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[NUKE9.13]

@Nuke, what is the Dice out of, 20? or 6?

I'm using a 2d4. The results table and difficulty modifiers are described in the core thread OP, in the spoiler named "Designs and Revisions (and 2d4s)"

Would you rule out psionics and cybernetics, or could it be done if proper research was put inro it.

Cybernetics are definitely possible. If you tried for Psionics right now they'd probably be Impossible, but after advancing in precursor fields they may become possible.

[3_14159]

EAF-X1 "Ranger" Laser Rifle (3): Chiefwaffles, khang, Piratejoe, 3_14159

Bandwagon, ho!

Also, I'd definitely say we have to design a space design next turn.

[Blood_Librarian]

The intended goal was to make it that they would be so ubiquitous that it would basically be impossible to run out of ammo in the long term.

We could revise the standard uniform to include basic, possibly makeshift metal plates. Essentially distributing plate carriers.

Edit: What are we using to power our shuttles?

[NUKE9.13]

Edit: What are we using to power our shuttles?

Your shuttles use chemical rockets for propulsion.

Design: EAF-X1 "Ranger" Laser Rifle

The Ranger is a very versatile weapon, based off of integrating the fairly well-known laser technology from Earth with the GROUNDBREAKING ERTEX INNOVATION Nanoquantum Cells, which work 100% as planned no question there don't ask about it because they work amazingly thank you.
Thanks to Nanoquantum Cells, we can easily ensure the Ranger is roughly average-sized for a gun and easily usable by all infantry. It fires in a pulse beam configuration - kind of like a semiautomatic kinetic gun. There is a switch to turn off the limiters and make it actually a beam weapon: our troops are only advised to use this in situations where the standard pulse can't melt through the structure or armor. An example usage of this would be if they develop armor resistant to the pulses, or armored vehicles.
The Ranger can be equipped with a scope or bipod (again - we should just have these lying around) if needed, allowing it to function effectively as a marksman/sniper rifle.

We believe the Ranger will be extraordinarily effective. In addition to doing more damage than kinetics, it doesn't suffer from bullet drop, is extremely accurate, is silent, and its beam is invisible to the naked eye. Allowing our soldiers (and snipers) to use their weapons while still being extremely stealthy. Furthermore, the use of Nanoquantum Cells should assure a non-awful magazine situation.
TL;DR: A non-bulky laser rifle for standard use by our infantry. Has optional scope/bipod for sniping, has a beam mode for concentrated fire on armored targets, and is 100% silent+invisible laser+no drop+super accurate. All while hopefully being "Normal" difficulty!

EAF-X1 "Ranger" Laser Rifle (Normal): (1+3)=4: Below Average
Sayonara, gunpowder. Your time is past. Laser weapons are surely the future. Even though preliminary tests suggest the Ranger isn't as deadly as conventional firearms, it is almost completely silent and invisible, and capable of reasonable armour-penetration in beam mode.
It takes the form of a rather bulky rifle, weighing in at an unfortunate 15kg. Two NQ Cells are slotted into the base of the rifle, providing 2.5 seconds of laser. In order to deal an appreciable amount of damage, pulse mode fires for .5 seconds at a time. This means the target ideally needs to be stationary, otherwise the damage is spread out. Beam mode fires until the cells run dry or the trigger is lifted, and can burn through medium vehicle armour in that time (assuming conventional armour).
The Ranger uses a visible light frequency, to increase the range, which combined with a simple scope and bipod make it a fairly decent sniper weapon, though it isn't optimised for dealing damage to either soft or hard targets.


It is now the revision phase of SY96.

[Detoxicated]

EAF-X1.5 "Ranger" Laser Rifle
This rifle is comparable to its predecessor in design. However, by decreasing the materials used and laying it out a bit smoother here and there we have managed to decrease its weight by 40%. Its leaner shaper makes transporting and using the thing more bearable.

[Blood_Librarian]

This is a sniper rifle, right? Why don't we make it into a set of equipment for two men to carry? One carries a backpack of batteries, transformers and other electrical equipment for enabling the usage of the rifle for vastly extended times. The other carries the rifle, which is freed from the need of carrying the electricity part of the weapon and is free to focus on being all laser.
I introduce the EAF-X1.5 B Configuration
 Essentially separating the weapon into a two-man fireteam configuration weapon designed for sniper pairs. The rifle has the electrical transformer, batteries, and other similar equipment separated from the main rifle body and is replaced with fanned out heatsinks which give its distinct flat cylinder top area near where a receiver is on a gunpowder rifle. In addition, the projected goal is to make sure that the sharpshooter has 10 kilograms of weight on him, (it doesn't matter if the sucker spotter has to carry 15 to do it.) If there is available space, the weapon should be expanded so that it would be more lethal.

If possible, both the original and the B model should be deployed in combat.

EAF-X1.5-A "Ranger" Laser Rifle(1): Detoxicated
EAF-X1.5-B "LongWatch" Laser Rifle (1):Blood_Librarian

[FallacyofUrist]

Maybe we should be a little less specialized(aka, a little more redundant)? Let's not forget that laser rifles are useless in space.

Armored ITC:
The possibility of space warfare is worrying, as we have no combat spacecraft. While we can't revise a combat spacecraft, we can certainly armor our ITCs. The idea is to make our Interplanetary Transport Craft able to survive incoming fire in order to make their delivery before being shot down. We can create a combat spacecraft(maybe using lasers) next turn!

EAF-X1.5-A "Ranger" Laser Rifle(1): Detoxicated
EAF-X1.5-B "LongWatch" Laser Rifle (1):Blood_Librarian
Armored ITC (1): FallacyofUrist

[Blood_Librarian]

We want to obliterate them on the ground, If we really want to survive in orbit, half-assing armor plates on space shuttles are not as good as the benefits of making sure our laser weapons are good. I think from the get-go we should haphazard what is essentially our first orbital station for the express purpose of supplying a fleet of frigates that will never enter the atmosphere. And then replicate that on all the planets we take. They don't have to be death stars, they just have to have a gun on them, because a ship that is expressly designed for its purpose would be inherently better than jury-rigging parts of civilian ships into a chunky war machine.

[FallacyofUrist]

We're not trying to turn our ITCs into war machines, we're just trying to make sure they can survive being shot for a bit, in case the enemy deploys space-based warfare first.

[Blood_Librarian]

Hmm, how many more turns of designs do we get before we have to start fighting? I might agree with you if we have very little time left.

[NUKE9.13]

Hmm, how many more turns of designs do we get before we have to start fighting? I might agree with you if we have very little time left.

The first battle report will be in the year SY100.

[Blood_Librarian]

So we have 3 more designs and 4 more revisions.

I think our next revision should go on firmly planting the Laser rifle as a good weapon, and the next 2 designs on supplanting our spacecraft with 1 space station and 1 space warship, with the last design on making an exoskeleton for the ground.

[Chiefwaffles]

Okay. Flaws:

• 5 shots per magazine: Fixable by increasing power of NQ Cells, which would help everything else we'd be using NQ for.
• Lower Power: It must be aimed at the target for .5 seconds for the beam to do anything. Not great.
• Bulky: Self-explanatory.

Right now we've made a stealth marksman rifle. Which is nice, but not nice when our main infantry weapon is still a crappy pistol.
The Ranger has 3 flaws. That means almost definitely 3 revisions required to fix it. The way I see it, that's not worth it.

So instead, let's use our revision for something else this turn - upgrading the NQ, preparing our tech for space, theoretical revisions for future designs. Then upgrade the laser rifle by using a design next turn. By using a design on the Laser Rifle, we can almost assuredly make it a good, solid, staple infantry weapon. Which is exactly what we want. We can use the revision to make up for the lost design by preparing for a future, likely space-based design.


Option 1: Upgrade NQ Cells. This should effectively increase the magazine size of the NQ Cell, increase the effectiveness of any future power armor, and just generally help a lot in our future. Should hopefully be Easy, as it's mostly just optimizing the last revision to work properly. This will also help everywhere we use NQ Cells.
Revision: Optimal Power Pathing
By spending time increasing our knowledge of the new quantum nanostructures and the exact ways in which their behavior manifests, we should be able to greatly[/u] optimize their structure. We're effectively forcing the electricity to go where we want it to. We just need to guide it along its path. Arranging the individual NQ Capacitors to work with the new structures also helps reduce the size taken.

Ideally, this revision should greatly decrease the space taken by the new structures, resulting in an extreme increase in effective power storage in all NQC devices.
TL;DR: We have the core concept behind Power Pathing down, now we just need to refine it to actually work.


Option 2 - Prepare for space combat. (Not including this in the vote box to avoid pollution - people can add it if they want to vote for it.)
Revision: Radar Tactical Network Mk.1 "Tacnet"
By working off of our current radar technology, we can create a module for our ships (and perhaps later, ground units) to improve their combat effectiveness.

Tacnet works largely by implementing communication between radar-equipped ships and automatically sharing relevant targeting data. So we revise in a small short-range radio, set it to communicate all notable bits of sensor data from the local ship's radar, and to receive all notable bits of sensor data from other Ertex Tacnet radars.
Our crew will see the sensor data from the entire Tacnet in the bridge, not just their radar. Giving them a much better view of the battlescape. Hopefully in the future we can hook up more advanced sensors to the Tacnet, and perhaps have our weaponry and other targeting devices draw data directly from Tacnet.


Option 3 - A weapon for our ships. Upscaling the latest version of the laser in the ship design could work, but this would decrease chances of failure and ensure we have more room to add things in our spaceship design.
Revision: ESC-XLW1 "Rangefinder" (accepting different nicknames)
(Ertex Space Corps - eXperimental Laser Weapon 1)

By simply greatly upscaling the EAF-X1 and installing it on a turret, we can make a great weapon for our future spaceships.
An integrated NQC bank will be included in the XLW1, but will only hold the same or less charge relative to its size than a NQ Cell would for the Ranger. The NQC bank is simply to hold enough charge so the XLW1 can fire 1-5 times without drawing power from the reactor, to avoid straining it (even if the reactor can [and it should - at least for 1 or 2] power the turret fully) during combat.

The power of course is greatly upscaled with the weapon. We're hoping to increase the radius of the beam primarily, as the general destructive power of the Ranger should work (though upgrading it would be nice) against spaceship armor for the near future.
TL;DR: Revise a laser turret (upscale Ranger, put on turret) for our future ships.

EAF-X1.5-A "Ranger" Laser Rifle(1): Detoxicated
EAF-X1.5-B "LongWatch" Laser Rifle (1):Blood_Librarian
Armored ITC (1): FallacyofUrist
Optimal Power Pathing (1): Chiefwaffles
ESC-XLW1 "Rangefinder" Ship Laser Turret (0):

[Blood_Librarian]

Right, I thought this was intended as a snipers weapon, but since you want it to be used as an infantry weapon, I will change my vote accordingly.

the B variant of the rifle was supposed to fix all three of its flaws by A: Giving us the ability to have more batteries (Another man carries it.), Gives the laser weapon more room to be heavier insteae  of having one man carry an entire laser platform and C, reducing individual weight by distributing it to another soldier.

EAF-X1.5-A "Ranger" Laser Rifle(1): Detoxicated
EAF-X1.5-B "LongWatch" Laser Rifle (0):
Armored ITC (1): FallacyofUrist
Optimal Power Pathing (2): Chiefwaffles, Blood_Librarian
ESC-XLW1 "Rangefinder" Ship Laser Turret (0):

[sprinkled chariot]

BS -1 ( brutal slaughter)Boarding torpedo

By minor redisign of chem propelled missiles :
Making boarding team compartment and strapping asteroid mining drill on front , our engineers have created efficient way of boarding and capturing enemy ships.