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[Aseaheru]

 Nah, its a good idea made complicated that there isint really a set date linking with the real world. Mostly because then it gets weird when there are mass-issued assault rifles in 1920 with underbarrel grenade launchers, even though that could have easily happened IRL. Well, not the grenade launchers. Those need stuff from the 40s before they can be done without weighing asmuch and being as long as the rifle they are mounted on.

[milo christiansen]

That just allows you to let your creativity run free!

Seriously though, some cool, but minor, random events that the players can effect would be interesting. But not too often! This is about weapons design, not politics or minigames! A tech fair, a foreign country looking to buy a custom design (in exchange for some unique bonus), or any other cool little event your twisty GM mind can come up with would add a bit of change of pace, not required, but interesting nonetheless.

(The "twisty GM mind" comment is a compliment, just in case you wondered)

[Amperzand]

Well, not the grenade launchers. Those need stuff from the 40s before they can be done without weighing asmuch and being as long as the rifle they are mounted on.

Such as the

High-Low Pressure System

A method of forming the propellant in a cartridge. A large portion of the case is an empty pocket of air, while the propellant is placed in a sealed chamber in the back of the case. When the primer is struck, the propellant in the smaller chamber burns rapidly and produces immense pressures before breaking the comparatively thin metal between the smaller and larger chambers, where it expands rapidly, creating an extremely high-velocity, but low-pressure wave of gas, which finally imparts its force to the round itself.

This produces a distinctive sound when firing, and allows for the launching of heavy projectiles at comparatively low velocity with minimal recoil.

[Aseaheru]

 Basically, yes.

[milo christiansen]

That isn't too complicated, but who would ever think of it? It would be possible for us to do, but it would have to spring up with no prior research, which isn't very realistic. I would say that is a case where the GM can rule that it is beyond our "tech limit", at least right now... Same deal as developing uranium armor for our first tank, possible, but weird.

[Aseaheru]

 Uranium armor would require a source of uranium, then a way to make it depleted.

[milo christiansen]

There is no real need to make it depleted, the reason why the depleted stuff is used is because u235 is worth too much to waste it on tank armor. (BTW: "depleted" does NOT mean "not radioactive"!)

EDIT: Also it should be possible (but once again, weird) to be able to get uranium in the 1900's, there just wasn't any need for it then.

[Amperzand]

Well, that and if you used too much 235 or it got too compressed, you get fission events and kill the crew.

[milo christiansen]

The 235 is too diffuse in the 238 for that to happen "naturally"...

[Aseaheru]

 Radium would beg to differ on there being no use, just massive amounts of waste product.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

So, while we aren't going to go nuclear anytime soon, how would we get our hands on rarer material? We've managed to get by with what the Republic can currently produce, but surely we don't have access to everything right? Though handwaving that idea in the pursuit of a working game is a good reason for those difficulties to not come up.

While I remember, there were companies who were selling knock off versions of their body armor. We probably won't pursue that avenue, but if we aquire a few of them, we could try to reverse engineer their process when we have the personnel to spare.

Listing here so I don't forget:
Add gyroscope to design list. It is apparently the solution to better torpedo accuracy and helps with aircraft and anti aircraft accuracy as well as missiles.

Add turbines to the list. Apparently they have uses from better power generation to torpedo speed. Could lead to next gen of ships.

[Aseaheru]

 Just posting to note that this is not dead, I am (very slowly) churning out a turn, but its unlikely to be out by the middle of next week.

 Also, I will probably be doing something with resources, which means even more work... Gaah, just thought about that again.

 This month, it should be done this month. I hope.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Works for me. Running a game like this can be rough in any circumstances and you're providing free content. Take all the time you need.

A suggestion about resource types if you're still working that out:
Lumber: abstraction of common useful woods
Metals: things like iron, copper, bronze, steel, and aluminum. Considering that the industrialization of aluminum production only really got effecient in like 1888, you might want to consider it a separate resource.
Oils: a general common chemical resource, from what we pipe out of the ground to manufactured chemicals. Can include coal and other fuels.
Cloth: the not chemically made textiles end of things people wear and the soft things made from it.
Other: things that simply can only be obtained through importing the require resources and therefore the question is accessibility and monetary funds, not do we have this in our territory. Could be represented through sources of wealth, access to trade partners, willingness to trade intellectual properties, etc.

If purchasing designs from other countries becomes a thing, we could buy a train or train designs to help on the logistical side of things. According to Wikipedia, steam powered trains have been around since the 1820s, so it's more of a question of finding a train we like than inventing one. Or we could use the steam engine in our ships as a basis for our trains if we do decide to design our own.

So it turns out the timeline wise, we're right on track for the invention of the moon clip for our Revolving Rifles. So that is something we could have several engineers work on to make our reloading significantly faster. The design has something called "chargers" listed as something that is involved that for the life of me I cannot find on google. It might be this already.

[Amperzand]

It's basically just a springy bit of metal that goes around the back of the cases to let them be handled as a unit instead of separately. If the Revolving Rifle is currently set up for the cylinder to swing out for reload, it should be dirt-simple to design some clips and go.

[3_14159]

Seconding somemildmanneredidiot's "Take all the time you need."
If there's anything we can do to help, just tell us.