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[VoidSlayer]

Wait... the ship is unarmored, has a competently open rear hatch, and will easily capsize in strong weather LIKE WEATHER THE ENEMY CAN PRODUCE ON CALL.

We need to fix this thing not worry about crystal fabricators.  This is worse then the wooden suspension for our IFV.

[Chiefwaffles]

It's the same situation as the Lightning. Which hasn't had capsizing notably affect its performance.

Valkyrie has a tendency to capsize the same as the Lightning, and the pilot must be careful during take off and landing.

The wooden suspension for the Protector made it useless. It's completely unlike this.
This issue has been proven to have little to none impact on effectiveness. We've already used the Lightning, which has this same exact issue, for two turns and capsizing wasn't mentioned.

That and our designers aren't that stupid. If people falling out during flight is a problem, we'd know that.

[RAM]

It is true that th capsizing issue has not turned up in the battle reports. But then again, the wind and tornadoes haven't really been mentioned either. Can we have some sort of specific confirmation that the wind is doing nothing?

[Chiefwaffles]

This was specifically referring to the Avenger, but I believe it still applies to mostly Lightnings as well since nothing relevant and too major has changed since then. Lightnings are probably a bit better in this regard with their better acceleration/agility, but still.

Combat for 945

...
Avengers are a concern though, as it takes a few lightning strikes to knock them out of the sky.  If they're too close then mages need to strike at the pilot or gunner, as the explosion would damage the Skyhawk.  Thankfully, their massive control of the weather makes it hard for Arstotzka to scramble interceptors or launch sorties, as it's nearly impossible to maintain formation in such inclement weather, so they don't really do much on that end.

So yes, their wind is definitely hurting us. Their wind makes quick reaction and launching interceptions very difficult and formation in mid-air is also nearly impossible to maintain. Nothing critical, but definitely something to consider addressing. It's probably better now with the Lightning as it has much better agility and acceleration, but the general issues will still be present.


Also this quote from evicted on Discord when I asked him for clarification as to why we were losing in the Taiga. Not sure if I posted it before, so:

evictedSaint - Last Sunday at 10:04 PM
Their tornadoes are extra effective there, they out-range you with artillery, and though you are slightly better at dogfighting, they have decent CAS and flying artillery platforms.  You can beat them man-to-man, but they're not fighting you man-to-man if they can help it.

So basically it seems like that Arstotzka's airborne artillery is the #1 factor, with the tornadoes' impact on our general forces being the 2nd. And even though we are a bit better air-to-air, we're not good enough to eliminate their airborne artillery and we don't have any good designs to leverage our air advantage.

[helmacon]

Cloud eater towers.

The enemy's power comes from the weather, and while done have said that such a thing is beyond our abilities to counter, fortunately we have some experience in controlling weather on a large scale.
While the inner workings are a bit more complex, the end result is simple. We go from a tower that is spewing out cold and frost, to a tower that is sucking in wind and clouds. This should greatly reduce the strength of their storms, and all the associated magic that goes with it.

[VoidSlayer]

True Flight

We incorporate a modified Honest Strike circuit into the control system for our aircraft, guiding not the weapons but the path of the ship itself.  With this system every pilot flies like an ace and can fly through and recover in even the most difficult situations.

[Chiefwaffles]

Cloud eater towers.

The enemy's power comes from the weather, and while done have said that such a thing is beyond our abilities to counter, fortunately we have some experience in controlling weather on a large scale.
While the inner workings are a bit more complex, the end result is simple. We go from a tower that is spewing out cold and frost, to a tower that is sucking in wind and clouds. This should greatly reduce the strength of their storms, and all the associated magic that goes with it.

Sounds like a hard counter.
We'd be better off reducing the effect of their wind stuff on our important things. Just going "NUH UH YOU CAN'T USE WIND MAGIC CUZ I HAVE AN ANTI-WIND TOWER" is bound to get disapproval from evicted and a revision from Moskurg undoing this.

Reference for evicted's dislike of hard counters:

No, I made the call that Hard Counters aren't allowed any more. I shouldnt have let it happen in the first place, but I'm kind of a shitty GM.

True Flight

We incorporate a modified Honest Strike circuit into the control system for our aircraft, guiding not the weapons but the path of the ship itself.  With this system every pilot flies like an ace and can fly through and recover in even the most difficult situations.

I like the idea, but the expense seems to make it impractical when there are other way we could do this.

HonestStrike is Very Expensive. Soon, we're going to have two Cheap aircraft. It feels like we're bound to get limited deployment if we go this route.



KPD5 - Phased Array (Agility/Acceleration)

By implementing small-scale timers in the activation of the individual KPD4 propulsion circuits, we can modify the direction of thrust on any side of the craft, even if that side doesn't "match up" with the direction of thrust. We can have thrust coming from the bottom of the craft move it forwards, and whatnot.

This should notably increase the agility and acceleration of our craft, as we can get more acceleration for the same power input and have much more "flexibility" to control and rotate the craft. Stability should go up along with agility, as the increased agility will mean more control over the craft to more easily prevent capsizing and allow for hot-drops, better dogfighting, faster horizontal/etc. acceleration, and more.

TL;DR: Use timers to allow for directional thrust on all sides of the craft and thus allow for much greater control/agility/non-vertical acceleration.
((Reference: Wikipedia - Phased Array. Note the application of this in 1905.))


KPD5 - Coregem (Stability)

With the solid-state improvements, AAethergems are made out of Mageglass now. As fabricators are mathematically perfect, we can use this to create "smarter" circuitry. Nowhere near "living", but hopefully allowing our circuitry to be a bit more dynamic and reactive.

We implement the Coregem in the KPD of the Lightning + Valkyrie. With the Coregem implemented, the KPD5 will be able to be much "smarter" in its use. Without requiring a pilot, the aircraft should make finer corrections itself and compensate for unintended movement/rotation - usually as a result of wind. The Coregem is still simple, but even a modest improvement in what the KPD can do itself will help a lot.
As the pilot has to worry a lot less about the more finer details, they can focus on more straightforward maneuvers, maybe even improving our dogfighting capabilities. But the main benefit of this is stability - the Coregem means that our pilots can focus more (not completely. yet.) on "move forward" instead of "tilt craft 16.3 degrees forward, active lower-back thrust to 39%."

Capsizing should be greatly reduced if not eliminated as the Coregem should kick in to handle that. Interference from wind should go down as the Coregem can compensate for that. Pilots should be able to launch interceptions and land much more quickly as they can focus on landing instead of keeping the craft from tipping over, greatly improving the responsiveness of our Lightnings and the "quick-drop" ability of our Valkyries.

TL;DR: Make our craft much more stability with what's basically an extremely primitive CPU. Kind of. Basically just a bit smarter circuitry handling some of the finer details. Should allow for quick loading/unloading of troops from Valkyries (even in combat!), quick launching of interceptions with Lightnings, no more capsizing, and hopefully the ability to keep formation in the air.

REVISION

0 - Heavy Shells
0 - Crystal Subconjuration
0 - Basic Crystal Armor Camouflage:
0 - Rocketshells
1 - Relentless Engine: FallacyofUrist
0 - Nickel Honest Strike
1 - Crystal Ammunition Fabricator: Chiefwaffles
0 - Cloud eater towers:
0 - True Flight:
0 - KPD5 Phased Array:
0 - KPD5 Coregem:

EXPENSE CREDIT:
2 - Aether Reactor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist

I'm going to vote for Crystal Subconjuration or one of the KPD5 variants for the 2nd revision, probably. I'll argue more for them later.

The point of the Coregem KPD5 is to increase our circuitry knowledge and to just make the KPD more stable. More polished. Less like a prototype rocket drive and more like a tested method of propulsion. The Phased Array is just a really cool way of hopefully greatly increasing acceleration/control.

[Andres]

Revision: Aerophobic Crystal: Revise our crystal production so that we can reduce the air resistance of crystal down to the point where Moskurg's wind magic will not be able to significantly affect our artillery shells.

REVISION

0 - Heavy Shells
0 - Crystal Subconjuration
0 - Basic Crystal Armor Camouflage:
0 - Rocketshells
1 - Relentless Engine: FallacyofUrist
0 - Nickel Honest Strike
1 - Crystal Ammunition Fabricator: Chiefwaffles
0 - Cloud eater towers:
0 - True Flight:
0 - KPD5 Phased Array:
0 - KPD5 Coregem:
1 - Aerophobic Crystal: Andres

EXPENSE CREDIT:
3 - Aether Reactor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Kadzar]

I'm not seeing a bomber variant yet, so I'll vote for better maneuverability for now.

REVISION

0 - Heavy Shells
0 - Crystal Subconjuration
0 - Basic Crystal Armor Camouflage:
0 - Rocketshells
1 - Relentless Engine: FallacyofUrist
0 - Nickel Honest Strike
1 - Crystal Ammunition Fabricator: Chiefwaffles
0 - Cloud eater towers:
0 - True Flight:
1 - KPD5 Phased Array: Kadzar
0 - KPD5 Coregem:
1 - Aerophobic Crystal: Andres

EXPENSE CREDIT:
4 - Aether Reactor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres, Kadzar

[helmacon]

It's a soft counter, the way their wind was a soft counter to our artillery. The main idea here is to weaken the wind and regain some of our range.

I should specify that's it's meant as a future design. I wouldn't try it as a revision.

On hard counters in general though, I kinda feel like we got the short end of the stick. I get where es is coming from, but they already got two over on us and we didn't do any to them. We are still fundamentally handicapped. The reason we use magi-tech is because straight up combat spells are impossible with their anti magic.

I am still ideologically opposed to the CAF. It's a cool concept, but Crystal ammunition is not very good ammunition. Plus I want to eventually make our explosive and range shells small enough that we can use them from our rifles. Once we have bolters and make our combat armor power armor, we are basically ultra marines. Explosive and range shells require inner workings that can't be summoned straight up.


I would be willing to vote for either true flight, cheaper honest strike, or aerophobic/heavy shells. (They do the same thing in different ways.)

someone add me to the expense credit pile.

[VoidSlayer]

REVISION

0 - Heavy Shells
0 - Crystal Subconjuration
0 - Basic Crystal Armor Camouflage:
0 - Rocketshells
1 - Relentless Engine: FallacyofUrist
1 - Nickel Honest Strike: Voidslayer
1 - Crystal Ammunition Fabricator: Chiefwaffles
0 - Cloud eater towers:
0 - True Flight:
1 - KPD5 Phased Array: Kadzar
0 - KPD5 Coregem:
1 - Aerophobic Crystal: Andres

EXPENSE CREDIT:
4 - Aether Reactor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres, Kadzar

[andrea]

I believe rapid fire will increase the effectiveness of the lightning greatly, so I am voting for CAF.
Mind you, I know that we are not getting a machinegun on a revision ( barring maybe a 6), but not having to reload should still improve effectiveness significantly.

REVISION

0 - Heavy Shells
0 - Crystal Subconjuration
0 - Basic Crystal Armor Camouflage:
0 - Rocketshells
1 - Relentless Engine: FallacyofUrist
1 - Nickel Honest Strike: Voidslayer
2 - Crystal Ammunition Fabricator: Chiefwaffles, Andrea
0 - Cloud eater towers:
0 - True Flight:
1 - KPD5 Phased Array: Kadzar
0 - KPD5 Coregem:
1 - Aerophobic Crystal: Andres

EXPENSE CREDIT:
4 - Aether Reactor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres, Kadzar

[Gwolfski]

I agree with the above

REVISION

0 - Heavy Shells
0 - Crystal Subconjuration
0 - Basic Crystal Armor Camouflage:
0 - Rocketshells
1 - Relentless Engine: FallacyofUrist
1 - Nickel Honest Strike: Voidslayer
3 - Crystal Ammunition Fabricator: Chiefwaffles, Andrea, Gwolfski
0 - Cloud eater towers:
0 - True Flight:
1 - KPD5 Phased Array: Kadzar
0 - KPD5 Coregem:
1 - Aerophobic Crystal: Andres

EXPENSE CREDIT:
5 - Aether Reactor: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Andres, Kadzar, Gwolfski

[evictedSaint]

Surprising number of revisions this round, but it seems like Crystal Ammo Fabricator is winning. Rolls in an hour or so.

[evictedSaint]

Revision: Crystal Ammo Fabricator [2-1]

We attempt to integrate a fabrication unit into the barrels of our guns.

Crystal is light, which makes it intrinsically unsuited as ammunition.  Weapons that use crystal shells experience a reduction in range and cannot use different ammo types.  The automatic fabrication set-up in the Crystalworks is large and bulky, and we are unable to miniaturize it easily. Large copper scrolls for both the crystal design itself and the fabrication logic must be attached, along with D-level Aethergems and significant wiring.  The set-up is fragile, cumbersome, and increases the expense of the weapon it is attached to by one.  It can generate a crystal shell in the firing chamber at a rate of one every two and a half seconds for the R1, and this rate decreases as the size of the shell increases. 

Overall, this revision for semi-automatic weapons was rather ambitious and probably should have been left to a design instead.  It is currently not suitable for use in the field.