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[Chiefwaffles]

What? It doesn't use a clip. It uses bolt action breech loading, the same reloading mechanism used in all our cannons. Where'd you get that from?
The firing chamber thing is unnecessary. Crystal is not that brittle. For instance, the AS-HAC-1 is 100% crystal and has absolutely zero problems with the heat. Worst case scenario is that it'll suffer some microfractures over time, but that's easily fixed already by regenerative crystal. Crystal isn't anywhere near brittle enough to shatter from sudden heat.
Crystal jacket I feel is kind of necessary. They have adamantium armor on every soldier, no? While I'm sure that it wouldn't be a huge problem, I want some degree of armor piercing to keep rifles relevant against all infantry and even some of their bigger stuff.

I'll change the name though to the AS-HR-1, the Hybrid Rifle. Andres will probably hate it but he can always suggest something better.

And if you do vote for it, please don't remove your vote for the Gyrocopter. Because if you do then Evicted will probably just do the update with bird cavalry.

[helmacon]

An AA Magegem is "clipped" into the slot where a crystal conduit connects it to the circuitry in the rifle and powers its operation.

heh, my bad. I read this and thought you meant a "clip" full of mage gems.

Ill compromise with you. Keep the crystal jacket, but add a metal firing chamber.
We aren't just getting a burst of hot steam, we are literally detonating a fireball inside the weapon. It's an explosion. That's how it drives the bullet. Shattering is a real risk with that.

So, we keep the crystal jacket, but add a metal firing chamber. Those are my terms.

[Andres]

- Crystal-jacketed Steel Bullets instead of Crystal Bullets.

Why steel instead of lead?

I'll change the name though to the AS-HR-1, the Hybrid Rifle. Andres will probably hate it but he can always suggest something better.

I hate it. I will suggest something better now: AS-R1.

Seriously, you can't keep using the word "hybrid" whenever two technologies are used in a single design.

Ill compromise with you. Keep the crystal jacket, but add a metal firing chamber.
We aren't just getting a burst of hot steam, we are literally detonating a fireball inside the weapon. It's an explosion. That's how it drives the bullet. Shattering is a real risk with that.

Crystal's brittleness is only in comparison to adamantium. Compared to steel, it's even. Even if it weren't, it wouldn't shatter, just produce small cracks which eventually result in shattering, but crystal regen negates that.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

@helmacon: The AS-HAC-1 already does that, though. It uses a PSF - powerful streamlined fireball - in its crystal construction in order to create the steam. The only difference is where we're detonating the fireball. In the AS-HAC-1, it's the crystal boiling chamber/whatever you call it. In the AS-HR-1, it's the crystal firing chamber.

@Andres: I'm worried that Evicted could assume it's notably harder for us to get lead than it is to get steel. I'll change it to say something along the lines of "lead if it doesn't notably add to the overall cost".
As for the name, sure. R1. It's pretty much the same as the M1, though, but sure.

[Andres]

As for the name, sure. R1. It's pretty much the same as the M1, though, but sure.

Excellent, but they are not "pretty much the same." There are two crucial differences which make R1 objectively better than M1:
1. R stands for Rifle. M stands for nothing. The confusion will wreak havoc on our logistics and demoralise our troops with confusion. (Maybe an exaggeration, but it's still annoying.)
2. R is capable of standing for "roar" while M is capable of standing for "meow". "Roar" is more powerful than "meow" and is therefore better.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[helmacon]

@helmacon: The AS-HAC-1 already does that, though. It uses a PSF - powerful streamlined fireball - in its crystal construction in order to create the steam. The only difference is where we're detonating the fireball. In the AS-HAC-1, it's the crystal boiling chamber/whatever you call it. In the AS-HR-1, it's the crystal firing chamber.

I thought our steam boilers were still metal. Wow, i'm really out of the loop. Carry on then.

[RAM]

I would not expect the crystal brittleness to stop it from working completely, but it might need to be left to rest for a while as it started to deteriorate. I do not belive that the regeneration is that fast... Cracks building up could lead to loss of pressure and eventual breakage if allowed to accrue.

I still see absolutely no way that a man-portable rifle will address our airship problem though. And I would also expect to see a significant loss of power or increase in damage to the firing chamber if the steam element were removed.

[Chiefwaffles]

@Helmacon: Does that mean you're willing to vote for the AS-M1 AS-SR-1 AS-HR-1 AS-R1?

@RAM: Again, the AS-HAC-1 uses fireballs in small crystal containers and suffers absolutely zero problems because of it.
And removing the steam element should improve power, not decrease it. A PSF can blow up entire squads of soldiers with one hit. What we're doing with our steam cannons is turning that into steam then using that steam to move the projectile, when we can just cut out the middleman. Converting the fireball's energy to steam then using that to propel the bullet is going to be have a lot more wasted energy than just using the fireball to propel the bullet.

It won't solve the airship problem, yes, but their airships are already a minor factor. The big problem is just their air domination overall, and the rifle should really help with their carpets.
Also, I'm confident that the revision I'm planning (Make HC1-E, HA1, and steam engine out of crystal) is both really easy and should solve the problem. The main reason why we're losing at sea is because our Crystalclads can be sunk with just one lightning strike due to its exposed steam engine. If we make the steam engine out of crystal, then lightning should be a lot less effective against it.

[helmacon]

We will probably have to use the revision to fix up our rifles though. If we don't have to, great, but don't count on having it for other stuff.

[Andres]

The AS-R1 would be especially effective if we update our plate armour. If we replace the metal with crystal and include a visor made of transparent crystal, they'll be immune to Moskurg's arrows and ballistas, thus making them useful once more. With our infantry being capable of more than dying, we can send them out to the battlefield with R1s and have them dominate Moskurg's poorly armed infantry.

Considering how minor of a change it'll be, I think we can get this done with a Revision. The transparent crystal we'd develop could then be applied to future designs such as ships, aircraft, and warmachines. It'll also allow us to develop telescopic sights.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

_{pleeeaaase vote you two}

@helmacon: Well, we do have the research credit, and rifles isn't some extremely ambitious thing. Sure, it's ambitious, but looking at it from a strictly "can we do it?" point of view, it's not that hard. We eliminate the boiler chamber in our cannons, scale the whole thing down, make some tweaks to things such as the caliber, and throw in magegem compatibility. It's not an easy design, but it definitely isn't anywhere near our most ambitious designs. That plus the research credit means there's a very likely chance that we'll be able to use the rifles without revisions.

@Andres: Definitely something we should do, though I do think my crystal magitech revision is essential to protect against their growing lightning advantage.
We'll see during the revision phase, I suppose.

[helmacon]

Right, yes. The actual voting bit.

DESIGN

2 AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought" (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles, RAM(insane)
1 Ritual of the Enflamed Wasp(R): RAM
1 Jetbirds: RAM
1 Pillar of unmagic(R): RAM
0 Aether Blink (w/ Research Credit):
3 AS-SPA-1 (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles, Andres, helmacon
1 Celestedemorte: RAM
3 Giant Mutant Bird Cavalry: Kadzar, voidslayer, RAM
2 AS-HR1 Steam Rifle (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles, Helmacon

[RAM]

@RAM: Again, the AS-HAC-1 uses fireballs in small crystal containers and suffers absolutely zero problems because of it.

I cannot find a source for that. And it seems pointless. All it would do is increase the armour of the firing chamber, which is creat and all but you could just increase the armour of the firing chamber. It would potentially replace some of the cracking I suppose, so not completely useless, but it is not as though it would automatically fix everything. Unless you mean that the whole cannon is a small crystal container? Making that container man-portable and expecting it to contain a blast big enough to kill 100 soldiers is a big ask. Just because a cannon the size of a soldier can do it doesn't mean that one the size of an arm can.

And removing the steam element should improve power, not decrease it. A PSF can blow up entire squads of soldiers with one hit. What we're doing with our steam cannons is turning that into steam then using that steam to move the projectile, when we can just cut out the middleman. Converting the fireball's energy to steam then using that to propel the bullet is going to be have a lot more wasted energy than just using the fireball to propel the bullet.

Cutting out the middleman is not a good thing. In this case the middleman is not taking a large cut, as the steam should already be steam, and is contributing a lot, as the steam is more dense than air and thus stores energy more effectively, keeping the chamber ressurised. The same existing steam chamber would be weaker without the steam, and removing the steam chamber and just having a tiny little hole would fore the whole fireball to detonate in a much smaller space, concentrating the force, and causing the gun to explode, spraying shards through everyone nearby. This is not the middleman who threatens to ruin your reputation of you don't give them a 50% commission, this is the middlemad whith a massively greater exposure than your own who maintains a small markup and grants you access to a market share that you could never achieve on your own. The steam system increases the maximum force that can be tolerated, removing it results in less powerful rifles, unless there is some special trick to overcoming this. Perhaps you could try summoning the crystal over steel instead of over air? Thus producing am ahem, 'alloy' of the two materials that somehow possesses none of the manufacturing, research, or any other problems nor properties of alloys in general but does offer a crystal structure that is extremely shock resistant due to its high density stuffing...

Of course, they definitely are not using a full fireballs spell, so mentioning them is sort of pointless.

It won't solve the airship problem, yes, but their airships are already a minor factor. The big problem is just their air domination overall, and the rifle should really help with their carpets.

That is extremely optimistic. They are increasing their armour and altitude. The rifles will be extremely lucky if they achieve anything at all against air forces. or to the point, we can already deal with their carpets and the carpets carry far less ordnance.

Also, I'm confident that the revision I'm planning (Make HC1-E, HA1, and steam engine out of crystal) is both really easy and should solve the problem. The main reason why we're losing at sea is because our Crystalclads can be sunk with just one lightning strike due to its exposed steam engine. If we make the steam engine out of crystal, then lightning should be a lot less effective against it.

Ummm, no? They are dropping fire pots on our steam engines too. And they are pretty big exposed targets. A simple remodelling of the crystalclad's hull would fix the problem. Making boilers out of crystal would still leave it as a vuulnerable piece of crystal that has to contend with internal pressure. Don't forget that they still have lucky strike, so you can't expect them to just not hit the boilers if they are still exposed.

[Chiefwaffles]

The AS-HAC-1 is explicitly 100% crystal. Every single part of it is crystal.

Evicted quite clearly mentions "PSF" a lot when referring to any of our cannons.

They have not been increasing the armor of their carpets, and it would be extraordinarily unlikely to increase the armor of their carpets while maintaining speed and expense. And even then, our cannons (+ rifle) would still probably be able to pierce armored carpets. Which isn't even really a thing they can do.

Firebombs are quite clearly useless against crystal. I know about lucky strike, but our problem is lightning which does not use lucky strike. Lightning is effective against our ships because it destroys the metal steam engines, blowing up the rest of the ship. Making our steam engines out of crystal should largely invalidate their lightning strikes on the engines and make it so in worst case scenarios an apprentice would have to assist its self regeneration for a couple minutes to get the ship moving again. All while the AS-HAC-1 is firing at the carpets/airship.

[helmacon]

Quote from: Chiefwaffles on Today at 10:34:14 pm
And removing the steam element should improve power, not decrease it. A PSF can blow up entire squads of soldiers with one hit. What we're doing with our steam cannons is turning that into steam then using that steam to move the projectile, when we can just cut out the middleman. Converting the fireball's energy to steam then using that to propel the bullet is going to be have a lot more wasted energy than just using the fireball to propel the bullet.
Cutting out the middleman is not a good thing. In this case the middleman is not taking a large cut, as the steam should already be steam, and is contributing a lot, as the steam is more dense than air and thus stores energy more effectively, keeping the chamber ressurised. The same existing steam chamber would be weaker without the steam, and removing the steam chamber and just having a tiny little hole would fore the whole fireball to detonate in a much smaller space, concentrating the force, and causing the gun to explode, spraying shards through everyone nearby. This is not the middleman who threatens to ruin your reputation of you don't give them a 50% commission, this is the middlemad whith a massively greater exposure than your own who maintains a small markup and grants you access to a market share that you could never achieve on your own. The steam system increases the maximum force that can be tolerated, removing it results in less powerful rifles, unless there is some special trick to overcoming this. Perhaps you could try summoning the crystal over steel instead of over air? Thus producing am ahem, 'alloy' of the two materials that somehow possesses none of the manufacturing, research, or any other problems nor properties of alloys in general but does offer a crystal structure that is extremely shock resistant due to its high density stuffing...

IRL guns work with a small explosion to propel a bullet. A fireball is essentially a small explosion we have summoned into existence. A steam cannon is essentially a pressure cannon. The force provided is not comparable. A fireball based rifle will be more effective.

The whole "detonating a fireball in an enclosed space" thing was a concern of mine also, and why i suggested a metal firing chamber. Apparently though, we are already doing so with the boilers, so it should be fine.

Also, we do not "summon the crystal over air" we replace/displace the air with crystal, attempting to summon crystal over steel would simply result in a crystal jacket. By definition, you can't form an alloy with crystal. Crystal is heavily reliant on structure, and an alloy is changing the structure.

I feel like you just disagree with CW designs on principal now.