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[VoidSlayer]

Wait, what fog?

The Mind of Madness

A malignant incorporeal supernatural intelligence is summoned to the battlefield to assault those foolish enough to project their minds outwards.  Any attempt to control or perceive at a distance with magic and the mind will result in an assault on the senses sure to drive the wizard mad.[/spoiler]

[Chiefwaffles]

I'm referring to Fallacy's version when I talk about the fog. But wherever fog isn't mentioned, I'm probably talking about both versions.

Because Fallacy's is the easier version. It's just that it still wouldn't work. Yours is just... impossible. Right now the extent of our knowledge in the area is creating an extremely simple physical intelligence. And we aren't even creating the mind - we're just copying nature.
And you want to make an intelligence capable of magically (no idea how to do that) driving others insane (we have zero spells or knowledge remotely related to this) which is also incorporeal (we have zero clue how to do this.)

[FallacyofUrist]

One. They have some mind experience, but they've never had to defend before. That's a design, and even if it works, not all of their mages will be able to manage it.
Two. Too late! We create the Mind of Madness directly in the storm, they're attacked before they set up the fan. Also, good luck projecting wind that far into the sky using a device on the ground.
Three. Same as one.

Also... if they do counter it next turn, we'll have compensated for that by making our Frost Towers work again. It doesn't matter if they counter it as long as we act first. If they're reacting to us, we'll continually have the advantage.

[helmacon]

What if we made our frost towers into mist towers, steeping an entire theater in mist?

[Chiefwaffles]

We'd have to pre-emptively create some kind of design/revision allowing us to see through/ignore the mist, but something like that could be a good idea.

@Fallacy's last line: Actually, they'll have the advantage. They'll still have a free design next turn. And while we're designing this very temporary hard counter (if it even works), Moskurg will be making their own design as well.

[helmacon]

Our artillery doesn't rely on pinpoint accuracy like theirs does, so in a double bind theater we should gain an advantage. Additionally, we have fewer, better soldiers compared to their more numerous weaker soldiers, so the inability to maintain coherent formations and general chaotic combat would likely go in our favour as well. Certainly we would want to see through the mist at some point, but we don't necessarily have to do it first.

[RAM]

A mist cloud would likely be blown away. And their lucky-strike spell doesn't rely upon sight. I like the idea, but we would need an antimagic dpell design to make the fog viable. Living magic would be a good first step towards that.

Why is anyone still trying to convince this person? Their arguments are completely lacking in any evidence, reasoning, or even compromise. They are not trying to achieve any semblance of accuracy or balance, they are just trying to verbally beat you into submission so that it looks like you agree with them.

It's... not summoning ghost wasps.

Was this ever relevant? The ghost wasp thing was speculation.

It's summoning an omnipresent fogmind able to drive wizards that cast spells in it crazy and to magically detect when wizards cast spells. When all we know how to do is A.) Make fog and B.) Make copies of already living creatures (with some simple modifications like "tons of fire") and C.) Simple modifications to simple existing physical minds.

- Fog is one variant. In my mind the lesser variant because fog is vulnerable to wind. The other option is an admittedly ambitious incorporeal entity.
- Driving wizards crazy is the goal. Much like antimagic immunity and perpetually breathable air was the goal of Protectors, except this time it is less ridiculously overambitious. Does anyone else actually read Chiefwaffles' designs? All it needs to do is reduce their casting effectiveness. It doesn't take long for artillery to make a mess, so it only needs to cause delays and interruptions. A bit of mental static ought to suffice.
- It needs to occupy the space that the enemy do. Wasps can do that. It is somewhat difficult to detect things when you cannot be detected, but I don't see any issue with it being visible so that ought to be trivial.
- They still obsess over "copies of mundane things". Firewasps were a new variant. We can clearly expand beyond that. Firewasps were, what, our first ever revision? And we easily made something that has never existed? We can do much more. And "minds" are not physical. Oh, wait, my mistake, the context of "they were one of our greatest minds" refers to a whole person, and thus is physical, but that context is not relevant. Just try to find any hint at all anywhere that there is anything physical about the term "mind" used in describing our hawk-taming spell. Sure, we can infer that the brain might have been altered, but with magic, that is not necessarily true. All this to try to pretend that our taming spell gives us experience in making naturally-occurring giant birds.

I recognize the need to man all our artillery. That would be nice, except Moskurg's going to complete their artillery counter next turn, and then where will we be? Mind of Madness will stop that artillery counter and let us push forwards.

Not if we fix the Protector, which uses canons. And it's going to be exponentially harder for them to increase the effectiveness of the spell.

Yes, the protector relies upon cannons, so a hard counter to them would nullify it. Well, not completely, it could still move pitifully small groups of infantry around to use their hard-countered rifles... Or they could come up with yet another hard counter to crystals because it wasn't enough the last time...

Question: Does the Aethergem include a means of using it to power a HA1? Will it even generate enough power to do so, repeatedly?

"Will it even generate enough power to do so, repeatedly?"
This is a matter of time. The Aethergem is not a battery. It generates power. It will generate enough power. Worst case scenario (other than really awful rolls of course) is that a practical amount of Aethergems isn't enough to power the HA1.
In which case, we still decrease the amount of apprentices it needs to man a HA1, still greatly increasing the number of artillery pieces we can field.

Personally, I feel that recharging a magem in an hour would be optimistic, a day would be pessimistic, a week would be something that we ought to be prepared for, five minutes would be a thousand birthdays at once, and "enough to maintain a third of our current rate of fire" would be something that we can potentially hope for, but really shouldn't. So, by my own admittedly humble assessment, they will not do more than trivially reduce the number of apprentices. And they will need to be swapped out over and over again in order to maintain decent rates of fire, which mean we may as well use magems and some separate generator. So, while technically true, the above statement is colossally missing the point. They will generate enough power, but may require reworking the cannons to get enough of gems into it to fire, because aethergem might have less capacity than magems. And it may take too long to be practical.

 So to answer the question that you meant to ask of "Will these maintain a practical rate of fire with no other power source?", the answer is "we don't know, but probably not on the first attempt, wait and see how manyt revisions we need to burn to get it working to specifications"...

And at this moment our tech uses circuits, which are extraordinarily simple to power via Magegems, and thus Aethergems. HA1 emplacements don't explicitly have slots for Magegems, but we can very easily jury-rig a way to use Aethergems with HA1s, even if that means gluing them to the barrel.

Pkay, just to be clear, gluing them to the barrel won't work, but that was just a figure of speech? But the need of circuits to make use of magems reinforces the irrelevance of whether the battery and generator are the same unit or split into separate units so that we can have dedicated storage and generation and thus change the ratios without making new revisions to do so. Unless we want to upgrade both simultaneously as one design? But that really isn't a thing for reasons I hopefully won't need to point out.

But we also have lots of tech already using Magegems, and thus lots of tech which we can easily use Aethergems into without any existing consideration.

Assumng that Aethergems have the same performance. If the same number of aethergems as were formerly magems do not have the power to fire a single shot, then it is not compatible. If they do not have enough generation ability in the likely small numbers that are currently employed as magems, then they are not an appreciable upgrade. There are lots of ways in which it could require an extensive rework to get anything out of them.

If the Mind of Madness won't stop Moskurgian magic completely, that's what our revisions are for. If we have two of them, we could likely stop Moskurg's magic in its tracks. I think we can win this game if we go this route.

Honestly, some small part of me wants Mind of Madness to win so I can be proven right. But I'd rather have Aethergems win in the first place so I don't have to be proven right. Because it seems like I just can't convince you any other way.
Since 1.) The Protector is broken and needs a single revision to fix it. 2.) The Protector and AS-R1 are nearly useless close-up (where the Protector should be) because of their anti-magic; we can revise anti-magic resistance in.
And it's always a good idea to not have to use Revisions to fix a Design.

"My design is broken, just spend a revision to fix it" "Spending revisions to fix designs is bad, for vague reasons that I am not going into but are very real so long as they don't apply to me"

And really, does anyone here have the idiocy to honestly believe that antimagic resistance is a revision? No, we are not going to get our antimagic resistance from a specific process in a static facility that produces permanent materials into a small, complex, contraption that generates large numbers of explosions in the field with a revision. That is ridiculous. It is a design, probably one with good rolls, to completely nullify the effects of their antimagic upon our active spells(But you said hard counters were bad?!?!?). As a small component of a revision that also adds caterpillar tracks(which ARE ridiculous given the technology level we are dealing with, but I accept that the G.M. disagrees and it is their call.) along with modern transmission and suspension. If our plan for this turn includes that revision, then give up now.

Balance, balance. Odds are it'll work, but Evicted will make it Very Expensive. That's okay, we can send Myark to the desert to use it.

See top part in response to the quote before this one.

I really don't get the thought here, but I am inclined to agree that if it works, and we do have two revisions to burn on it, that we win. But it does seem sort of cheap...

Moskurg's likely non-hard-counter... I think they're going to complete their Winds of Ruin to neutralize our artillery first. If we have the mind of madness, we can preemptively counter their upgrade.

See above. It's going to get exponentially harder for Moskurg to counter our artillery with that spell.

Yes, they would need a "lucky hail" spell that has the artillery get deflected by hailstones enough to miss. They would really need something dynamic to just endlessly perfect the spell. Not like we didn't go the hard-yards refining our fireball spell into something that would let an apprentice fry a whole squad.

What does it matter if we get into a counter chain? We're currently superior, if Moskurg spends all their time countering us, we'll take their homeland in the meantime. Also, I don't think one revision will suffice to kill the Mind of Madness, because balance.

I mentioned why it was bad multiple times, actually.

And you were wrong multiple times. which is what happens when you realise that you can't argue with reason and try to just shout people down.

In a counter chain, Moskurg wins.
Why? Because we spend a design to make it, and they can spend a revision to undo it. We lose a design, they lose a revision; who wins?

And watch!
Fake Moskurger Revision: Mindshield
Our mages work, using our mind magic that we have extensive experience in, to collectively shield their minds from outside attacks.

Oh, wonderful! An effect is driving us insane when we extend our minds beyond ourselves, let counter it with a spell to extend our minds beyond ourselves!!! Even if it worked, they would need to maintain it, which would be expensive, and thus they would fail and the artillery would get through in the downtime.

Fake Moskurger Revision: Fans
Our stupid acrobat Heir has figured out another mundane use of our magic - fans! We simply use wind magic amplified by a device to make giant streams of air from a distance! It's merely an enchanted piece of our stupid unthermodynamic metal adamantium!
We can use this to blow away their mist easily without exposing our minds.

Assuming that we use the mist version. The incorporeal version is better.

Fake Moskurger Revision: Mindshield Variant B
We use our experience in mind magic to simply revise a variant of Read Mind to "Strengthen Mind", allowing one to resist attacks.

Permanently?

And so on.

And so on...

RAM, remember how I said you constantly make up things?
It's somehow getting even more blatant.

Has anyone noticed that they have never once justified this statement? Yes, really blatant, so blatant that it leaves no trace...

EDIT: After making the mistake of skimming through some of RAM's post:
Their hard counters haven't worked. Notice how we're still winning via artillery even though they spent a design and revision on an artillery hard counter? And notice how we haven't even bothered to try undoing their frost tower hard counter.

WHAT artillery hard counter? They blew wind at artillery shells. How is wind versus metal "hard" from Team Wind? It was only ever going to deflect, and some shells were always going to get through it. Is there any actual evidence that it was ever intended as a hard counter? Not to the people who are not looking at the enemy thread at least... But hey, we don't have to make up stories about hard counters that don't exist, we can just pretend like "we have yet to figure out and design by which we can achieve this" is the same as "we could have easily fixed it any time we liked, with a simple revision, we just didn't feel the need to restore the thing that single-handedly kept us in the war for several turns and would very obvious be more effective at greater altitudes". Lets just revise up an antimagic charm with an "off"switch on it. We press the switch, and their adamantine turns into cuttlefish!

[helmacon]

Hey guys.... Incorporeal mist.

[Chiefwaffles]

RAM:
I'm actually convinced at this point that you seemingly oppose everything I type on principle. It feels like whenever I post anything in this thread it's only a matter of time before RAM comes to make up more stuff trying to "counter" it.
The problem is that I feel almost obligated to show why the stuff you post is blatantly false. But that's at the cost of my time and the general state of the thread. Sure, most people can probably see right through your stuff, but there's always that miniscule chance that someone may have their opinion shifted by your baseless assumptions.


I'm fine with arguing/discussing this kind of stuff with other people, but really. Other people don't just make up stuff to counter every single sentence of what feels like every post I make. Like for a recent example, I disagree with Fallacy, but at least he makes an effort to actually support his arguments.

You, on the other hand...
Well, let's use an example from your post.

"My design is broken, just spend a revision to fix it" "Spending revisions to fix designs is bad, for vague reasons that I am not going into but are very real so long as they don't apply to me"

When anyone can tell this is, as always, blatantly untrue. Like, if you actually read the supposed "hypocrisy" I said, which is:

And it's always a good idea to not have to use Revisions to fix a Design.

Not if we fix the Protector, which uses canons. And it's going to be exponentially harder for them to increase the effectiveness of the spell.

Note how, unlike what RAM pretends it to be, this statements work together.
Using revisions to fix a design is unavoidable. We generally shouldn't make designs with the intention of also using revisions that turn to fix the design. It's always a good idea to not have to use a revision to fix a design is true - we shouldn't intentionally put ourselves in situations where we have to use a revision to fix something.
But the Protector is buggy only because of a poor bug roll. We had a [3-1] for the bug roll, which is mostly just bad luck.

Using revisions to fix designs is fine, but in most cases, we shouldn't intentionally put ourselves in situations where we have to do so. Either RAM conveniently ignored this, or he just doesn't understand this.

And for another example, let's take another look at your post:

Personally, I feel that recharging a magem in an hour would be optimistic, a day would be pessimistic, a week would be something that we ought to be prepared for, five minutes would be a thousand birthdays at once, and "enough to maintain a third of our current rate of fire" would be something that we can potentially hope for, but really shouldn't.

Note how RAM is using this as evidence, yet it's literally just baseless assumptions. And I mean "baseless". There is no base to this statement. You're just saying "Well, I bet this is going to be bad, so therefore I'm right at saying it's bad!" like in nearly every argument you've made recently.



Also in response to the "A mist cloud would likely be blown away":
Nope.
See our "channeling mist" spell which explicitly works against wind by being continuously generated, which is the same thing a Tower of Mist would be doing. Actually, I just know you'll say "NUH-UH" then make up another thing saying that technically it doesn't work. But let me pre-emptively prove you wrong:

Obscuring Mist:  Cloaks a squad in a fog cloud, hiding their numbers and equipment, and making them harder to hit at range.
  Variant (Channeled Fog): A denser form of Obscuring mist, continuously generated. 

Revision: Channeled Fog [5]

Rather than just casting a cloud of mist and moving it about at will, our Mages have learned how to continuously conjure the fog.  This means the cloud will grow larger and larger the longer they stand still, and moving will leave a trail of fog.  This leaves more ambiguity as to how many men are hidden in the mist, and natural wind can't dispell the fog quickly enough to leave the men uncovered.  Only time will tell if the Moskurg's control of the weather will be enough to dispell our cover.

And I don't believe they've ever actually countered this. It's just not particularly useful. But even if I missed something and it's not viable because of wind (if you do want to say this, please bring evidence for once), do you know how we can fix that? More mist. Do you know what makes a lot more mist? Towers of Mist.

[evictedSaint]

Design: Aethergems [4+1+1, 6, 3+1]

As it turns out, the hampsterwheel was entirely unnecessary to Bjorn's design.

Aethergems, relying much on the same principle as anti-magic gems, can pull magical energy from the aether (we think) and store the accumulated magic within itself.

To call it a "gem" is a bit of a misnomer; it's actually standard glass magegem with a simple bit of scrollwork hooked up to an anti-magic gem, all wired together with a bit of crystal power conduits.  The entire contraption is about as long as a mans forearm and weighs maybe five pounds.

The aethergem comes in three sizes; A being the largest, AA slightly smaller, and AAA being the smallest, with corresponding expense levels.  An A gem can reach full capacity in ten minutes, an AA in five minutes, and an AAA in just under a minute - it's the same amount of energy per minute, but the smaller size of the AAA means it just fills quicker.

The additional circuitry doesn't increase cost, nor does the anti-magic gem make magical casting impossible.  The only downside is that if damaged the aethergem will explode rather violently, but the contraption is pretty solid and short of being smashed with a rock it won't break.

This incredible source of free magical energy, which should allow non-mages to draw magic from the aether (again, where we think it comes from), took the entirety of the design phase to produce.  The increased size and weight means we can't simply replace all our existing magegems with them right away.  Cheap - Very Expensive.

[VoidSlayer]

HA1-b "Mundane"

The HA1 is upgraded to use Aethergems in both firing the cannon and charging the various shell weapons.  A simple sliding switch completes the circuit once the gems are charged, allow the operator as good control as an apprentice at firing the weapon.  Completely eliminates the need for wizards or apprentices in firing this cannon.

A single crew is expected to work on two cannons at a time due to the 10 minute recharge rate.

[Chiefwaffles]

Okay, that's a good result.
Honestly, I kind of like the explosive effect. It's just cool. It feels like in every game ever where the enemies have an exposed weak point. Like Fusion Cores in Fallout. But we, being smart, won't have exposed weak points!

But how do we want to play this out in terms of revisions?

We have 2 revisions. Here are the obvious ones I can think of right now:
1.) Fixing the Protector - we can probably reasonably fix the transmission and add treads, or at least give it more durable wheels, in one revision. Bonus is easily adding Magegems.
2.) Anti-magic resistance - The thing about this one is that right now, it's not a huge problem. The AS-R1's rate of fire makes it impracticable at ranges where we'd need AM Resistance, and the Protector, according to evicted, breaks down before it gets into anti-magic range.
3.) Fitting the Aethergem - We can fit a lot of things into a lot of designs at once, but we still need a revision to do it.


I think we can do more than just Aethergems for #3, though. Behold!
Revision: Arstotzkan Equipment Update
With our nonstop innovating these past years, we've left some designs  with obsolete and inefficient technology. We aim to fix that!
This revision is primarily things like very minor tweaks to designs and adding things to existing designs, which should prove easy! For the reader's convenience, we've defining the individual tweaks, then listing the designs incorporating them.

Resistive Layering - Made easy by the Crystalworks Mk. 2, we aim to incorporate our newfound resistive layering tech to make the affected design immune to lightning.  High priority. (But should be very easy to do, as it's essentially just flipping a few switches in the Mk.2 CW)

Aethergem Fitting - We incorporate slots for Aethergems in the design. The Aethergems are protected by a crystal glass plate that can be slid (or rotated inwards) to reveal the gem, while the crystal glass allows seeing the charge level. The Aethergems of course will be linked to the circuitry of the weapon, and the number+size varies depending on the design. High priority.

Internal Detonation Engine Refitting - We replace the steam engine in an existing design with the Internal Detonation Engine. High priority.

Now for the affected designs!
AS-HA1 - Resistive layering, Aethergem fitting. There should be an Expensive variant with as many AA Aethergems as possible fitted in order require one, or even zero, apprentices, and the rest will be fitted with AAA Aethergems to reduce the apprentice count preferably to 2 instead of 3. The HA1 should also be able to charge the Magegems inside explosive shells, though if the crew is operating without any apprentices, this will obviously increase the time required to fire.
We should be able to operate every single AS-HA1 using Aethergems, even the AAA ones. But some (especially the AAA ones) will of course not be as fast as they could be with apprentices. And the apprentice requirement for one to run at max efficiency is of course reduced greatly.

AS-HAC-1 - Aethergem fitting in a style similar to the AS-HA1. The AA Aethergem variant should be able to be used for extended periods of time without an apprentice, and the AAA Aethergem preferably hold enough charge for 1-2 shots before waiting to recharge.

Crystalclad - IDE Refitting, Resistive Layering, Aethergem Refitting. The Aethergems should be like the AS-HA1, with an Expensive CC variant using AA Aethergems, and a Cheap one using AAA ones. General goal is to decrease apprentice requirement to 0 or 1.

Protector - Resistive Layering, Aethergem Refitting. Ideal goal is for Protector to reliably be able to fire its cannons or be moving (not at the same time of course) on the Aethergems. At least for a respectable period of time.


TL;DR: Add some various tweaks to our existing designs. Shouldn't be hard as all these tweaks are basically just retrofitting newer tech onto older designs.
Let me know if you think there's a part of this that's too ambitious. But I like it. And also let me know if I'm missing any other tweaks/designs that need to be retrofitted.

Also Evicted, you better not be planning for some reveal where we're drawing power from Moskurg's god.
That better not be what you're planning.


EDIT: Added some clarification on the use of explosive shells in an Aethergem HA1 (thanks VoidSlayer for reminding me about this!) and added clarification that if a cannon is fit with Aethergems, it will always be able to be used regardless of how much power it requires. It just may not run at peak efficiency.

EDIT: Removed R1 (no real benefits for the +difficulty) and Restless (same) from the revision.

[Draignean]

...

...

I desire to spray both of you with a bottle of cold water.

Anyhoo...

Let me know if you think there's a part of this that's too ambitious. But I like it. And also let me know if I'm missing any other tweaks/designs that need to be retrofitted.

I think the entire concept of doing a full fledged equipment update is asking for trouble. Personally, I'll vote for 1 and 3 of the options you initially suggested, but I'm not behind the "Arztotzkan Equipment Update".

[VoidSlayer]

Aethergem Shells

Aethergems seem to explode when violently damaged, so why not load a bunch of them onto the tip of one of our Blastshells?  They can power the shell to blast towards the enemy like a Blastshells+R then cause a massive explosion when they hit the target, similarly to a Blastshells+E.  Even better they can power the blast effect throughout the arc, making them not lose accuracy at long range.  Using half the gems of a Blastshells+R/E, this should be both cheap and more effective then any current shell.

[Chiefwaffles]

Draignean, is there any one specific thing you think's too ambitious that I could remove? Because I definitely think we should and can aim to do more than just adding Aethergems to existing designs.