Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Andres]

GM, how come our steam engine isn't cheap? It's made out of crystal now so it should be made cheaper by the Crystalworks. By extension, our Crystalclad and STV-1 should be Cheap and Expensive, respectively.

Its larger than most crystal things youre making, especially with the thicker walls and delicate turbines and circuitry.  Cost wasn't limited by steel, which you have plenty of.  Being made of crystal has made it lighter, though.  It's Expensive, and so is everything else on the crystalclad.   The Restless is also made of a fuck-ton of crystal, which takes a long time to print in the crystalworks. 

Most notable is that the steam engine could be used by mundane soldiers, though you've not done so.

So would revising the crystalworks to be cheaper mean that things which use "fuck tons" of crystal also benefit from being one expense level cheaper?

Actually, fuck that.  I'm not sure why I was so hard on the steam engine.  Youve had it for a long time and made a lot of improvements.  The next time you design something that uses it you can upgrade the engine for free, too.

Thanks.

[RAM]

Revisions:
1 - Conjure Water: RAM
1 - Beachfront Frost Tower: RAM
0 - Anti-Magic Mist:
1 - No revisions until after the Design phase: Andres
0 - Do not use the revision credit this turn:

[evictedSaint]

Design: Combat Armor [2+2, 3+6, 4+2]

Our armor is upgraded from steel plate to crystal plate.

Essentially the same design, our armor is now made entirely out of crystal rather than steel.  This results in a modest reduction in weight and a small increase in bulkiness, but the crystal should now be immune to most forms of attack.  A square ballista bolt will still punch through, but Moskurgs bodkin arrows should be useless now.

Most useful from this design is a new type of crystal - informally referred to as "Crystal Glass".  Transparent and slightly blue-tinged, this crystal retains all the normal properties of our regular crystal while being see-through.  Our helmets use this material extensively; it can be merged directly with normal crystal, meaning there's no seam.  The helmets now look like buckets with one side completely cut out and replaced with glass.  The sealed design makes breathing difficult, however, so we've added a few holes hidden behind little folds of crystal to allow air to more easily enter and exit the helm.  We've also bulked up the armor around the neck to discourage lucky arrow strikes, and filled up a few gaps.  The biggest concern now is enemy infantry and their hooked halberds, which can still drag our men down.

We attempt to change the properties of the crystal to be more resistant to lightning, but we have a lot of trouble changing the structure of the crystal to disallow lightning to pass through it.  Maybe with more time we could figure out a better way to dissuade lightning from blasting our crystal equipment, but we just ran out. Cheap.

[Andres]

Well at least we got crystal glass. That'll at least give us some experience for future crystal variants.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

I mean, it's nice, and I'm glad it's cheap, but the lack of protection against lightning is extremely disappointing.

So.
Revision: Lightning Rods
Lightning rods are cheap crystal spires connected to a specially-designed Magegem.

When lightning hits the Lightning Rod, electricity flows through the conductive crystal to the Magegem, where the electricity is "used up" exciting the Magegem and turning into magical energy. The amounts of energy harnessed are far too little to be used for anything, but this method allows for the electricity to be neutralized without a grounding element. We don't need a large Magegem to use because of this.

As a lighting rod is small and made using machine Crystal, it should be extremely easy to manufacture and distribute. It can be secured to our vehicles and the ground while being fairly portable. It can be connected to the ends of our ships, near our artillery emplacements, carried with our troops, and more. If time allows, a scaled-down version (with literally just the crystalwork formula for the rod tweaked for a minute) can be made to attach to Combat Armor.

With a nearby Lightning Rod, Moskurger lightning will strike it instead of its intended target, protecting our forces from harm.

Revision: Blastball
Magic is, of course, a science. Things can be tweaked and adjusted with ease. But some things come easier than others.

Like the Fireball.
We've had the Fireball since the very beginning. We've experimented with it, and utilized it to its fullest potential. The Fireball forms the basis of nearly all Arstotzkan technology and society today.
We have experience with the Fireball. Our Mathemagicians know it inside and out; they know every detail of it and how exactly we utilize magic to create the various types of Fireballs.

We can utilize our extensive knowledge with the Fireball to make some simple changes to it. Today, the Fireball isn't as relevant as it once was. Moskurg's armor threatens to make fire practically obsolete, and our new methods of projectile propulsion require a new type of Fireball.
Enter the Blastball. It's merely a variant of our Fireball, but with the extreme majority of its magical energy going towards pressure and a general "explosion" instead of simply heat. This has multiple uses - when a large-enough Blastball is detonated in an uncontrolled explosion, it'll do much better against Moskurg's armor than anything that came before. When detonated in a controlled environment, it creates muuuch more pressure than ever before, making Blastball-propelled bullets extraordinarily fast, with great piercing capabilities, muzzle velocity, and range.

The Blastball is very easy to do. We've already done this exact kind of tweak with the Flare. We've adjusted properties of the fireball at the costs of others. With the flare, we raised brightness and added colors at the cost of heat and destruction. With the Blastball, we're greatly raising pressure at the cost of most of the Fireball's heat.

The Blastball is a variant of the Fireball, and the goal by the end of the year is to have a Blastball variant for each Fireball type - SPSF, PSF, and the SF. The SPSF Blastball variant is the most critical one, followed by the PSF and SF. The Blastball should immediately replace the Fireball in the AS-R1 rifle and, if time allows, the AS-HAC-1 should have some modifications made to accept use Blastball-propulsion instead of steam-propulsion. Outside of weaponry, the Blastball will be used against armored Moskurger targets.

TL;DR: Revise the Fireball to use mostly pressure instead of heat. SPSF Blastball variant is the most important, with the PSF and SF variants being the second most and least important respectively (but preferably all are done via this revision). The Blastball should be effective against Moskurg armor, and extremely effective as a magical propellant for bullets/shells whatnot. The AS-R1 immediately benefits from this, with a greatly increased muzzle velocity increasing stopping power and range by potentially huge amounts.
With our extreme amounts of experience with Fireballs and the tweaking thereof, this revision should be easier than normal.

EDIT: Added thing to Blastball comparing it to Flares.

Revisions:
1 - Conjure Water: RAM
1 - Beachfront Frost Tower: RAM
0 - Anti-Magic Mist:
1 - Blastball: Chiefwaffles
1 - Lightning Rod: Chiefwaffles

I'm not set on this, but at this moment it seems like the best course of action. The Lightning Rod I'm not in love with, and if anyone comes up with a better way to counter their lightning/air advantage I'm game.

Also, people should be on the discord for discussion!

[helmacon]

How are lightning rods different than the ETA? I'm just gonna vote for the ETA.

Revisions:
1 - Conjure Water: RAM
1 - Beachfront Frost Tower: RAM
0 - Anti-Magic Mist:
2 - Blastball: Chiefwaffles, helmacon
1 - Lightning Rod: Chiefwaffles
1 - ETA: helmacon

[Chiefwaffles]

The ETA is more ambitious and is focused on harnessing magical energy from lightning, whereas the Lightning Rod just focuses on nullifying the effects of lightning. I don't think  spending actions so we can rely on a single spell of theirs to recharge our stuff is a good idea, and I don't think it's worth the extra risk.
The lightning rod focuses on just nullifying their lightning, which is what we need right now. The stuff about turning the electricity into magical energy isn't at the same scale or purpose of the ETA; it's just a way around the requirement to ground the lightning rod. It's so we can fit it on Combat Armor or Crystalclads and not just the ground. Lightning Rods focuses on countering lightning, and ETA focuses on charging Magegems from lightning. That and Lightning Rods do still serve as a stepping stone to turning other forms of energy into magic.

[Andres]

Revision: Increase our crystal's durability, so it's at least equal to steel in every way. Sacrifice its cutting edge if necessary or if doing so will increase durability further.

We need this if we want to continue making crystal guns and engines, plus it may give our ships the edge they need to not get beaten as badly as they are.

Revisions:
1 - Conjure Water: RAM
1 - Beachfront Frost Tower: RAM
0 - Anti-Magic Mist:
2 - Blastball: Chiefwaffles, helmacon
1 - Lightning Rod: Chiefwaffles
1 - ETA: helmacon
1 - Crystal Durability: Andres

Revision: Lightning Rods
Lightning rods are cheap crystal spires using a telescopic design connected to a specially-designed Magegem.

When lightning hits the Lightning Rod, electricity flows through the conductive crystal to the Magegem, where the electricity is "used up" exciting the Magegem and turning into magical energy. The amounts of energy harnessed are far too little to be used for anything, but this method allows for the electricity to be neutralized without a grounding element. We don't need a large Magegem to use because of this.

As a lighting rod is small and made using machine Crystal, it should be extremely easy to manufacture and distribute. It can be connected to the ends of our ships, near our artillery emplacements, carried with our troops, and more. If time allows, a scaled-down version (with literally just the crystalwork formula for the rod tweaked for a minute) can be made to attach to Combat Armor.

Anything that turns mundane energy into magic energy is a design. Furthermore, we have no lightning rods are not something we have, so we cannot use a Revision on it. What are we revising? Nothing. Revisions are for revising things we've already made.

Revision: Blastball
Magic is, of course, a science. Things can be tweaked and adjusted with ease. But some things come easier than others.

Like the Fireball.
We've had the Fireball since the very beginning. We've experimented with it, and utilized it to its fullest potential. The Fireball forms the basis of nearly all Arstotzkan technology and society today.
We have experience with the Fireball. Our Mathemagicians know it inside and out; they know every detail of it and how exactly we utilize magic to create the various types of Fireballs.

We can utilize our extensive knowledge with the Fireball to make some simple changes to it. Today, the Fireball isn't as relevant as it once was. Moskurg's armor threatens to make fire practically obsolete, and our new methods of projectile propulsion require a new type of Fireball.
Enter the Blastball. It's merely a variant of our Fireball, but with the extreme majority of its magical energy going towards pressure and a general "explosion" instead of simply heat. This has multiple uses - when a large-enough Blastball is detonated in an uncontrolled explosion, it'll do much better against Moskurg's armor than anything that came before. When detonated in a controlled environment, it creates muuuch more pressure than ever before, making Blastball-propelled bullets extraordinarily fast, with great piercing capabilities, muzzle velocity, and range.

The Blastball is a variant of the Fireball, and the goal by the end of the year is to have a Blastball variant for each Fireball type - SPSF, PSF, and the SF. The SPSF Blastball variant is the most critical one, followed by the PSF and SF. The Blastball should immediately replace the Fireball in the AS-R1 rifle and, if time allows, the AS-HAC-1 should have some modifications made to accept use Blastball-propulsion instead of steam-propulsion. Outside of weaponry, the Blastball will be used against armored Moskurger targets.

TL;DR: Revise the Fireball to use mostly pressure instead of heat. SPSF Blastball variant is the most important, with the PSF and SF variants being the second most and least important respectively (but preferably all are done via this revision). The Blastball should be effective against Moskurg armor, and extremely effective as a magical propellant for bullets/shells whatnot. The AS-R1 immediately benefits from this, with a greatly increased muzzle velocity increasing stopping power and range by potentially huge amounts.
With our extreme amounts of experience with Fireballs and the tweaking thereof, this revision should be easier than normal.

1. Change the name to Pressure Blast.
2. Make mention of Flare, how we lowered the heat it generated to raise the light it generated. This would be a similar "tweaking of the sliders".

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

We need a way to counter their lightning. Lightning Rod is ambitious but it seems like the best way to do that to me. It may be ambitious, but it's not impossible.

[RAM]

Creepy Crawly Crystals(C.C.C.)
Mathemagics started with crystals, and our extensive experience has divined almost every aspect of it, allowing us to tweak the design in extremely precise and exacting ways...
Tweaking the summoning effect to expel the existing material rather than overlap it removes ambient contamination from the material. By refining the formulae, we have distilled the crystal to its most pure form. The theory is that the crystals themselves are immune to lightning, and the lighting was passing through by exploiting the impurities. This new crystal has no impurities, and, upon extremely lose scrutiny, actually produces a brief, barely-perceptable suction effect when it is broken. We have dubbed this the "Suck-Force" which ascribes the behaviour of material to be attracted to absences.

 It is further hoped that the lack of impurities might slightly increase the regeneration rates and significantly reduce weight...

Distribution priorits is to wizard armour, engines and then their crews' armour, cannons and then their crews' armour, infantry armour then vehicles and whatever is left.
It is several layers of failure that have made us reliant upon crystals to resist lightning, but after sinking so much into these costs we may as well make good on them...

Furthest Forever Frost(F.F.F.)
It has become apparent that cold air moves down. We thus modify the redundant portion of our towers of forever frost to reach the kegger storm clouds. It is a simple matter of just adjusting the shape of their effect.

Antimagic Bomb Concussive(A.B.C.)
The antimagic bomb already has all we need to destroy carpets, and hopefully dispel skyships. This bullet for our largest cannons is packaged with an antimagic charm to suppress it. The charm is then placed into a slot next to the chamber until the bullet is fired. This massive antimagic bomb then flies into the kegger air ranks and explodes from the ambient spellcraft, shattering into a cloud of burning antimagic charms.

Lead Overlayed Crystal Ordnance(L.O.C.O.)
By Summoning crystals so that they overlay a lump of lead, We gain a crystal that is filled with the heavy metal. These lead-filled crystals are as heavy as lead and as hard as crystal, resulting in much greater penetration effects. Furthermore, we only place a pillar of lead at the core, while a whole shell is summoned. Thus resulting in an overall lighter, thus faster shell, but the outer area of crystals shatter where the lead-portion penetrates, resulting in a much greater penetrating power and slightliy increased range.

Big Dummies
We know that the enemy lighting always hits our metal armour if it can. So we just build big, easy-to-hit suits of fused armour and lug them around on carts, use them as figurheads on ships, place them to guard our cannons and frost towers...

[RAM]

Revisions:
1 - Conjure Water: RAM
1 - Beachfront Frost Tower:
0 - Anti-Magic Mist:
2 - Blastball: Chiefwaffles, helmacon
1 - Lightning Rod: Chiefwaffles
1 - ETA: helmacon, RAM
1 - Crystal Durability: Andres
0 - Creepy Crawly Crystals:
0 - Furthest Forever Frost:
0 - Antimagic Bomb Concussive:
0 - Lead Overlayed Crystal Ordnance:
0 - Big Dummies:
0 - :
0 Save the revision credit for later use:
0 I want to see the results of the most popular revision before confirming the second revision:

Ehh, stuff it, I want frost towers that float, not beach babies.

And seriously. E.T.A. and lightning rod are identical. If we want a lightning rod then we need to build one that works, which we can revise from our metal armour, it seemed effective enough.
... making the design...

[VoidSlayer]

Clear Sky Tower - A revision of the tower of frost that removes all moisture from clouds by flash freezing them into water or ice.  Causes sudden freezing downpour and then clear skies.

[Chiefwaffles]

Energetic Transfusion
We have been working with magic for a very long time now. Thanks to our MathMagicians, we have come to understand what we have been doing exceptionally well. To put it simply, we take magical elements, sometimes called mana, and turn it into different kinds of natural elements, such as fire, or crystal. Theoretically, it should be fairly simple to invert the process.
Our first attempt, the Energetic Transfusion Array (henceforth abbreviated ETA) is primarily designed to work with lightning, as electrical energy is the most similar to magical energy. Both are rather nebulous concepts on their own, but more importantly, they can both be funneled down through and controlled by our circuits.
The ETA uses a small, thin strip of metal as a lightning rod to gather the electrical energy. The energy is forced down through an inverted summoning circuit, and dumped into a series of connected mage gems. This should collect the electrical energy, convert it, and store it safely away in the gems.
The first generation of ETAs are designed to be attached to our vehicles. They can be mounted anywhere on a crystal clad, set up on the tops of frost towers, or even ride between cars on the crystal trains.
The conversion process may not be 100% efficient, but our primary focus on the design is to create a working prototype, with less concern on size or efficiency.

Revision: Lightning Rods
Lightning rods are cheap crystal spires connected to a modified AAA Magegem.

When lightning hits the Lightning Rod, electricity flows through the conductive crystal to the Magegem, where the electricity is "used up" exciting the Magegem and turning into magical energy. The amounts of energy harnessed are far too little to be used for anything, but this method allows for the electricity to be neutralized without a grounding element. We don't need a large Magegem to use because of this.

As a lighting rod is small and made using machine Crystal, it should be extremely easy to manufacture and distribute. It can be secured to our vehicles and the ground while being fairly portable. Its size can It can be connected to the ends of our ships, near our artillery emplacements, carried with our troops, and more. If time allows, a scaled-down version (with literally just the crystalwork formula for the rod tweaked for a minute) can be made to attach to Combat Armor.

With a nearby Lightning Rod, Moskurger lightning will strike it instead of its intended target, protecting our forces from harm.

Let's compare ETA and Lightning Rods. I've color-coded the comparisons so people don't have to go hunting for the comparisons themselves.

RED - ETA uses a series of connected Magegems with the intention to hold a notable charge. Lightning Rods just use a cheap AAA Magegem. This makes ETA more expensive.
GREEN - ETA wants to charge Magegems via lightning and protect our soldiers while Lightning Rods is just intended to protect our soldiers. This makes ETA more ambitious. (That and it's wasting the ambition so we rely on the enemy to recharge our stuff.)
BLUE - ETA can only be attached to vehicles. Lightning Rods can be put on the ground and vehicles. This is likely fairly minor, but This makes ETA harder to deploy.
PURPLE - ETA intends to just make a "working prototype" without concern for size or efficiency. This means ETA is unlikely to help us next turn and we will likely continue hemorrhaging territory.


@Andres & Lightning Rods: It may not be an explicit revision of an existing design, but it's still a revision. Lightning Rods is revising an AAA Magegem + Crystal into the Lightning Rod. Crystal is effortless to shape, so the real revision is the AAA Magegem.
And I've made the modifications to Blastball. Except the name. You can't take Blastball away from me.

[RAM]

You can't take Blastball away from me.

Do you realise that if we make a gun powered by those, it would be a BBgun?

As to E.T.A. versus L.R., they both channel energy into gems. This feels like design-level ambition to me and the magnitude of the effect seems to be of very little difference. Lightning bolts are mentioned as being absurdly powerful, at least similar to Fireballs, which is more than an AAA gem can handle. It is, in all likelihood, going to explode. If it was fed into a charm and converted to sound then it might be able to handle the strain, but as it stands, you are asking for the gem-charging ability, which feels like a design to me but could be a revision. You are also asking for the lightning conversion ability, which, again, feels like a design but would at least be a revision of its own. Both E.T.A. and L.R. seem far too ambitious to work for this reason. These are, to my mind, high-end traits and the magnitude in both cases is to absorb lightning, so I see no difference in ambition on that front.

If we count cannons as vehicles then they both do good enough. If we don't, then yes, the L.R. has an advantage there, but really, these are already ambitious designs, limiting its mobility seems like a good way to avoid hemmoraging penalties while making it functional. We only really desperately need these on the boats for now, and the trains are not useless. It really isn't satisfactory, but at least it is plausible.

Losing territory is pretty much guaranteed at this point. We have had two dud designs in a row. The lightning rod tends to fail into a lightning rod that is prone to exploding and an attempt at magical recharging that completely fails and we get nothing. The Energetic transfusion is likely to fail into a worthless lump of metal that attracts a lightning bolt once in a blue moon and can only be mounted to a handful of ships, but has a remote chance of granting progress towards a magical collection device based upon natural phenomena. I would rather fail into a chance of magical research than to fail into a partial protection.

[andrea]

Honestly, the gem part seems hard. I would rather go for simple grounding. I mean, you just need a wire dangling to the ground, it is not grounding that can stop it from being mounted on armor.

Also, I think revisions are voted one at a time, so we will get to see the results of the first one.

Revisions:
1 - Conjure Water: RAM
1 - Beachfront Frost Tower:
0 - Anti-Magic Mist:
2 - Blastball: Chiefwaffles, helmacon
1 - Lightning Rod: Chiefwaffles
1 - ETA: helmacon, RAM
1 - Crystal Durability: Andres
0 - Creepy Crawly Crystals:
0 - Furthest Forever Frost:
0 - Antimagic Bomb Concussive:
0 - Lead Overlayed Crystal Ordnance:
0 - Big Dummies:
0 - :
0 Save the revision credit for later use:
0 I want to see the results of the most popular revision before confirming the second revision: