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[VoidSlayer]

Okay no I got it.

What if we make a dogwood circuit + mage gem "bomb" that is carried by our falcons.  They drop it off on the enemy airships and when they leave, removing the anti magic field, an acorn inside the bomb rapidly grows into a full sized tree, causing the ship to fall due to added weight.  Just one getting through will drop the ship!

[Chiefwaffles]

I actually just had a great idea for the next Crystalclad.

Design: AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought"
(Uses Research Credit)

The Dreadnought is an astounding example of Arstotzkan engineering. Even bigger than a Crystalclad, a Dreadnought brings all our engineering experience together to be made.

The ship is, of course, made using a completely crystal hull. The shape of the ship has been tweaked from the earlier Crystalclad to avoid capsizing in bad weather, and some very minor tweaks were made to the crystal used in flooring to give it a tad bit more friction and thus preventing its crew from slipping.

Instead of a typical helm on top of the ship, we use a new room type - the Bridge. The Bridge is raised from the rest of the vessel and is completely enclosed. Inside the bridge lies (relatively) comfortable seating for the more senior crew of the ship, and the controls for acceleration and steering. We've brought over our improvements in mechanical controls for the steam engine from the Restless here, making controlling the Dreadnought easier than a Crystalclad. Cut through the crystal here are viewing ports to allow the bridge crew to see outside for spotting and steering. The ports are quite large in order to avoid sacrificing visibility and could theoretically allow an extremely lucky ballista bolt to hit the bridge, but the bolt would have to be coming from a perfect angle to do so, not even possible for their lucky shot spell to reliably hit. But the viewing ports can be closed, and because the interior is also made of crystal, a bolt getting in wouldn't do much.

A notable difference from the original Crystalclad is the layout of the Dreadnought. It's specifically designed to enclose its weapons, crew, and engine. There should be nothing on the exterior of the ship not made of crystal, and nothing that'd be vulnerable to attack from outside. Everything has been put inside the multiple-deck Crystalclad.

Perhaps the biggest innovation of the Dreadnought is the layout of its weapons. The Dreadnought uses "turrets", based off of the design of the AS-HAC-1. These turrets are essentially coverings for our cannons. They can be rotated up/down and side/side using the same style of gears used in the AS-HAC-1, but scaled up. The turret base is larger to allow for a crew to operate the cannon from within, and everything from the base to the barrel is enclosed in crystal.
Each turret is able to rotate up to 60 (or 50) degrees up, and with 360 degrees of horizontal rotation. Each turret has a magazine stored under-deck, filled with water and ammo. The magazine is accessible from the turret base to allow for quick reloading of a turret.
The Dreadnought has two turrets - the first turret is an HA1, and the second is actually two HC1-Es in the same base effectively making a turret with two barrels.
Located on the front and back of the Dreadnought's exterior are two AS-HAC-1s. These cannons are built as a part of  the ship, and include some crystal-based protection for the operator, while their ammunition is easily accessible from a crystal-enclosed magazine.

A simple Magegem battery is connected to every magitech item in the ship via Crystal conduit. While the battery can't last for any amount of time powering any part of the ship, it allows the ship's mage(s) to simply sit in one location and power the entire ship at once, instead of having to power each individual piece of magitech.

Finally, the Dreadnought uses a "screw propeller" - a minor innovation that harnesses the mechanical power from the steam engines more efficiently than our paddles in order to move the ship. The Dreadnought's screw propeller allows it to move notably faster with the same amount of power, though this is a bit more low priority than the rest of the design. Our extensive experience with harnessing mechanical power since we made the Crystalclad should help significantly here.


The result is obvious. The Dreadnought has increased firepower - an HA1, two HC1-Es, and two AS-HAC-1s. The Dreadnought should at the very least match the Crystalclad in speed, if it isn't faster already thanks to its screw propeller. There are no weakpoints as any possible weakpoint and everything important is moved inside the crystal hull. The HA1 and 2x HC1-Es are built in turrets, allowing for increased firing angles and protecting them from attack thanks to the crystal-based protection of the turrets.
The Dreadnought should become a symbol of Arstotzkan dominance at sea. Its HA1 may not be able to fire extra-LOS right off the bat, but it can bombard shore targets based on flares, reliably+easily punch through their armor, and when we improve our spotting it will be able to fire extra-LOS.


Entirely Crystal-Enclosed Hull
The ship is entirely enclosed in crystal. The steam engines, weapons, crew - everything - are inside the hull. The ship gets the Crystalworks bonus, and is notably larger than a Crystalclad.
Bridge
This is mostly just flavor/fluff for the ship. It shouldn't contribute to the difficulty at all, as it's just a room in a certain place. It does ensure we can continue spotting though.
Armament
Two turrets - one HA1 turret and one 2x HC1-E turret. Two AS-HAC-1s are placed on the front and back of the ship for protection from nearby threats and carpets. The AS-HAC-1s are made out of crystal already, and some basic protection has been added for the operator to prevent them from immediately dying.
The turrets are basically just crystal enclosures for the cannons that can rotate using a scaled-up version of the mechanics behind the AS-HAC-1's rotation. Think like a much simple version of this.
A turret can be rotated 360 degrees horizontally and hopefully up to ~60 degrees upwards.
Magical Conduit
A basic magegem battery is linked to the weapons and steam engines via crystal conduit. The battery shouldn't add to the cost, and also shouldn't really be able to last for any amount of time whatsoever. The point of the battery is to allow one(?) mage to power the entire ship from one location. Lower priority.
Screw Propeller
A screw propeller(s?) is used for propulsion instead of paddle wheels. Lower-priority, but also pretty simple to do and should notably increase speed.

TL;DR: Basically, a large crystal battleship.
I'm thinking of including basic self-loading for the turrets. If people think it's possible, I'll add it in. Also let me know if you think there's any part that's too ambitious.

1 AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought" (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
0 Explosive + Flak Shells
0 Ritual of the Enflamed Wasp
0 Jetbirds
0 Pillar of unmagic

I removed my design summaries from the list to avoid making it unnecessarily huge. If someone wants one of the designs that I posted earlier, feel free to write your own version of it, copy+paste one of my actual designs for it from before, or just ask me to do that/write a new one.


Anyways, here's what we need to counter:
1.) Their air units. The AS-HAC-1 + Falcons make their carpets manageable, but at least on sea, their airships take too long to be destroyed and can destroy our Crystalclads with lightning before they're destroyed.
2.) Their lightning. They're upgrading this and it's scary, given how powerful lightning is against our magitech.
3.) Their time travel magic. It's not useful now, but if they upgrade it. I actually have an idea for this - Faint antimagic. Incorporate antimagic into all our magitech that's way too weak to actually affect our stuff, but powerful enough to "muffle" the magitech's operation to their time magic. Kind of like a time silencer.


EDIT: I'm not completely sold on the Dreadnought, since it is only going to help us at sea. Best case scenario, it helps us much later when we gain control of the seas, but that takes a while. I'd be fine with something else, but at the moment I think the Dreadnought is the best option.
Regarding the Revision challenge, here's what I got so far:

First, we send the heir to the Academy. At the Academy, he will be treated with the utmost of priority. Our best teachers will be assigned to him to teach him the fundamentals and theories of magic. If we're going to have a ruler in this era of magic, the ruler should know exactly how magic works and how to exploit it. The courses are extensive and hard, but given that Bjorn is of noble blood and given the most attention with the best teachers, it shouldn't be a problem for him. By the end of his studying at the Academy, he shall know everything there is to know about the theory of Magic. Mathemagics, Circuits, conjuration, energy conductivity, and more. Of course, his time at the Academy will be much less than other students due to the fact that he has other things to do in the year.
Once he has learned the bases and theories of magic at the Academy from our best teachers, he shall accompany Myark. Myark's top task will be to (safely!) teach him magic through practical experience. Bjorn Lodbrok, now knowledgable in the fine points of magic and under the guidance of Myark, should learn spells easily.

At first, Bjorn shall be given his own top-of-the-line Falcon. This should take a relatively short amount of time, and give him plenty of time in the field to become attuned with what's essentially his familiar.
Then, Bjorn shall learn the spell most important to Arstotzkan society - the fireball. Using his wisdom from the Academy and Myark's aid, Bjorn shall learn how to expertly use the fireball and all its variants.

Next is the frost tower. Myark shall guide Bjorn through the inner workings of a Tower of Frost and how it applies its effects to the theatre. This will be a short and quick task, given Bjorn's experience with the fireball at this point, and his knowledge of circuitry and the like from the Academy.

Once this is finished, Myark and Bjorn shall embark upon one of our Crystalclads on a voyage. During the voyage, Bjorn will learn how to expertly operate our weapons and cannons, which should all be easy thanks to his experience with Fire magic at this point. Bjorn shall also be taught in depth on the practical effects of crystal, repairing it in the field, and summoning new crystal. This voyage will have Bjorn become a practical expert on operating Arstotzkan machinery such as the steam engine and cannons, and give him some vital knowledge of the more gritty details of Crystal not given as much detail at the Academy.

The voyage shall end at the port closest to Arstotzka, but not immediately at it. Once his voyage ends, Bjorn will operate a Restless using his newfound knowledge of Arstotzkan Magitech a short distance to Arstotzka.

Finally, Bjorn will end his trip at the Crystalworks, where he gets an indepth look on how crystal is made.

TL;DR:
1.) Short time at the Academy where Bjorn is given extreme attention + our best teachers. Here, Bjorn will learn the theories and math behind magic and how exactly it works and how Arstotzkan Mathemagics uses it. (And crystal stuff of course.)
2.) Given Falcon familiar to grow familiar with (heh) throughout the rest of the year.
3.) Acccompanies Myark to the field where Bjorn will learn how to effectively use the Fireball and its variants.
4.) Crystalclad voyage back to a port near Arstotzka. Here, Myark will teach Bjorn practical use of our weaponry and the steam engine. Bjorn will also learn about the more gritty details of crystal, like field repair and how it self-regenerates.
5.) Bjorn operates a Restless from the port to Arstotzka, using all his knowledge learned thus far to competently run a steam engine.
6.) Bjorn arrives back at Arstotzka, where he takes a brief tour of the Crystalworks to learn how modern Crystal is made.

[VoidSlayer]

I say we treat Bjorn as any other apprentice (in training, no front line duty for him).  He learns mathemagics, crystal and the crystal works, how to cast a fireball spell and a broad overview of the other types of magic so he can choose what he wants to specialize in.  This isn't about pampering royalty but showing him all the great powers of magic.

Edit: Uhh why not just have clear crystal for the windows instead of holes?  We could even have sliding door hatches on the turrets that are clear and moved right before firing so they can aim but will only be vulnerable right when firing.

[Chiefwaffles]

It's about making the best possible magic user in one year, not about showing him how magic works. This isn't relative to us - we're competing with Moskurg here and it's graded purely on how competent of a mage they are.

Whichever side trains their heir to be a more competent mage will win a bonus revision for the next turn.

We should use every resource we have. Using the best teachers, best field experiences, and Myark, will make the best mage.

[VoidSlayer]

Your plan has him going into the field when the enemy has the ability to directly target valuable assets with death from above.

[Chiefwaffles]

When I say "field", I don't mean "SEND HIM TO THE FRONT LINES".
I mean have him be near the fighting in some way that he can contributed to in a limited degree. Of course he's going to be intentionally kept safe over the others. That and he'd have Myark protecting him.

[andrea]

The falcon should be kept in. As nobility, he probably already has falconry training which gives him an advantage there

[RAM]

It is not about making a good wizard, it is about making a good king. We are looking at personal defence and making an impression. I do like the idea of expending Myark's time on the effort. Crystal magic seems wrong. He can have others summon crystals for himself. Wasps and webs are weak against the enemy, but in friendly lands they are impressive abilities. Fireballs are obviously our best actual 'magic' so those would probably be ideal. I am tempted to give him a broad foundathion in magical theory at the academy, but not bother with too much details. He should know the efforts involved but doesn't need to be capable of them personally. He needs fireball. Blowing up 100 men with a gesture is something that any capable monarch ought to be able to do. I like webbing, it allows him to spontaneously form a barrier, it ought to be a good trick to be able to promptly fortify a space from intrusion. And having a personal stash of magems with which to temporarily bolster his personal reserves beyond mortal ken...

So:
Personal tutelege by Myark
Mathemagics 101
Thaumonometry 101
Geomagry 101
Streamlined Fireball
Boiler-scale Firewall(for the convenience of a warm hearth or hot stove at will or Kegger-burning at will)
Web
Charging and draining magems.(Do this first so that he always has magic available with which to train)
Training with heavy armour
experience with sensing antimagic from charms and knowing exactly how far a charm needs to be to lose its effectiveness, so that he may use a charm for protection but quickly remove it, recover his magic from gems, and then be a full wizard in moments.

What we are up against is probably mind-reading. Hopfully they will hook theirs up to Aye'Muh'Treason who is experienced with being a magical prodigy and the kid will be filled with knowledge that he has no practical experience using and insufficent magical talent to use.

[Chiefwaffles]

VoidSlayer and clear crystal: Because that's another thing to add to the design that we don't really need. Not enough to make the cost in complexity worth it.
It's just too much to go ahead making a different type of transparent crystal just so we can have covered viewports. I think it's possible, but not worth it. It should be extremely unlikely for a bolt to get through the viewport, and even if it does, not much damage should be done. And by "extremely unlikely", that's exactly what I mean.
If we had Crystal Optics I would do it, but we don't.


Also, my idea for countering their time magic:
Future Revision: Chronic Dampening Crystal
We embed our crystal with an extremely mild form of anti-magic. The anti-magic is so mild that even crystal can handle the absorbed magic forever, as it can release the extraordinarily tiny amounts of captured energy faster than it absorbs it.

The anti-magic effect created by doing this is too minor to affect any of our spells or magitech. We could build a castle out of it and there would be zero difference in spells and magic cast there. The anti-magic effect is so mild it's extremely easy to imbue our crystals with it, in fact. The same goes for Moskurger spells, too. This won't stop any of their spells being cast. Except for maybe one.

Their timemagic is a threat to Arstotzkan dominance. The mild anti-magic effect of Chronic Dampening Crystal may not influence magic on any noticeable scale, but it does to Moskurg's time spell. We know that their time magic uses, well, it uses magic. So therefore, it relies on ambient magic to work. If we effectively "silence" our creations and their surroundings from this ambient magic, then logically the Moskurger mages shouldn't be able to see them before it happens. If ambient magic isn't affected, then their spell shouldn't see any changes. Anything near our crystal will be effectively silenced from this magical timeline.
Due to the prevalence of crystal, this effect should be widespread. The HA1 and HC1-E may not be made out of crystal, but their operators will carry crystal weaponry. If this proves to not be enough for the metal HA1 and HC1-E, then we can simply either attach bits of crystal to the artillery or issue very cheap "crystal charms".

And hey, maybe this could even counter their Detect Ambush spell.


And now for another design because I feel a bit like we turned our magitech into arms race. Seriously. The only "magical" thing about the Dreadnought design is the Magegem battery. Every other improvement doesn't use magic at all.
I mean, I'm fine with not using magic as much, but I would like a little bit of pizazz in Wands Race.
Design: Aether Blink
Uses Research Credit

We have extreme knowledge in conjuration. It's the basis behind the Crystal that we study and know so well. It's one of the first things our apprentices learn at the academy.

So what if we truly exploited our knowledge here? We summon crystal from the Aether, and we've seen it dispelled back into the Aether. We even figured out how to sever crystal's connection to the Aether.
What if we "dispel" our own forces?

A Wizard can effectively use a carefully-made spell reversing the effects of regular conjuration. Instead of summoning things here from the Aether, we summon ourselves into the Aether. We make our forces disappear. This can be done at scales as large as a Crystalclad and even bigger. This isn't just invisibility, but rather, removing ourselves temporarily from reality.

Unfortunately, it takes large amounts of energy to accomplish this. While we don't know yet if it requires more skilled mages to do it, we do know that regardless of the person casting the spell, we can only hold our forces in the Aether for a short period of time. But we can use this. Movement in the Aether is... different. It corresponds differently to reality than one may assume. Moving a step forwards in the Aether can result in appearing 50 steps forward in reality. Obstacles don't exist in the Aether like they do in the real world, and we can move in any direction inside the Aether.

Imagine the potential. A Crystalclad can Blink forward to avoid enemy fire and flank enemies. Our soldiers can Blink past walls. A mage on a Crystalclad can Blink a squad upwards onto an airship. Artillery and people can be Blinked out of harm's way. A Squad can blink away from artillery striking them.


TL;DR: A blink spell. "Teleport" our forces relatively short distances. Can be done to constructions like the Crystalclad or Artillery, and/or people. This is done by effectively summoning ourselves into the place where we summon things from, then exploiting this place for brief periods of time to move in a direction, and have our distance traveled in the Aether translate into further distances effectively traveled in reality. (Not necessarily 1:50. That was just an example.)
How does this counter their air advantage? We can blink our stuff out of harm's way both on sea and land, and we can board their unprepared airships with boarding parties.

Potential: We can increase the range, into a teleport spell. We can increase duration, to allow our soldiers to disappear from existence for extended periods of time. We can even do some stuff to allow for guided projectiles! (I got some fluff ready for that!) Lots of things.

I'm voting for this in addition to the Dreadnought. Also, just as a note, I prefer ordering proposals in order of vote number. I'm fine if people organize it in some other way and will respect that, but when adding proposals I like it in that order.

1 AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought" (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
1 Aether Blink (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
0 Ritual of the Enflamed Wasp
0 Jetbirds
0 Pillar of unmagic

@RAM: Just in general: I think teaching him the fundamentals and theories behind magic is important because a good ruler would know how magic works to best exploit it. Operating Magitech is important so he'll always be able to operate independently in the future magitech-heavy world. Spells I don't care as much on.
Just a note for when we start focusing more-so on his training, after the Revision phase.

[RAM]

It should be extremely unlikely for a bolt to get through the viewport
...
@RAM: Just in general: I think teaching him the fundamentals and theories behind magic is important because a good ruler would know how magic works to best exploit it. Operating Magitech is important so he'll always be able to operate independently in the future magitech-heavy world. Spells I don't care as much on.
Just a note for when we start focusing more-so on his training, after the Revision phase.

Isn't "extremely unlikely" shots exactly what they specialise in? "Luck not skill" is practically their raison d'etre.

But a king doesn't need to operate independantly. A king needs to be able to demonstrate their authority and make sure their doors are locked and their food is clean. Along with knowing the practicalities of governance. So long as they know that aiming a cannon is difficult they will know not to expect one to shoot an apple off of their shoulder at 1000 paces. They don't need to be able to actually shoot one themselves when they have a whole army to do that sort of thing for them. It would probably be best for them to know that they are ignorant of the more advanced elements of mathemagics than to believe themselves to have mastered it and to personally meddle in all the details. And if they set about to learn this all themselves later then so much the better for their actual understanding of the subject.

What I want is someone who nows how to wear armour in a parade.
throw a fireball over people's heads to intimidate opposition and embolden support.
Personally ward a room to tend to secret matters.
Handle an antimagic charm when potentially exposed to mind readers.
Use a bag of magems to demonstrate more magical power than an expert wizard holds and to be able to train at magic without worrying about their supply.
To surround someone with webbing to intimidate them at the prospect of being unable to escape.
And to have all the academic knowledge to, with some assistance, personally verify any technical documentation that they might be presented with, but not needing to produce such technical documentation themselves.

There should be dozens of people constantly available to be of assistance. The king needs personal power and basic competence. There really sin;t any benefit to beign able to run the country single-handedly and they should have enough juice to use any magical devices that they would have reason to be using. Teaching them to fire a cannon or operate the flagship is just asking for them to get themselve's killed...

[Chiefwaffles]

Isn't "extremely unlikely" shots exactly what they specialise in? "Luck not skill" is practically their raison d'etre.

It should be very obvious that "extremely unlikely" is factoring in lucky shot. This isn't just "You have to get a lucky shot" but "The bolt has to be at this exact angle in this exact position at this exact time" in order to just slide through the viewport. Their Lucky Shot isn't that good. With bolts, they can hit sites with great accuracy but not exact points like this.

EDIT: To make an example, it'd be the same as one of their ballistae directly hitting the head of a moving human at Extreme range.

Whichever side trains their heir to be a more competent mage will win a bonus revision for the next turn.

Note the wording.
It's "competent mage", not "competent ruler" or "most intimidating ruler". But "Competent Mage".

We want Bjorn to be well versed in the most essential of magic in Arstotzka. We don't want to teach him niche spells and techniques while leaving the base, more important parts, left untouched on. A competent mage knows how magic works. They know how to exploit it. They're skilled with magic itself, not just a few words and motions of the hand for spells.
We want a ruler competent in magic, not someone who knows a few party tricks.

EDIT: JUST TRY AND STOP ME
Design: Manipulate
Uses Research Credit

Really, conjuration is simple when you think about it. Boiled down to its essence, it's nothing more than a fancy way of retrieving things. Sure, those things may be in different places than just "reality," but ultimately it's just fetching something.

So what if we applied this principle to something already in reality? What if we tried to summon something that already exists? The Mathemagicians in charge of the project approached it with the intention of being able to essentially teleport items and constructions to the user, but were surprised by the results.
Conjuration doesn't exactly have the same force in it when applying it to items already present in reality, but it does something. It pulls the object to the user of the spell with considerable force. The force tends to scale logarithmically with mass - more mass means more force pulling the object, but the increase in force gets smaller as the mass increases further.

The range is very respectable and of high importance to our Mathemagicians. The higher the range, the better.

The practical result is obvious. Our mages can manipulate the battlefield with this. They may be able to just pull objects to them, but imagine the potential! Our mages can stun enemies and make them vulnerable by simply pulling them with Manipulate. Equipment can be easily retrieved at a distance. Then there's the potential!
But perhaps the biggest use is against Moskurg's air units. Their carpet riders can be pulled off their carpets. Their carpets can be pulled out of the sky. And their airships can be pulled downwards. With just one average mage using Manipulate to pull in a Moskurg airship, the airship begins to suffer a notable decline in height and will continue doing so until the mage is eliminated or stops of their own will. Multiple mages can rip an airship from the sky! Using Manipulate on airships with enough mages can just crash the airship into the ground, and even one mage can use Manipulate in order to bring an airship down enough so our artillery can fire at it.
Manipulate can also be used, when in range, to disrupt artillery emplacements and fortifications. A Moskurger Ballista can be pulled off its emplacement, potentially even destroying it, damaging it, causing it to fall down, or at least heavily disrupting its operation.

TL;DR: Force pull A spell allowing our mages to pull things to them. At the moment, it's best used by a single mage for pulling riders off of carpets/carpets into the ground as well as pulling airships into positions where our artillery can fire onto them. But with enough mages, airships can be brought crashing into the ground. Can also be used in close combat to stun soldiers. Can be used to disrupt/damage/destroy ballistae emplacements. Can be used to retrieve lost/distant equipment. Etc.

Potential: Oh boy, just imagine what we could do with this. Upgrade its power, make it able to push/lift as well...
We could do so much with this.


And this spell totally is not force powers, and I'm totally not trying to recreate the Star Destroyer scene from the Force Unleashed, but with Manipulate and an airship. Definitely not.

[helmacon]

The plan.
Use summoning and mind training to make Crystal Golems controlled directly by our mages. From this, we develop mind control. Good for getting Intel, and assassinating enemy commanders and mages. Their air ships wouldn't be so great if the pilot flies it into the ground.

I am in favor of having Myark spend the entire time training the future king.

((I also really like the blink spell, but I think it's a little too complex for us right now. We need more basis in it first. Moving minds to moving people?))

[VoidSlayer]

We have crystal, that is good, but you know what the ocean has a lot of?  Water.  Why not build our ships out of something that can self repair and float naturally.

Ice Breaker Glacial Battleship

Using cooling circuits and control of the ice a massive ship is created with crystal emplacements on visible surface areas.  The ship is run on several steam engines embedded deep in the ice with crystal external fixtures.  The ship can self repair the thick layers of ice and naturally floats.  Twelve cannon emplacements dot the surface, protected by thick crystal walls and sliding hatches.  Mages are generally safe in the core of the ship, where they power all the various parts and oversee regeneration.  There should be room for dozens of birds and a full squad of soldiers.

[Chiefwaffles]

Mind control isn't really something we need. It mostly benefits espionage - a very minor aspect of combat - and is easily countered. Our antimagic charms easily countered their mind stuff, so they can definitely do the same.

Blink spell could potentially use a stepping stone, but that's not worth it I feel. Blink should be attempted as-is or just left some, really.


I think we need some kind of defense against lightning. Our weapons all work but right now their airships can still cast enough lightning before they die and their carpets can mass uo and get lightning strikes in before they die. That it just massively increased offense.
Basically I think we need some way to either protect our stuff from lightning or some way to annihilate their air units before they get too close.

Right now I'm leaning towards explosive+flak shells. Helps in every theatre by a lot. Probably no research credit though. 

[Andres]

We cannot continue to allow Moskurg to have complete dominance of the sky. We must enter the sky ourselves and if we do so, we will gain many advantages, especially with our crystalworks making everything one step cheaper. It's going to be very difficult to get into the air, but thankfully we have a Research Credit. Getting into the air is the perfect thing to use the Research Credit on.

AS-SPA: This steam-powered aircraft represents the pinnacle of mathemagic and superior Arstotzkan industrial design. It is a gyrocopter, featuring two rotors (a large one for lift and a small one for control), a built-in HAC-1, and full crystal construction which includes the steam engine itself.

DESIGN

1 AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought" (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
1 Aether Blink (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
0 Ritual of the Enflamed Wasp
0 Jetbirds
0 Pillar of unmagic
1 AS-SPA (w/ Research Credit): Andres

Glory to Arstotzka.