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[Chiefwaffles]

Anyone have ideas for thesis-worthy concepts? There is that one-per-person limit for the thesis and I have one ready already, but others can do it or I can replace my current one with it.

So far I can think of:

• Aethergem - That self-recharging Magegem I talked about a while back.
• Lifegem - We can create (semi-?)intelligent life inside a Magegem to make artificial intelligence. Can be used to make fully autonomous designs, AI assistants/helpers (think Halo & Cortana) and maybe wireless communication between Lifegems.
• Bioaulos - Basically artificial muscles. Can be used for power armor, SPIDER TANKS, MECHS, other advanced forms of movement and lots of just movement things in general, and if we do Lifegems we can use Bioaulos to allow autonomous movement.

I have a thesis ready for the Aethergem and will post it after the revision phase for security reasons. Though I'm fine with showing it to others via any other means, such as PM or Discord. The Lifegem seems equally interesting, but not as immediately useful, as the Aethergem, and Bioaulos kind of seems like it'd be a bit more suited for a design than the other two possibilities.[/list]

[andrea]

Security reasons? you think they are spying on us?

[Chiefwaffles]

Not necessarily. I just think there's a decent chance that someone from Moskurg can look at this thread. And with something like the thesis, they may find ways to improve their own thesis after reading any one that gets posted in the thread. So if they realize that our thesis has something theirs doesn't, they can just fix theirs while we don't get the same advantage.
It's unlikely, but I'd rather keep the chance of that happening at zero.

[Andres]

Design: AS-CC40

The next step in the crystalclad design. The CC40 is bigger, where the SPB2 was large enough to fit 3 HEC-1s, the CC40 can fit 6. Rather than them being equipped with 6 HEC-1s, however, part of the available space is used for holding the full size of a HA1, modified to allow for 90 degrees firing with the aim of being able to hit Moskurg's airships. When not targeting their airships, the HA1s can instead targets their Siroccos.

The ship is not powered by a steam engine as the previous SPB2 or the Fog-of-War. Instead it's powered by a Kinetic Drive Engine - a new, smaller, more powerful engine. It uses an altered form of the Blastball, one that constantly (rather than briefly) exudes pressure and does so in a single direction rather than all directions. The new design also promises to be more energy-efficient (due to the lack of waste heat and running the PSF's energy through a middleman in the form of water) and require a shorter start-up time. The engine will power a screw propeller rather than paddle propellers, making the ship faster and less vulnerable to damage. The engine and the propeller will of course be made of crystal.

Of particular note is the new canopy of the ship. Rather than the top of the ship being free to open air, a crystal roof now covers the sailors and cannons that are on the top deck, protecting them from enemy fire even as they are able to return fire with the ship's cannons.

An additional aim is to have the ship's circuits be immune to anti-magic.

The minor flaws of the SPB2 will also be ironed out. It will have no problems with its centre of gravity while its problem with slippery decks will be compensated for with handrails and floor grating.

Finally, transparent crystal will be included in the design to allow the crew to see outwards while still keeping them defended.

0 - C.H.O.M.P.:
1 - Blastshell [A: +Range]: Chiefwaffles
1 - Blastshell [B: AM Resistance]: Chiefwaffles
1 - AS-CC40: Andres

I really wanted to do explosive ammunition this turn, but last turn has made it pretty clear how important the seas are. The biggest reason we lost was not for lack of explosive ammunition, it was because we were outmanoeuvred thanks to their ships. Moskurg may also see how we can't do jack against their airships and focus on making them do more damage, so being able to kill them before that happens is imperative.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[VoidSlayer]

Yeah, the thing about those air ships is they no longer need to build ANY surface ships, the air ships are superior in every way and can be used to attack both land and sea.  Not sure how to counter that, particularly because they can just destroy any ship we try to fly with a tornado.

[Chiefwaffles]

Moskurg was already struggling to sink the Crystalclad ships with their out-dated ballistas, relying heavily on lightning strikes and War Pegasi to keep the ships suppressed.  The lightning rods do a good job of keeping the lightning from hitting troops immediately, buying time for the ships to either get out of range or shoot down the carpet-bomber casting the spell.  The Alsamma Safina is still virtually immune to anything the ships down bellow can throw at it, standing out of range and spamming their accurate Spear of Allah until the lightning rods are gone or until the crew dies, but the Sirocco has a much harder time.  Inferior to the the Crystalclad in both armor and weaponry, they're used exclusively to sink suppressed Crystalclads and to launch carpet-bombers.  The sea is mostly a deadlock, but Myark manages to push the advantage in Arstotzka's favor.  Surprisingly accurate with the R1, he excels at shooting down the fast-moving War Pegasi even at Long Range, and his Wand of True Light can make the weaker-hearted Moskurg sailors turn tail.  The tornadoes are harder to use on the open sea, and though Moskurg manages to capsize a few Crystalclads it's not enough.

This is the report for the battle on the seas.

There is no mention of us getting outmaneuvered. Our ships are better than theirs in every way. At this point, our problem is solely our weaponry. The AS-HAC-1, while able to aim anywhere, can't effectively pierce the armor of their airships. Our HC1-Es can't aim at the airships. Their airships can stand out of range, but crystal optics can let us fit HA1s on our ships that can solve that problem, the A variant of the Blastshell can increase the range of our HC1-Es to deal with that, and even with the B variant without crystal optics, explosive ammunition would mean that when our ships do meet with their airships, we'd be able to do damage instead of just hoping we can spam enough AS-HAC-1 shots to do any damage whatsoever.

We need two things regarding the sea:
1.) The ability to shoot our weapons at their airships.
2.) The ability to have our weapons pierce their airships' armor.

The AS-CC40 doesn't solve any of that. Furthermore, it leaves us unimproved on land where we only advanced in one theatre. Without a practical design helping at land, we'll only lose further.
Also reminder that the Crystalclad can fit HA1s; they just don't equip them now because the expanded range isn't useful at sea where we can't use our flares.

[andrea]

Actually, the tornado so far isn't that effective against ships.

If we make optics, we will probably be able to use the HA1 at sea, with greater chance of sinking enemies. It seems that it is not used so far simply because we have no spotting. From that point of view, explosive ammo and optics are also a good combo to boost the sea a bit.

edit: well, what waffles said.

[RAM]

If they are justifying their wind as "air" control, then being under the water or anchored should be pretty safe. And Tornadoes are super-unstable and super-unpredictable, so they ought require constant maintenance in order to be remotely effective, so they can't just claim to be setting up a weather-system and then having it maintain itself through momentum, so it should be dependant upon their powers. So unless they have somehow cheated the G.M. into accepting that they have "motion" control it should be very difficult for them to directly effect anything under the water, and giving a tornado enough juicy to pick up large volumes of water should be pretty much impossible. Water is rather heavy and they would be doing it directly. Of course, the Celestedemorte is different. That is just using convection to pull insane volumes of air down(which is convenient because tornadoes are dependant upon pulling air up, and are infantile compared to the volumes that the frost towers influence, it would pretty much eat tornadoes and spit them out. Oh, sure, there might be a few stragglers around it due to the strong air-flows, but the strong ground-flow outwards opposing the strong sky-flow inwards would make a tornado a super-unstable form, it would be trying to manage opposing wind directions and just fail. Seriously, we can beat them in air-flow if we just put up a design to make convection happen.)

So ballast, or partial-submarines(such as the early ironclad(Monitor was it?)) ought to counter tornadoes at sea. But they will probably just say "waterspout" and get a free pass...

[Andres]

There is no mention of us getting outmaneuvered.

Not on sea, but on the ground through the sea.
We lost in the Jungle, we won in the Mountains, and we lost in the Plains.
In the Jungle:

The advantage is still in Moskurgs favor, however, as their control of the adjacent oceans means they get to choose when and where they can launch surprise invasions against Arstotzkan lines.  Able to stay out of range of HA1 artillery and move faster than the troops on land, they often sneak behind Arstotzkan lines and wreak havoc.  Supply lines suffer, and it's not uncommon for the Restless crystal train to not show up at all as the train tracks are an easy target for sabotage.  The naval advantage makes a large difference here.

In the Plains:

At the end of the day, it's Moskurgs ability to land troops behind Arstotzkan lines that gives them the advantage.  Arstotzka might have been able to push them back, but without a way to stop incursions from the coast their lines are ragged and bent and they must concede anther section of plains to Moskurg.

We need two things regarding the sea:
1.) The ability to shoot our weapons at their airships.
2.) The ability to have our weapons pierce their airships' armor.

The AS-CC40 doesn't solve any of that. Furthermore, it leaves us unimproved on land where we only advanced in one theatre. Without a practical design helping at land, we'll only lose further.
Also reminder that the Crystalclad can fit HA1s; they just don't equip them now because the expanded range isn't useful at sea where we can't use our flares.

The CC40 solves the issue of our cannons not being able to hit their airship. Did you not read the part where the HA1 has an altered mounting that allows it to shoot at their airships? That mounting would allow us to aim at, hit, and destroy them. It would logically also find use on the ground to destroy their airships.

Our ships are better than theirs in every way.

The deciding factor everywhere we attack has been their naval advantage. Take that away and the war would've swung in our favour. Moskurg will recognise that and inevitably make improvements to their ships to keep their naval advantage, especially after seeing how well we did the last time. We need to ensure dominance or it won't matter what ground advantages we get this turn, their naval advantage would simply win them the battle again. Furthermore, a naval advantage on our side would itself give us an advantage on the ground, so not designing something to directly help us on the ground will still be of benefit.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[andrea]

Our problem with their ships at sea is not the angle. In this case, it is range. Simply, they adopted the strategy of staying away from our gun range, which is solved by being able to mount the HA1 ( which we can't right now because we lack optics. The ship can actually support it.)
On sea our cannons are much more mobile, angle will be much less of a problem, if we can force them to try to close range.

[Chiefwaffles]

After some questioning on Discord, Evicted drew this little diagram:

Spoiler: Image (click to show/hide)

Our HA1s can fire BLOS, but that's only if they hit the ground. So when at BLOS, our HA1s cannot hit their airships. If we were to fix this, we could effectively deploy the HA1 at sea.

So it turns out the problem is not optics or angling. It's mostly just range.
Hence I think the +Range Blastshell is the best choice now. Increased range is helpful just in general, it increases the range of every cannon, and it gives us explosive ammunition. Alternatively, we could do the AM Resistance one then upgrade the range of the HA1 in a revision, but that seems wasteful.

[andrea]

0 - C.H.O.M.P.:
2 - Blastshell [A: +Range]: Chiefwaffles, Andrea
1 - Blastshell [B: AM Resistance]: Chiefwaffles

Range it is.

[RAM]

Consistent-crystal optics
Blah blah blah crystal lenses blah blah light magic from flares blah blah blah blah perfect-orientation because mathemagics makes "perfect" shapes possible blah blah blah circuits to summon additional focusing crystals for rangefinding...

Make a scope for our large guns that has constant lighting conditions when viewed through, has a tactile control panel for adjusting zoom and focus while being viewed through, and doesn't require any magic when just being looked through. If they can make temperature-controlled metal with pretty much no experience in temperature and metal, then we can make light-controlled viewers with light magic and crystal magic...

Make scopes for our largest guns, then spyglasses for infantry, then steadily smaller and simpler scopes for smaller cannons. Hey, lets go for broke and add holographic sights!

P.S.
 My spell for summoning their god is a serious suggestion. I do not expect to kill it, but temporarily removing the source of their magic from the place from which it is providing their magic ought to kill off most of their air-force and we oughtto have the firepower to at least drive a deity back from whence it came provided that it has a physical form. And we DO have all the required technologies.

[helmacon]

My spell for summoning their god is a serious suggestion. I do not expect to kill it, but temporarily removing the source of their magic from the place from which it is providing their magic ought to kill off most of their air-force and we oughtto have the firepower to at least drive a deity back from whence it came provided that it has a physical form. And we DO have all the required technologies.

I could see thus backfiring horribly. You summon God in the mountains! Moskurg has advanced 4 sections in the mountains.

More realistically though, do we have any evidence that a singular god deity is the source of their power? Seeing as our magic still works perfectly well, and they dount just roflestomp us because a literal god us on their side, I suspect it's not quite what they think it is.

My head cannon is that their "divine" magic is just tapping into the magic energy created by thousands of people focusing on a common belief.

Even people with only subconscious magical resonance can create ripples in the order of magic around them. Normally this is a completely inconsequential thing, but when near similar ripples, the effect is amplified. Amplify this effect by thousands of people, performing prayer at specific regular intervals, and the collective unconscious imposes a sort of pseudo structure in the local magical field that mirrors the commen beliefs of the people. Working with the structure of their own beliefs now, they can use it as a sort of code to interface directly with the raw magical binary, programming it to perform specific actions.

Hey, this might make a decent thesis actually. Beats my work in progress "aerial disbursement of anti magic shards under high wind speed conditions" paper thing.

[andrea]

Personally, I believe they tap into the immense magic network we accessed during the meteor thing.