably powerful. But, as they stand at the moment, they are a figurehead for all the potential scientific advancement and revamping of the whole armory. Sometimes, for nice "average" things to exist, there need to be extremes on both sides of the golden middle; and for now, the blaster weapons are the higher extreme of efficiency/power.

So yes, I don't want just to magically make everything cheaper, to reprice everything because of just one thing overnight. But if there is advancement, if there is some certain 'power creep' as some of you might call it, then yes, slowly and surely everything (almost everything, maybe) should become cheaper/better. Not overnight, not 'just like that', without any effort on our part, but as a reward for our successes. For having retrieved the proper samples and artifacts that mattered. For having figured how to make those work, and how to base designs on their quirks and features. Just the kind of thing RC has mentioned recently (sorry for misappropriating your quote, RC):

It'd form a great incentive to go out and find artifacts again!

(And yes, Devastator, I know how you feel about "mission successes". The truth is, there are outright mission successes, outright mission failures, and then outcomes in-between. As of now, M21 is a total mission failure - but maybe, just maybe, if we managed to film/record something interesting with that camera&sensors unit, it might be reclassified as partial mission success, however bizarre that sounds. Because apparently the glass is quarter-full, at least as far as Steve and the board of Generals are concerned.)

P.S. And that's why I've always been proponent of tying the price of an item to its resource cost where it's applicable. Because that's how it works from in-universe point of view, barring special cases.

[Devastator]

"resource cost?"  Is that a price index?  Couldn't you make that a wage index instead?

[Nikitian]

Well, yes, I guess it's a price index. And I think we already have a wage index instead - at least, all prices are tied to this very special 'currency' we are paid in, and the prices never deviate based on outer world events (supply increase/decrease, etc.).

It's just our wages are not always consistent, but that's a whole another story.

Can Pimpcane Metal be used as the focus for forcefield projection?  I'm not sure if there are practical applications, but having something controllable as the focus medium strikes me as an interesting concept.

That's an interesting question, but I feel that it might be similar to using ice as projecting material: As the ice melts, the forcefield sizzles and dissipates, instead of exploding. Really depends on how the Pimpcane Metal works and 'moves'.

[Toaster]

Could it be used to "focus" the metal, in some form of reactive forcefield coating?  Something like Ivan's adaptive armor he got out of a Nyars box?

[Parisbre56]

@Nik: Sorry for not responding sooner.

If I'm not forgetting something, what I wanted approved was a modified mag for Gauss rifles that can be given for free that allows users to put multiple ammo types in a magazine and then chose the one they want (think Lawgiver from Judge Dredd).

And an escape system that works kinda like the escape pods BSs have but for braincases, something that allows robots to push a GTFO button and fly away. Focuses on high speed and range, not very maneuverable, cannot be easily used to hover around and is likely to quickly run out of fuel if used that way, since it's more rocket and less hovercraft. Costs as much as a braincase mobility system.

And a price for the telerifle, one with generator, the other with batteries, to be added to the armory.

[Nikitian]

@Parisbre56 No problem.

Eh, do you have any costs on those? I can see the modified mags having no price increase over standard ones, meaning that they could be upgraded seamlessly, but that's my wishful thinking - is there any basis to it? If you already know the prices on these things, state them.

And, I'm afraid, I'm not the authority on prices here. You should ask the Council or Piecewise himself (the latter is generally better, but he is usually busy and responds half the time with "ask the Council"). That said, I don't know how busy/free either of the two are, with the "new Exo weapons, now 100% Space Magic-free!" contest going on.

[Parisbre56]

The costs given for the escape system and the mag are given by piecewise in the tinker thread. That's 6 and 0 tokens respectively. Edit: Starts here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136149.msg6510924;topicseen#msg6510924
Continues here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136149.msg6538812#msg6538812