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[andrea]

@Ram about the codpiece ripper, the main problem of our steam engine is us not knowing the right size for the turbine yet. Do you intend to fix that in the revision?  I feel that it could be added to the design, if you simplify other stuff like the gearwork. For example, instead of using an oar motion, we can have wheels with handles. Or actual oars in other parts of the ship.

@Ebbor you seem a bit salty this last turn... relax! things are not going so bad.

[Chiefwaffles]

Right. The plants. I definitely say we need the plant-growth spell. Our design phase could be used to make more individually useful designs but the jungle disappearing would be disastrous for us.
We could always improve the anti-magic bombs or use one of RAM's awesome ideas. Seriously. I love every one of those ideas, and we should definitely revisit them later.

1 steam cannon: Stabby
1 Obscuring Mists: shameless10ebor10
0 Timed Bomb Arrows :
0 Variable Crystal Weapons :
0 Fireball arrows :
0 Earth Elemental Control :
1 - (Anti-magic) "IFF System": Stabbyx2
0 - Anti-magic bomb lingering anti-magic fields:
0 - Anti-magic mines:
1 Attunement Rods: RAM
0 Crystal Tower Shields:
0 Saboteurs :
0 Design: Living Shields:
0 Design: Codpiece-Rippers:
1 Plant-growth: Chiefwaffles
0 Permanent conjuration:
0 Pillar of unmagic:

1?Sell the Crystal Axes: shameless?
1 Use channelled fog: shamelessRAM

[10ebbor10]

Proposal : Limit the amount of proposed designs to two per person to limit clutter.

I'm sorry, did you just not read the combat report explicitly stating how effective they are?

Only because the GM made the Moskurgians hug the idiot ball and forgot to post guards at their camps. Oh, and had that camp attack been done by firewands, the Moskurgians would have had all their wizards killed. But we needed something to show the thing worked, so we get this illogical sequence of events were both sides conspire to showcase one tech.

What are these supposed hard counters anyways?

Aren't they obvious? Moskurgian wind spells can redirect or prematurely detonate them, Anti-magic deactivates them entirely.

1 steam cannon: Stabby
1 Obscuring Mists: 10ebor10
0 Timed Bomb Arrows :
0 Variable Crystal Weapons :
0 Fireball arrows :
0 Earth Elemental Control :
1 - (Anti-magic) "IFF System": Stabby
0 - Anti-magic bomb lingering anti-magic fields:
0 - Anti-magic mines:
1 Attunement Rods: RAM
0 Crystal Tower Shields:
0 Saboteurs :
0 Design: Living Shields:
0 Design: Codpiece-Rippers:
1 Plant-growth: Chiefwaffles
0 Permanent conjuration:
0 Pillar of unmagic:
Quote from: orders
1 Sell the Crystal Axes: 10ebbor10
1 Use channelled fog: RAM

Let's keep petty insults out of the vote tally. I think I cleared it up.

@Ebbor you seem a bit salty this last turn... relax! things are not going so bad

Bad is not the issue, illogical is. When logic no longer applies, this simply becomes a game of comparing dice.

[evictedSaint]

After much discussion with the design team, we elect to sell the crystal axes.  The only valuable component is really just the small, cheap gem inset into the handle, so we are making a huge profit on the sale.  And if he is intending to sell our secrets to the dirty Moskurgers to the south, then he'll be out of luck once the weapons dissolve into aether in a months time.  The trader eagerly loads up the crate and pays out enough to give us One Expense Credit for this year.  He and his crew happily wave goodbye as they sail out of the harbor with a crate of soon-to-vanish crystal weapons. 

What a sucker.

Arstotzka has gained one Expense Credit.

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh.  We didn't tell him that?
Shit.

Also ebbor, they have been proved to work. Please stop trying to find more "reasons" to hate anti-magic bombs just because they aren't 100% safe arrow-nukes.

[10ebbor10]

Also ebbor, they have been proved to work. Please stop trying to find more "reasons" to hate anti-magic bombs just because they aren't 100% safe arrow-nukes.

I'm showcasing valid flaws.

Or are you going to argue that the Moskurgians do not have anti-magic that the GM has explicitedly said will disable our bombs. Or that they don't have wind spells that can deflect them?

We caught them by suprise by GM fiat, but they will wizen up and ignoring flaws will backfire.

[Roboson]

@EvictedSaint: How effective is our channeled fog against their wind spell? Is it still getting blown away or are we capable of maintaining constant cover on our troops?

[evictedSaint]

@EvictedSaint: How effective is our channeled fog against their wind spell? Is it still getting blown away or are we capable of maintaining constant cover on our troops?

It's about even.  The fog is continuously generated from the casting mage, so as long as the troops trying to hide are downwind it will more-or-less cover them. 

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Design: Living Shields
There is no mistaking it. The fire wasps do not occur in nature and were made to our specifications, so they do not seem to have come from any extant population from beyond nature. The conjuration creates actual living beings, albeit temporary. They have instincts, purpose, and discretion. Let us focus upon this and amplify it to a very specific purpose, to persist! We have seen that the enemy spell nullifies the very concept of magic within its influence, so we give that concept the strength and tenacity to will itself into our mundane world regardless of what the weak-willed Keggers impose.

We mathemagically analyse the summon fire wasp spell to its component parts and rework their 'attack' aspect into a 'metaphysical persistence' aspect that allows them to directly counter attempts to dispel them at a fundamental level. We then take existing gem-crystal magic to provide this will with a reservoir of magic with which to defend itself.

We then use existing crystal-forging magic to imbue this effect into a crystal shield thick enough to resist their new hail of spears attack and light enough to be carried.

And then try to tag on a bit of magic-sense and will to "Proudly serve the Arstozkan homeland!" to have them compel their wielder to place them into the path of incoming threats, but this is low-priority.

Design: Codpiece-Rippers
The name is an unfortunate tale. It started with an unwillingness to use something obvious, loitered in tales of high piracy on the open seas, dove into bawdy romances, then took a turn for the offensively rebellious... The design, however, is for a larger longship. With two steam-plants and four oar-wheels(named paddle to some), it implements gemwork and systems from the forever frost tower to enhance the reliability and control of the spells but primarily implements a system of gears and belts to not only force the steam-power onto the mechanisms but also allow external power to be applied. Essentially, there are four rows of spokes which can be gripped and pulled in a motion similar to that of rowing to apply additional force to the oar-wheels. We no longer need to choose between steam and manpower, but can implement both! The key here is the complex gear systems that allow multiple input sources and alternate power->speed ratios. We also took the time to implement some obvious body-work, such as copper-cladding to increase hardness, a large ram with which to break any puny kegger vessels it strikes, and a forecastle to better besiege enemies. There are concerns about its ability to steer, but its insult-power is unmatched.

Design: Plant-growth
 By magically imbuing them with vitality-infused magic we stimulate the sudden growth of flora. It can be used for impromptu fortifications, knotted and spiky footing, or even cause tree-branches and roots to burst into enemy formations with far more force(though perhaps greatly lacking in speed) than required to pierce a dozen armoured horses.

Design: Permanent conjuration
 With our magic being unmade, we must do what has defeated us so often in the past, and make fully mundane that which we conjure from myth.

Design: Pillar of unmagic
By focusing all of our mathemagical and trigothaumical developments, along with our experience of the forever frost towers, we construct a great tower with an intricate core of quartz, with dimond studding on key locations allowing exposed magical pathways which permit fine control of the effect. This is, in essence, a giant antimagic charm, but capable of detailed attunement. It will, with careful handling and a large amount of time spent measuring its effects and trial-and-erroring precisely what is needed, be able to select a single spell and absorb all instances of it within a single theatre of battle.

1 steam cannon: Stabby
1 Obscuring Mists: shameless10ebor10
0 Timed Bomb Arrows :
0 Variable Crystal Weapons :
0 Fireball arrows :
0 Earth Elemental Control :
1 - (Anti-magic) "IFF System": Stabbyx2
0 - Anti-magic bomb lingering anti-magic fields:
0 - Anti-magic mines:
2 Attunement Rods: RAM Chiefwaffles
0 Crystal Tower Shields:
0 Saboteurs :
1 Design: Living Shields: Tyrant
0 Design: Codpiece-Rippers:
0 Plant-growth:
0 Permanent conjuration:
0 Pillar of unmagic:

1?Sell the Crystal Axes: shameless?
1 Use channelled fog: shamelessRAM

Shields we need in both theatres.

[Chiefwaffles]

What, Ebbor?

If they have anti-magic then they don't need to have anti-magic bombs used. It's the ones without anti-magic that we only care about using anti-magic bombs in the first place.

I've gone over the wind thing so many times.
Blowing arrows off course =/= Making arrows do 180 degree turns and hitting the shooter of the arrow or making any friendly fire at all.

[Roboson]

Honestly, at this point, steam cannons sound like a nice investment. Their wind can't block a cannon ball and it could help at sea. Has that already been discussed for this phase?

[Chiefwaffles]

Plant growth is a bigger issue.
If we don't fix it now they'll gain a huge advantage. The longer we wait the harder it'll be to fix. And investing into things such as spells to fix it still help us into other areas, like using a plant-growth spell for cover, disrupting the enemies, etc.

[evictedSaint]

ChiefWaffles, 10ebbor10

This is getting out of hand.  Continue via pm's if you'd like, but unless you're strictly discussing what to do this design  phase I want you to stop bickering.  It's not constructive and I'm tired of seeing it.

[Roboson]

Plant growth is a bigger issue.
If we don't fix it now they'll gain a huge advantage. The longer we wait the harder it'll be to fix. And investing into things such as spells to fix it still help us into other areas, like using a plant-growth spell for cover, disrupting the enemies, etc.

I can always get behind plant growth again, it was one of my favorites.

[10ebbor10]

Plant growth is new research. Ideally, we want something that uses old research.

Honestly, at this point, steam cannons sound like a nice investment. Their wind can't block a cannon ball and it could help at sea. Has that already been discussed for this phase?

Yup, in the beginning. My opinion is that we should not invest in experimental steam derived techniques when we can't even get ordinary ones to work.