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[RAM]

Crystal regeneration: A minor improvement to crystal, this aims to give crystal a minor regenerative factor, to the point where microfractures and small chips repair themselves. Additionally, it allows manual repairs to be done more easily and quickly.

1 Crystal Optics: FallacyofUrist
0 Crystal Restless:
0 Erection of Everywhere Explosions:
0 Ministry of Martial Magecraft:
0 Halls of Higher Heirophants:
0 Fruitfulness:
0 Heat-conscious steam engine:
1 Hunter Falcons: Chiefwaffles, helmacon
0 Dogwood Giants:
1 Crystal regen: Andres, RAM

Glory to Arstotzka.

Make that a "we leave the creation enchantment in place so that it can be renewed" and "needs magic to happen" then you have my +1. Just "Crystals regenerate now" Seems a little much for a revision to me.

Honestly, all of these seem to be asking for new technology from a revision...

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh look, a tie 12 minutes after the last tie is finally broken. RIP an update tonight.

Regenerative crystal is probably a good action idea (whether it's a design or revision), but it doesn't really solve any problems. It'd be nice to have for our stuff, sure, but we could do much more with the revision this turn. What if they introduce something new at sea? Our Crystalclads are doing well, but Moskurg's carpets are still a very large advantage at sea and combined with a new design or revision, could swap the advantage yet again at sea. Better falcons could prevent that from happening.
And what if they just upgrade their air units? They'd gain advantages in any theatre and if the upgrade's good enough, it could almost nullify our artillery advantage. What good are our artillery emplacements if the enemy can just fly over them unharmed? I do like Crystal Optics & Crystal Regen, it's just that artillery is the reason why we're winning right now and I'd really like to make sure that it stays that way.


Also, miscellaneous idea for a design at some point.
Future Design: Cloak of Mist
With this spell, a wizard can shroud a person (or small group) in a special form of mist. This mist, instead of merely obscuring view, seems to give the "wearer" of the cloak an almost invisible effect. They can walk through enemy ballistae emplacements and camps without detection and cross the no man's land unharmed. They can gain the upper hand in ambushes or simply avoid enemy detection for any other use.

It could potentially be revised to make it so the mist itself is nonmagical and the spell is just needed to summon it, making it AM-resistant.

[RAM]

What regenerative crystal would do is cure all our maintenance problems. One of the big weaknesses of crystal as armour is that it tends to shatter. A big ballista ball crashes into it and a bunch of crystal crunches and falls off. Metal would bend instead. This makes metal more of an impenetrable armour and crystal more of a retarded armour. A retarded armour that regenerates is super-retarded!

[Chiefwaffles]

1.) You're overestimating the brittleness of Crystal. It's not that brittle.
2.) Crystal is still a very competent armor. It's just not the perfect choice for use in machinery and moving parts which we have been doing. It's a better armor than steel for sure.
3.) Andres' proposed Crystal Regen idea doesn't fix any of this - it just fixes the microfractures and very small chips, making maintenance of the Crystalclad's engines and the Restless less of an issue.
3b.) In order to get anywhere near the scale of what you want, we'd have to use a design or multiple revisions. Using a design to just improve crystal generally and including a competent regeneration ability is more action-efficient over using multiple revisions to just get a regenerating ability.

[FallacyofUrist]

To get this over with, I'm voting Hunter Falcons.

Soon, sooooon we will have falcon eyes for our men. And from there! Bestial splicing! Mwhahahaha! Soon, soon we will have Catgirl Assassins!
Our stealth force shall be supreme! We shall overcome Moskurg with cuteness and vicious stealthy lethality!
Anyway.
By voting Hunter Falcons, you play right into my hands! Mwhahahaha!

0 Crystal Optics:
0 Crystal Restless:
0 Erection of Everywhere Explosions:
0 Ministry of Martial Magecraft:
0 Halls of Higher Heirophants:
0 Fruitfulness:
0 Heat-conscious steam engine:
2-3 Hunter Falcons: Chiefwaffles, helmacon, FallacyofUrist
0 Dogwood Giants:
1-2 Crystal regen: Andres, RAM

That said, we should totally do Crystal Optics for our next design. This is something we need, for the sake of our apprentices and getting something without penalties for once.

[Andres]

((Couldn't argue my case before because my laptop was going to run out of battery.))

Regenerative crystal is probably a good action idea (whether it's a design or revision), but it doesn't really solve any problems. It'd be nice to have for our stuff, sure, but we could do much more with the revision this turn. What if they introduce something new at sea? Our Crystalclads are doing well, but Moskurg's carpets are still a very large advantage at sea and combined with a new design or revision, could swap the advantage yet again at sea. Better falcons could prevent that from happening.

Regenerative crystal will solve a serious problem we're facing, will improve our entire line of crystal products (machinery especially), and will be an absolute boon for explosive projectile weapons.

Please read this:

The on-board apprentices can rarely patch the cracks in time, and more often than not the ship goes down.

Regenerative crystal is not only meant to do self-maintenance, but also significantly increase the ease and speed at which our apprentices can do manual repairs. In doing that, our apprentices can patch the cracks our crystalclads' armour sustains and allow them to keep going, or at least not sink.

In terms of what it'll do for our crystal products, individually it's very minor, but on a large scale it is very beneficial. As it is, every single crystal item we ship out will need to be repaired by our apprentices. Our crystal is very tough, but it inevitably suffers from cumulative damage, to the point where maintenance is required from our apprentices. With this revision, cumulative damage will not exist any more. Only major stresses can damage it to the point where it requires more than the base regen to fix itself, and considering the toughness of our crystal, that stress would have to be major indeed.
This is especially useful for crystal machinery because in most cases cumulative damage is the only damage it takes. With regenerative crystal, the only cases where maintenance on our machines will be needed is if something major happens to stuff it up, such as enemy fire. Logistically speaking, the idea of machinery that doesn't need regular maintenance is huge.

Cannons and firearms work using explosions. Every explosion weakens the gun, requiring maintenance or in the worst case eventually being entirely useless. This is cumulative damage at work. Regenerative crystal means cumulative damage stops existing, because the damage accumulates only in very small increments, increments which crystal regen is specifically designed to deal with. In the future, it will allow for our cannons - and ESPECIALLY our firearms - to fire at much higher rates of fire with extremely great reliability when combined with cooling circuits.

I admit that regenerative crystal perhaps wouldn't win us any battles this turn, but it allows us to, with great confidence, build better things next turn and the turns after. Whatever we do next turn, whether it's making a firearm, getting crystal engines, redesigning our cannons to use crystal, or whatever, they will benefit greatly from this revision.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

Crystal regeneration: A minor improvement to crystal, this aims to give crystal a minor regenerative factor, to the point where microfractures and small chips repair themselves. Additionally, it allows manual repairs to be done more easily and quickly.

The Wand of Thunderbolts proves to be effective here, happily striking the exposed steam engines and often causing critical explosions that shatter the crystal hulls.  The on-board apprentices can rarely patch the cracks in time, and more often than not the ship goes down.

The wording of your revision suggests it solves the problem of microfractures, which is nice and all, but just makes manual repairs slightly easier. When we're faced against "critical explosions that shatter the crystal hulls", I don't think a minor regenerative ability capable to self-repair microfractures and small chips will be anywhere near enough.


I think Crystal Regen is a good idea, but I also think it'd be better done in a design without having to compromise on features.

[helmacon]

0 Crystal Optics:
0 Crystal Restless:
0 Erection of Everywhere Explosions:
0 Ministry of Martial Magecraft:
0 Halls of Higher Heirophants:
0 Fruitfulness:
0 Heat-conscious steam engine:
2? Hunter Falcons: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist
0 Dogwood Giants:
1-2 Crystal regen: Andres, RAM, Helmacon

Changing to regen crystal to spite Fallacy O' Urist.

Mainly because I think it's better to do this now though. I promise to vote for falcons and optics next time!

[Chiefwaffles]

...wait why are you voting to spite FallacyofUrist?

Seems a bit silly to do that instead of voting for the right choice.

[helmacon]

Soon, sooooon we will have falcon eyes for our men. And from there! Bestial splicing! Mwhahahaha! Soon, soon we will have Catgirl Assassins!
Our stealth force shall be supreme! We shall overcome Moskurg with cuteness and vicious stealthy lethality! By voting Hunter Falcons, you play right into my hands! Mwhahahaha!

Thought he could hide it from us, huh?

[RAM]

Well here is a design for crystal optics that could go for next turn, but don't expect me to remember it...

Code: [Select]

[b][u]Phalling Glow[/u]
This is a long rod of hard metal embedded in a ribbed crystal sheath that maginifies whatever you like to watch. When a magam(or a magic finger) is pressed into its special slot then looking into it reveals all as though exposed to an unsullied noon.

It works as the flowing light disperses throughout its crystal lenses. When magic stimulates a circuit then there is a revealing effect as the essence of light(as distilled to created flare spells) impregnates the passing vision with pure illumination. The ribbed crystal coating provides a satisfying sense of friction under a grip and keeps it rigid and straight.[/b]

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh, yeah. That.
We can just not ever go in that direction. Never. But we can do Hunter Falcons now then don't do anything else!

[Andres]

Crystal regeneration: A minor improvement to crystal, this aims to give crystal a minor regenerative factor, to the point where microfractures and small chips repair themselves. Additionally, it allows manual repairs to be done more easily and quickly.

The Wand of Thunderbolts proves to be effective here, happily striking the exposed steam engines and often causing critical explosions that shatter the crystal hulls.  The on-board apprentices can rarely patch the cracks in time, and more often than not the ship goes down.

The wording of your revision suggests it solves the problem of microfractures, which is nice and all, but just makes manual repairs slightly easier. When we're faced against "critical explosions that shatter the crystal hulls", I don't think a minor regenerative ability capable to self-repair microfractures and small chips will be anywhere near enough.


I think Crystal Regen is a good idea, but I also think it'd be better done in a design without having to compromise on features.

The repair rate boost that regen crystal gives to manual repairs is not the same as the repair rate of its passive effect. It should actually make repairs go much faster. With our current crystal, our apprentices have to contend with the fact that crystal is a material that inherently cannot be repaired. Changing it so that it's a material that inherently can be repaired (like metal) would be a significant boost, but this goes one step further and makes it so that it has repair functionality built in! It's like if our apprentices have been trying to get two cows to breed and we have now swapped out one of their cows for a bull. Almost the exact same creature, but for one ultimately small but critical difference.

As for whether it should be a Design or a Revision, it should definitely be done as a Revision. It is literally just us adding a single new minor feature into an already existing design - the very definition of a revision and what the Revision phase should be used for. And make no mistake, it is a minor feature. The self-regeneration is ultimately a very minor effect in and of itself, and a Design version of this kind of feature should allow for cracks and gouges to be capable of self-repairing, but that's more than what we want. A Revision phase is ideal for this kind of thing.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[RAM]

Oh, yeah. That.
We can just not ever go in that direction. Never. But we can do Hunter Falcons now then don't do anything else!

How about you fix hunter falcons so that it can actually work? Those enlargement spells we have been hearing about are just spam, they are not real. We have no spell that makes anything bigger. What we do with the trees starts with seeds. We do not end up with a giant seed, we end up with a small tree. The seed is not getting bigger directly, it is growing faster. It is an accelerant. Make your hawks faster and they might attack before the lightning is ready. Make them grow up faster and we might have some more of them so the losses don't matter so much. Bigger is completely unprecedented and largely useless. Not to mention that we have to change up our traditional changing schemes to cope with their hugeness.

[Chiefwaffles]

Except it shouldn't be a minor feature.
We can do so much more by doing it in a design.

Watch.
Future Design: Regenerative Crystal
Regenerative Crystal is a new type of crystal (that can be made at the Crystalworks of course) which utilizes ambient magical energy (in a way similar to anti-magic gems) to regenerate itself to its original form that it was summoned in.

Regenerative Crystal acts on its own, regenerating any cracks and dents that appear and even giant gashes or places where a hole was knocked straight through the crystal. It takes longer to regenerate from more critical damage, but smaller amounts of damage can be repaired nearly instantly. The rate at which the crystal regenerates itself is directly proportional to the amount of energy channeled in. Thus, in time-critical situations, a mage can directly channel their magic into a crystal construction to greatly increase the speed at which it regenerates.
If the crystal hull of a Crystalclad were to shatter, it would repair itself in very impressive time, but if time was of the essence for repairing, the nearby mages can aid it in repairing to drastically increase the speed. Furthermore, this allows mages to contribute to repairing without summoning non-machine crystal which must be magically maintained until a machine crystal part replacement can be secured.

How about you fix hunter falcons so that it can actually work? Those enlargement spells we have been hearing about are just spam, they are not real. We have no spell that makes anything bigger. What we do with the trees starts with seeds. We do not end up with a giant seed, we end up with a small tree. The seed is not getting bigger directly, it is growing faster. It is an accelerant. Make your hawks faster and they might attack before the lightning is ready. Make them grow up faster and we might have some more of them so the losses don't matter so much. Bigger is completely unprecedented and largely useless. Not to mention that we have to change up our traditional changing schemes to cope with their hugeness.

The "we haven't done it before" can be applied to literally every single thing we've ever done.
This is a game based on magic. We've done life magic and we've done magic which directly changes a creature. It's seriously not a stretch to revise the spell to do it.