Upon consideration, some examples might help illustrate the situation. A hypothetical magem(M) has a capacity of 10. A hypothetical Aethergem(E) has a capacity of 9 and a generation of 9 per hour. A hypothetical gemerator(G) has a generation of 10 per hour.
A rifle has a shot cost of 1, it can fire 10 times with a M and that M can be recharged in a day with a G. An E instead would fire 9 times quickly, then again in a few minute's time. The magem is basically better because you want more volley fire and can carry a spare M if we need more shots. The E does offer a higher rate of fire if you insit upon not recharging and don't mind waiting twenty minutes, but the G does recharging better if you can afford to get to a recharger, which ought to be pretty convenient unless you are off in the boonies where you don't want to be shooting dozens of times anyway because you will give away your position and we can send an apprentice along, at admittedly great personal risk...
A big cannon has a shot cost of ten, the E simply doesn't work here. You need your recharging station and magem regardless, and the G is better at that.
A slightly smaller cannon has a shot cost of 9, the E can fire once per hour, the G+M can fire a little faster than that. And you need multiples regardless if you want to fire at a decent pace.
An Engine requires a capacity of ten and a cost of 100 per minute. That can be one M and 60 G, or 67 A.
Except for the rifle example the G is strictly superior. In the case of very small things it is a matter of magem availability(Aethergems are likely more complex and thus less available than equivalent magems, but that is pure speculation) and charging station difficulty(Which again, is speculation, but it is just a gemerator, which is a gem, thus not likely to be cumbersome, and a circuit, again, not likely to be cumbersome.). This assumes that the aethergem is very nearly equal to magems in capacity and gemerators in generation. That is a very unlikely scenario. It seems, in my personal opinion, more likely that the gemerator would have about twice the generating capacity and the aethergem will have equal storage capacity. So a 10 capacity and 5 generation per hour using the initial examples' format. Whic is nice, but really drives home how well the gemerators would work when generation is needed well in excess of capacity.
Hey! You can't just change the rules on a whim like that! Designs should be voted as-is. It's very unfair to try to change the rules just so you can get what you want.
troll confirmed, or at least a complete lack of self-awareness. The number of times Chiefwaffles has changed a design after people have already voted for it is ridiculous. If "you have already voted for it but it is different now but *I* think it is better like this so of course you still want to vote for it" is fair game but "These designs are extremely similar, so people who vote for one reasonably want to vote for the other over the alternatives" is not then I am going back to voting with big numbers. If there iszero consistency then I can live with that, but you don't want to see where that ends...
With the use of fog, this is actually a relatively simple design, perhaps about as complicated as the Aethergem. It may have some issues, mainly because of the complexity of infusing a mind, even a simple one, into fog, but we do have two revisions. Hopefully we won't need to use either of them.
How the hell is this a "relatively simple design"? That is some insane stretching.
It is not insane to think that extrapolating "summon a mobile mental effect" from "Summon things with mental abilities" and "mental effect" is relatively simple in a world where extrapolating "animal grows big" from "plant grows quickly" is relatively simple...
We are making a living thing out of fog. We'll be lucky if we can even make it living, let alone be able to attack other minds. A living thing out of fog! Right now, we know how to:
A.) Make simple modifications to simple physical brains for basic training such as "us good, them bad".
B.) Summon copies of existing living things, such as wasps.
B is untrue. They are not copies. The fire wasps demonstrated that we can modify our summons and that we can summon things that do not exist.
A is also untrue, we modified minds. The mind and the brain are different things. It appears that the mind is a product of the brain, although you will get disagreements on that point. However, the mind and the brain are not the same thing and with magic flying around their properties do not need to be solely matched to one another.
This does not "relatively easily" translate into making an intelligence, however simple it may be, out of fog then giving it the ability to somehow magically attack the minds of other magic users.
It doesn't need much intelligence, it just needs to detect minds and attack them, which is what the wasps do. It doesn't even need to attack, it can just naturally radiate a scrambled taming effect.
We could maybe do a theoretical-style "fog intelligence" design if we really wanted to, but now's the worst time for theoretical designs.
Now is an EXCELLENT time for theory. We have the time to pull it off and they may do something to turn around the current situation. We can go for a quick win, and maybe fail, and be back to the struggle, or come out with advanced theories and get a secure win further down the line.
But if you want a living spell option, then I provided one...
If this succeeds, we will be able to completely counter Mokurgian weather magic and divination magic, both of which rely on sending out a mind. Possibly, this may even counter their anti magic if it projects a mind also, but that's less certain.
It will not completely counter Moskurger weather and divination magic.
I cover on this below too, but I will address it here.
Evicted will not let us, even if we roll three 6s on this design and devote multiple revisions to it, completely counter Moskurg's whole shtick.
This is a lie. Evicted let their antimagic completely negate our conjuration, all of our starter "spells" and everything derived from them. Evicted then let them make temperature-proof metal that radiated pleasant temperatures, thus completely negating all of our starter "wand" and everything derived from it. We, after a VERY long time, PARTIALLY countered their hard-counter to conjuration. Their hard-counter to fireball and frost towers is alive and well and seems to be without any easy counter. You want maybe to do rust magic? New schools are easy! Just remember the plants.
Yopur entire argument os COMPLETELY without foundation. You are MAKING-UP EVERYTHING!
This is the equivalent of the following:
Moskurg: I hit you with my wind attack!
Arstotzka: Nuh-uh! I have a wind attack shield! I'm immune to wind attacks!
Moskurg: I hit you with my anti-shield wind attack!
Except we will not be able to void Moskurg's magic in one turn, and even if we do, Moskurg will spend way less effort at undoing then we spent in doing it.
A: I hit you with my fire attack!
M: Nuh-uh! I have a literal actual practical temperature-proof shield! I'm immune to fire attacks!
A: I hit you with my foul language!
Or perhaps I should just suggest that you are trying to make armoured cars that are a hard-counter to everything that Moskurg can throw at them. I am sure that I have seem various synonyms of "completely immune" being thrown about in the titan and protector's favour. Honestly, there is zero credibility to be found here.
1.) The Aethergem is useful immediately.
Assuming that it still has the required capacity.
It greatly increases the amount of magitech we can field by a lot.
Assuming that it has the generation ability to do so.
Again, right now if we devoted every single mage we had to manning HA1s, we'd only be manning a third of them.
This is true, and it is why the Aethergems are not bad. Though they are still inferior to the alternatives.
Every single new spell or piece of magitech will make this worse.
We could become less reliant upon gems, I mean, it is completely ridiculous to imagine it in reality, but in WandRWorld sound attacks will shatter crystals, gems included. We need some alternatives to all these crystals.
3.) Hard counters are just not a good idea. They're not.
You are simply wrong here. They keep hard-countering us. It keeps working for them. You are just, simply, wrong.
Let me give you a rundown of what will happen:
1.) We spend a design and multiple revisions making this hard counter.
2.) Moskurg will spend their design and revision making something else actually helping them.
3.) If the hard counter works and if Moskurg's likely-non-hard-counter doesn't work, then we will win for exactly one combat phase.
4.) Moskurg will spend a revision undoing our design + revisions while they make their other revision.
Waaaay too many assumptions about how easy everything is. Plenty of hard counters are well beyond the scope of revision to fix. Please provide us with the revision that will get frost towers AND fireballs working against adamantine. It hard-countered both, lets see the simple revision to undo it!
Furthermore, massive hard counters don't work.
What Moskurg did last combat phase was clearly an attempted hard counter, and they spent a design on it. Yet we still won using artillery. Our hard counter will not magically make their weather magic useless because Evicted cares about balance. It will, again, be giving Moskurg a free design.
Blatantly untrue. They put a design into using wind to resist, not hard-counter, our bullets. And it worked. We are currently outranged by the enemy, they can attack us with impunity. We could spend a design on weightite to overcome it, but that is a design. A revision of "shoot more good" will not overcome this new wind magic.
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Topic: Wands Race - [Arstotzka] {COMPLETED} (Read 393435 times)