Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Andres]

andrea, if you fully add in an aethergem into your design, I will vote for it. Incidentally, it is imperative that you realise that we have AAA aethergems, which are Cheap and charge just as quickly as A aethergems. Aethergems would be very valuable to a flightpack design.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

Sorry, how exactly do jetpacks help us?


Our soldiers aren't exactly immune to their aircraft weapons. Any of them, actually.

Then there's the whole part where their aircraft are extremely fast and the jetpack would have to let our soldiers catch up to them.

Oh, also, Lucky Strike. Remember how their arrows pierced the eyeslits of our old plate armor? Killing troops trying to jetpack their way up won't exactly be a challenge for them.

[Andres]

Sorry, how exactly do jetpacks help us?

Infantry battles, skirmishing, scouting, and running down routing troops (something which our commanders have said we have lots of trouble with).

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

Still extremely exposed and they're still bad at solving the problem responsible for our recent losses.

[Andres]

I wouldn't say they're as exposed as you're making them out to be. They may not solve our current problems, but the F43 will either do nothing from a lack of cannons or break by presence of them. If you wanted me to vote for it, you should've advocated for more groundwork techs instead of the Protector so that an aircraft would be a more viable option.

I'm going to keep on harping on about how the Protector sucks and how much of a mistake it was to design it until it stops being relevant.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[helmacon]

We have lots of half assed groundwork techs that we don't actualy use for anything right now tbh. The protector, the mundane, our dogwood wands. If we had used all those designs on just one of those things, or on other things entirely, we would be winning. If i'm being honest, we really ought to go back and finish what we started on those, cause they do have potential. (yes even *cringes* the mundane)

[Chiefwaffles]

I don't get the "F43 is overambitious with weapons" narrative you're pushing, Andres.

AS-HAC-1: This is a small gun. It's 13mm. That's extremely reasonable to put on an aircraft.
Blasttubes: We need these for the F43 to be effective at anti-air. I already made serious sacrifices her by cutting heir range in half.
Bomb: I don't need to convince you on this, but it does nothing for the Moskurg air problem
By itself.


And no, it was not a mistake to design the Protector. We just got a bad bug roll. We could have fixed it, but nope. We had to spend our last two revisions on flash-flares and the mundane

[RAM]

Hey, umm, how exactly is the pilot going to load the gun, and fly, and also not have their ears explode when the gun goes off, all at the same time?

[Chiefwaffles]

Well, first, the gun is an AS-HAC-1. It's a small gun. The bullet it fires is 3mm bigger than the AS-R1. Noise isn't going to be an issue of note. Also this isn't really something that requires active effort from the pilot.


Loading the gun can be done while flying because of the way the KPD works.
Because the KPD works through the Blastball-like "cushion" of force, hovering is something that comes naturally with it and doesn't have to be an extra design goal.

So loading the gun (via breech-loading, which isn't that effort-intensive) is very possible while flying. One can just have the ship move forward, and if they don't want to move that much, they can just have it move forward slowly or hover in place. And while this is happening, the person can quickly reload the gun.

Concentration-wise, the F43 is equipped with a set of Aethergems. Of course it's practically insane to believe that the Aethergems could allow for mundane use of the craft, but they will both reduce the strain on the wizard in keeping the craft powered and will allow the wizard to stop powering the craft completely for small periods of time.
Bonus points is that with the Agems, even if they run out of stored power and there isn't a mage running the ship, the fact that they charge means the KPD can have some functionality. Wouldn't be much, but it's the difference between "crash landing with survivors" and "the aircraft flying apart as it hits the ground at high speeds."


TL;DR: Loading the gun is easy, the ship can hover (or just move in one direction) while doing so. And Aethergems allow for less strain on the pilot + allow for brief operation without the pilot powering the craft at all.

Though with that being said, I'm not attached to the AS-HAC-1. If removing it is enough to convince someone to vote for the F43, I'll seriously consider doing so. While it is small and I don't think it'd have a negative effect, its positive effects aren't particularly groundbreaking.

[helmacon]

Jump packs give us a basis for aircraft engine development that we are currently just brute forcing with the interceptor. It also gives us unparalleled battlefield control during ground combat. Given that we have rifles, the ability to hit their flanks in every engagement is huge.

[RAM]

Just to be clear, the primary goal of the interceptor is this sustained force field, yes? If everything else fails you still want something that acts as constant propulsion with no explosions or anything, just a film of magic that constantly pushes or pulls upon its surroundings? As opposed to, say, an aircraft that runs on explosions, as a failure condition...

I am not clear on the position of the hack-on, it is in the front of the cock-pit, but where? Is it basically in front of the pilot's face? That could be awkward but would help with aiming. Or it could be protruding from the front of the seat? Is there a seat? Have you considered a ramp instead?

I am still concerned about the sound. People wear ear protection when firing 9mm pistols. Rifles tend to be worse, and these are known to be quite powerful, as I understand it, being more powerful than conventional armaments of the same calibre. I feel as though our 14mm cannon is similar in potency to the 20mm autocannon from Intercontinental... And then there is the issue of an enclosed space. Unless the crystals are transparent to sound(maybe a good revision, to prevent sonic weapons from working... and to give our troops improved-awareness/that-wonderful-nude-feeling. But probably impossible. I mean, a solid object that ignores sound, I mean, sure, it is magic, and visible-spectrum light can go through pretty readily, but not perfectly, maybe improve that too, so that it is completely impossible to see any distortions in the visible spectrum from light being deflected through its structure? It would act like an invisible barrier and make physicists cry, like, seriously, that is some very very wrong stuff right there. So much so that I am hesitant to try, but it would be a perfect accompaniment to laser-weapons...

Revision: invisible crystals
We refine our transparent crystals so that they are completely invisible, by mathemagically isolating the magical signature for "light" that we have refined so well with our flare spells and simply removing all traces of it from the mathemagical equations we are using to generate our crystals. While this will aid immensely in scope covers(the internal lenses would need to be old-fashioned merely-transparent crystals to provide magnification, unless we use magic to magnify) and vision ports(but also handy for using flares from within a vehicle to full effectiveness with no fear of glare rebounding upon the user), it is, perhaps, most convenient for demonstrating to The Saint(may she never rain death upon us). When our mages are seen clearly demonstrating the material by laying atop it, demonstrating its smooth surface by presenting a painted object, then cleaning off its surfaces and polishing them to complete imperceptibility(while behind a curtain, no need to sully their eyes with common cleaning behaviour.) and for a bit of novelty presenting a plant potted in it and for a bit of showmanship we can grow the plant while nobody is in its vicinity and The Saint(May we be spared from her wrath) is engaged in conversation. The view of a plant's roots as it grows should be fascinating. It would just be too bad if there were some communication errors and the precise nature of our achievements were not adequately communicated...

Of secondary importance is applying the reverse of this. Imbuing the transparent crystal with the pure essence of light, bereft of context. This should cause it to imbue a specific measure of light upon whatever vision passes through it, resulting in the appearance of a bright day regardless of actual lighting conditions.

) they will rebound the sound of the cannon around the small quarters of the cock-pit and amplify the damage to the pilot's ears. I cannot help but to believe that it would be well in excess of an order of magnitude more damaging to sonic receptors than being subjecting to a firing range for common 9x19mm calibre pistols. Perhaps it would be best to sort out the ammunition first? Weightite beckons...

I imagine that loading while in an unsteady craft is going to be tedious and distracting. They are going to take a long time about it and be blind for the duration. Further, I expect that the craft will be inherently unstable. You all passed up the chance to have living magic and now we don't have any computers to keep our aircraft steady while being reloaded. It is all fine and well to say that the thing applies even force in all directions, but unless it is spinning it is going to be extremely unstable if it is relying upon direct thrust, extremely so in inclement weather. I would not be the least bit surprised to find that they need to land in order to reload. It is basically like trying to balance a spinning top upon your finger without spinning it, you have all the force you need but balancing the thing is a thing of enormity. I mean, sure, "a wizard did it" but it would be so much more plausible if we had living spells that could dedicate themselves to keeping the thing stable with minor attitude adjustments.

[andrea]

Made a change to jetpack to include an aethergem.

I believe Andres wanted that, and he was quite right.

[Chiefwaffles]

Alright, after talking with Andrea a bit and based on some suggestions by Andres (and kind of Fallacy), I've made some changes to the F43.

The F43 is no longer using Blastpods or the AS-HAC-1. Instead, it will use a gunner manning a 20mm ball turret placed on the back of the F43. The wings have also been removed.
The result will be much more effective. The 20mm cannon should be just enough to reliably pierce Moskurger armor and will still be fairly light and easy to reload with light ammunition. Compared to the AS-HAC-1 which is lower caliber and thus has harder time with armor piercing.
But it's much lighter than the HC1-E, still.

Overall this should be easier. The Blastpods + AS-HAC-1 + wings would be a lot heavier than a gunner and a 20mm ball turret. The ball turret is just simple mechanics + minor caliber change, which should come naturally to use given how often we do caliber changes. This is compared to making single-use HC1-E barrels reduced in length+general size then remotely activating them + their blastshells from the cockpit then hoping the heavy slow shells hit the target.

The gunner will be able to reliably fight the fast-moving skiffs and carpets, and the 20mm gun should be just big enough to pierce their armor. Maybe not as effectively as a HA1 or HC1-E, but effectively enough.

I'm switching people's votes over from the old F43. Gwolfski seemed to be okay with it on Discord, this is basically Andres' original idea, this is my design, and Fallacy largely agreed to the F43 for space-related reasons and also suggested using a gunner.


If someone could come up a new appearance, that'd be great.

Design: ASAF-F43 Interceptor (Updated)

Arstotzka needs a presence in the air. There are only so many ways we can prevent aerial attacks from the ground. We need to cut off the Moskurger threat at its roots - in the air.

The F43, named after the year of its design, is interesting. At first we looked at the bird with its large wings made purely for flying. After a few failed prototypes, we gave up on this idea. Sure, it could be made to work. But we don't need to work within the bounds of something so mundane.

We decided to base the F43 off of the Blastball. We already use it for propulsion - for the Blastshell. But we need something more versatile. Something that isn't just shaped explosions near an object to change its velocity.
Introducing the Kinetic Propulsion Drive. In a way, it's based off of the IDE. Using our extensive Fireball experience, we fill the KPD with extensive circuitry allowing it to exert a precise constant Blastball-derived propulsion. Calibrated for the shape of its host's hull, it creates constant pressure just outside the hull. Not explosions, but just... force. Allowing us to move any kind of object throughout the sky regardless of its shape, and giving us great freedom with weight.
The KPD is powered by an AAA Aethergem array, filled with as many AAA Aethergems as possible. We hope to allow for the KPD to remain powered without requiring a human mage, but as that's unlikely, a more reasonable goal is to allow for the Mage to only have to spend very small amounts of concentration on powering the craft and to allow for future upgrades to the power supply.

The F43 has an interesting shape. Ultimately we did choose to go with a vaguely bird-related aerodynamic shape to allow for increased efficiency when moving forwards. It's a small craft, as we don't wish to have to spend too much time on the KPD's power.
It's small. The pilot sits in a small "cockpit". The cockpit is almost entirely Crystal Glass for protection and visibility, and is shaped like a bubble or tear. The cockpit is just big enough to fit the pilot somewhat comfortably and the controls for the craft. A crystal glass secure small "door"-hatch allows for the pilot to disembark. Crystal Glass should be able to tank a ballistae bolt though we recommend not getting hit (which should be easy) regardless.

Behind the cockpit is a ball turret. Based off of the gear/movement principles of the AS-HAC-1, the ball turret is, well. It's a Crystal Glass ball, big enough for a gunner, a gun, and a respectable amount of ammunition.
The ball turret is mounted behind the cockpit and raised a bit, so it can shoot forward. It can shoot in any direction not blocked by the small cockpit and is aimed using gears inside the ball turret. A secure hatch allows the gunner to enter and exit the ball turret, though doing this in flight tends to be recommended against unless the gunner is very confident in their balance and the hovering abilities of the F43.

The ball turret uses a special kind of gun also based off of the AS-HAC-1. It's practically the same thing, except it uses a 20mm round instead of the AS-HAC-1's 14mm. This mild increase in caliber should allow for largely reliable armor piercing (at least for the airship+skiff) while keeping a high muzzle velocity (for shooting the fast targets) and a light gun+ammunition.
In the past we've made a lot of cannons. Caliber changes have become quite mundane for us, really. This is practically just increasing the size of the AS-HAC-1 barrel by a relatively small amount.

Finally, a "bomb bay" at the back of the cockpit is a small container with a hatch that opens to the air below the cockpit. This hatch can be opened via a lever accessible to the pilot.
The bomb bay is to hold at least one (2-3 if we're feeling really lucky) +E blastshell which will just fall towards the enemy. This will be used largely against enemy ground forces and occasionally airships.

Resistive/Non-Resistive crystal layering is in place to provide protection against lightning. This is possible thanks to the Crystalworks Mk. 2; all we have to do is flip a switch!

In order to control the craft, we have spent a negligible amount of time developing two AAA Magegems into globe-shaped input devices. There are two small-ish globes in the cockpit - one for each hand. The capacitive AAA Magegems register input from touching/rotation and this input is sent to the KPD's circuitry.
One globe is used to control the rotation of the F43, and one is used to control the direction of the thrust. This seemed to be the only method to allow for full control of the F43's complete freedom of movement.

The F43 can (probably) float. We assure you there's a reason for this.
With very careful precaution a F43 can be secured onto a Crystalclad for later liftoff, and it being powered by a Mage or Aethergems, it can be launched from the shore with a virtually unlimited range as well.

Kinetic Propulsion Drive - An "engine" filled with circuitry taking advantage of our Fireball experience + circuitry experience to allow it to use a Blastball-derived propulsion system, where it effectively just applies force to parts of its parent hull for movement. This is the main focus of the design. The rest is essentially building something to put the KPD inside. Basically, the KPD is a relatively large "wand" that casts the blastball-like propulsion around the hull of the craft for propulsion. Think of it like a wand that casts a derived-from-Blastball spell that "pushes" the hull at specific places in order to move the ship.
Power Generator - An integrated array of as many AAA Aethergems as possible without increasing expense and while remaining practical. The AAA Aethergems should focus as much as possible on powering the KPD without need for a Mage, but I realize this is by far the best-case scenario. If this (unlikely) goal doesn't get achieved, the Power Generator will be to allow the Mage to concentrate on other things, stop powering the KPD for a bit at a time, and for future upgrading so we can make it mundane-useable.
Range - Being fuel-less, the F43 has a virtually unlimited range. Its only limiting factor here is how long the pilot can stay awake/survive.
Propulsion - The KPD allows for UFO-like free movement with great speeds in any direction, through the F43 will still be streamlined in one direction to make it a bit faster when going "Forward". Think of it like the KPD just "pushes" the craft in the direction it wants to go from the outside.
--Hovering - Its propulsion naturally allows for hovering with no extra effort other than developing the KPD itself. Hovering doesn't really require any interaction by the pilot (as long as it's not knocked off balance when hovering) as long as the KPD is charged.
Control - Two globe-shaped capacitive AAA magegems, one for each hand, send input to the KPD. One is rotation, the other is direction of thrust.
Armor + Anti-Lightning - Armor should be enough to stop a ballista bolt, and resistive layering (Thanks to CW Mk. 2) allows for the craft to be lightning-resistant.
Cabin/Turret Climate Control - Just throw in some circuits in there to keep the cockpit+turret at a set temperature.

Weapons (20mm Ball Turret) - A ball turret attached to the back of the cockpit is made out of Crystal Glass (enough to at least stop a ballistae bolt) and is rotated via gears inside the turret. A gunner sits inside the turret and aims it + fires a 20mm AS-HAC-1 variant. 20mm should be enough to allow it pierce airship or (more importantly) skiff armor while still being light+easy-to-aim. Caliber change is based on our many cannon designs and how much experience we have with caliber changes at this point. Should be great vs skiffs + carpets and have limited effectiveness vs airships.
Weapons (Bombs) - A small bomb bay in the cockpit is filled with 1-3 (realistically just 1 is our goal) +E Blastshells to be dropped onto airships/ground forces by opening a hatch via lever accessible to the pilot.

Deployment - The F43 is of course to be deployed everywhere. On sea, it should mostly be able to be deployed from the shores thanks to its range, though if needed a single F43 could probably be secured onto a Crystalclad due to its small size.

Difficulty - This is fairly ambitious, but definitely not impossible. We have so much experience with the Fireball, and we've even already used the Blastball as propulsion. The challenge here is creating the Kinetic Propulsion Drive using our experience with Fireballs. Then we just make a small+light hull out of crystal and slap on some weapons.
Expense - I'm aiming for Expensive (Cheap may be possible but is really just a pipe dream) but Very Expensive is a very possible outcome. +1 to expense should help here. Circuits (which the Kinetic Propulsion Drive is practically made of) are cheap. Crystal is cheap + the Crystalworks. AS-HAC-1 (which the ball turret basically is) is cheap. Every part is cheap, so that shouldn't be a problem.


TL;DR - We make an "engine" able to give its parent object UFO-like propulsion (can move in any direction with great speed). Then we build a small+light crystal hull around it. Then give it weapons.

4 - ASAF-F43 Interceptor (Updated): Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist,Gwolfski, Andres
1 - Direct Application Frost Towers: Andres
0 - Berserker Array:
4 - Aerial Mobility Unit: Andrea, Draignean, Helmacon, Kadzar
0 - SA-1: Railed Man Cannon:
1 - Overclock Process MK 1: RAM
1 - Falcon Air Skiff: Lightforger
0 Weightite:
1 War Falcons: Void Slayer

[andrea]

5 - ASAF-F43 Interceptor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist,Gwolfski, Andres, Andrea
1 - Direct Application Frost Towers: Andres
0 - Berserker Array:
3 - Aerial Mobility Unit: Draignean, Helmacon, Kadzar
0 - SA-1: Railed Man Cannon:
1 - Overclock Process MK 1: RAM
1 - Falcon Air Skiff: Lightforger
0 Weightite:
1 War Falcons: Void Slayer

I am switching vote. However, it should be kept in mind that Andres was considering switching, so rolling may be premature

[RAM]

I am VERY nervous about making a LARGER autocannon as a minor component on a new design. The bodywork I am fine with, we are that far advanced on crystals. guns though, just no. This is an almost 50% increase in calibre with the expectation of retaining the qualities that make the smaller weapon better than the larger. If you really really insist on the new calibre, make it a smaller version of the larger one rather than a larger version of the smaller one. We have almost no experience of making existing cannons larger, especially not ones with fancy firing rates. On top of that the design is trying a new constant-effect force-effect magical film. We have channelled fog which is sort of a continuous effect, so it is not unprecedented, but that is a single example from summoning and this is based on the different fireballs field. Then it is a safe gentle pressure rather than an explosion, this is supported by the harmless flares and force balls, but both of those are relatively new and not applied to this implementation. And then it is a film, stably coating a surface, that, that is pretty much completely new. It is sort of like crystals but then again sort of completely not and that would be such a ridiculous stretch we may as well convert a crystalworks into summoning crystalclad-sized fire-breathing antimagic-immune lightning-immune dragons because wasps can fly and are alive, crystalclads are large, wasps can excrete fire, crystals can exist in antimagic, and are immune to lightning apparently because yay for hard counters... just because we have elements doesn't mean that we can suddenly throw them all together, except for that one time I made a design specifically so that we could throw all our elements together and now you can all see how foolish you were to reject me! Imma go and make my own nation, with giant wasps, and superdense bullets, and massive no-fly-zones... The force film is somewhat plausible as a design, I am not sure exactly how plausible, I would like it made very clear that it is the focus of the project and it would be better to have no flying machine and a functional Force Film than to have a flying machine made from existing elements, just so that we can be sure to put our all into the important bit.

Adding a massive upgrade to the calibre of our most complex cannon on top of that is just begging for fail. And unless the cannoneer is shielded from the cannon when it fires they are going to lose their ears. Is it an open-air cannon with an armoured cannoneer?