Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[evictedSaint]

I'll update it with commander feedback later tonight, I dropped that part because I didn't think people paid much attention to it.

[Chiefwaffles]

We can use our revision for something practical and send in Myark to the jungle.

The thing is, the earlier we do infrastructure the better. The longer we wait, the less benefit it'll have and the more it'll hurt us. Besides, like I said, the Crystalworks has immediate benefits - it's the same as getting two new designs - the crystal axe and caltrops.

[Andres]

We can use our revision for something practical and send in Myark to the jungle.

You'll just vote to use the revision on the crystalworks.

The thing is, the earlier we do infrastructure the better. The longer we wait, the less benefit it'll have and the more it'll hurt us. Besides, like I said, the Crystalworks has immediate benefits - it's the same as getting two new designs - the crystal axe and caltrops.

Crystalworks will only make those things work if it succeeds. You intend to create anchored crystal and mass produce it in one fell swoop. The last time we did something like were the "Giant" Falcons. At the moment, we are suffering greatly from unwillingness to sit down and focus on the things we already have, always rushing off to pursue some new idea. The crystal circuitry, the equalisers, the magegems, and the dogwood wand - all of them YOUR ideas, notably - are all examples.

You're also selectively "longer we wait, less benefit we get". You forget that Moskurg now has control over both the Jungle and the Plains. The advantages they'll get from them will compound over time, so quickly depriving them of those resources should be a priority. Immediately useful designs and revisions should be our focus.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

The plains can be easily fixed by sending Myark.

We can use our revision for something practical and send in Myark to the jungle.

You'll just vote to use the revision on the crystalworks.

Oh, I'm sorry. I must of forgotten that you know what I'll do while I don't.

The thing is, the earlier we do infrastructure the better. The longer we wait, the less benefit it'll have and the more it'll hurt us. Besides, like I said, the Crystalworks has immediate benefits - it's the same as getting two new designs - the crystal axe and caltrops.

Crystalworks will only make those things work if it succeeds. You intend to create anchored crystal and mass produce it in one fell swoop. The last time we did something like were the "Giant" Falcons. At the moment, we are suffering greatly from unwillingness to sit down and focus on the things we already have, always rushing off to pursue some new idea. The crystal circuitry, the equalisers, the magegems, and the dogwood wand - all of them YOUR ideas, notably - are all examples.

Wow it's almost like the designs are made using dice or something.

You're also selectively "longer we wait, less benefit we get". You forget that Moskurg now has control over both the Jungle and the Plains. The advantages they'll get from them will compound over time, so quickly depriving them of those resources should be a priority. Immediately useful designs and revisions should be our focus.

Glory to Arstotzka.

And what I said is true. The longer we wait is more designs unable to use crystal when they could clearly benefit from it. If we do if at all later then it's more tense as well. We gain immediate effects and passive effects.


EDIT: Remember when Evicted said this?

If you revise your manufacturing process in a way that applies to both, then yeah it'll do that.  You guys have been comming up with these insane weapons with minimal infastructure to support them so far; I think I mentioned in the design that the HA1 is as far as you can get without a SERIOUS overhaul of your manufacturing process.

[Andres]

Wow it's almost like the designs are made using dice or something.

The magegems rolled very well and were still useless on arrival. Ambitious designs as a rule are never useful on the turn they're made, no matter how good or bad the rolls are. Only after multiple turns are they made useful in any meaningful way.

And what I said is true. The longer we wait is more designs unable to use crystal when they could clearly benefit from it. If we do if at all later then it's more tense as well. We gain immediate effects and passive effects.

We only get immediate effects if everything works according to the design document, and the odds of us rolling well enough to get that are slim to none. "None" because we might have to spend another turn working on it even if we roll very well, like all 5s.

EDIT: Remember when Evicted said this?

If you revise your manufacturing process in a way that applies to both, then yeah it'll do that.  You guys have been comming up with these insane weapons with minimal infastructure to support them so far; I think I mentioned in the design that the HA1 is as far as you can get without a SERIOUS overhaul of your manufacturing process.

We have since improved our manufacturing process for both rifling and barrel-making. Furthermore, the infrastructure he says is necessary is only for "insane" weapons like the HA1. More infrastructure isn't necessary for lesser designs.

[Chiefwaffles]

That's the point of Magegems. They will serve as essential part of future designs.
The Crystalworks isn't ambitious. Its main purpose is crystal anchoring then it also includes expense. How's that overambitious?

And with its main purpose, we should be getting the crystal axe and caltrops. The primary point of the Crystalworks is anchored crystal and expense. If it doesn't get anchored crystal, the design is useless anyways and would have to critically fail at its rolls. Which is a risk literally any design carries. If it does get anchored crystal, then we get crystal axes and caltrops back.

And what if we want to build any more "insane" designs? With this out of the way, we can do that at any point. If we don't do this now, we'll be heavily restricted until we create infrastructure. The sooner we get it out of the way, the better.

[FallacyofUrist]

Are the axes really that helpful in our current situation? That said, I do like permeant conjuration, especially if we move on to flexible crystal from there. Permanent conjuration means Moskurg can't bamf it. Which means we can get to using long-ranged conjured nastiness. As in magical conjured shells. I'm thinking a shell that explodes into a bubble of boiling grease, or webs, or plant growth, or falcons, or BEES!, or whatever nastiness we can pack into it.

As such, and because it leads to so many things... and gives us our lances back... I'll put my vote onto Crystalworks.

Designs
2 - Crystalworks: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist
0 - WCD1 "Delegator":
0? - Living Crystals + Shells: RAM?
0? - Antiluck Ward: RAM?

[Andres]

GM, based on the fact that our magegems can hold Flares but not PSFs despite them both being Cheap, it seems like what they can hold is based on raw power rather than spell expense. With that in mind, how well can magegems hold Streamlined Fireballs? Not Powerful Streamlined Fireballs, I'm talking about their lesser cousins which are just as cheap but less powerful.

That's the point of Magegems. They will serve as essential part of future designs.

That was a wise way of handling magegems - not as their own thing, but as something to build upon. Ambitious designs are meant to be thought of that way, because that's how they are.

The Crystalworks isn't ambitious. Its main purpose is crystal anchoring then it also includes expense. How's that overambitious?

Its main purpose is crystal anchoring then it also includes expense.

The first thing alone wouldn't be too bad, but then it also tries to do a second thing. That makes it ambitious. Were it trying to achieve the more modest goal of only getting crystal anchoring I would not have a problem with it.

And what if we want to build any more "insane" designs? With this out of the way, we can do that at any point. If we don't do this now, we'll be heavily restricted until we create infrastructure. The sooner we get it out of the way, the better.

It's only "better" if we want to build more insane designs. In other words, it's good if we want to continue your policy of making new technologies and ignore refinement, it's bad if we go with my policy of ignoring new techs and focusing on refinement.

[Chiefwaffles]

If we wanted just the expense of something or just the anchored crystal of something we could do a revision.
The Crystalworks uses a design for anchored crystal and expense/infrastructure. This is not overambitious. If I was saying it made stronger crystal Magegems in addition to what it actually does, that'd be ambitious. This isn't.
This is playing it safe if anything.

And for "insane designs", what about the crystalclad? It's refinement of existing technology. It uses crystal plates, Magegems, and the steam engine.
What about crystal reinforcement of existing designs? That's refinement.
Or crystal armor for our troops?

Crystal is something that could be easily used for many things without much effort and without risking anything new. The Crystalworks lets us use it.



@FallacyOfUrist
Yeah, the crystal axes are more of a bonus that makes it have immediate benefit. So it's not just something for the future. 

[Andres]

Designs
3 - Crystalworks: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres
0 - WCD1 "Delegator":
0? - Living Crystals + Shells: RAM?
0? - Antiluck Ward: RAM?

We hold a naval advantage. To reinforce it is a simple matter - all we have to do is make our ships Expensive instead of Very Expensive. This can be easily done. All we have to do is design a new ship that's Expensive and use the Revision to make our steam engine cheaper.

Now, a ship can be made Expensive with just a Revision, so it would be underambitious if that's all we did. The new ship design should also be capable of having many cannons on them, so many that it would only reach capacity if the cannons were Cheap. Why? Because revising the steam engine to be cheaper will also make our HC1-Es cheaper, and since they're already Expensive, they'll become Cheap.

Not only will we have more ships, they'll also have far more firepower than what the Moskurgs can bring to bear. All with a decent Design and a simple Revision.

For exploding shells, we use magegems. Magegems are immune to anti-magic and can store spells. We can load them up with Streamlined Fireballs to cause damage and flares to light up the enemy. After more research into magegems, we can instead load them up with Powerful Streamlined Fireballs. We've done a lot of research into fireballs and a decent amount of research into exploding magic crystals, so it should be plausible.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

Personally I think we'd probably be better off using our design on a new ship next turn, but it's not something I'm particularly stubborn about.

Future Design: Crystalclad
The Crystalclad is a simple design on paper.

The "actual" hull is a thin [metal or wood] skeleton that could just barely float on its own. However, using the Crystalworks, the Crystalclad is primarily made out of the light yet extremely strong crystal. Against known Moskurg threats such as fire or ballistae bolts, the crystal seems invulnerable. Just like if a bolt hit steel, the hull only experiences mild deformation from most hits. It's completely fireproof as well.
The ship's upper deck is reserved for weaponry and the only crew outside is there to manage he weapons. Almost all of the crew stay inside the ship so the thick crysta hull can protect them from attacks as well.

Two steam engines power the Crystalclad, giving it the same if not a better speed than the fog-o-War while it has a full armament.

The Crystalclad is fit with a room housing a large amount of connected Magegems which distribute power throughout the ship to the steam engine and weapons via insulated crystal wiring.

The Crystalclad is a very large ship. Without an armament, it weighs as much as a fog-o-war but sits much higher in the water thanks to its design.

The Crystalclad can be configured to mount a HA1 or 4 HC1-E on mounts built to allow for east use of the onboard artillery.
 
That's just the tentative design. It's probably a bit overambitious and could be tuned down but the advantage in its design is that it's using all existing tech - steam engines, Magegems, cannons, and crystal. Its "breakthrough" is really just the engineering, which can be helped by the Crystalworks.

[Andres]

Future Design: Crystalclad
The Crystalclad is a simple design on paper.

Hah!

The "actual" hull is a thin [metal or wood] skeleton that could just barely float on its own. However, using the Crystalworks, the Crystalclad is primarily made out of the light yet extremely strong crystal.

In other words, it's a crap boat that relies on crystals in order to not be crap. If something goes wrong with the crystal, the boat dies.

The ship's upper deck is reserved for weaponry and the only crew outside is there to manage he weapons. Almost all of the crew stay inside the ship so the thick crysta hull can protect them from attacks as well.

A lot of crew is needed up top. Bringing in ammo, carrying wounded, manning all the guns, replacing dead crew members, getting firing angles, steering the ship, etc. If we want a minimal amount of crew getting fired upon, we should make it so that the guns AREN'T in the upper deck so people have less reason to go up there.

The Crystalclad is fit with a room housing a large amount of connected Magegems which distribute power throughout the ship to the steam engine and weapons via insulated crystal wiring.

Crystal wiring which is known to disappear. You want our ship's mobility and firepower to rely on that to work.

The Crystalclad can be configured to mount a HA1 or 4 HC1-E on mounts built to allow for east use of the onboard artillery.

And here's the kicker, mounting HA1s. You want to do all the things above and also make it capable of mounting such large pieces of artillery.

Let me try and make a crystalclad design.

Andres' Crystalclad: This ship is a ship we already have that's been given a lighter steam engine and crystal plating.

That's it. Just the armour and the lighter engine weight to compensate for the crystal's weight. It accomplishes the goal of greatly increasing our ships' survivability without risking failure on unnecessary complexity. More advanced designs can come after we get this out as a proof of concept and starting off point.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[helmacon]

If we could fit a greatly reduced streamlined fireball into a AAA mage gem, how about we make a mundane metal tube that can be used to direct these fire balls. A rifle, of sorts. Not that complicated design, but a game changer on the front lines.

[Chiefwaffles]

I got a bit carried away with the design after I it was simple.

It's not a crap host hat relies on crystal, it's a crystal boat. Keep in mind his is supposed to be after the Crystalworks. If it works then crystal will essentially just be another type of metal. Ships are made out of meta, wood, and now, they can be made out of crystal.

I'm not too sure about weapons inside the ship. It's a small thing but it does add to complexity regardless. But if others think it's necessary we could definitely have the weapons inside.

Crystal wiring disappearing is something which I still want to get another verdict from Evicted in its current state, and if we get permanent crystal then it shouldn't be a problem. Worst case scenario, just say "the steam engines are powered by Magegems input directly into slots on the engines."

HA1s is ambitious but it'd mean we could field extra-LOS weaponry st sea. It depends on the actual size of the HA1, but I'm seeing the Crystalclad as a really big tank-like ship. Carrying one HA1 seems within the realm of possibility.


The thing is, it's all possible. We're making a boat primarily out of crystal, making it bigger, then adding (maybe) Magegems. Like I said, the hardest part is just making a bigger boat. And that really shouldn't be hard, especially when we'll hopefully have a factory dedicated to making crystal. It's not like we're inventing new weapons or propulsion or crystal or anything in this boat.


EDIT: @Helmacon, an AAA Magegem has extraordinarily low amounts of power. We'd have to use bigger more expensive Magegems (they're easily handheld though) or revise the gems to have more power.
Making an AA powered rifle could be possible, but I'm honestly not too sure it'd have that much of an effect.

[helmacon]

At AA size they would basically be hand cannons. Not that thats a bad thing.
Actually, let's make hand cannons. A fireball is more like a cannonball than a musket shot anyways.