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[Unholy_Pariah]

Could we use the new cold material to make supercold bullets that will freeze part of the target? Could be useful for killing humans and shutting down generators or certain chemical processes despite their shielding (since, the way I understand it, the effect extends to a bubble around the material).

I was considering the same thing actually.

problem is that they are basically graphite rods, their absorbtion bubble is only a few inches in radius, and you cant coat them in another material to make them stronger because it breaks the effect.

a metal frame with a hardened tip might work as long as the sides are mostly open, but im not sure if that will even work because if the penetrate the target then they will be coated with whatever and the effect may cease functioning.

[Nikitian]

I wonder if forcefield bullet shells could be used here. Bullet goes BLAM, forcefield explodes, the projecting material is destroyed, the rod is shattered... and sprayed across the open wound. While still active, because within the minimal size.

Actually, I'm a little fuzzy on how that last part works, but if it requires the fragments be within that size, we could even make those rods bigger - easier for manufacturing and transportation - and then blow them up into little chunks within the size requirements. Instant cooling activation. To think of it, if that method works, we could even upscale it as specialised spaceship ammo against organic space-objects (Haebi, space-wasp (if it's organic), STAN-2, etc.).


@Radio Controlled Would you mind assigning a second science team to some project as well? If you need ideas, there's whole list of suggestions down at the bottom of the Hephaestus wiki page. Also maybe one or two Construction crews. Depending on space-magic-disabling effectiveness, those space-pollen minefields could be very useful as an addition to nuke minefields, for example. Or, if not to trespass on Sean's sphere of influence, they could be assigned to building replacements for the base components disabled by our little Thermophage pet (best built away from the base, if possible). Then even if we have to bomb it into nothingness (or whatever 'final countermeasures' might consist of), the full functionality of the base won't be disturbed.

[Comrade P.]

We have Force Monosword, and it comes in varying sizes. Can it be made in a form-factor of a combat knife? Part utility tool to cut through everything, part last ditch effort melee weapon? Also, is it any good for stabbing? Because with monoatomic filament line we had this issue, where it is no good for stabbing, only cutting and slicing.

[Nikitian]

Yes, it's perfectly good for stabbing (unlike monofilament razor), that was one of the selling points of it. I'll look into various sizes as soon as M21 ends for Maurice. The big problem with smaller variants might be their ineffectiveness as a weapon (there is a reason knives of only a certain blade length count as "melee weapons" and are restricted, at least in some countries) and not cheap enough to offset this (maybe 2 tokens for such an utility knife; Piecewise warned that getting 1-token is very hard with the forcefield price progression).

[Comrade P.]

2 tokens for a 1' version would be fine with me, I would buy that. I don't meet any requirements right now, but those would probably step down with an overall repurposing from offensive-oriented to utility-oriented use, given the problems with wielding it were about its length.

[Parisbre56]

What about a forcefield drill-head? That way it's a small yet multipurpose tool that can be attached at the end of a drill.

[Devastator]

2 tokens for one inch sounds fine.

[Nikitian]

@Radio Controlled I think you're missing an obvious application of forcefield technology in containing those spikes. All in all, forcefields are vacuum made solid (hehehe...), from what it looks, so with full coverage it might be even possible to hold spikes wrapped in thin forcefields in bare hands. Assuming the projecting material configuration allows that.

[Radio Controlled]

@Radio Controlled I think you're missing an obvious application of forcefield technology in containing those spikes. All in all, forcefields are vacuum made solid (hehehe...), from what it looks, so with full coverage it might be even possible to hold spikes wrapped in thin forcefields in bare hands. Assuming the projecting material configuration allows that.

Depends on how far the heat-eating area goes. And that, if your entire spike and heat absorbing area is contained, you'll need some way to 'open up' the forcefield to allow heat to get through, otherwise it's kinda pointless to contain it if you can't make use of it's abilities. Unless if you wanna use it as a bullet maybe. So you need to ensure the spike isn't in contact with the outside enough to let it freeze things and break your thing, but also allow for a way to have heat be funneled to it to allow it to act as a cooling device. Not impossible, and using a forcefield might help to keep it in place, but not exactly trivial either, and it'd complicate the design and drive up cost.

[Nikitian]

Well, mostly I was suggesting that as a simple and efficient way of transporting/storing the spikes. As opposed to suspending it midair in vacuum (magnetically - if it even is magnetic - or otherwise, even more expensively probably). I wasn't looking into specific uses yet.

[Egan_BW]

How are you gonna get it out when you're done transporting without making a massive explosion?

[Nikitian]

How are you gonna get it out when you're done transporting without making a massive explosion?

Sean's way, for example - use ice as the projecting material, then melt it as needed. The forcefield dissipates without explosion.

[TheBiggerFish]

Well, not really. Your volume cannot change. You could make yourself look larger by making parts of your body empty. But on the bright side, depending on how the control works, you could summon thousands of needles and then launch them at your enemies, since you don't need the metal to be connected, you merely need it to be close enough so that you have enough willpower to control it. And you are also limited by the size of your braincase (unless you get that genemod that spreads your brain and a custom flexible braincase) so you can't fit through everything. And you need at least some mechanical limbs to take care of movement so that you don't have to expend willpower every time you want to move or make your body look like it's moving. And said limbs should be capable of fine manipulation if you also want them to take care of things like facial expressions, so parts of them at least would be very fragile. And there's also the problem that if you want to make bodies look and feel right, then you need to be able to make weak malleable parts of metal which will be able to bend like skin does, which means even more fragility.

Overall, a T-X sounds like a choice more suited for a combat character with some space magic and charisma/stealth capabilities. The other choice is more for a quick moving, sneaky, stealthy, space magicky glass cannon... which is partially what your character is, although you probably lack the dexterity and charisma to properly utilise it.

EDIT: Unless you can get away with using a proxy brain for it doing the calculations for the skin and movement, but then you just switched the problem of your brain exploding with the problem of the proxy brain exploding. Which means that thing is going to burn fuel (read "brain batteries") fast.

Has anyone ever tried producing prepatterned brains/chunks of neural tissue?  Like a muscle matrix grower thing, only for neurons.  In short, it can run x program, but only x program.  Might be useful.

[Nikitian]

If I understood the idea correctly (you are talking about running space magic "programs" of some kind, right?), there is one glaring problem: whatever space magic is, it doesn't like 'cloned' brains to the point of being very hampered at least and completely impossible at most. On the upside, however, if that does work in a fashion, chances are that all automanips already are like that - after all, no one knows for sure what's inside them.

Anyway, welcome to Heph OOC! It's always nice to see people interested in "scientific"/"engineering" matters in ER, and yeah, we're severely lacking in brainpower here lately, so any addition to Hephaestus staff would be welcome. 

[TheBiggerFish]

If I understood the idea correctly (you are talking about running space magic "programs" of some kind, right?), there is one glaring problem: whatever space magic is, it doesn't like 'cloned' brains to the point of being very hampered at least and completely impossible at most. On the upside, however, if that does work in a fashion, chances are that all automanips already are like that - after all, no one knows for sure what's inside them.

Anyway, welcome to Heph OOC! It's always nice to see people interested in "scientific"/"engineering" matters in ER, and yeah, we're severely lacking in brainpower here lately, so any addition to Hephaestus staff would be welcome. 

My character is a programmer, I think he will in fact end up over there.
Also, define "cloned".
...More questions!  Could you do some sort of distributed network?  Parallel processing across multiple brains?  Can you use Sod brains for Manips?  Has anyone tried a simulated neural net/computer whatever?