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[Andres]

4 - ASAF-F43 Interceptor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist,Gwolfski, Andres
1 - Direct Application Frost Towers: Andres
2 - Berserker Array: helmacon, Kadzar
2 - Aerial Mobility Unit: Andrea, Draignean
0 - SA-1: Railed Man Cannon:
1 - Overclock Process MK 1: RAM
1 - Falcon Air Skiff: Lightforger
0 Weightite:
1 War Falcons: Void Slayer

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Andres]

Chiefwaffles, get rid of the HAC-1. A cannon isn't a good weapon for aircraft to begin with. The weapon will also increase weight, take up space, and result in a more complex design. The thing's a bloody aircraft, so it's going to have maluses already and I don't want another Protector because you wanted to squeeze in something that would make the design the worse. Get rid of it so that we can have a very good scout/light bomber.

Glory to Arstotzka.

EDIT: And turn the bomb bay into hard points so that something which negatively affects flight doesn't have to be so necessarily great. Maybe also include additional aethergems instead of bombs to give it increased flight time.

[Chiefwaffles]

Would replacing it with a third Blastpod work?

The idea behind the HAC is to allow for the F43 to have a greater deployment time. While I see your point, I'm worried that the F43 will be too underarmed. They have Skiffs, Airships, and carpets after all.

[Andres]

Wait. Shit. I didn't even notice the blastpods. Those things are so much worse. A HAC-1 was bad enough, but these things are full-sized HC1-Es! That's all the problems of the HAC-1 but magnified!

No, replacing it with a third blastpod will not work. Get rid of the HAC-1 and the blastpods. Leave only the bombs. The result is a lighter, faster, less complex aircraft with weapons that won't damage the craft when they're used. It's still excellent as a scout aircraft and its bombs mean that it can take out their airships. They're not good for skiffs and carpets, but you need to understand that those things require different tools to defeat: rifles to kill their carpets and HAC-1s with explosive ammunition to kill their skiffs.

If you want aircraft to have any kind of cannon, get a skyship. Cannons have no place being on a single-person aircraft of the F43's kind. If you want an interceptor with weapons besides bombs, you need to start proposing some groundwork designs because everything we have now won't work.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[VoidSlayer]

Leaving it unarmed except with a bomb bay makes me even more opposed.

What if we leave only the HAC-1 and upgrade it to have explosive ammo?

Edit: We honestly do not have any weapon that would be a good fit for this aircraft.  Except maybe our normal fireball...

[Light forger]

Here would be my thoughts on the F43.

First off how do the wings works with it's propulsion system? Do they have control surfaces(aka flaps/foils) otherwise all they are doing is reducing maneuverability. If this is going to be a UFO why not use a circle for the wing design letting it generate lift when it flies in any direction. Further to the point why add wings at all if we have a 'force wave' pushing the craft at all times?
Next off the the thing is going to weigh a ton. It needs to be armored enough to tank a ballistae bolt since due to lucky strike dodging is unlikely. Next off it's armed with a breech loading single shot cannon. How is the pilot going to reload that and fly the craft? Our HAC isn't exactly small or low recoil. Finally in addition it's armed with both "rockets" and bomb, this is our first aircraft that is alot of weight to mount on the thing.

For the air skiff 90% of the design is spent on the essence generator with 9% being spent on changing the protector's engine and 1% on the hull. Further more if we do get the generator to work we can in effect making flying warships and, not have to worry able being sniped/lightninged out of the sky.

[Chiefwaffles]

The entire point of the F43 is to be an interceptor. I'd rather remove the bomb bay than the blastpods. The AS-HAC-1 is something I'm willing to change because I'm not as confident in its benefits.
Our problem is the Moskurger air units. The F43 aims to fix that.

@Light forger:
Wings - The wings are primarily there for style. They add some energy efficiency with lift and their impact to speed should negligible. Really, though, it's for style. The impact of wings should be minimal and ultimately they're just there to have the F43 look cool.
Weight - 1.) It's made out of crystal (and its strength means we need small amounts of crystal to tank ballista bolts) 2.) It's small 3.) The KPD should be able to handle everything else.
AS-HAC-1 Reloading & Weight - The F43 should be able to hover. And this isn't just some extra design goal, but a consequence of the nature of the KPD. So reloading while hovering or flying in a straight direction.


Also, Evicted posted the calibers of our guns in Discord.

R1            11 mm's
HAC-1    14 mm's
HC1-E     47 mm's
HA1         81 mm's

One last thing:

I'm updating the F43 to make sacrifices in the Blastpods. The barrel will be shorter and the blast less powerful for thinner walls. The Blastpod will only be able to shoot up to Medium range. Long range using a +R shell.
This is instead of the HC1-E's Extreme range.

This should make it so the Blastpods are significantly lighter.

[helmacon]

Someone add me to the areal mobility unit. I might consider supporting the f43 if the cannons are removed. Also, clip the wings. Style is a stupid reason to add something to a design.

[Chiefwaffles]

If someone gives me a nice replacement for the description of its shape then I'll remove the wings.

As for the cannons, I'm probably not budging anymore. The AS-HAC-1 is, as I expected, quite small. And I did just greatly reduce the Blastpods in size by halving their range.

[Draignean]

The F43 seems to me to be a silly amount of optimism in a field we've never ventured into before. Hell, I'd feel bad if it actually succeeded on a meaningful level. It'd be if like the Moskurgs made some kind of four meter wand of ball lightning and instantly began matching our artillery.

I believe in the jet packs, I believe in the falcons, I don't know if I believe in this.

4 - ASAF-F43 Interceptor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist,Gwolfski, Andres
1 - Direct Application Frost Towers: Andres
1 - Berserker Array: Kadzar
3 - Aerial Mobility Unit: Andrea, Draignean, Helmacon
0 - SA-1: Railed Man Cannon:
1 - Overclock Process MK 1: RAM
1 - Falcon Air Skiff: Lightforger
0 Weightite:
1 War Falcons: Void Slayer

[helmacon]

Reducing size and changing the range means we would be designing a whole new weapon. We are already designing an aircraft. Let's just stick with that for now.

[Chiefwaffles]

We would not be designing a whole new weapon.

Let's walk through our current cannon designs.

HC1-E: Our first cannon with some later revisions. Makes sense that it'd be a design.
HA1: A huge cannon unlocking a never-seen-before range that Moskurg still can't actually reach (without height bonus) to this day.
AS-HAC-1: The first downscaling (EDIT: For reference, the HC1-E is ~50mm. The AS-HAC-1 is 13mm. That's significant downscaling) of a cannon plus lower caliber plus the first introduction of breech-loading.
AS-R1: A cannon reduced in size (and caliber) to be able to fit in one's hand, introduces (poorly) non-boiler cannons, and is powered by Magegems.

Now let's look at the Blastpod.
Blastpod: Shorten the barrel of the HC1-E, make the sides thinner, and reduce the power of the spell.


An interceptor is only useful if it has weapons to intercept with.

[RAM]

A forcebolt spell would be better than a cannon, the whole point of the thing is that it doesn't need range. As for a visual design, make it look like a bullet, that way when they use their bullet-deflecting spell, it can do just like all the other bullets and deflect pathetically, instead of flailing miserably from its large, decorative sails. Are we sure that the wings are decorative? I mean, bird-wings are perfect for a fixed-wing craft, but they are sort-of plausible, but they would need to be huge, and, again, they can deflect BULLETS, bullets are heavy, we need something heavier, not something lighter. We kind of need the Overclock first so that our pilots will have a half-a-hope of surviving the acceleration of getting yanked around by a glancing blow from a whirlwind. Or we could just design weightite and hit their stuff with the cannons that we already have. Their fires are already sticky enough to, well, stick...

[Kadzar]

4 - ASAF-F43 Interceptor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist,Gwolfski, Andres
1 - Direct Application Frost Towers: Andres
0 - Berserker Array:
4 - Aerial Mobility Unit: Andrea, Draignean, Helmacon, Kadzar
0 - SA-1: Railed Man Cannon:
1 - Overclock Process MK 1: RAM
1 - Falcon Air Skiff: Lightforger
0 Weightite:
1 War Falcons: Void Slayer

[Chiefwaffles]

@Draignean:
The difference here is that we already have experience in Blastball-based propulsion. It is primitive, but combined with our extreme Fireball/Blastball mastery, this is very possible.
And like I said, the goal here is to beat Moskurg in the air by suddenly adding a new factor to it.

Moskurg ships are all meant for one thing: Ground support. They're fast to avoid getting hit by ground-based defenses and armored from the bottom to be protected from ground-based defenses.
Their pilots are out in the open, their air-to-air weapons are greatly lacking, and they aren't prepared for this.
So if we introduce a fighter designed specifically for dogfighting, then we will have a very good chance at winning. Sure, their aircraft would probably beat the F43 no matter how well it could roll when it comes to effectiveness against ground units, but we don't need that.

We just need to win in dogfighting, something Moskurg has never prepared for.


@RAM:
That's actually a good point about weight.
However, I fully doubt they'll be able to use their anti-projectile wind magic against the F43. The F43 isn't a bullet and isn't a shell. Their magic is for decreasing the range of the unpowered shells.

No matter how light the F43 is relative to aircraft, it's going to be much heavier than a shell. And it's going to be constantly moving itself. And it changes course. It'll take serious dedicated effort by Moskurg to attempt countering the F43 with wind, and while they do that we can make the F43 even better or make new aircraft.


Also daily reminder that with the F43 designed, we can just revise jetpacks. All we'd need to do is revise the KPD so it can be strapped onto combat armor.

EDIT: Also, the offer to replace the description of the F43's appearance/shape if someone posts an alternative is still standing.