For our next revision, I'm thinking we should do this:
Revision: Weighted Crystal Shells
Modifying Crystal is easy - we've done it numerous times with numerous revisions, and have even done stuff like Crystal Glass, which can be easily made and incorporated with other crystal. This revision is no different, and has a simple goal:
Heavier crystal that we then make shells with.
The reason we don't use crystal in our shells and bullets right now is simple - weight. Crystal is just a bit too late for use as a projectile and suffers for it. So we make some trivial tweaks to a new process in the Crystalworks and have it printing out crystal shells for both our standard and special ammunition!
Our expensive ammunition would be easier to make with the cheaper crystal - namely the Blastshell, but hopefully also the Equalizer.
All our ammunition will be a bit more effective at their job, as we're aiming to make weighted crystal shells heavier than their steel counterparts. Not heavy enough to disrupt range, but enough to increase the kinetic energy by just a bit.
If possible, we're also planning on spending a day or two on making a spell for conjuring a standard weighted crystal shell. The shell would still dispel in antimagic fields and would still take some time to summon, but it shouldn't be any difficulty to make the formula allowing the conjuration of crystal shells, and means our artillery can continue operating to limited effectiveness without a supply line.
TL;DR: Make our shells out of a heavier variant of crystal in order to reduce expense, and increase weight of shells enough to increase effectiveness/armor piercing/kinetic energy, but not enough to decrease range. (Just make as heavy as steel if former's not possible.)
Material Swap - We swap the material in our shells. Instead of steel, we use crystal. This has always been an extremely trivial task.
Heavier Crystal - We make a variant of crystal a bit heavier than steel - enough for better kinetic energy and the like, but not enough to decrease range (or just the same). Considering how easily we made Crystal Glass, and the fact that we have the Crystalworks, this should be easy.
Benefits - The (slightly) heavier shells would hit harder without a decrease in range (though if this isn't possible, we just use the same weight as steel). But more importantly, our more expensive shells like the Equalizer and the Blastshell should all drop a level in expense, making the Equalizer Expensive, the Blastshell-R/E Cheap, and the Blastshell-RE Expensive.
In addition to its immediate benefits, this revision also makes the idea of quickly summoning crystal shells in lieu of self-loading a bit easier. I'm still not completely certain if that's the way to go regarding self-loading, but it's nice regardless.
And we should also look into making guided ammunition in the future. Manuevering can be done by thrust vectoring a constant Blastball via modifying it in real time, but the actual "smart" portion would be mildly difficult. Maybe a Mindgem with the intelligence of a wasp.
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Topic: Wands Race - [Arstotzka] {COMPLETED} (Read 393667 times)