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[Man of Paper]

EXALT 1 (1): Blood Librarian,
NOD (1): Blood Librarian,
EXALT 1-B (0):
The DREAM Project (1): MoP
SNOW/White (0):
The Black Chamber (1): MoP

Thinking about it, I feel like the Oracle is going to get exponentially more effective with each passing combat phase. We have the Astral at our fingertips, let's fall further into something that their damn robobrain can't factor into calculations.

[The Ensorceler]

Atlas Prime Refinery Fleet

 "Aratam Unveils New Cargo Ship; Plans to Change World"
"Earth-shattering Aratamite Cargo Ship to Set Sail"
"Aratam to Dominate With Amazing Logistical Capabilities"
"Design Bureau's Biggest Success Yet: the Atlas"

These all have one similarity to them.
...
They're all headlines that risk underestimating the impact of the fully functional Atlas Prime Refinery Fleet.
Running on six GM BP reactors each and filled with mostly-automated chemical processing equipment, each ship can turn inputs into deliverable product by the time it reaches the next port. Self funding, the fleet can also act as a buyer, securing raw materials and processing them into Rare Chemicals for Aratam to use back home. With the preposterously low delivery times and production costs achievable by a ship that does in one direct trip what any other would do in four, we anticipate a monopoly on complex chemical trade within the year, potentially doubling our Rare Cemical supply.


Mega-Refinery

The once prestigious Old Refinery is starting to show its age, still pumping out the same highly toxic chemicals as always, still relying on a dwindling supply of criminals to test its new concoctions on. It is time to move on.

The new Mega-Refinery incorporates all the marvelous wonders of Aratam science the old Refinery helped make possible:
1) Architectural and design work is to be performed by workers given special Militarized Baseline vouchers, to make the most of their intelligence.
2)The entire facility will run on Gel-Matrix Bio-Paste reactor power.
3)The facility will make heavy use of Atlas style magnetic rails and cranes to move enormous chemical tanks along multi-building production lines.
4)Replacing Aratam's now vanishingly small supply of disposable criminals, cryostat treatment is offered free of charge to those most in need at the Mega-Refinery's very own Charity Research Hospital! To ensure this does not somehow backfire horribly, Spice is to be examined for possible safer variants, while preserving the actually desirable properties it has.
6)As a cost saving measure, the Mega-Refinery's future location will not be set until one of the regions under our control agrees to crippling subsidies in exchange for prestige. Current frontrunner is Swamp.

EXALT 1 (1): Blood Librarian,
NOD (1): Blood Librarian,
EXALT 1-B (0):
The DREAM Project (1): MoP
SNOW/White (0):
The Black Chamber (1): MoP
Atlas Prime (1): The Ensorceler
Mega-Refinery (1): The Ensorceler

TL;DR: Atlas Prime pushes for +2 Rare Chemicals, Mega-Refinery pushes for +1 Rare Chemicals (total, technically +2 and decommission the original Refinery's +1) and throwing revisions at all our early chemical research.

Edit: Narrowed scope of the Mega-Refinery Charity Reasearch Hospital's health and safety review.

[brightfractal]

EXALT 1 (1): Blood Librarian,
NOD (1): Blood Librarian,
EXALT 1-B (0):
The DREAM Project (1): MoP
SNOW/White (0):
The Black Chamber (1): MoP
Atlas Prime (2): The Ensorceler, Brightfractal
Mega-Refinery (1): The Ensorceler

Went back from vacation a couple of days ago so I wasn't there to vote.

[Man of Paper]

We need to get ahead of the Oracle or we're going to be in the same boat as they were with SEEM commandos and Goldeneyes. We can revise the refinery to have most of the impact of the mega refinery, minus the ridiculous idea that we'd somehow get revisions on our drugs from it too. Whoever said last turn that burning our resource credit on chems was pointless was correct, at this point increasing our rare chemicals doesn't do much for us (whereas an ore would significantly impact the turn),not unless we plan on doing something with our revision that'll cost a few rare chems.

Don't be like an idiot Merethian and underestimate the power of prediction!

[brightfractal]

We need to get ahead of the Oracle or we're going to be in the same boat as they were with SEEM commandos and Goldeneyes. We can revise the refinery to have most of the impact of the mega refinery, minus the ridiculous idea that we'd somehow get revisions on our drugs from it too. Whoever said last turn that burning our resource credit on chems was pointless was correct, at this point increasing our rare chemicals doesn't do much for us (whereas an ore would significantly impact the turn),not unless we plan on doing something with our revision that'll cost a few rare chems.

Don't be like an idiot Merethian and underestimate the power of prediction!

Okay then how about an underwater mining platform if we need ore. We already have drug empowered individuals ruled by an oppressive police state in the 60s why not complete the Bioshock schtick and add an underwater city.

[brightfractal]

Neptune underwater base
The Neptune is a habitat dome built underwater designed to hold up to extreme pressures by incorporating metallicly-recombinated materials. Using modified RAMP suits to brave these depths a massive contingent of miners scour the seabed for raw materials before shipping them to the base itself. The facility contains a factory to process raw materials into tools, weapons or parts. Materials are delivered to the surface via balloons to awaiting atlases in a random pattern to prevent the location from being compromised.

I've managed to finish a rough design but thats it for now.

[Talion]

We could attempt to get ore by mining space rocks, but that does require a certain amount of time spent gaining space travel capabilities. We could also attempt to gain access to an alternate dimension and start mining it for resources. We could even attempt to create an ore substitute using metalization on an industrial scale.

Fetter Enabling Augmented Tesla Harmonic Enchantment Reception (FEATHER)
Low energy Tesla charges have proven relatively ineffective against armoured targets. A set of experiments were devised to measure just what effect prolonged exposure to weak Tesla energy would have on a wide set of test materials. The test apparatus consists of five reinforced oversize Tesla rifles directing rapid low energy charges into the corners of a pyramidal focus. Tested items were placed one at a time inside this pyramid for variable lengths of time.

Items ‘charged’ in this manner exhibit changed properties including an increase in durability and weight. This weight increase initially proved to be a stumbling block as it rendered certain items such as melee weapons impractical to use. However, when the smaller and less heavy items were carried around by members of staff a curious phenomenon occurred as the items appeared to grow lighter. Weighing the item both separately and while in the possession of the staff member produces a notable difference in the weight of the item. Performing the same test with another individual not previously familiar with the item does not result in a measurable weight difference. This would seem to indicate that some form of bond develops between a person and a charged item. Those bonded to an item experience it as a tough, durable, feather-light version of the original item. Tests with more dangerous test items such as tiger clawed gauntlets indicate that targets experience the full weight of the item despite the ease with which the weapon was wielded.

[Man of Paper]

We could also attempt to gain access to an alternate dimension and start mining it for resources.

I'm hoping a good roll on The Black Chamber would give us the ability to do this, as well as perhaps make it easy (or at least possible) to have things like people enter the Astral at one point and exit into the earthly realm at another. I'd like to see ORACLE counter that!

[Blood_Librarian]

We're gonna be losing the mountains very soon. They are beating us in the air and with their slightly better than okay tanks. Ultimately, I think either making Astral units able to fuck up the computers day with their minds or anything that enables it would be most helpful.

Black Chamber and the Neptune base interests me the most. I would most definitely like to set up an underwater refinery at some point considering the circumstances, so I am gonna set my vote to both of those.

I will be absent for 5-6 days after tomorrow.

NOD (1): Blood Librarian,
The DREAM Project (1): MoP
SNOW/White (0):
The Black Chamber (1): MoP, Blood_Librarian
Atlas Prime (2): The Ensorceler, Brightfractal
Mega-Refinery (1): The Ensorceler
Neptune underwater base (2): Brightfractal, Blood_librarian

[Talion]

NOD (1): Blood Librarian,
The DREAM Project (1): MoP
SNOW/White (0):
The Black Chamber (3): MoP, Blood_Librarian, Talion
Atlas Prime (2): The Ensorceler, Brightfractal
Mega-Refinery (1): The Ensorceler
Neptune underwater base (2): Brightfractal, Blood_librarian
FEATHER (1): Talion

[The Ensorceler]

I guess the intended impact of my plan wasn't clear, it isn't a do-nothing turn. With 4 Rare chemicals, we can Resource credit our way to 5, where goldeneyes are cheap and SEEMs are Expensive (and Torches are Expensive).
We'd be completely unstoppable for a turn.

With +1 Rare Chemicals plus a bunch of easy revisions all at once, because of our low average on our old chemical rolls [Spice 2, Fury 7 (but made from Spice and inheriting its downsides), Goldeneye 4 (Spice), Iron Legion 1! (Not sure if this should be on the list, the metal killed them, not the chemicals), Malign Intent (didn't work because Spice was useless, somehow getting a cannon NOW seems unlikely), SEEM 5, Cryostat Tanks 8x2, Baseline 6] there's a decent chance of price drops or quite impressive improvements from easy revisions that we just don't have time for. Effect for the turn here is Cheap Fury, hopefully with fewer downsides, leading into an enabler weapon on the Revision.

[Blood_Librarian]

What is stopping us from spending our revision on attempting to get more rare chemicals?

[The Ensorceler]

Nothing at all? That's why both my designs have extra features and aren't just +1 Rare Chemicals. If we get +1 Rare Chemicals on a revision, we get relatively little benefit in the short term, only Cheap Fury this turn. I'd rather revise Spice to be safer/cheaper than get only +1 Rare Chemicals.

[Man of Paper]

But why do you think in any arms race that the GM would accept a design allowing rerolls on a half dozen things? Maybe if the facility was dedicated to one or two chems we could pop a couple revision rolls and get a resource out of it. Could you imagine how much we'd complain if Mereth designed something that let them reroll all their power armor designs? At best for balance reasons I could see us getting a couple improved but more costly chems.

For the air war we might want to design a dedicated non-enhanced pilotable fighter. That should free up our other aircraft to pursue ground targets. Some dedicated CAS, maybe helicopters, could get some good use in the mountains.

Another round or two in the future if we still have breathing room, perhaps wunderwaffe might be considerable, in the sense of something that'd likely be a national effort by design since practically everything in this war is wunderwaffe by our stabdards.

[The Ensorceler]

I'll limit it to Spice and Spice related designs, since Spice, Fury, and Goldeneyes are the old, baddish stuff I was referring to on the list. You were right, the scope I was implying was a bit much.