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[RAM]

Crafting a mould is basically sculpting, it is neither easy nor quick, and it is often broken into rubble when it is used. Mathematically perfect moulds would be handy. Crafting moulds is a huge time and effort investment. The, removing the mould is not completely simple, you would not ask random people off the street to do it. Between our mathemagical mastery of crystals and the certainty of written symbolism in circuits, it should be possible to get something that is obscenely superior in speed and consistency to anything that an industrial-revolution smelter could achieve and all with very simple, pragmatic uses of magic's natural advantages. It can make a shape, probably a very perfectly precise one, just appear and disappear. This is the right tool for the right job, rather than an incremental increase in combat performance where we have already flooded the market with magical solutions.

[Andres]

But if that wasn't enough, I'm happy for a simpler one:
Crystalworks TL;DR: Use automation and energy storage to produce a plentiful supply of cheap crystal items.

That is a much better tl;dr. I'd prefer if we could focus on our existing technologies until we get them to a level of basic sufficience first, but after that this is not a bad idea.

TL;DR: We make a crystal shell around our HA1's to protect the artillery piece itself, the crew, and a small amount of ammunition.

Read this:

Note: Streamlining any process required to build this will make it just barely Expensive.  The biggest issue with this device is the spotting system and poor lethality of near-misses at high angles.

The biggest issue with the HA1s that we're capable of solving isn't that they're too easy to destroy, it's that they simply don't do a lot of damage. At the range they're meant to operate at, explosive ammunition is necessary. It is important to make a useless thing useful first, then make it cheap or better protected.

Furthermore, I would like to note the large number of designs we have that haven't received a sufficient amount of refinement. Using our Design phase to make refined versions of designs we currently have will be more efficient and offer better returns than using the phase to give us yet more designs that need refinement to be useful.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[FallacyofUrist]

Hm. To summarize, we need: 1. Better artillery and artillery ammo. 2. Something to deal with Lucky Strike. 3. Something to deal with their Frost Tower counterspell. 4. Something to flip the battlefield. Not necessarily in that order.

See below.

Spoiler: Future Designs and Revisions (click to show/hide)

1.
Standardized Manufacturing: Through use of assembly lines, replaceable components, molds, lathes, and in general, modern manufacturing techniques, we now have standardized artillery and ammunition. This solves a lot of the problems we currently have, in addition to possibly making our artillery cheaper. Also fixes our Anti-Magic shells a bit.

Heat Transferance Barrel + Shells: Damaging our barrels due to heat is currently an issue. Using enchantments, we can now store all the heat that goes into the barrel and the shell as potential magical energy. When the shell impacts, all that energy goes back to its innate nature: flame. Boom, baby!

Accuracy Intel Mathmagic(AIM): Using Trigonometry, we can greatly increase the accuracy of our artillery.

2.
Disruptive Fog: This new fog variant has several changes to it. For one, it's a lot more tangible than the rest of our fog, though it can still be moved through. Two, our mages have more direct control over it. Three, it can be conjured at a distance. The idea is that when we see an incoming projectile, we use the fog to knock it off course. Can possibly be leveled into solid barriers, wind magic, and flight(in a balloon or otherwise) later on.

Better Anti-Magic Shells: Right now, they don't work. Using techniques of automated assembly line standardization manufacturmancy(automancy? constructamancy?), we've gotten our Anti-Magic Shells to work far more reliably and be far cheaper to produce.

3.
No idea. Probably something involving disruptive fog.

4.
Conjured Messenger Hawks: We can conjure hawks now, trained to carry messages to a magically specified target. Messaging, ho! Can be used to let our scouting teams inform our artillery teams of enemy locations.

Tunnel Bore: Let's use the same techniques we used with our HA1s. We can use a specialized crystal construct to rapidly dig large tunnels. Will likely need support revisions to make it more stealthy.

Dreadnoughts: Steam-powered tanks, minus artillery barrels(yet). Let's crush the plains.

Ki?: Have you ever heard the legend of Theodon Tyarl? Yeah. We've been thinking that his feats were legends... but what if they weren't? What let him perform those feats?

[10ebbor10]

I disagree with all that.

Our artillery is perfectly fine and doesn't need to be improved, Lucky strike is going to be rendered pointless by our increased range, and the frost tower counterspell will fail due to frost tower deployement in the Desert.

[FallacyofUrist]

The ammunition is still unique to each individual artillery piece due to variences in construction, and stone ammo crafted in the field will break and jam due to the incredible stresses the cannon puts on it.  The incredible weight and size of the ammo means an entire supply train is needed to bring enough into battle for sustained firing.  Likewise, the sheer size of the HA1 and need to be set up and taken down before moving means we will have to destroy it when retreating, lest it fall into Moskurg hands.  It is too heavy to be mounted on any of our existing boats, and even if we could a single firing would flip it.  The gold circuit is also proving to be less reliable; attempting to fire too fast means it can't cool down quickly enough and the gold will melt and run out of the engravings.  Weapon failure generally occurs soon after.  Additonally, the incredible rate at which the cannon consumes water means it must either ship water with the ammo or set up near a stream or lake.  It is also very obvious - the cannon sticks out above our lines, making it a target if the enemy gets within firing range. 

Perfectly fine.

Well, at least it might be a lower priority.

We do have increased range, but we can't use it without a way to spot the enemy, and we only have Onslaughts in the approximate numbers that we used to have HC1-Es in, meaning it might not be enough to stop them from advancing.

Third point's fine, though. Attack from the mountains, presumably. Do we want to use Myark to attack the homeland?

[andrea]

Heat is no longer a big problem with cannons, although not entirely solved.
Expense IS a problem and is what we are trying to fix this turn with standardized bores and machine rifling.
accuracy, I would say it is not a problem. What IS a problem is our lack of area of effect shells.

[evictedSaint]

Update will have to be later tonight, I'm afraid.  I can't really handle "3 phases a day" any more, so I'll probably try to do a design and revision one day and the combat phase the next.  It gives me time to mull over all the nuances of the combat.

[Andres]

That's fine.

[Roboson]

Heat is no longer a big problem with cannons, although not entirely solved.
Expense IS a problem and is what we are trying to fix this turn with standardized bores and machine rifling.
accuracy, I would say it is not a problem. What IS a problem is our lack of area of effect shells.

I agree. The enemy has accuracy, and area of effect ammunition. We don't have either. We have pretty good, yet still mundane, accuracy and low impact area. A very similar arms race actually happened during the American/Soviet Cold War. I don't remember the exact specifics, but it came down to the Americans having more accurate missiles or IBMs or whathaveyou. So what did the Soviets do? They just built bigger bombs. You don't have to be as accurate if your explosion range is large.

If we do anything else with our cannons in the near future, it should be some sort of explosive ammunition. I'm partial to Tower of Frost Ammo Permafrost Ammo. Basically we just take the principle of the minor frost towers and do it again. Instead of one big one, now we have several to increase range and power. If we put the frost spell into our ammunition, and we pelted them with micro-frost towers, then they're going to get cold really fast.

Works by turning the inside of a hollow shell into a frost tower. The spell builds up inside of the shell during storage. When the shell lands and is damaged, it releases the built up frost spell in a frost nova. Then if its not absolutely shredded, the shell continues to give off the Forever Frost spell.

[andrea]

what is going to happen is, as soon as the shell enters their antimagic field it will be deactivated and will just be a cold lump of metal.
Unless we develop the spell equivalent of faraday cages.

That said, making the shell frosty may cause it to shatter from thermal stress, making shrapnel.

[Roboson]

what is going to happen is, as soon as the shell enters their antimagic field it will be deactivated and will just be a cold lump of metal.
Unless we develop the spell equivalent of faraday cages.

That said, making the shell frosty may cause it to shatter from thermal stress, making shrapnel.

Yeah, but as of now all our shells are just cold lumps of metal. We may as well have some that aren't. Plus, they can't anti-magic everything, they still need to magic their ballistas for them to luckystrike. Right now our shells come crashing out of the sky, and make small holes in the ground. Unless we're dead on target (almost impossible without lucky strike) then we may as well not be wasting the metal. We need a better blast range, even if some don't go off in anti-magic, its still incredibly worth it.

[andrea]

I believe they may have exceptions to their anti magic field. we haven't seen them cast in it, but they have no visible spells. I would rather have something that explodes in flight beyond anti magic range and rains shrapnel on them, would be much safer and still effective.

[10ebbor10]

Do remember, that the antimagic spell only prevents spells activating within it's range. Our fireballs did perfectly well if they activated before that.

A fireball engraving inside our spells would be very usefull.

On a side note, here's a proposal to deal with their annoying fire stuff.

Anti-fire Safety Blanket

Woven out of course Artotskan wool, and more importantly, a tiny amount of gold thread, this blanket includes a permanent cold spell similar to those used in our cannons. It is hence fireproof, and can be used to quench those annoying primitive fire pots.

[andrea]

Do remember, that the antimagic spell only prevents spells activating within it's range. Our fireballs did perfectly well if they activated before that.

Yes, this is what I mean. Whatever we do, it should activate before it is in range of their antimagic. a continuous effect like the frost shell risks being useless, since it relies on being able to work after it lands. While a mid flight fireball is explodey, causes metal shrapnel as well as the fire, and if triggered mid flight will be unaffected by their antimagic.

[Roboson]

Do remember, that the antimagic spell only prevents spells activating within it's range. Our fireballs did perfectly well if they activated before that.

Yes, this is what I mean. Whatever we do, it should activate before it is in range of their antimagic. a continuous effect like the frost shell risks being useless, since it relies on being able to work after it lands. While a mid flight fireball is explodey, causes metal shrapnel as well as the fire, and if triggered mid flight will be unaffected by their antimagic.

You realize that's only a secondary effect right? That's not the main purpose.