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[Detoxicated]

Wind of the Crystallicker

A magically generated wind that dissolves crystals making it brittle.

[Kashyyk]

I vote for that lightning cannon.

I also vote we should call it a lightning cannon. Every culture needs some heavily entrenched misnomers.

[Atomic Chicken]

(4) Coilguns: AC, NUKE, SMMI, Kashyyk
(1) Wind of the Crystallicker: Detoxicated

Votebox set up. Made some assumptions when assigning votes; please change if incorrect.

I'd personally prefer a less Arstotzkan name for the coilgun, but I don't really mind.

[crazyabe]

(5) Coilguns: AC, NUKE, SMMI, Kashyyk, Crazy
(1) Wind of the Crystallicker: Detoxicated

[Detoxicated]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(6) Coilguns: AC, NUKE, SMMI, Kashyyk, Detoxicated, Crazy
(0) Wind of the Crystallicker:

[evictedSaint]

Design: HS-aM-EA1 Coilgun [6-1+1, 2-1, 5]

The scarred princess certainly knows her stuff.

The HS-aM-EA1 consists of a lubricated Adamantium barrel with miles of thin copper wire wrapped around it in separate coils.  Power is supplied via an array of three dozen Thunderbolt Wands linked to each distinct coil on the twelve-foot-long barrel.  Taking advantage of the "Hayat Effect", in which a coil of electrically-charged wire exerts a force on ferrous materials, the coils can be fired in rapid succession to lead the iron slug through the barrel and out the end with surprising force.  The most difficult part of the entire contraption was getting the coils to fire in the correct order rapidly enough to produce the desired effect.  This is done by a new invention, termed the "spark gap", in which a wire is separated enough that the lightning will only transmit when enough "electric pressure" is present.  The spark gap firing sequencer is finicky though, and requires fine-tuning for humidity, altitude, and temperature so as to operate at peak efficiency.  Once the spark gaps are tuned and the Thunderbolt Wands are inserted, the gun is activated by a simple knife switch.

The ferrous slug comes out of the gun with an audible cracking noise and travels at speeds difficult for the human eye to follow.  Preliminary tests show the gun can fire out to Beyond Line Of Sight + 1, though the iron ball is so inaccurate that even with Lucky Strike we can't reliably hit a ship-sized target beyond Extreme Range.  Currently the only ammo we have tuned for the gun is mundane iron cannon balls.

The Coilgun is monsterously heavy and requires lengthy set-up and reloading sequences.  We can mount one aboard the Skyhawk in place of the ballistas with no reduction in speed, or two for a non-negligable reduction in altitude and speed.  We've taken the liberty of devising an open-latch loading bay for new ammo that allows air to follow behind the slug as it travels down the barrel, as well as a crank-operated mount that allows us to turn and fire the gun between -45° and 45° vertically.

The Coilgun must be connected to ground to fire.  This is not an issue for groundbased stations, but for airships the spent lightning is directed around the hull of the ship and straight down via a copper cable and reinforced Thunderbolt Wand.  Occassionally the Adamantium barrel will crack, as the copper coils seem to "tighten" when charged.

Due to the large amounts of copper, manufacturing, and attunement involved, the device is so expensive and sensitive that we can only field one at a time.  National Effort.

[NUKE9.13]

Mm, it feels so nice when the dice are in your favour.

So, for our second design. Hows about we just... do that again?

Thundergun: Ditching the ridiculous Arstotzkan sounding name in favour of a name sourced from the sound of the weapon firing, the Thundergun is what you get when all the best minds in Moskurg come together to tinker with and improve on our beloved princess's inspiring design. The primary innovation is the replacement of the finicky "spark gaps" with the "airless cylinder". Partially inspired by Hayat's earlier light-orb designs, the airless cylinder consists of a glass cylinder from which all air has been removed (duh), within which are a number of metal components through which electricity can flow. These allow for the flow of electricity to be modulated thanks to... some complicated explanation involving several words most mage-engineers couldn't understand. (Look, it's a vacuum tube, alright? It's the next step after spark gaps. And, I mean, we have the technology.)
Additionally, effort has been put into arranging the mass-production of copper wiring. (since we're rolling for cost anyway, might as well give a justification for it getting cheaper)

Eh? I know it doesn't sound like much of an upgrade, but replacing the spark gaps with vacuum tubes airless cylinders will not be trivial, and otherwise they're a bottleneck to performance.

[Detoxicated]

Thundergun (1): Detoxicated

[crazyabe]

Thundergun (2): Detoxicated, Crazy

[Happerry]

Thundergun (3): Detoxicated, Crazy, Happerry

Also we should see if we can figure out how to modify our summon shiny supermetal spell to see if we can alter how it interacts with electricity, so that instead of the less common copper we can just summon all the metal we need (and hopefully make the Thundergun cheaper).

[Kashyyk]

Thundergun (4): Detoxicated, Crazy, Happerry, Kashyyk

For our revision, I suggest doubling down on the thundergun and modifying our shells to be explosive. It doesn't matter if you can't hit the broad side of a barn if the entire farm explodes.

[evictedSaint]

Seems like the Thundergun is winning. Design roll in a bit unless that changes.

[evictedSaint]

Design: Thundergun [3+1, 6-1, 2]

Named after the thunderous roar from when it fires, the Thundergun immediately obsoletes the HS-aM-EA1 Coilgun.

The new design is very similar to the HS-aM-EA1, as the Adamantium barrel, coils, and crank-operated mounting system has not been appreciably modified.  The only real difference is the timing mechanism, which despite the relatively small size represents a large step in technology. 

The timing unit is a roughly box-shaped console that features a number of Hayat's "Lightning Bulbs" (now no longer exploding).  These tubes, filled with "nothingness", vastly improve the robustness of the timing system.  Rather than requiring the spark gaps to be tuned to altitude, temperature, and humidity, the system is always tuned properly and ready to fire.  Off-loading the timing entirely to the console means that set-up time has been reduced and the guns no longer require length production times to get attuned properly.

A relatively minor bonus of the console is that the Thunderbolt array can be consolidated into "cartridges"; a bundle of 36 linked wands that can be inserted in and out of the console as a unit as opposed to being replaced one-by-one.  This reduces loading times, making them comparable to our ballistas.

The Lightning Bulb array tends to break frequently, as the bulbs will crack easily or just get "burnt out", rendering the device inoperable.  The Thunderbolt cartridges, although faster for loading and unloading, can spark unexpectedly and damage nearby equipment or personnel.  It is recommended that loaders wear thick leather gloves and not wear any metal, nor operate the gun in the rain.  The accuracy issue of the gun has still not been addressed, and we are unable to reliably hit targets beyond Extreme Range.  Until this is addressed, our primary artillery piece will remain as the ballista.

Because the Thundergun is easier to set up and attune, we can now produce enough of them to make them merely Expensive.

[Taricus]

Well lads, we know what the revision is gonna be!

[NUKE9.13]

Do we? I'm torn between fixing the breaking Lightning Bulbs, or modifying the Thundergun to fire iron shells instead of balls, increasing the accuracy. Do we want a more useful weapon that is somewhat unreliable, or a reliable weapon that is less useful?

The sparking cartridges are unfortunate, but we obviously never have to worry about it raining on us at inopportune times, so they shouldn't be a huge problem.

EDIT: eS, SMMI raised the question on the discord- do we know how much damage the coilgun projectiles will do? More or less than a ballista?