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Author Topic: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Fall 1965 - Final Design Phase)  (Read 61526 times)

Man of Paper

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Design Phase)
« Reply #420 on: July 18, 2018, 07:28:58 pm »

Just got to say I appreciate you taking my comments constructively. A girl at my job quit after I had her deal with her own mistakes instead of fixing them for her, and since she left crying a rumor started to spread that I was some kind of rude asshole. In truth she was being babied by everyone and couldn't deal with being told to step her game up and fix her shit (in a nicer manner), but it's still got me looking at everything I do and asking myself if I'm actually some kind of asshole.

My post could have easily been misinterpreted as aggressive, and I wouldn't blame you, but I'm glad you responded in a way that at least implied you knew I wasn't trying to be a dick.

Anyhow, I'm happy enough with that change that if the votes got tied between our facilities I'd be fine with swapping over to avoid a deadlock, I just prefer the possibilities the black chamber offers.
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Blood_Librarian

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Design Phase)
« Reply #421 on: July 18, 2018, 08:56:55 pm »

Although it is mostly my own taste, I dislike how short most of the entries are. Maybe its because I make mine huge, but maybe next revision or design I'll try and either tone it back or write up someone else up to my preference.
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if you want something wacky
Quote from: ChiefWaffles, MAR Discord
I continue to be puzzled by BL's attempts to make Aratam blatantly evil

Man of Paper

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Design Phase)
« Reply #422 on: July 18, 2018, 09:06:06 pm »

Mine are short to give the GM a little room for interpretation, but I can definitely add more detail and fluff if that's what people want. I was contemplating writing up some one-off posts about some dudes experiences on the battlefield just for funsies, so throwing more detail into the mix is okay for me.
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The Ensorceler

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Design Phase)
« Reply #423 on: July 18, 2018, 11:16:24 pm »

I can try to add more, but I tend to add details instead of stories to my stuff and I'm not sure I'm any different from you. The rocket launch wants a rocket into space, contact with an otherworldly entity, stealing from Russians, biological and environment testing, and a Rare Chemicals. You're able to stretch your feature-to-writing ratio a little further than everyone else, but mostly you add features for the sake of more story to tell. I don't dislike your designs, especially not for brainstorming, but they bloat a bit in ways that other people should avoid when adding to their descriptions. I'm not even sure you need to change, just don't expect similar proposals...

I'll do my best to get more writing into mine.
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Blood_Librarian

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Design Phase)
« Reply #424 on: July 19, 2018, 04:11:00 am »

So many things to do, alas. Maybe we can figure out some type of Spice 2.0 in the following urns so we don't have to deal with the mess we have anymore.
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if you want something wacky
Quote from: ChiefWaffles, MAR Discord
I continue to be puzzled by BL's attempts to make Aratam blatantly evil

Chiefwaffles

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Design Phase)
« Reply #425 on: July 22, 2018, 04:23:10 am »

The Black Chamber
Once humanity made contact with another realm it was only a matter of time before they dedicated resources to exploring it. Despite the name, The Black Chamber is no more intimidating than your standard Aratam laboratory, and is not a single chamber but a whole facility built beneath The Refinery. Within The Black Chamber scientists and engineers dedicate all their time, effort, and resources to break through into the Astral realm, both mentally and physically. Mereth has discovered a new resource that could turn the tide of the war, it's time we begin exploiting our own.
(Normal) (3+4) = 7: Superior Craftsmanship

What we have right now is a glimpse into the Astral Realm. It's only through intense and rigorous training and transformation that the best of the best -- the SEEMs -- are able to even feel it. For all that we've relied on it, we've only felt it; we've never looked into it. The Black Chamber aims to change that.
SEEM Commandos, chosen from the front as those believed to be the closest to the Astral Realm, are pulled back and assigned to months of training. Practically meditation. Then they are immersed within heavily-modified CryoStat tanks in the Black Chamber (hooked up to as much analysis equipment as we can spare), and are told to attempt to reach the Astral Realm.

It's an unimaginably dark place.
It sits beside our world; adjacent to it. Practically touching it. It's full of strings connecting everything; an incomprehensibly complex web of reality. Subjects who've successfully entered the Astral Realm feel distinctly alone, yet not truly. Like they're being watched by things that they cannot see. With a simple pulling of the strings, one can change reality. Through observation of the strings, one may see behind reality.
The rare spot in the Astral Realm has soft subtle illumination beating back the harsh void pervasive in the Realm -- these are those closest to the Realm, including our SEEM Commandos and (we believe) the Merethan soldiers reported to feel the presence of SEEMs. But if one looks closely, they can feel the presence of every human mind in the Astral realm, each their own individual flame. But only the strongest flames can illuminate the void.

As of now, we have no tangible benefits from the Black Chamber. But the knowledge it's given us of the Astral Realm is perhaps more valuable than anything else in the world or even beyond it.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

The Revision Phase of Summer 1963 has begun.
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Quote from: RAM
You should really look to the wilderness for your stealth ideas, it has been doing it much longer than you have after all. Take squids for example, that ink trick works pretty well, and in water too! So you just sneak into the dam upsteam, dump several megatons of distressed squid into it, then break the dam. Boom, you suddenly have enough water-proof stealth for a whole city!

Man of Paper

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #426 on: July 22, 2018, 09:17:58 am »

Gotta say I'm scratching my chin with a smirk. I say we reattempt FEAR or attempt an astralized treatment of a previously failed drug, much like how we worked with the initial Spice and made Fury.

That, or something to counter their air. I've got an idea for a weapon for our design next turn, but I'm on a phone on a bus so I'm not quite able to rip it out of my notebook.

Either way, I feel like we have the opportunity to push some ambitious astralbased designs and revisions now. I want to see some mad proposals.
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Blood_Librarian

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #427 on: July 22, 2018, 02:10:52 pm »

The Overwatch Program

Simply put, The SEEM Program has far too many "duds" for the amount of persons and resources funneled into it. With the advent of the Black Chamber and multiple solid theories based on the structure and foundation of the Astral present, it has come to our attention that an opportunity has became apparent to our SEEM. With a solid foundation of personnel in the program able to reliably manipulate our universe from the Astral, we can reliably increase the process by which SEEM Operators are created.

By directly moving the final process of SEEM creation too the Black Chamber, we can have senior personnel watch and protect personnel going through the Astral awakening by manipulating the Astral to become temporarily more hospitable for human minds while forcing them to "wake up" in the realm for a faster process.

With the guiding hand of Senior personnel in the Black Chamber, it should be possible to turn Golden Eye Personnel directly into the SEEM Program through a 2 phase system by which half are called back for processing, and then the other half is processed once the last of the first phase is processed for a fully tested system. It is theorized that more veteran Gold-eyes are opened up enough to the Astral for the SEEM process to function despite their relatively tainted bodies, allowing far higher numbers of personnel can be augmented in addition  to relatively weaker willed persons that would otherwise be ineligible for the SEEM Process (Like Recon and weaker Special forces members who are only augmented with the Baseline)

Theoritically, even Necropoliticans could be augmented.

Quote
OVERWATCH (1): Blood_librarian
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if you want something wacky
Quote from: ChiefWaffles, MAR Discord
I continue to be puzzled by BL's attempts to make Aratam blatantly evil

The Ensorceler

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #428 on: July 22, 2018, 03:14:28 pm »

The chemical side of swapping Goldeneyes to SEEMs is interesting. Because Goldeneyes already have Spice in their system blocking the... metallic recombinator+Spice cocktail the SEEMs use, they probably have to go cold turkey for a while before they can be dosed up and fully converted to SEEMs. I'll try to get a revision up, too.
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Talion

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #429 on: July 22, 2018, 03:19:39 pm »

Empathy Enhancer ‘Synergy’
Our drug testing of compounds similar to Spice has revealed another useful drug. Stimulating the right supramarginal gyrus and other parts of the brain responsible for empathic understanding, this drug facilitates training and cooperation, creating soldiers with a deep understanding of their squadmates every move. This increases morale and allows a greater complexity of strategy at the tactical level.
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Man of Paper

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #430 on: July 22, 2018, 09:01:10 pm »

Going through the thread for a good revision idea. I like the idea of "upgrading" to SEEM all around though (please correct me if that's not what OVERWATCH intends to do).

Spoiler: Idea #1 (click to show/hide)


Spoiler: Idea #2 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Idea #3 (click to show/hide)

I mean at this point it could be a revision. Also, as I finished typing this, Dio's Holy Diver started playing.
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The Ensorceler

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #431 on: July 22, 2018, 11:38:30 pm »

Steel Legion does address the "metallizing organs kills them problem... It seems fine, except it doesn't need the chest port because that aspect of the Iron Legion was given to the Baseline.

If we're going to make a Jackdaw out of a shrunken Magpie, we should make it a Raider upgrade instead, because Magpies are supersized Raiders to begin with. It should probably run on a Bio-Paste Reactor, and can host two powered-up Teslas like the Glaive has on its small turret. It could have Red Sky or Storm missiles, but I don't think it needs to do everything the original Magpie specs called for. Heavier armor or an armored plow would be more useful.

I don't think we're getting teleporting time assassins on a revision.

Electro-Boost Ramjet
Built around a Tesla firing rod, and lined with electromagnetic coils, the Electro-Booster Ramjet is incapable of firing 'true' Tesla shots due to the constant suction pulling air away from the rod, but the rod is able to prime that sucked away air and turn it into the same electically active plasma that a Tesla charges to fire its shots. That plasma responds to the electromagnetic field established by the coils and is pushed out at such speeds, the engine provides tremendous thrust in exchange for electricity and air. Fitting onto Torches is a high priority, as the lack of oxygen in the upper atmosphere will not hinder an Electro-Boost Ramjet the way it does combustion engines, giving Torches a place of safety in the skies.

Malign Revelation
The pieces of that so-called cannon, the "Malign Intent". Our... sane... engineers tried so hard to make sense of them. There was no barrel, no loading mechanism, not even any connectors to hold the pieces together. And yet its creator swore, to the day we condemned him to the Refinery, that we just couldn't see the cannon, that it wasn't done. We can see it now, from the Black Chamber, and the connections that tie it to those parts. Brought back to the original construction site and set in place, the bits and pieces of nothing stuck, right in the air, and revealed their purpose as anchors to our world. Given power, what would have rivaled the entire output of all Aratam's power plants when the cannon was designed, we brought it through, gave it form. This still was not enough to manifest it for more than a few moments, but then we metallicly recombinated that cannon-shaped piece of the Astral and bound it between our worlds forever.

It is one of a kind, and not exactly what anyone, even the mad engineer, intended, but it is powerful. It fires Astral shells in a closed loop, using the death created by them to restore its supply. Further study to replicate the processes used to create the cannon and the anchors to bring it to our world will of course be necessary, but as the engineer said, the cannon is starving and must be used as soon as is possible on the field of battle.

The loss of its creator is an enormous setback, but surely one we can overcome with time. They will be recognized posthumously as one of Aratam's greatest thinkers, a martyr to their work.
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Talion

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #432 on: July 23, 2018, 05:22:59 am »

Looks like we have a good set of options.

Quote from: Votebox
OVERWATCH (2): Blood_librarian, Talion
Synergy
Steel Legion
Jackdaw Landship
Temporal Agents
Electro-Boost Ramjet
Malign Revelation
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Man of Paper

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #433 on: July 23, 2018, 10:33:02 am »

Quote from: Votebox
OVERWATCH (3): Blood_librarian, Talion, MoP
Synergy
Steel Legion
Jackdaw Landship
Temporal Agents (1): MoP
Electro-Boost Ramjet
Malign Revelation

Overwatch is fine. It's practical and safe. But we also have everything we need for Temporal Agents at our disposal, it'd just be an additional level of training for SEEMs. Imagine what it'll do to the Merethians if we get this to work even just a couple times! Our Chamber gave us nothing immediately tangible. I imagine it's so things like Temporal Agents would be easier. We got all the puzzle pieces, we just have to put them together!
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The Ensorceler

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Re: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Summer 1963 - Revision Phase)
« Reply #434 on: July 23, 2018, 10:57:39 am »

Quote from: Votebox
OVERWATCH (4): Blood_librarian, Talion, MoP, The_Ensorceler
Synergy
Steel Legion
Jackdaw Landship
Temporal Agents (1): MoP
Electro-Boost Ramjet
Malign Revelation

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