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[helmacon]

Why don't we just.... Use a revision to make it cheaper...

Revision: honest strike

Now that the most arduous process of the translation is done, we can analyse each component of the spell individually and reduce redundancy. By defining the specific functions of each part of the spell and replacing it with our own equivalent, we can create the same effects at a much more efficient (and cheaper) ratio.

[FallacyofUrist]

We could always give it to Myark...

*consider's Myark's anger at having to praise Moskurg's god*

On second thought, no. Well, maybe. Let's see if we can remove the nasty bits first.
~~~

REVISION 1
2 - Powered Lightning Turrets: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist

REVISION 2
1 - Mageglass Targetting Suite: Chiefwaffles
2 - Honest Strike: helmacon, FallacyofUrist

Making this thing cheaper could be really handy. Once that's done, we can apply it to our cannons and whatnot... I think it's more useful than a targeting suite, unless the targeting suite can zoom and be crystal optics. On the other hand, powered lightning turrets would be very helpful. Let's do both.

[Kadzar]

We could always give it to Myark...

*consider's Myark's anger at having to praise Moskurg's god*

On second thought, no. Well, maybe. Let's see if we can remove the nasty bits first.
~~~

I think only the crystal has to praise Moskurg's god, but it wouldn't hurt to have the spell be cheaper. Then again, we really need something to shoot down Skyskiffs, so I guess I'll vote for better turrets for now (unless I can be convinced that cheaper True Strike will help in that regard.)

REVISION 1
3 - Powered Lightning Turrets: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Kadzar

REVISION 2
1 - Mageglass Targetting Suite: Chiefwaffles
2 - Honest Strike: helmacon, FallacyofUrist

[FallacyofUrist]

We have two revisions. We can do both!

[Chiefwaffles]

Let me lay out the problem with Honest Strike.

It's just too expensive. If we waste a revision on cheapening it, best case scenario it'll become Very Expensive. Where it will still be largely useless in the overall tides of battle. So then we'd have to waste another revision or even our expense credit on it to get it to Expensive, where it starts being useful.


Or we can wait and make a better design at another time or salvage what we can with a revision. I think Mageglass Targetting Suite is the best idea in this regard, but there are multiple ways to salvage TrueStrike without wasting at least two actions on it.

[evictedSaint]

Powered turrets seems to be winning.  Revision in a couple hours.

[RAM]

I believe that EvictedSaint's Quote, along with prior observations, demonstrates that the revision will be sequential, and thus there is no point to separating them...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1 - Mageglass Targetting Suite: Chiefwaffles
2 - Honest Strike: helmacon, FallacyofUrist

I hate to do this, but we really can't afford to just keep throwing away our designs. It rolled a one on cost so it should be bad luck more than technical issues that raised the cost, so it should be pretty easy, unless it overshot by a lot, which is certainly possible considering that it is complex spellwork on every gun... Of course, Cable is easy and effective. We get our reactors working and it is just a revision to make our circuits flexible and putting some very simple armour and wheels on a reactor. Won't be invulnerable but it ought to be functional and it gets us over our inability to use reactors for anything. Lamp is difficult but could be huge if it works. It would give us better vision then them in the bad lighting conditions which they create and open the path to proper enchantments.
Mts doesn't seem to have a viable description. It ought to say what it actually does. I am not even sure if it removes the references to religion.
Plt seems difficult to work. It is a new control scheme along with new applications and the turret is not necessarily well designed for the required equipment, which involves propulsion circuits on something that was previously... How DID it rotate before? I mean, it is a 360 degree turret, right? So it is a ball? so how does the gunner touch anything othetr than the ball? And if they don't, how can they rotate the ball without touching anything else? Anyways, it is a significant rework to get from a revision. Certainly plausible, but it is a risk. And the effect is that it is aiming faster, which helps, definitely, but it is still a low rate-of-fire gun shooting at jet-planes. I can see it being part of the solution, but it shouldn't turn around the air-war...

3 - Powered Lightning Turrets: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Kadzar
0 - Mageglass Targetting Suite:
0 - L.A.M.P.:
0 - C.A.B.L.E.:
1 - honest strike: RAM
0 - :

[Chiefwaffles]

I think you're mildly mistaken about MTS, RAM, because it seems like you think that doing it would effectively throw away the TrueStrike design action.
Really, MTS is a revision of TrueStrike. Without TrueStrike, it wouldn't be possible.

MTS is basically just sacrificing bits of TrueStrike to decrease the amount of actions needed to make it useful. That and it does lead us on the path to more display tech, which is always cool. To use a weird analogy, it's like throwing weights off a hot air balloon while increasing the heat instead of just increasing the heat. Kind of.

But I'll try to edit clarify what it actually does in its description later today.



The Lightning's turret currently works via the gunner manually rotating the turret.
I think using friction? Pushing against something?

Naturally this is extremely slow and the combat report made its significance obvious. The Lightning can't fight back against faster craft at all because it can't track fast enough to even shoot at them in the first place.

[FallacyofUrist]

RAM, you killed the quote box, dangit.

Revision 1:
3 - Powered Lightning Turrets: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Kadzar
0 - Mageglass Targetting Suite:

Revision 2:
0 - L.A.M.P.:
0 - C.A.B.L.E.:
3 - honest strike: RAM, helmacon, FallacyofUrist

[Chiefwaffles]

Mageglass Targetting Suite is Revision 2, not revision 1.

And I believe RAM's change to the votebox was intentional. Since it seems that the revisions are going to be done separately.

You should vote for the targeting suite, fallacy.

• Helps as targeting for Oracle. (TrueStrike/Lucky Strike wouldn't be that useful for Oracle, considering how poorly it goes for Moskurg with their rail gun.)
• Can be easily integrated with crystal optics (both are crystal glass variants, crystal isn't very good with integration)
• Can be made better with more revisions (original TrueStrike vision [auto-aim] because both just use the targetting part, etc. etc..)

Also more, but writing these lists on mobile is hell.

[helmacon]

  Also more, but writing these lists on mobile is hell.

I feel your pain.

[RAM]

at present we are facing something that seems to be similar to a WWII fighter with more manoeuvrability. We are using something similar to a single-shot sniper rifle, with a mess of bricks tied to it. What we can d is pick a direction that they are likely to be in, and wait for them to be there. It is terrible. Powered turrets would let us track and lead and such, which sounds wonderful, but is actually woefully insufficient. People don't use single-shot rifles against agile aircraft. Given that we have magic, the mechanics of getting a bullet fired is sort of extreme. It requires very precise repetition, which is the sort of thing that magic is traditionally bad at. A sewing sell would typically be expected to replicate a sewing motion, except perfectly and at impossible speed. A sewing machine will produce a terrible single-sided sewing motion that is prone to unravelling, but can be produced with an extremely repetitive motion and will rip through a line of stiching at a pace the magic sewing spell couldn't hope to compete with. Against the enemy fighters, our cannons just aren't any good. we are fight up-hill to get extreme rate-of-fire. There are lots of tricks that we can pull off, but ultimately none of them will work well enough. But magic can be clever, and we ought to be able to get homing projectiles, effects that directly manifest upon a target, sticky air-webs that spontaneously appear across the sky and catch annoying bugs. Powered turrets would help, but they shouldn't turn the battle around.

[helmacon]

Web shooting turrets.

[RAM]

Well, I figure that we want a magic to make them stick to a point in space. Our propulsion should be perilously close to absolute directions now, so we could tweak that into something clever... I just worry that they can carry webs so being covered by web, while very inconvenient, would not actually be fatal.

[helmacon]

Well, just don't disconnect the web. From what I can tell their ships are made from wood and adamantium. (Which is supposedly a light metal) ours are made from Crystal that is marginally lighter than metal. We should out with them, so we can web lasso their ships and sling them into the ground.