Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[brightfractal]

Design:
RA(M)P Gun (0) "
"Albatross" Heavy Plasma Rifle (4): Avetruetotheimperator, BBB, Rockeater, The Ensorceler
"Blackout" Electronics Combat/Multirole Aircraft (5): MoP, TTE, McDreich, Blood_Librarian, brightfractal
Recombinant Munitions:
Sentient Weapon Growth Facilities:
"Aurora" Assault Carrier:
Daedalus Assault Aircraft (1) : Blood_Librarian

Research Credit?:
Only if the design is a Plasma Gun (4): Blood_Librarian, Avetruetotheimperator, BBB, The Ensorceler
Yes (4): MoP, TTE, McDreich, Rockeater, brightfractal
No:

ECM if we roll decently will counter there air superiority and missile systems.

[The_Two_Eternities]

Five votes for "Yes" on the Research Credit. Not four.

[BBBence1111]

Design:
RA(M)P Gun (0) "
"Albatross" Heavy Plasma Rifle (5): Avetruetotheimperator, BBB, Rockeater, The Ensorceler, Nidhunter
"Blackout" Electronics Combat/Multirole Aircraft (5): MoP, TTE, McDreich, Blood_Librarian, brightfractal
Recombinant Munitions:
Sentient Weapon Growth Facilities:
"Aurora" Assault Carrier:
Daedalus Assault Aircraft (1) : Blood_Librarian

Research Credit?:
Only if the design is a Plasma Gun (4): Blood_Librarian, Avetruetotheimperator, BBB, The Ensorceler
Yes (5): MoP, TTE, McDreich, Rockeater, brightfractal
No:

As per Discord.

[Maxinum McDreich]

Tis a knife edge for the votes, so I'll put in what I think a little: Most of what I would want to say, MoP mentioned (and put it better than I would too.)

However, another thing I want to point out. Mereth computers dominate us in the sky. Completely and utterly. Our SEEMS are useless against it, I doubt guardians would fare much better. It gets 10 times worse in space to have that disadvantage, primarily because the extreme ranges and calculations demand good processing, and less importantly, our astrals could well end up completely useless in space due to how astral may need many humans to... function I guess.
Plasma weaponry will only help a little in the air, but likely near nothing in space. We already have gauss weaponry for both fields if we need a big punch. We're not going to magically catch up computer wise either, they're so far ahead. ECM is our answer. It negates the computers they're becoming super reliant on whilst messing with Oracle. That'll apply to air and space, but imagine later on a tank with it aswell, providing false information accross the board as a matter of course (and we saw how effective that was with the hailstorm).

We can revise better ground weaponry. We cannot revise a way to contest the skies.

That's in my opinion anyways. If we go plasma, we'll make it work anyway. I just feel the Blackout and ECM has more potential for us.

[Talion]

We can revise better ground weaponry. We cannot revise a way to contest the skies.

This actually isn't the case. Our planes are equipped with Teslas which are an infantry weapon. We could revise a bigger Tesla for plane/vehicle use.

[Chiefwaffles]

Your planes are not equipped with Teslas. Unless you count the Meteor. Which is not an airplane. And already uses its own brand of Tesla.

Currently your only plane in service, the Lantern, is equipped with two infantry-grade Ospreys. They do fire all charged shots, but it's still not great for lethality.

[Maxinum McDreich]

Mmm, so re-reading the battle-reports when the Blizzards were introduced, it does seem that it was actually just our lack of firepower that let us down in that department, though it's not like we out-classed them in any way. Tis their firestorm that would ignore our increased firepower really. The Blackout could potentially allow us to leapfrog the air-war, by countering both crafts whilst hopefully being expensive, whilst being reasonably future-proof, something I feel our air-force has never been from reading the back-log.

However, a thought does occur... is their any reason we couldn't use this turns revision to revise our Lantern to something basically like the Blackout? (I'd say SEEM pilot and average Aratamite jammer to ensure it doesn't become complex just cos it needs twice the amount of SEEM's, since SEEM pilots won't make our planes very expensive by default, we can still use 1 per craft.) If we could do that and plasma now, Aratam could get both cakes and eat them! Extra icing if we could also apply the plasma weaponry to our revised air-craft aswell.

Viable? If not, I'd still see us contest the air now as top priority.

[Man of Paper]

My preference is using the design to give us a wholly new aircraft as opposed to building off of what was a pretty bad base if I recall correctly. On a phone that's pure turds so I can't check on the truth of that statement. We have some solid designs to revise to help the ground war for now (orbital bombarding, a grenade launcher we can easily fix, just being two I've suggested), so I think a fresh design for an aircraft is best bet, personally.

[Maxinum McDreich]

I personally agree with you, but wondered if it was a workable compromise. After sleeping on it, I'd still vote the way I have. Personally, updating our osprey to a pure and upgraded coilgun would be my revision this turn, or the grenade launcher. I guess I'll know when we get to that xD.

[Chiefwaffles]

If votes don't change soon (minimum of about 1-3 hours, probably today), I'll have to randomly choose one of the tied designs for your side's action this phase.

[Man of Paper]

I approve. We could use either one and this way we leave it to fate.

[The Ensorceler]

Design: A-13 'Furnace' Plasma Interceptor

Torch/Lantern revamp, with a sleeker, less bulky build. Vectored plasma engines replace the patch-job ramjets completely, providing more thrust and fuel-efficiency, and simplifying the fuel tank situation now that everything goes through the GMBP reactor. Ospreys replaced with forward facing tight choked magnetically boosted plasma jets. Plasma beams, in practical terms. At "maximum" power, they can handle just about the whole reactor's output and cut the sky in half, but that turns off the *other* plasma jets that keep the Furnace in the air. Perhaps useful enough in the hands of a skilled pilot, and our pilots are *very* skilled. (Consider use in ground attack?) More reasonable plasma densities are still quite functional, carving easily through armor without completely evaporating a target and maintaining smooth flight, to boot. Armor is more selective this time around, with mostly "resistant" plating and some convenient patches of "impervious" plating to be interposed as needed by the pilot's acumen when under attack.

Design: HK-2 "Hotknife" Close Quarters Fighter
An almost perfectly flat wedge of a "plane", the Hotknife has essentially three components: A solid recombinated armor hull, a relatively massive plasma engine array at the rear, and a thin row of plasma vents at the leading edge to coat the whole thing in hot death when it takes flight. The pilot operates from a slight flange of a cockpit by means of slam-shut armored periscope optics. At full throttle nothing in the sky can match a Hotknife's speed, and with its protective and destructive plasma wreathe, it can chop straight through its enemies unharmed. It carries no weapons, for it is the only weapon its pilot will ever need.

Design:
RA(M)P Gun (0) "
"Albatross" Heavy Plasma Rifle (5): Avetruetotheimperator, BBB, Rockeater, Nidhunter, The Ensorceler
"Blackout" Electronics Combat/Multirole Aircraft (5): MoP, TTE, McDreich, Blood_Librarian, brightfractal
Recombinant Munitions:
Sentient Weapon Growth Facilities:
"Aurora" Assault Carrier:
Daedalus Assault Aircraft (1) : Blood_Librarian
"Lantern" Plasma Interceptor (1): The Ensorceler
"Hotknife" Close Quarters Fighter (1): The Ensorceler

Research Credit?:
Only if the design is a Plasma Gun (4): Blood_Librarian, Avetruetotheimperator, BBB, The Ensorceler
Yes (5): MoP, TTE, McDreich, Rockeater, brightfractal
As long as the design isn't the Blackout(1): The Ensorceler
No:

Final edit: Reworked the Furnace to be much more ambitious. Possibly shifts 1 Ore to 1 Oil if my math works out

[Chiefwaffles]

Albatross selected by random to break the tie.

Design: Heavy Plasma Rife "Albatross"
(Normal, Research Credit) [(1+1),(4+3)] = 7: Superior Craftsmanship

The Albatross is quite the sight. The answer to when one of our engineers wanted to see if he could weaponize the plasma output of a GM-BP reactor.
He's still going to be in a CryoStat for a year after he tried doing that, but the idea he gave the other survivors was invaluable.

We took the schematics for the GM-BP Reactor and for our plasma thrusters and axed them down to the essentials, then made some modifications to focus on direct plasma generation in a smaller package. The Albatross works off of two internal chambers. SynthOil is pumped into the radiation chamber from an inserted cell (used like a magazine by wielders); precise beta radiation quickly creates plasma while a pressure system is intentionally created to funnel plasma into the ignition chamber where intense pressure is applied by and to the plasma and it's funneled outwards through a created containment beam similar to an extremely low power tesla blast.
Heat is of course a problem. Luckily, recombinated materials combined with expert construction mostly solve that problem. Heat is dumped into a recombinated radiator along the front bottom end of the weapon, shaped like a shallow arc starting at the front end of the gun and ending about 1/3 towards the back of the gun. While heat is generated much faster than the radiator emits, it gives the gun enough firing time to be useful and can be used as a devastating melee weapon. While operators should be able to recognize overheating by the extremely bright-glowing radiator, we included a nice shrill beeping sound if internal components are being heated to unsustainable levels.

Range can be adjusted by the operator through a dial controlling the power of the containment beam. It requires exponentially more power dedicated to sustaining the containment beam rather than creating plasma the bigger the range is. Heat created remains about the same. An Albatross can fire at Long range for a bit over a full second on a single SynthOil cell. At Medium range it can fire for 15 seconds on a single cell. Short range (we advise being careful with this and not going any lower no matter what) gives about 60 seconds but is more akin to a blast wave than a beam.
The gun overheats quickly, after about 4 seconds of continuous usage. It needs about 8 seconds to cool down completely after firing for that long. We plan on training soldiers to fire the gun continuously but still in bursts of 1-2 seconds to keep versatility, unless in cases of heavy enemy armor or the like.

The actual beam emitted is impressive. Pure concentrated plasma. It's purplish in color, guided by black-red "streams" on the edges that makes up the containment beam. Upon hitting something, plasma "splashes" away while most of it dissipates and some of it builds on the site in continued firing, created the predicted convection cell. The continued beam and convection cell allows for increases building of plasma until it collapses by itself or the beam stops, creating a very pretty destructive detonation after collapsing into any cavities or other damage.
This should be extremely effective against Merethan armor, as it still doesn't handle heat too well. Maybe not complete invalidation of their armor, but by the Astral we're approaching that level.


Overall it's quite a heavy assembly due to recombinated materials focused on handling heat over lightweight sturdiness. It's not as wieldy as an Osprey even for a Baseline Enhanced soldier, but it should be useful enough to be the main issued weapon for most parts of the armed forces.
We also had an ecstatic visit from the Director of Fury Implementation in the military today. They're rebooting Fury soldiers as the Albatross may be enough of a melee weapon for Fury soldiers to be useful. Much to the horror of literally anyone else in the military.

It costs 2 Ore and 4 Oil, making it Cheap on an infantry scale. Ammo is a bit tight per-soldiers, but should still be enough to be useful. Our soldiers will just be annoyed they have to be somewhat careful with their shots.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Transport Capacity: 2/3 (2/2 Oil Imported)
Space Transport Capacity: 0/0 (Nothing Imported) (Aratamite STC is the sum of its designs' STCs, multiplied by two thanks to the ANGEL Project.)
Resources: 3 Ore, 4 Oil, 2 Rare Chemicals

Moon Region Rating: 0
Moon Resources: Nothing (Succesfully imported Moon Resources are included in "Resources" as well)

Weapons

• Heavy Plasma Rifle "Albatross": A heavy recombinated weapon based on the plasma-creating principles of the GM-BP Reactor. Uses a Tesla-derived containment beam to fire a continuous beam of SynthOil-created-plasma at the target, where the beam maintains a building-up convection cell of heat and plasma until it collapses and/or the beam stops, when it detonates inwards towards any gashes or cavities on the target. SynthOil cells are inserted like magazines and with range configured by the operator, last for 1s Long range, 15s Medium range, 60s Short range (where it's more like a blast wave than a beam). Overheats after 4 seconds of continuous usage, needing 8 seconds to cooldown -- 2s or less shots recommended. Massive amounts of heat are dumped into an arc-shaped radiator on the front-bottom edge that can be used as an effective melee weapon when heated.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore, 4 Oil
• HMKR-59 'Osprey': Hybrid Magnetic Kinetic Rifle; a variant of the Pursuit rifle that houses coilgun components to increase the velocity of bullets after conventional firing. Has a slot in the back for a single SynthOil battery, which has enough charge for 10 powered shots (soldiers carry 2 batteries total). Powered shots are accurate to Medium range (unpowered shots to Short range) and have increased lethality and armor piercing capabilities.
  [Cheap] 1 Ore, 1 Oil
• Tesla Rifle: A "rifle" that fires bolts of ARC lightning at Medium range. Using an inner "Lightning Rod" chamber, it gradually charges from a backpack SynthOil battery - it has four levels of charge, with Level 3 being the optimum Medium range + good lethality and Level 4 being overkill with a chance of explosive backfiring. It takes about 40s to charge to Level 3 (charging can be paused but the charge decays slightly over time), and the battery has enough juice for 5 Lvl3 shots. Extremely lethal against anything conductive, and has a modest area-of-effect as the electricity arcs to other conductors in close proximity. Can be hooked up to external SynthOil batteries as well. Soldiers pre-charge to Level 3 when aware of hostile situations, but are still vulnerable to ambushes.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore, 2 Oil
• "Chelsea" SMILE: Single-use rocket launcher with Red Skies incendiary (useful v. COMBAT armor) or Tesla (useful with area of effect and v. electronics) payloads. Effective to long-range (still useful but unreliable beyond), and has a flip-out glass targeting visor with a crosshair predicting impact site based on wind and fall.
  [Cheap] 1 Ore, 3 Oil
• "Storm" GMRL-ECP-61S: A 250lb active radar homing missile with a 6km range and 5m effective blast radius. Fired from 4-rail trucks (with radar) and aircraft mounts. It has a poor resolution, greatly decreasing the reliability of locking onto non-huge aerial targets and making locking onto surface targets next-to-impossible, though large ships prove easy targets. Equipped with an HE or ARC warhead, with the ARC warhead using a chain SynthOil reaction to generate arcing electricity frying electronics and melting metal as it jumps from conductor to conductor.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 4 Oil
  
  • ION-Storm: Variant with a second stage, improved tracking, reduced payload, and it's only able to be launched from a truck. Designed to intercept Merethan air(space?)craft re-entering the atmosphere.
    Expensive] 3 Ore, 5 Oil
• "Red Skies" Multiple Missile Launcher: A 300 lb version of the Storm missile using Inertial guidance and adapted entirely for surface-to-surface use. Has a SynthOil-based incendiary payload that's capable of effectively burning through armor, but is less immediately destructive. Has a range of 15 km. Its guidance allows it to easily and effectively target any ground point, but it can't change course mid-flight and can't actively track any targets; its effectiveness in accuracy mostly is based on what intelligence the operator has when firing. Intended for use as surface-to-surface artillery.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 4 Oil

Land Vehicles

• M3T1A1 Raider: The Raider is a Diesel-Electric tracked APC designed to serve as a base platform for many roles. It has light RHA armor with a sloped front, plus slats. It holds ten passengers and three crew. It has an interchangeable turret, which is very wide and flat with medium armor. Default armament is a Can shredder, plus 6 external Thumper barrels for smoke grenades and an RPG, these can only be reloaded from the outside. It's also chemical warfare protected, and amphibious, with a trim vane and two electric powered propellers. Exits are on large rear hatch and one small top hatch, only latter can be used while afloat.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore 2 Oil
• Privateer 1 1/2 Ton Truck: An antique Cannalan truck somehow still being used for cargo transport.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore, 2 Oil, Provides 1 TC
• "Glaive"-Electromagnetic Coil Cannon Battletank ECCB-72: A large silent tank armed with a 120mm coilgun and a Reactor-charged coaxial-mounted Tesla Rifle (capable of firing a steady stream of L1/L2 shots). Has a respectable speed for its size, and the Coilgun turret is powered but manually aimed. Powered by a GMBP Reactor, allowing for unlimited movement and power for Coilgun shots, making the only main logistical concerns for the tank being Coilgun ammunition and crew supplies.
  [Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
• "Ettin" Electric-Motor Flak Tank EMFT-61-B: A "tank" where the turret is an unarmored cage on top of the squat chassis where the gunner sits; two self-loading automatic cannons fire automatically in consecutive fashion flak shells to shoot down aircraft and infantry. The turret can be angled downwards effectively to shoot at infantry; limited ammo supply means the gunner has to be somewhat conservative with his firing patterns and can't just fill the sky with flak. Electric computer & radar guidance overlays a digital crosshair on a small sheet of "glass" in front of the gunner that is overlaid on top of the physical crosshair to maximize accuracy, allowing for decent accuracy as long as the aircraft isn't too fast or evasive. The commander and driver reside in the cramped interior and exit/enter largely via a door to the side, with the front of the tank being heavily angled downward for firing angle reasons. The turret is armored, but has poor visibility. Can travel for 10 hours on a full SynthOil battery, and the gun doesn't require power to operate.
  [Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil

Spacecraft

• Slug-Throwing Orbital Platform (STOP): A small "spacecraft" with an extremely cramped 2-crew compartment, 24 hour life support, and a reactor with enough fuel to keep it running for a week. Tiny plasma thrusters dot the platform for great turning and very slow movement. Small radio allows contact with ANGEL Complex, small radar allows detection of nearby enemies and display of their blips on the HUD. Gunner controls turning and targets enemies via just the canopy/HUD, their sight, and radar blips. Controller manages moving and maintaining systems. Large gauss cananon lining underside (30 seconds to load in a new shell, 20 seconds to charge to max once a shell is loaded) can fire up to 10 shells at enemies, with extreme damage at 100% charge and exponentially less but still very good damage at 50% charge. Each 100%-charged shot takes about 9% of SynthOil fuel, leaving a STOP that fired 10 100%-charged shots with only a few hours of operation. Crew compartment and life support can be explosively detached, where crew enter stasis to slow breathing (surviving for about a month on a full tank of oxygen), a beacon starts pinging for retrieval, and solar panels just barely power life support + beacon. Can be easily brought to geostationary orbit on board ANGEL shuttle.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 2 Oil

Air Vehicles

• 'Lantern' A-7 Armored Jet: A large jet built with metal-recombinated materials, giving it good structural integrity and relatively good durability. Massive amounts of recombinated armor are present all across the aircraft. Direct hits by Shrike missiles can be survived with only moderate damage, and air-bursts/lasers are much less effective. An integrated Gel-Matrix Bio-Paste Reactor is used to power electrical systems and SynthOil tanks are used to fuel both the reactor and the combustion Ramjets. The heavy weight of the armor give the Lantern a great speed but not quite matching Mereth's Blizzard jet craft. Different systems provide the Torch with great relative agility, but only SEEM Operatives are capable of properly operating the complex controls in the airplane (though their enhanced abilities are a huge boon with speed and agility). 2 always-powered Ospreys are mounted on the front, with no other weapon capacity.
  [Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil (Expense can only be as low as current SEEM expense)
• 'Meteor' Air Frigate: A gigantic flying vessel, more akin to a boat than any traditional aircraft. Foregoing aerodynamics, it's propelled by 6 (4 on bottom, 2 on back) thrust-vectoring plasma GM-BP Thrusters (based on expelling plasma generated by the GM-BP process seen in Reactors for large thrust) that also produce its power. It can move quickly and isn't too sluggish, being able to easily outpace any kind of ground force yet being much slower than Merethan aircraft. Four Tesla cannon turrets -- 3 on top, 1 on bottom -- with greater range and rate of fire to their counter parts powered by the Meteor's capacitors provide an excellent anti-air screen, being able to fire once per few seconds and being able to intercept missiles and bombs when operated by SEEMs. A coilcannon array on the bottom largely mechanized allows for slow yet respectfully-paced terrific bombarding of ground targets, with mediocre targeting. A full radar suite and command center/bridge inside the hull give excellent battlefield intelligence and this information is distributed via radio to nearby forces, and to turrets on the frigate. Very heavily armored and able to resist constant Shrike bombardment for a relatively long time, yet limited internal space forces any non-essential for short-term operation facilities outside on the hull where they're more akin to fancy camps, providing a convenient target to greatly decrease combat effectiveness of everything but minimal radar operation and Coilcannon operation. Constant firing of more than one Tesla turret fairly quickly drains capacitors, quintupling tesla charge times. Thrust vectoring allows the Meteor to stay in the air with multiple missing thrusters. An internal bridge serves as an excellent mobile field command center.
  [National Effort] [8 Ore], [7 Oil]

Navy

• Corsair Destroyer: The Corsair is a moderate sized ship with light (for a ship) steel hull armor. It has a light cannon armament of two hydraulic-equipped Nightwind cannons and four Can Shredders. However, its main armament is its Shark Torpedo launchers (it has a couple on each side) and newly-invented Seahorse mines, which use the same warheads as Shark torpedoes but rest on the sea surface, detonating on cpntact with ships. It is powered by steam turbines and easily outpaces battleships like the Kalmar, Kraken and Kurokami.
  [Expensive] 4 Ore, 3 Oil
• Santos-Class Naval Aircraft Support Vessel: The Santos is a large aircraft carrier. It is about the size of the Khorne but not armored. It's powered by four oil-burning steam turbines. The hangar deck stores two dozen fighters, moved to the flight deck by a hydraulic lift. On deck is an Eagle Eye Radar system, con tower, a few Firecracker AA guns and a miscellaneous autocannons wherever there's spare room. It also has a decent sized flight deck, with an arrester cable for landing aircraft, and two overlapping runways with room for ready aircraft on deck. [5 Ore, 4 Oil]
  [Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
• SLS-61 Magpie: A basic landing ship with a bow able to open up with a ramp to allow vehicles and troops onto the shore, and has extremely basic treads to de-beach itself. Has Thin armor and a few mounts for infantry rifles on the top to provide basic covering fire. Powered by Gen 1 SynthOil engines, which requires it to use the majority of its cargo space to hold enough SynthOil to make it across the sea without running out of fuel. Normally has a modest capacity for soldiers (and capable of holding a few moderate-sized vehicles), but the fuel requirement limits it to only a small amount of soldiers and/or perhaps one tank at best.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 3 Oil
• Atlas-class Cargo Ship: A Santos-class with the weaponry and aircraft equipment and just about everything else stripped off. Utilizes SynthOil batteries for general powering of ship, though oil-burning steam turbines from the Santos still power most of it. Uses a system derived from Cryostats to cryogenically freeze perishable cargo as well as people for maximum storage efficiency.
  Provides 2 TC

Chemicals & Drugs

• Spice: An extremely potent manufactured drug resulting in extreme schizophrenia, delusions of power, frequent seizures, and eventually death. Extremely addictive. Those who undergo the week-long "Goldeneye" treatment in a CryoStat tank become accustomed (and permanently addicted) to low dosages of Spice, enabling very high awareness of surroundings and mildly increased reaction and thinking speeds when under the influence of the drug.
  [Expensive] 5 Rare Chemicals.
  
  • SEEM: Systemic Elimination of the Entropic Mind. An extremely intensive and long procedure where top-ranked veterans are subjected to week-long bouts of sensory deprivation in CryoStat tanks, and have their mind essentially transformed into a new form via the combined use of modified Metal Recombinators and Spice. Experienced SEEM Guides facilitate this Journey across the barrier into the Astral Realm. For now, this allows survivors of the treatment to exhibit extreme (much higher than Goldeneyes) awareness of surroundings, visible or not. This awareness manifests itself in many ways, from avoiding traps/bombardments to knowing where to shoot at to knowing when one's being shot at, and more.
    [Expensive] 5 Rare Chemicals,
• Combat Drug 'Fury': A Spice-based drug that massively decreases reaction time, and lasts for ~2 hours. Also incites rage, decreasing soldier effectiveness at range and chances of occasional friendly fire. Mild hallucinations are common, preventing users from being effective at recon/espionage/etc. roles. Makes veins much more apparent and red. Addictive, and takes effect >5 minutes after injection.
  [Expensive] 3 Rare Chemicals
• Metal Recombinators: A special mixture that separates pure metal from ore, obsoleting a large part of Aratam's refining industry. A variant can also be used to fuse metal with (likely) any other matter.
  Provides 1 Ore.

Astral

• BioForged Guardians: Recruited as children or younger teenagers, these candidates are subjected to long and incremental SEEM/light organic recombination treatments in addition to intensive training. Gradual welcoming of their mind to the Astral along with minor recombination enhancement of the brain allows for greater Astral abilities and full awareness of the Astral, along with conscious control of many brain functions. Superior memory and much stronger/tougher/quick-healing than even Military Baseline. They are consciously aware of events about to happen in the near-immediate future, and have "insane" reaction times in addition to greater smarts. Generally better than SEEMs in every way. Can shunt their awareness to the Astral realm, where they can perform mental combat with others and sense the consciousness of other humans a notable distance away.
  [Very Expensive] 1 Ore, 6 Rare Chemicals, Complex
• Blackwell Technique: Through channeling Astral Energy into a specific area, an Astral-trained operative can create a reflection of the Astral Realm coded for the astral connection of one specific person (targeted via line of sight or accurate recreation). This person will suffer severe symptoms ranging from death to severe brain damage to memory loss to seizures to full-blown hallucinations to extreme paranoia and more. But permanent affects are rare for those without long exposure times. Non-targeted and non-Astral-trained individuals will suffer milder, all-short-term symptoms only when looking at the Reflection. Looking at a recreation (i.e. television screen) of the Reflection will only affect people who've already seen that exact Reflection, recreating their prior symptoms.
  All Astral-trained operatives can invoke this. But it requires intense concentration and 10 seconds to create the reflection, and continued intense concentration to maintain the reflection.
• Wadjet Branding: Tactile symbols of the Eye of Horus printed on the exterior of the hands in uniforms for our Astral-enhanced individuals. For some currently unknown reason, focusing on this symbol notably improves Astral effectiveness and safety for the focusing individual. Useful for newbies to practice Astral techniques by feeling the symbol in different ways through extravagant hand motions, apparently.

Other

• R.A./M.P. Suit: A metal/ceramic/rubber recombinated suit of armor with heating/cooling capabilities and a quick-inject system where any single one of 6 vials stored in a back compartment can be instantly injected w/ instant effects by a series of buttons on the wrist. Contains a default adrenaline mix, but vials can be filled with FURY, SEEM, or other drugs. A particle filter and visor (w/ internal red lighting) covered by a recombinated hood sit on the head, and a jacket covers the rest of the suit for appearance/morale sake. Light, yet surprisingly durable: survival rates of soldiers are increased greatly across the board, with soldiers oftentimes being able to shrug off light-caliber shots from Merethan rifles. Looks like this, but with a slightly-red-glowing visor instead.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore
  
  • R.A./M.P. Space Suit: Variant of the RA/MP suit that is very bulky and cumbersome, but lets the occupant survive for an hour in a vacuum before suffocating/suffering drug withdrawal.
• CryoStat Tank: A large three-meter tall "coffin" with a small glass vertical slit inside showing a tank. A single "set" of machinery required for operation, taking up ~36 square meters of space total, can manage roughly a dozen CryoStat tanks at a time. Basic automation assists technicians, allowing for a single technician to manage many CryoStat tanks. Subjects are put into "stasis" via a numbing solution they're submersed in, and medical drugs in the solution naturally infuse into the bloodstream through the skin. Once taken out. Use is tracked through a computer-assisted bureaucracy dubbed the "CryoState". A day stabilizes minor life-threatening wounds, and a week stabilizes near all wounds. A month starts completely healing scars and generally brings up health status to pristine, and a year can restore lost limbs. Also used for life-extending "rejuvenation" processes by important people.
  [Cheap] 2 Rare Chemicals
• SynthOil: SMRO-58 "SynthOil" is an advanced form of oil - it's made using a combination of oil and other chemicals, making a much more stable and energy-dense solution. Has a peculiar property - with the right tools, it can directly produce electricity.
  Provides 1 Oil
• Gel-Matrix Bio-Paste Reactor: A 1m-radius spherical "nuclear-ish" reactor that uses gamma radiation to break down SynthOil into electrical energy. Rather efficient and good at making energy, especially compared with anything else in the world comparable in size/expense, but hard to miniaturize and has a notable radiation poisoning issue with anyone spending a notable amount of time in proximity.
• Stormcaller Circle: A shift-based group of the top SEEMs in Aratam, "bonded" with tendrils of Tesla energy embedded throughout the atmosphere surrounding the continent. They can use their tremendous amounts of Astral energy at store to manipulate these tendrils and thus weather. Every season, the Bureau may vote on a single theatre and single weather phenomenon to invoke there. Our troops will be prepared (with the equipment that they already have, that is) ahead of time, but we can't micromanage the phenomenon to further aid our troops.

Infrastructure

• The Refinery: An extremely secretive facility hidden under the canopy in a remote part of the rainforest, identifiable only by its smoke. Contains large liquid storage tanks and refineries for the production of chemicals, well-equipped laboratories, cells for test subjects, a steady supply of test subjects from Aratam's prisoners, and more. Useful as a base for chemical research.
  Provides 1 Rare Chemical
• The Militarized Baseline: Our soldiers are enhanced above regular humans (in notable, but not major ways) in many categories; namely strength, reflexes, and intelligence. All soldiers now have implanted ports for quick drug infusion, and a logistical structure is in place to facilitate the drug infusion and treatments of the entire Aratamite military.
• The Black Chamber: A giant facility built beneath the Refinery full of specially-modified CryoStat tanks, training areas, niche laboratories, and subjects attempting to reach the world beyond ours: the Astral Realm.

• Embassy "The Brewery": An embassy for Cannalan diplomats that doubles as a highly advanced brewery of Aratam's signature drink, Arachaca. The Cannalans can see the brewing process below through their glass flooring and taps straight form the brewery are available for Arachaca straight from the source. Uses basic electronic systems for very limited automation in conjunction with its general advanced brewing systems.

Wonder

• ANGEL Project: A space elevator, comprised of the Complex, Shuttle, and Station. The Complex is a huge facility anchored to the sea floor north of Aratam's coast, and holds a large number of docks and warehouses. Training facilities. Orbital command center. Logistics centers. Worker residences. Security posts. "Mini" embassies for other nations to coordinate their usage of it. And more. Three massive struts going up 100km to the end of the atmosphere hold up electromagnetic-propelling rings to acccelerate a large shuttle hooked to four recombinated Graphene tethers to maximum safe speeds. It cruises from left-over speed to the Station.
  The Shuttle has two decks -- a top deck with space for 30 comfortable people, and an unpressurized much taller bottom deck for cargo. Movement between decks is impossible without an external structure to maximize cargo space. The shuttle's top deck reaches the station, with the buttom deck having access to space.
  The Station is one moderately-sized pressurized room in Geostationary orbit with primitive life support reliant on constant resupply, fitting a 24/7 rotated 4 crew and 6 other people (3 guaranteed to Aratam for research/tourism/development, 3 given to other nations).
  International use of the ANGEL Project is authorized, though limited to non-military use and analyzed for security risks.
  
  Doubles STC, Gives +1 STC to Mereth.
  Can be used to easily send people, prefabs, supplies, materials, station parts, ships, ship parts, etc. etc. into Geostationary orbit. Can be used to improve R&D of space assets. Can assist construction of anything in space.
  Both sides can use it for civilian/non-military use and R&D, but Aratam will know of Merethan activity if they do use the ANGEL Project in an action (after that action is processed). Only Aratam can use this for military purposes/R&D.

The Revision Phase of Winter 1964 has begun.

[Blood_Librarian]

Spinal Mount UFO GUN Telescope

Our team was messing around with a kaleidoscope when it gave them an idea for an optical configuration /antennae system that allows the STOP to sense and target electromagnetically produced radio waves from afar. While this originally meant "From orbit to planet")  with the help of range-finding beacons placed so as to prevent Friendly fire, another implementation has added short band sensors that are useful against oncoming enemy spacecraft.

It might also be useful for astronomy too.

[Man of Paper]

Proposal: STOP-IT Upgrade

The STOP-IT (for Improved Targeting) is an upgrade to the sensor suite to provide longer-range targeting and aim assistance against moving targets. The system takes input from signals received by oppositional craft in order to estimate it's speed and direction and visually represents that information on the canopy. A tracked target will have a small stem protruding from it ending in a dot marking where the STOP should aim in order to hit it's target. While imperfect, it's not likely a ship will take evasive action if it's being hit from somewhere it can't see. An adjustable holographic targeting sight for manual target acquisition/identification and aiming is also provided in the event of sensor issues, as well as aiding in orbital bombardment. Ground forces are supplied with marker beacons which emit a unique signal for the STOP to pick up so they can better locate where their assistance is requested.


Modified STOP upgrade from last turn.