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[RAM]

Hrmmm, a persistent true strike as an ongoing guidance... I like it. Ummm, the "reactor" is, I believe, the size of a small room, or large cupboard, more the latter. As a shell it might be difficultto get it to work, but we have aethergems that explode, and those are supposed to be issues to our troops, so they ought to work.

+1 to the seeker

[andrea]

yes, an "appropriately sized reactor" as in a new style magegem ( more integrated, all crystal). Just, without the circuit described as turning explosion into sound .

edit: some discussion happened in discord.
Mostly, some concern about the viability of lucky strike on what is a mostly autonomous projectile. Also, a suggestion to advance at the same time in the field of living magic or "Mindgems".
Basically, we would still inscribe the lucky strike in it, but also add a conjured mind of sorts, acting as a medium between the lucky strike guidance and the nozzle of the rocket.

this is the proposal as proposed: "In order to achieve this partial lucky strike, we partially replicate the mind of a wasp (thanks to our knowledge of minds and summoning!) via magic inside a solid-state Aethergem [note: just use regular Aethergem if solid-state adds complexity]. This pseudo-"Mindgem", although quite honestly nothing like a mind and more like circuitry designed for processing data, is used to take the data from Lucky Strike and interpret it into KPD2 vectoring movements."

What do you people think?

[FallacyofUrist]

You know what, we should totally make the reactor convert the explosion it would make into magical energy. Magical fault tolerance! Maybe we can start on that with our revision.

DESIGN
3 - ASAF-F45 "Lightning": Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres
2 - SPS-1 Self Propelled Shell "Seeker": Andrea, RAM

[RAM]

I do not think that we need gems in the "mindgems". I have been pushing for intelligent spells for ages and binding it to a physical presence just seems wasteful of the potential to have fully autonomous *anything* that you just don't get even a little bit if it needs a highly specialised and likely fragile component that needs to be moved and powered separately. It 'might' be possible to extend living spells from the base of mindgems, but it would be a stretch to get them from "this is our circuitry to make an autonomous turret" to "this is a pattern for a forest-fire to like the taste of Keggers". We really are WAY WAY WAY too crystal-dependant at the moment. They already completely eliminated ALL of our crystals once, they can do it again... So yes, personal peeve, don't take my living spells idea and lobotomise it into what is essentially a physical computer.

Also, that is a design all of its own, and as such adding it to a guided projectile is not impossible, but it is a bit of a risk that you might end up with neither. Adding in a derivative of the brand-new lucky-strike magic and I think it is very doomed.

 Lucky strike itself is "good luck" already packaged as inherently "good". No control device is required. I can't even see what that would do. I mean, it is good luck, that is not controlled by anything nor does it communicate, it just makes good things happen. It is already a control device, it would basically be having two control devices one of which doesn't contribute any function. The computer would, what, be randomly more likely to have good ideas about where to steer? Why not just make it more likely to steer in a good direction with no middle-man?

Lucky-strike as guidance seems plausible to me. The projectile constantly deflects, due to chance, towards a desirable target. Add in a tassel or something to increase its ability to be deflected by minor influences like pressure differentials and wind squalls...

And the reactor seems, again, to be too big, so making a small one would be a new design, or at least a revision. It makes it very ambitious with little advantage over a basic aetherbombgem.

So, basically, my thought is that someone fed you one of their pet projects and turned your idea into something that will never work in a single design and contributes nothing to its function, but might advance their own agenda. I would avoid discord like the plague...

[FallacyofUrist]

While I do like the idea of a disembodied mind, it seems much harder to make one that's not bound to a corporeal form.

We could make computers using circuits... relatively easily, but summoning a disembodied mind? A spirit?

[RAM]

Yes, it is difficult. I would want a purely theoretical design on it, but considering that we would be basically summoning it, and we already have summoning magic that summons living things, and that we have that pitiful, but relevant, taming spell for the hawks, and even some indirect experience from having interviewed the victims of sleep spells and mind reading and such... It should be a relatively easy theoretical design that could then be implemented into most anything that is designed afterwards.

[evictedSaint]

They already completely eliminated ALL of our crystals ... they can do it again...

No, I made the call that Hard Counters aren't allowed any more. I shouldnt have let it happen in the first place, but I'm kind of a shitty GM.

Closing the vote on designs in an hour or so.

[RAM]

No, I made the call that Hard Counters aren't allowed any more.

Was this announced somewhere?
Does this mean that the ballista bolts that seemed to be bouncing off of our aircraft will now be taking out chips of crystal, slowly wearing away at armour and centre-of-mass?

Lucky Strike:  Magical guidance makes a squad shoot or strike true far more often than usual.  Expensive.

I suppose that it is vaguely possible that it could be considered that it tells people where to shoot, but it really hasn't been playing out that way. It really isn't possible for someone to adjust their aim finely enough for it to be the difference between hitting a specific human with an arcing shot at a range too great to see at. Nor to have the reaction time to wait until a cpecific monent in an airships rocking motion. Even if it works like that it has got to be taking control of the people aiming, forcing them to trigger their ballista at just the right moment so that it unwinds at just the right rate to actually release at a specific moment so that it is at just the perfect angle... It really just doesn't work at all unless it is already a completely self-contained package with no computer translation required.

[evictedSaint]

Design: ASAF-F45 "Lightning" [4+1, 6-1, 5+1]

The next generation of hovercraft, the ASAF-F45 "Lightning" features the Kinetic Propulsion Drive Mk. 3.  The KPD Mk. 3 uses the entire underside of the craft as a propulsion surface rather than the bell-shaped nozzle of the KPD Mk. 2, which sacrifices efficiency for stability.  The wide, flat surface generates an "on-going explosion" across the entire expanse - the distribution of this thrust can be modulated by controls in the pilots cockpit.  By intensifying on one side or another the craft can roll and pitch, but must still use sweeping turns to yaw.  A significant amount of thrust is lost laterally as it "leaks" around the edges of the craft, but the Aether Reactor (which dominates the center of the craft) provides enough output that the craft actually sees a performance boost over the F44.  The Lightning is able to fly faster and higher than before, but acceleration is still slow - a symptom of the overall design.

The turret is still unpowered, but a flexible nickel wire pulls a portion of the energy from the reactor to the gun, allowing it to be operated by a non-magical gunner.  The caliber has been upgraded from 14 mm to 20 mm, which has proportionally increased the lethality and recoil.  The field of fire has not changed from -5° down to 45° up, and still must be loaded manually between each shot.  The cockpit, turret, and reactor are armored thickly enough to prevent ballista rounds from penetrating, and resistive/non-resistive layering gives it some survivability against lightning strikes.  Because the entire bottom surface of the craft is used to provide lift, we are unable to safely mount explosive artillery shells underneath.  The craft can still capsize, but is stable enough that it doesn't require the full focus of a specially-trained pilot.  Because more people can safely use it, the Lightning is merely Expensive.

[RAM]

Design: ASAF-F43 Interceptor
...
Difficulty - This is fairly ambitious, but definitely not impossible.
...
(can move in any direction with great speed). Then we build a small+light crystal hull around it. Then give it weapons.
Basically, a very cool multi-role aircraft. That is 100% most certainly not the Haast. Trust me.
...
The idea is to very suddenly introduce Moskurg to dogfighting then immediately beat them at it. Their aircraft is meant to quickly get in, bomb us, then get out. It's not meant for dogfighting. At all. So if we make Dogfighting a thing, we will win.

Well it has been three dedicated design actions and numerous other assorted actions working on various support systems. We still have not beaten them at dogfighting. The latest iteration is not a multirole craft, despite getting good rolls and being stated as our final design in this series. It really isn't particularly fast, and the acceleration cuts into its agility. On the topic of dogfighting, it crashes if it tips too far, so it can't do a barrel roll... I would say that it has been confirmed as definitely impossible from a single design action. Also the hull design has been cited as a specific weakness. I think this brings my "I told you so" count up to about 3, I will try not to splurge on these, they are kind of annoying but they serve to maintain awareness so I can't bring myself to just abandon them.

[Chiefwaffles]

Cool!

Now, for revisions.
I'll let someone else do the revision addressing the Protectors' transmission/suspension/wheel problems if they want to. Vehicular engineering isn't exactly something I'm good at.

Revision: Crystal Ammunition Fabrication

The CAF is a simple revision to the AS-HAC-1 (and Lightning turret) as well as other weapon designs if time allows.

We take a fabricator scroll from the Crystalworks, program the appropriate shell size into it, put it in a small crystal container, then mount it to the desired weapon and wire it to the weapon's power source+circuitry if possible. The weapon's circuitry will automatically activate the CAF after generating the Blastball, and the CAF will conjure a new crystal bullet/shell into the chamber ready for firing. If the weapon does not use circuitry, then the firing mage triggers the CAF instead.
The CAF either relies on the weapon's power source and/or a mage feeding it.

The highest priority implementation of the CAF is to the Lightning's turret. Then the AS-HAC-1 and AS-R1 with equal priority.

TL;DR: Take a Crystalworks Fabricator scroll, program in the right size of bullet, then stick it to the side of a gun and wire it to that gun's circuitry and/or power if available.

Revision: KPD4

The KPD4 is a straightforward change and upgrade to the KPD3.

Instead of limiting thrust to the bottom of craft, which severely limits acceleration in any direction which isn't up as well as general agility of the craft, the KPD4 sees the application of thrust to all sides of the aircraft. Of course, this isn't as simple as "put KPD circuits on the sides and top" which is why effort needs to be spent on this, and we can't just easily do it without a second thought.

The main challenge should be acquiring finer control over the KPD's thrust output. Refining it so the kinetic thrust is more exact and focused is what will allow us to do the (easy) step of applying the circuits on all sides of the craft. This should be the transition away from "controlled explosions" to direct kinetic manipulation. With this more refined thrust application, we can then put KPD circuits on the rest of the craft.

The result should be obvious - the Lightning will gain insane improvements in acceleration because it'll be able to actually apply thrust to the desired direction, instead of angling itself so a portion of its thrust goes in the desired direction. Agility will see huge gains as well, as the Lightning will be able to move in any direction thanks to the omnidirectional thrust. The refined application of thrust should mean we can also mount bombs on the Lightning, though that'd only come into play if our engineers have a bomb-carrying Lightning design in safekeeping.

TL;DR: Make the KPD more exact and refined in its thrust so it's less "controlled explosion" and more "kinetic manipulation". With this done, we'll be able to put KPD circuits on all sides of the Lightning, allowing for omnidirectional thrust and insane improvements in acceleration+agility+etc.

REVISION
1 - Crystal Ammunition Fabrication: Chiefwaffles
1 - KPD4: Chiefwaffles

EXPENSE CREDIT
1 - Don't use yet: Chiefwaffles

As for the Expense Credit, I think we should save it so we can make a really big NE-worthy design then bring it down to VE. Though I wouldn't object too much to using it on the Lightning since we can just use revisions on it instead of designing new aircraft.

[RAM]

"no hard counters" does encourage the use of nothing but crystals, but just because there are no hard counters doesn't mean that there are not counters at all. A sonic weapon(between wind and thunder I am sure that they can justify it, and "lightning beats metal" is right up there with "sound beats crystal" so it should prove effective.) won't instantly smash all of our crystals, but it could well see a greatly increased effectiveness against them. I would like to see an alternative.

Weightite Works
We adjust a crystalworks platform to instead summon a "very dense material" ideally in the region of 10 times heavier than lead. This would ideally be implemented into our ammunition production and shipped out to our heavy guns in as large quantities as can be mustered.
Very ambitious trying to get a new material out of a revision, but we do have yonks of experience on crystalworks so it seems plausible to me. it would set us up with a really good foundation for future ammunition projects and, fundamentally, wind is what happens when the entire world is moving. The only ways to beat that are to swim against the current using guided missiles of some sort or to increase your inertia so that it takes longer for you to accelerate. Using the notably low-density crystals, for example, would be comically useless. They would get blown around much more easily. Wind spells could reduce their range more than they do for our current bullets and if they developed a sonic shield it could disrupt their cohesion causing them to shatter on impact with a much reduced penetration and much increase energy deflection.

Large Mundane-Nests of Power
We combine reactors with Mundanes in whatever proportion makes sense. Ideally we can use some sort of cable to directly transfer power, but it should be easy enough to install aethergem recharging and replacement sytems and just shuttle the gems back and forth. It should also be relatively simple to put some armour around the reactor to keep it from being destroyed. With luck this will see a dramatic increase in the rate-of-fire of Mundanes.

Small reactors
Reduce the size and weight of reactors until they can be carried by infantry, and implement a magem-recharging facility.

[helmacon]

Will vote for Large Mundane-Nests of Power if it gets a better name.

[RAM]

But but but... muh wordplay!

[VoidSlayer]

Can we please get lucky strike.  Once we revise it to be usable we can greatly increase our ability to hit things immediately, at both long and extreme ranges, and work towards other divination magics.  We might only be able to enchant a few airships and ground cannons but we can overcome the accuracy gap.

Revision: Lucky Strike

We have taken the pseudo religious nonsense of the Moskurg scroll and translated it into proper mathemagics.  It is a whole new field, and the spell itself only hits on a small part of it, but it is enough to cast it with just a little bit of hand waving at the parts we do not really understand but seem to work when we actually follow the steps.

Edit: My revision even has an insult against the enemy!  It is sure to work!