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[Chiefwaffles]

Hence why I think we should sell the original steam engine. Still serves the purpose yet with less risk if it becomes public.
The problem though with the trader is that an expense credit is a really nice thing to have, and a really bad thing for the other side to have.

[Roboson]

Are we down for just taking his cash if he doesn't give us the two expense credits? Because I'm more than down for that.

[Chiefwaffles]

1.) He won't give us the two expense credits. That's only if we forcibly seize the ship.
2.) There will be consequences if we seize it.

[RAM]

an expense credit is a really nice thing to have, and a really bad thing for the other side to have.

Hence we probably ought to give them something, you know, 'nice'...
Steam engine is beautiful, but a little impractical, and requires a lot of explanation to someone who we can't communicate so well with. We could break the bank by giving them our armour, hauberk and all, but if the keggers could reproduce it that way... We could try the broadswords, but they are not magical at all, there are probably better out there. Our antimagic charms are, well, useless for anyone else... The forever frost tower might be small enough to be transportable as cargo, and we can demonstrate its usage even if it can't be reproduced without support. The crystal weapons are nice, but the trader will go nuclear if they vanish and the crystal weapons would actually be really really effective against us and useless against the keggers... Everything seems to have a horrible downside and I am just too weary right now to look at it.

I can't help but think that there could be some sort of long-term benefit to making this work well. Otherwise we can just fireball their rudder and offer them a nice cottage in the mountains if they turn over their goods(using descriptive pictures), or, if they decide to scuttle their boat, they can help use develop our cold spells...

Then again, seizing the ship might "just" be difficult, with no other consequences. In which case our new fireballs should make it easy, just nuke their steering and propulsion and they really can't make it to another port. It is not like they can turn around to Mosskeg if they can't turn...

Or we could, you know, try being civil. they are not desert-heathens, to the best of our knowledge...

[Roboson]

1.) He won't give us the two expense credits. That's only if we forcibly seize the ship.
2.) There will be consequences if we seize it.

Something makes me think that there's no money in the ship. I feel as though we're getting ripped off here. As far as consequences, whats one boat going to do? I'm not worried about that.

[Roboson]

Accidentally opened the Arstotskan thread again.

Spoiler: Arstotskan Eyes Only (click to show/hide)

I saw something about a steam engine(?).

Also, is this guy serious? In the main thread where everyone is going to look at even if it says Arstotskan only? That's super not cool.

[Chiefwaffles]

It's not about the boat, but the foreign aspect.
Regardless of precautions we may take, news will get out and will spread to the merchant's nation of origin. Hearing that a new nation forcibly seized and stole the first ship of yours they saw isn't a great start to relations.

And RAM: That's the thing about the steam engine. It's a novel new amazing technology that has the smallest possibility of going horribly wrong if the design gets discovered. Hence why I want to go with the first design steam engine: It has all the benefits the newer ones have to the trader: It's new, novel, and cool. But if it gets discovered by Moskurg, then they get a cool but useless technology that they will have to spend even more time on it than we did because they have no idea how it works in the first place and have no access to fire-based magic.

EDIT: @Roboson's new post:
"""accidently"""

[Roboson]

Ok ok ok. But if there is no money or its a trick of some sort, what do we do?

[stabbymcstabstab]

we kill them all and show them our brand new fireball that can wipe out armies with three to four castings.

also does anyone have a count of the current vote tally? because I'll admit giving him the first steam engine design wouldn't be a bad idea.



Fakeedit: isn't this the second time they looked in our thread then posted what they saw in the mainthread? We might have to start coding our designs if it keeps up. So go grab your king james bible.

[FallacyofUrist]

Hopefully, they'll be good sports and not look in the spoilers.

[Chiefwaffles]

If it's a trick and the merchant leaves with the steam engine (probably the steam engine, at least): We don't really lose anything and the merchant disappears.

If the merchant gives/sells it to Moskurg, then they get the steam engine. Assuming that we sell the merchant the new steam engine, then Moskurg may be able to get a jump start on fire magic, and on the steam engine. Fire stuff completely depends on how evictedSaint views it. The way I see it, one can't really learn how to utilize fire magically based solely on the steam engine, design or no design. But who knows how the GM may spin it. Though they definitely would get the steam engine. They'll either find it useless, or try to adapt it to their own technology/magic techniques. This would take them a decent amount of revision and design credits and cost them quite a bit to get up to the level where we are now with it. Worst case scenario, they waste quite a lot of credits on the steam engine, deploy it, then we revise ours and don't get an advantage for it. Not the end of the world and again, it's the worst case scenario.

@stabby, yes. This is the second time they've done it, and I'm pretty sure it's the same punishment. THIS TOTALLY COUNTS AS ESPIONAGE AND DESERVES EXTREME PUNISHMENT.
And lemme update the vote count:

1 Sell Wand of Fireballs: Azzuro
1 Seize ship: Azzuro
2 Sell crate of crystal weapons: Roboson, 10ebbor10
4 Sell steam engine: FallacyofUrist, stabbymcstabstab, Turant, Chiefwaffles
2 Sell original steam engine: Chiefwaffles, stabbymcstabstab
2 Sell original steam engine & crate of crystal weapons: Chiefwaffles

(I added two separate things for original engine and "original engine & crystal weapons" to be even more precise)
evicted: Can the original steam engine just be amended onto the winning "sell steam engine" action? After all, if you remove stabby and I from the "Sell steam engine" action then the two things are equal.


EDIT: Further thoughts, since I can't help myself:
We should definitely revisit the anti-magic bomb arrows soon. They have huge potential if we can improve them enough. Imagine if they were both cheap and only reacted to enemy magic. That would be a huge boon for us. Hell, we could save the expense credit if we win it and do something about mathemagics/some kind of "identifying signature" Identify-Friend-Foe part in our spells, like a radioactive isotope identifier used in science, to make the anti-magic bombs not respond to our magic.

[FallacyofUrist]

How do we detect enemy magic, though? Particular spell detection, maybe, but the magic of a Moskurgian in general?

Also, here's a neat idea I had(for the next design phase):

Brainflayer Wasp: A single conjured wasp, which the conjuror has complete control over. The special thing about this wasp is that its sting lays a tiny egg in what it stings. The egg hatches into a larvae, which then makes its way through the bloodstream to the brain, where it will then eat some specified portions of it, effectively lobotomizing the victim. Shortly after, it vanishes into the aether, leaving no evidence behind. Moskurg are going to tear their hair out trying to figure out what's happening, especially if we revise to make the wasp and its sting less noticeable.

[stabbymcstabstab]

EDIT: Further thoughts, since I can't help myself:
We should definitely revisit the anti-magic bomb arrows soon. They have huge potential if we can improve them enough. Imagine if they were both cheap and only reacted to enemy magic. That would be a huge boon for us. Hell, we could save the expense credit if we win it and do something about mathemagics/some kind of "identifying signature" Identify-Friend-Foe part in our spells, like a radioactive isotope identifier used in science, to make the anti-magic bombs not respond to our magic.

That's not a bad Idea, actually thing about if we re-introduced one of the "accounts for bugs that don't exist" bits from the original fire-ball wand into a spell. and make it so the spell on the arrows senses that and is made to not try and absorb it we could solve that issue. hell that might be the reason those bits in the original spell existed as a IFF, to work with other spells in some way, or a maker's mark.

How do we detect enemy magic, though? Particular spell detection, maybe, but the magic of a Moskurgian in general?

^thats how

[Chiefwaffles]

If one more person already supporting "sell steam engine" (Fallacy, Turant) definitively supports "Sell original steam engine" then we can have a definite action for the trader.


And the idea for the anti-magic bombs is like I said: The magical equivalent of the radioactive isotope technique used in various fields of science. The general gist of the radioactive isotopes is that they can be used as markers because they emit mild and harmless radioactive "signals" that can be easily detected by equipment.
The same thing can be applied to our magic - tiny identifiers in them that can only be "seen" if you're explicitly looking for it. Our own anti-magic stuff can, through the magic of non-awful design/revision rolls, ignore the stuff with the identifiers in it. The identifiers should be extremely easy to "place" in existing spells and magic.

Or, in other words, we can have our anti-magic stuff just ignore our magic instead of bending over backwards to have it somehow only apply to enemy magic.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Want to switch vote to original. Aside that just doing spell design notes. Re doing a fire ball idea I had and maybe attempt to sell "enlarge" in inanimate and living thing. Should we disable their wands.