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[syvarris]

@Sean "How would we improve a PSL?"

Well, beyond just getting lucky with alien tech and finding some use that gives a better weapon, like cheaper ammo or a more efficient proplsion system, we can miniturize the PSL.  Seriously, it's inefficiently large right now; the minimum shard size it can fire is a BS-killer.  If we just shrunk it down a bit, to maybe a third the volume, it would be more efficient against non-BS targets, while retaining the ability to fight them using 4x volleys.  It would probably be cheaper, too.

Of course, that assumes the council doesn't nerf PSL weapons.

[Nikitian]

Seriously, I think that crystalline projector (not to confuse with PSL weapons) is underrated. The crystals are known to be "slightly psychic", and then I think it can crack up battleplate due to the crystal growth (I've had some tinker experiments before that support this hypothesis). And what's it, 4 tokens weapon, IIRC?

It can well benefit from being slightly (or largely) upscaled, I think.

[Empiricist]

I concur, that bayonet function is especially interesting. I'd like to see if it could be adapted to crystallize entire vehicles.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

What ammo does the CP use, again? I wonder if a grenade designed to coat a room in deadly crystal would work.

[Toaster]

It uses a "black box magazine" good for ten shots.  That said, it might be an opened box now that we've chucked the Men In Black.

(And it's 5 tokens)

[Sean Mirrsen]

The council has told me they think it's too early for them to stat up the thing. Too many questions. Talk to radio.

Okee.

Oi, Radio! Need ta talk aboutta thing!
Actually, not sure what the questions are, in regards to what I would know. I don't have any idea about the specifics of the PEW either, besides "big, blocky, heavy, punches huge holes in heavy armor".

[Radio Controlled]

The council has told me they think it's too early for them to stat up the thing. Too many questions. Talk to radio.

Okee.

Oi, Radio! Need ta talk aboutta thing!
Actually, not sure what the questions are, in regards to what I would know. I don't have any idea about the specifics of the PEW either, besides "big, blocky, heavy, punches huge holes in heavy armor".

Well, several points:
- 'big, blocky, heavy'. What do these mean? I know you can't give exact measures (that's what you're asking us I think), but we'll need more information to work with. For a regular human, 12 str need is big, but for something meant for an exoskeleton it's no big problem. But how do we know what to shoot for, if you can't tell us anything beyond the very vague 'heavy'? Basically, give us any relevant info pw has given you to help us along.
And 'punches huge holes in heavy armor': what range, what circumstances? Stuff like this.
-And if you do know some of these things; please, summarize it all into one post for ease of use (I don't particularly feel to go quote hunting with someone else's project when things might not be correct anymore etc.) when you want the council to look at it, it really really helps. IA summary of the project itself (can even be a lot of copy pasta of relevant info) will go a long way towards getting said project statted.
-With the change in how stats work and such, it's kinda silly to think up stat requirements we'll have to change again immediately anyway.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Okay, so summary.

- Device started out as "large metal box with aperture on the side, a button on top, and valve-like knob next to the button". I was never given specifics, but I assumed "large metal box" to be at the very least the size of a microwave oven.
- Device was given to research team, with instruction to reduce heating of the weapon, and a specific requirement: "Size - Ideally usable by a regular human with an exoskeleton - i.e. something at most the size of a cutting laser plus backpack attachment if needed." With how much trouble the task was, I am assuming the finished design pushes the limits of that requirement, in either size, weight, or both. So it's a very heavy hand-held weapon (perhaps equivalent to the Raduga), linked to a heavy backpack holding the cooling system with the plates.

- Power: The weapon is a HEP that gains penetration power and range as it loses beam width. Observed power at quad(four-fold) compression pierced an entire plate of cruiser hull armor, with the beam being half a meter wide. VR testing result loosely described as "probably punches a big fat hole straight through [a battlesuit]".
- Range: As far as I know the HEP shows no deterioration in penetration capacity up to its effective range. Compression by half increased the effective range four-fold - assuming the pattern holds the quad compressed shots would have 16x the effective range of the HEP (which is set as "medium", or roughly some one/few hundred meters). Beyond effective range the weapon's beam was observed to dissociate into individual randomly spreading fragments, perhaps losing concentration and coherence more than sheer power, though you're unlikely to severely damage a target you're actually aiming for like that.

Other notes: It still takes a full minute, or six combat turns, to recharge. It needs coldplates to fire compressed shots, but can fire regular wide HEP shots without them. The coldplates use hexplate (not hexsand) to function, and can be reused fairly simply, though only with special equipment. And the compression mechanism allows the weapon to be set to any compression ratio, but past a certain as yet to be determined point, the weapon will not survive the firing (though may still squeeze off the shot).

[Nikitian]

Wait, since when have the turns become equal to ten seconds each?
Please, keep at least the HEP out of the new damned trend. We already have our hands full with the FEL weapons, which, I'll remind you (as you all agreed), would not fire overcharged even once a minute, if the turn length this time is half a minute or more. If turn length is five to fifteen minutes, a Spektr may take half an hour to fire overcharged. And at this pace we're approaching turn length at which the whole overcharge routine might be handwaved - except that by the rules wording, it shouldn't. No matter what.


Please, please, once again, keep the turns out of weapon stats. Turn length varies a lot. Weapons (well, any in-game objects for that matter) should not have that wildly varying durations. Only the battlestimms seem to work mostly okay with duration expressed in turns, and even they are somewhat counter-intuitive in that matter from in-game perspective.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Wait, since when have the turns become equal to ten seconds each?
Please, keep at least the HEP out of the new damned trend. We already have our hands full with the FEL weapons, which, I'll remind you (as you all agreed), would not fire overcharged even once a minute, if the turn length this time is half a minute or more. If turn length is five to fifteen minutes, a Spektr may take half an hour to fire overcharged. And at this pace we're approaching turn length at which the whole overcharge routine might be handwaved - except that by the rules wording, it shouldn't. No matter what.


Please, please, once again, keep the turns out of weapon stats. Turn length varies a lot. Weapons (well, any in-game objects for that matter) should not have that wildly varying durations. Only the battlestimms seem to work mostly okay with duration expressed in turns, and even they are somewhat counter-intuitive in that matter from in-game perspective.

The number of turns isn't quoted anywhere, but I seem to recall the "six turns to recharge" from somewhere, and ten seconds per combat turn seems about right, at least back when "combat turns" were less loosely defined. A standard laser rifle shot is a five-second pulse, for instance.

[Unholy_Pariah]

I fail to see the difficulties in statting this thing, its just HEP stats + Cooling system stats.

HEP costs 9 tokens and requires 7 strength, cooling system costs X and increases strength requirement by Y, weapon and/or plates would take X seconds/minutes to cool varying by compression.
simple estimation would ballpark it at ~13-15 tokens and ~10-12 strength, cooling time doubles or quadruples for every 50% compression bracket (1/2 = 15-30s, 1/4 = 1m-2m, 1/8 =2m-8m, 1/16 = 8m-64m etc.) and it explodes at say 1/16th compression.
just pick some numbers that make sense.

15   Piercing Energy Weapon
   Ammo: Generator good for 1 shot per minute.
   Range: 100m x 4ⁿ where n is the compression level.
   Stat requirement: Strength 12
   Special: Compression levels: on the side of the weapon is a dial with 5 settings labelled 0,1,2,3 and 4. each setting above zero compresses the beam width by half, doubles penetration and quadruples the weapons range over the previous setting. Increasing compression level also causes the weapon to produce vastly more heat and is likely to cause severe damage to the weapon and operator at higher settings.
   Description: Designed by Anton using HEP technology, yadda yadda cooling systems, can punch clean through a battlesuit, blah blah, lots of heat, very dangerous.

also sean i know you cant have the cooling plates or anything thats in contact with the beam or energy source made from hexsand, but what if you made hexsand pipes for the coolant cycling out of the weapon?
The coolant would take the heat from the weapon, then the hexsand pipes would eat the heat, the now room temperature coolant would be cooled back down by the system proper and then the freezing coolant would be cycled back into the gun via specially designed non hexsand thermal transferance pipes designed to maximise the heat dispersion into the coolant.
Now onto more important things,

is one of the hephaestus science crews researching artificial magic termite control hives? and if so why not?

[Sean Mirrsen]

I fail to see the difficulties in statting this thing, its just HEP stats + Cooling system stats.

HEP costs 9 tokens and requires 7 strength, cooling system costs X and increases strength requirement by Y, weapon and/or plates would take X seconds/minutes to cool varying by compression.
simple estimation would ballpark it at ~13-15 tokens and ~10-12 strength, cooling time doubles or quadruples for every 50% compression bracket (1/2 = 15-30s, 1/4 = 1m-2m, 1/8 =2m-8m, 1/16 = 8m-64m etc.) and it explodes at say 1/16th compression.
just pick some numbers that make sense.

15   Piercing Energy Weapon
   Ammo: Generator good for 1 shot per minute.
   Range: 100m x 4ⁿ where n is the compression level.
   Stat requirement: Strength 12
   Special: Compression levels: on the side of the weapon is a dial with 5 settings labelled 0,1,2,3 and 4. each setting above zero compresses the beam width by half, doubles penetration and quadruples the weapons range over the previous setting. Increasing compression level also causes the weapon to produce vastly more heat and is likely to cause severe damage to the weapon and operator at higher settings.
   Description: Designed by Anton using HEP technology, yadda yadda cooling systems, can punch clean through a battlesuit, blah blah, lots of heat, very dangerous.

It's not quite so simple. It's not "just" a HEP, because it's something both more, and less. Without ammo, it is inferior to a HEP - it is heavier and bulkier, for no increase in effectiveness, because the unused compression system, and the cooling system both add bulk and weight. With ammo, it has power anywhere between a PSL and a LESHO, being somehow simultaneously both less and more precise than either of them.
With the cost of coldplates, and the charge delay, I'd put its power as roughly equivalent to a PSL overall - so roughly the same cost, 13-14 token.

Strength 12 is probably not enough, and we'd really be wise to wait until the roll system overhaul to actually finalize that. However, if the new system changes strength to be a "control your strength" stat, with physical muscle/exosuit strength being a separate non-numeric stat, the PEW could actually do with a relatively low Strength stat requirement, but a higher non-stat strength requirement. The extra mass of the gun would reduce the kickback, and the biggest factor to if you can use the gun would be whether you can actually carry it and its cooling system.

I'd say we also need to quantify exactly what might happen on the higher settings. Officially the weapon's been tested to work up to the four-fold compression setting. If the dial on the gun goes two notches beyond that, we need a rough idea of what to expect.
Obviously the "4" setting in that example will destroy the weapon. The shot it would produce at that setting would be seriously powerful (assuming it lasts a second, you could probably scythe-sweep a phalanx of battlesuits in half, or chop an Avatar's limbs off), and it would have a range of many kilometers, but it would be gone very quickly as the weapon melts, and would be only about 10cm thick. Is the cost of the destroyed weapon enough to make the "4" setting reliably produce a shot of that power before being destroyed? Or would it be better left up to chance (i.e. only fire the shot on a non-failure, 3 and above)?
The "3" setting is much grayer, as theoretically the cooling system would be able to at least mitigate the damage. The shot is still very powerful, but is it powerful enough to destroy the weapon? (as in, from a balance standpoint) Should it be left up to chance as well? (1 or 2 destroy the whole weapon, 3/4/6 only kills the cooling system, 5 somehow only melts the coldplate to non-recoverable state?)

also sean i know you cant have the cooling plates or anything thats in contact with the beam or energy source made from hexsand, but what if you made hexsand pipes for the coolant cycling out of the weapon?
The coolant would take the heat from the weapon, then the hexsand pipes would eat the heat, the now room temperature coolant would be cooled back down by the system proper and then the freezing coolant would be cycled back into the gun via specially designed non hexsand thermal transferance pipes designed to maximise the heat dispersion into the coolant.

I'll try to look into it once Heph is being updated again.

Now onto more important things,

is one of the hephaestus science crews researching artificial magic termite control hives? and if so why not?

They were until recently working on other projects. Now that the MMI research is done and Anton's device is probably as compact as it can be, the teams can likely start working on other things.

[Unholy_Pariah]

I fail to see the difficulties in statting this thing, its just HEP stats + Cooling system stats.

HEP costs 9 tokens and requires 7 strength, cooling system costs X and increases strength requirement by Y, weapon and/or plates would take X seconds/minutes to cool varying by compression.
simple estimation would ballpark it at ~13-15 tokens and ~10-12 strength, cooling time doubles or quadruples for every 50% compression bracket (1/2 = 15-30s, 1/4 = 1m-2m, 1/8 =2m-8m, 1/16 = 8m-64m etc.) and it explodes at say 1/16th compression.
just pick some numbers that make sense.

15   Piercing Energy Weapon
   Ammo: Generator good for 1 shot per minute.
   Range: 100m x 4ⁿ where n is the compression level.
   Stat requirement: Strength 12
   Special: Compression levels: on the side of the weapon is a dial with 5 settings labelled 0,1,2,3 and 4. each setting above zero compresses the beam width by half, doubles penetration and quadruples the weapons range over the previous setting. Increasing compression level also causes the weapon to produce vastly more heat and is likely to cause severe damage to the weapon and operator at higher settings.
   Description: Designed by Anton using HEP technology, yadda yadda cooling systems, can punch clean through a battlesuit, blah blah, lots of heat, very dangerous.

It's not quite so simple. It's not "just" a HEP, because it's something both more, and less. Without ammo, it is inferior to a HEP - it is heavier and bulkier, for no increase in effectiveness, because the unused compression system, and the cooling system both add bulk and weight. With ammo, it has power anywhere between a PSL and a LESHO, being somehow simultaneously both less and more precise than either of them.
With the cost of coldplates, and the charge delay, I'd put its power as roughly equivalent to a PSL overall - so roughly the same cost, 13-14 token.

Strength 12 is probably not enough, and we'd really be wise to wait until the roll system overhaul to actually finalize that. However, if the new system changes strength to be a "control your strength" stat, with physical muscle/exosuit strength being a separate non-numeric stat, the PEW could actually do with a relatively low Strength stat requirement, but a higher non-stat strength requirement. The extra mass of the gun would reduce the kickback, and the biggest factor to if you can use the gun would be whether you can actually carry it and its cooling system.

I'd say we also need to quantify exactly what might happen on the higher settings. Officially the weapon's been tested to work up to the four-fold compression setting. If the dial on the gun goes two notches beyond that, we need a rough idea of what to expect.
Obviously the "4" setting in that example will destroy the weapon. The shot it would produce at that setting would be seriously powerful (assuming it lasts a second, you could probably scythe-sweep a phalanx of battlesuits in half, or chop an Avatar's limbs off), and it would have a range of many kilometers, but it would be gone very quickly as the weapon melts, and would be only about 10cm thick. Is the cost of the destroyed weapon enough to make the "4" setting reliably produce a shot of that power before being destroyed? Or would it be better left up to chance (i.e. only fire the shot on a non-failure, 3 and above)?
The "3" setting is much grayer, as theoretically the cooling system would be able to at least mitigate the damage. The shot is still very powerful, but is it powerful enough to destroy the weapon? (as in, from a balance standpoint) Should it be left up to chance as well? (1 or 2 destroy the whole weapon, 3/4/6 only kills the cooling system, 5 somehow only melts the coldplate to non-recoverable state?)

not sure i agree with you there, it seems really simple to me.
Yes it is worse when it has no ammo but thats a fair tradeoff for the potential to be stronger when ammo is available, similarly when it has ammo it runs the risk of melting down and/or exploding if overused or overworked which is another fair tradeoff for the level of power it can achieve. pretty straightforward id say.

okay i can probably see the cooling system adding a bit more weight then that but lets not go crazy here, a 12 is already a cutting laser taped to a HEP after all.
the contextual strength versus stat strength weapon requirements concept however is rather interesting, i would like to see a few heavy weapons that simply cannot be handled by non-augmented soldiers no matter how much they pump strength simply by virtue of their weight or size.

setting quantifications:
Firing a weapon always imparts a roll so id say that you just tie the results in with the attack roll.

Level 4 would be the "all hope is lost" option reserved for sun eaters and the like, it would always fire unless you roll a 1 in which case it simply explodes and while a 2 would be a miss as usual it would carry a high probability of causing collateral damage.
seriously, if level 1 imparts enough kinetic energy to knock a battlesuit backwards imagine what level 4 is gonna do if you drop it and it shoots the ground or a nearby building.

level 3 would be the "damage weapon, save hide" option so the shot wouldnt outright destroy the weapon, if you roll a 1 on your attack the guns fucked and you need replacement parts but not a new gun,  2-4 is differing levels of repairable damage but the gun is inoperable and on a 5 or 6 the plate is fucked and the gun still needs repairs but it remains semi-functional.

[Radio Controlled]

@PEW statting/sean:

Thanks for providing that summary. There's still a few points we'd need to address though:

-It seems you are considering still changing things to your design. Would it be ok if we waited until you're sure your design is fully finalized? Restatting the same thing a few times because something changed isn't a lot of fun. Doubly so since the rolling system change might throw things around so much that (some points, most notably str requirements) it has to be rebalanced after that either way, so that as well seems like a good point in favor of waiting.

-How many modes of fire do you want? I'd personally suggest to go with 2 or 3 max, so that each has a clear use and to keep things easy (for us and for potential users).

-Any sort of pw quote on the dimensions and weight/encumbrance of this thing will help us come up with justifiable str/dex/whatever requirements.

is one of the hephaestus science crews researching artificial magic termite control hives? and if so why not?

Because other endeavors were a bit more urgent, I presume. Though now that 2 crews are available, I'd not be adverse to putting one on the task. Too bad we didn't get those two crews working before pw froze the Hep thread.

[Sean Mirrsen]

-It seems you are considering still changing things to your design. Would it be ok if we waited until you're sure your design is fully finalized? Restatting the same thing a few times because something changed isn't a lot of fun. Doubly so since the rolling system change might throw things around so much that (some points, most notably str requirements) it has to be rebalanced after that either way, so that as well seems like a good point in favor of waiting.

In principle, I would like to have a foot-thick, five miles long lightsaber you can power on and swing around like the world's biggest overcompensation aide. Until that is possible, I will always consider possible changes to my designs.

In this case though, I am fairly well set on the exact specifics of what the device does, I think its actual parameters are quite thoroughly defined.

Setting 0 is the HEP, and the HEP is the HEP - beam width 2m, range of some 100m before the beam frays apart, performance against the standard battlesuit is "heats it red hot and tosses it back, maybe cracks open a layer of armor", as described in the Wiki.

Setting 1 is HEP/2 - beam width 1m, range of some 400m, performance against battlesuit is "would probably strip most armor and hurl it back".

Setting 2 is HEP/4 - beam width .5m, range of some 1600m, performance against battlesuit is "would probably blow a big fat hole straight through it", as per the quote:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anton Chernozorov

Is any more input needed from me on the matter of the electric jetpack suit? Besides saying that no, making into into a vehicle won't do?

On the High Energy Blast Cannon (snappier acronym needed stat), is there enough testing data to replicate it in VR? If so, I'd like to quickly pop into VR and fire a 1/2 compressed shot, and a 3/4 compressed shot at a regular UWM Battlesuit to see what it does. Aimed center mass in both cases. If the system knows how HEP blasts and hexsand interacts, try both settings against a wall of hexsand - how is it affected, if at all?

Boomstick.

Well, it can simulate Battlesuits, and your shots do some pretty damn good damage. I forget how they did against ship armor, but it's gonna be somewhat similar. Battlesuit plate is better, or at least more efficient at absorbing and deflecting energy, but it's not perfect.

So would you guys like to do it the way sean suggested? Ie every time I post we do a roll on all the "NPC" run projects. Good rolls bring things forward, medium ones keep pace, bad ones represent delays or setbacks. Science teams could be used to give bonuses to rolls. It might make things faster, and give you more feedback.

((I was rather figuring you'd extrapolate from the last test done with HEP versus a battlesuit, though it's not inconceivable you don't even remember that took place. Here's your quote on the matter (it was done as part of a battery of tests):

A. Fire the following at VR Sods/generic VR people:

1. Laser Rifle
2. Gauss Rifle
3. Crystalline Projector
4. Sibilus Rifle
5. Cutting Laser
6. High Energy Projector
7. Piezoelectric Shard Launcher (original, not Testament)

B. Then do the above again, but with battlesuits. (Don't aim specifically for joints, I don't know about that weakness IC.)

<snip>

b.
1.Not much
2.Not much
3.Burrows slightly, but better at restraining then dealing real damage. Unless you catch a joint, then it can wrench it right off.
4. One shot? Not much.
5.Suit is very resistant to lasers, so even the cutting laser doesn't do much more then heat a glowing line across the armor. Assuming a swipe, not a concentrated beam over a good period.
6. Heats it red hot and throws it 20 feet backwards. Might shatter a layer of armor if the armor is already damaged.
7. Has good penetration but not so much that it would be really dangerous unless you got very lucky.

Emboldening mine.

I'm guessing the force delivered will be similar, but since it's focused on a smaller area the effect will be much greater.
Earlier we assumed/calculated the 3/4 beam to be half a meter across (assuming the HEP itself makes one 2 meters across like the original pyramid), so it can actually target some specific area on the battlesuit. Suppose a 3/4 shot is aimed at the top of its torso - would it be enough to comically toss it cartwheeling backwards, in addition to the damage the shot itself inflicts? ))

One half would probably strip most the armor and hurl it back, 3/4ths would probably blow a big fat hole straight through it.

Settings 3 and 4 (HEP/8 and HEP/16), assuming they are there, are best extrapolated at this point, unless we are going to straight-up murder some prototypes to find out.

-How many modes of fire do you want? I'd personally suggest to go with 2 or 3 max, so that each has a clear use and to keep things easy (for us and for potential users).

Ideally I think we should go with 3. It's just the best for keeping track of. Not too many, not too few.
Specifically, I want to have Setting 0, Setting 2, and Setting 3 or 4. This way you can have a mode that always works, regardless of ammo, and still kills things dead; a mode that the weapon is built for, that kills things very dead but uses ammo; and a "holy fuck I'm dead" mode that destroys the weapon, but kills things EXTREMELY dead.

You may note that I'm a fan of explosive overclocking.

-Any sort of pw quote on the dimensions and weight/encumbrance of this thing will help us come up with justifiable str/dex/whatever requirements.

I didn't get any specific size for the original prototype. This is the description I got.

This prototype is rather crude, to say the least. It's clearly not designed with usability as a weapon in mind; it has no grips or trigger or any other way to easily hold it, instead it's not much more then a large metal box with a button on the top and a large aperture on one side. There's a knob near the button as well, something like you'd expect to find on valve, and judging from the feel of it, it's physically adjusting parts within the box using purely mechanical means.

When I gave it to a science team to reduce the excessive heating, I was asked for any specific size/cost limits, this was what I specified:

The sci team asks if you have any restrictions on size or cost they should worry about.

Size - Ideally usable by a regular human with an exoskeleton - i.e. something at most the size of a cutting laser plus backpack attachment if needed.
Of course there can and should be larger versions, up to and including large enough to deal damage to battleships. But something usable by heavy infantry is desirable, as a heavy breaching and anti-armor weapon.

Cost - As Anton would say it: "I don't care so much about cost-efficiency here. I'd prefer if it didn't use them manipulators unless it absolutely needs to, because the more of it we know how to repair, the less we're screwed if something breaks in the field. Beyond that, I'd much rather have a weapon that works well and is easy to use, than a weapon that's cheap to buy or make."
So basically take it easy on the space-magic, but feel free to use the fancy new materials we got or advanced production techniques a-la Stevebots if it's going to make a better weapon.

And these were the two last weekly progress reports from the team:

They've found a way to drastically reduce energy wastage and as such heat generation. Unfortunately doing this requires keeping the reflection array cold. Very cold. Less then 10 Kelvin cold. They're trying to find a way to keep it cold like that without massive cooling systems.

Also, it's week 3 of the science team working on the variable HEP/ "Zarya" Piercing Energy Weapon. Progress report?

Well...we got a few versions. One of them uses heavy cooling systems. The other uses Plates which slot in and out, so you can slot in cool plates. That one needs you to eject and put in the plates. That limitation in size isn't helping them.

That's as specific as it got. So it's likely pushing the limit of what a man in a Mk3 or similar exoskeleton can carry, weight-wise. Size-wise I think it's on par with a Raduga plus a backpack a-la the PSL's ammo pack. That's for the infantry version. I should also probably point out I wanted to stat up the Battlesuit version all this time, (not any more powerful, just meant for bigger hands and with the "backpack" integrated) but whichever works as long as there's progress.