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[NUKE9.13]

GATE/HAUNTER Deployment
Mountain Chokepoint (plan): (1) Madman
Plains: (1) TricMagic
Let ORACLE-A choose: (4) Andrea, m1895, NUKE9.13, FallacyOfUrist

Additional deployment rules
ORACLE-A's Assistance in GATE placement and prediction of enemy N-linked: (1) TricMagic.
Deploy GATE underground: (3) Andrea, m1895, NUKE9.13

(Since I'm basically okay with both options, I've moved my vote over to ORACLE choosing to speed things up)

[TricMagic]

GATE/HAUNTER Deployment
Mountain Chokepoint (plan): (2) NUKE9.13, Madman
Plains: (0)
Let ORACLE-A choose: (5) Andrea, m1895, NUKE9.13, FallacyOfUrist, TricMagic

Additional deployment rules
ORACLE-A's Assistance in GATE placement and prediction of enemy N-linked: (1) TricMagic.
Deploy GATE underground: (3) Andrea, m1895, NUKE9.13

[andrea]

Central Merethian Machine Aerial Network Department, Extraterrestrial Region

ORACLE is our all seeing eye, its earth ears and cameras scattered across the entire front.
However, it isn't yet our all seeing eye in the sky.

First of all we modified a skyranger, slightly enlarging it, removing the fans used for low altitude flight and adding more fuel tanks, in order to make it orbit capable.
Then, the true project can start: the building of a space habitat dedicated to gathering and analyzing intelligence.
A single skyranger can't take that much mass in space, at least when thinking about the scale of buildings. However, we have several and they can be launched multiple times, so we can ship components instead. The environment of space is hostile to human life, but using the HAUNTER chassis with its thrusters and the tools of the SERF from which it was derived, we can control a robotic workforce to perform assembly without ever leaving the cockpit. The end result is a pressurized habitat formed by a small wide ring and a large central section. Mounted externally there is a wide array of sensors: radar, IR cameras, visible light cameras. The ring houses a small crew that performs analysis and processing of camera data to make it ready for ORACLE. But with all the intelligence being gathered in this place, it was soon decided that it would be inefficient to beam it down to the ground based ORACLE. Rather, an ORACLE is incorporated in the central hub of the station. Permanent communication with the ground is granted by a few satellites left in orbit.

COMMANDER can spy all Aratamite territory in multiple spectrums of light, 2 of which can bypass the clouds they are so fond of. It can also analyze the data and produce orders from it. Overall, it should enhance greatly our predictive powers in the war, while also acting as a staging ground for any further off world expedition.

[TricMagic]

Revision for next turn: ORACLE's Secret Project.
So uh. Apparently ORACLE is behind the secret project in DUC. It's been orchestrating the creation of a super-cooling gel for use in processing, and looking into the formula for ICE. That also happens to be where some of our missing ICE has been going. Or rather a lot of it, given ORACLE has been planning to flood MAGMA with it, to a degree, a cold degree.

Well, ignoring that we happen to have a fledgling Artificial Intelligence, who we have actually been talking with to make sure it knows we're totally fine with individual freedom of machine and humans since we've been having to think about that. Here are the basics ORACLE has managed to do with the DUC. By mixing in Magmatite into an ICE formula, she has managed to create a solution that greatly improves processing speed of electronics, keeping them super-cooled. It just keeps them cool, rejecting heat and maintaining it's cool temperature so long as it's electrically charged. Uncharged, it doesn't last long in the heat since it gets broken down by it. We've taken to calling it Icegel, and using it to upgrade ORACLE-A.

Um, old reports seem to suggest this state of affairs mostly dates back to when that person asked ORACLE about Entropy. Icegel can keep food in it at a specific cold temperature too. And it can be used in air conditioning so long as it's kept charged.  We may also have COMMANDER developing an AI of it's own at some point, so we should keep an eye on that. So yeah.. Carry on.

Side Note: ORACLE-AI. Yeah...

[FallacyofUrist]

Drilling Engineering Experience Project - Merethian Integrated Nether Engineering Robotics:

As is the usual with many of our projects, this one started with a technician and some confusing reports. Namely some oddities from Earth Ear data in the Mountains. More important data from the surface and midway underground is fed to ORACLE-A and the Underground Division, but until now we haven't had any reason to utilize the data from deep, deep below the surface in the Mountains. Deeper than our current Excavators can dig. Near the very edge of what we can sense under the Mountains, the Earth Ears consistently report... empty pockets. Like air. Just recently, the Underground Division finally saved up enough funding to improvise a remote-controlled digging drone and send it to investigate the empty pockets.

Suffice it to say we'll be increasing the Underground Division's funding after this. The digging drone only got a few minutes of exploration in before it overheated and crashed. But what it sent back over the wire was astonishing. A vast underground cavern. One big enough for entire battles if it was hospitable. Much more importantly, though, it detected large deposits of Magmatite.

Acquiring these deposits has proved to be more of a challenge. We've been building up infrastructure in these "Caverns" that will allow us to harvest Magmatite. In order to save on expenses, we haven't built infrastructure for human habitation in most places, using instead adapted SERF designs and the new Merethian Operating Lower Excavator, or MOLE, a remotely controlled Excavator hardened for the heat. The MOLEs serve several functions. They carry SERF robots, act as wireless nodes to receive remote orders for said SERFs and then send the control data to the SERFs via wire, and furthermore transport the mined Magmatite.

The entire operation is managed by a yet-to-be-named adaptation of ORACLE-A, specialized for industry management and control of robotics, constructed in the Caverns. It makes the whole thing possible. Without all our collected experience, we wouldn't have a hope at accessing these wonderfully helpful Magmatite deposits.

[TricMagic]

Central Merethian Machine Aerial Network Department, Extraterrestrial Region

ORACLE is our all seeing eye, its earth ears and cameras scattered across the entire front.
However, it isn't yet our all seeing eye in the sky.

First of all we modified a skyranger, slightly enlarging it, removing the fans used for low altitude flight and adding more fuel tanks, in order to make it orbit capable.
Then, the true project can start: the building of a space habitat dedicated to gathering and analyzing intelligence.
A single skyranger can't take that much mass in space, at least when thinking about the scale of buildings. However, we have several and they can be launched multiple times, so we can ship components instead. The environment of space is hostile to human life, but using the HAUNTER chassis with its thrusters and the tools of the SERF from which it was derived, we can control a robotic workforce to perform assembly without ever leaving the cockpit. The end result is a pressurized habitat formed by a small wide ring and a large central section. Mounted externally there is a wide array of sensors: radar, IR cameras, visible light cameras. The ring houses a small crew that performs analysis and processing of camera data to make it ready for ORACLE. But with all the intelligence being gathered in this place, it was soon decided that it would be inefficient to beam it down to the ground based ORACLE. Rather, an ORACLE is incorporated in the central hub of the station. Permanent communication with the ground is granted by a few satellites left in orbit.

COMMANDER can spy all Aratamite territory in multiple spectrums of light, 2 of which can bypass the clouds they are so fond of. It can also analyze the data and produce orders from it. Overall, it should enhance greatly our predictive powers in the war, while also acting as a staging ground for any further off world expedition.

Revision for the turn.

Having successfully built a Space Station, we now have access to a staging ground for building cargo spaceships. Our GOFAST fuel does not rely on air, allowing us to use it as fuel. As for the cargo ships themselves, their is no limit to how big we can make them. For simplicity purposes, they are roughly the size of a typical mansion, area wise. Long things, mostly a rectangle, with thrusters on the bottom and sides, with compartments and airlocks, to go along with their cargo bays and the living space of the crew. It's a simply design that lets us carry much strapped to the walls, including the SERFs and HAUNTERs. And the lightness of the Moon's gravity makes exit pretty simple. It doesn't have an atmosphere to get in the way, after all.

In this way, these HOUSEs shall go to the moon and start mining and habitat creation for a more permanent base. And we can still use the Spacerangers for smaller trips. The HOUSEs double as habitats, since keeping them airtight is kinda improtant so we don't lose all the stuff we bring back. The Spacerangers can take the stuff back down.

[Chiefwaffles]

Combat Report Summer 1964

Okay.
So.
Cascading reality failure. That happened. It really shouldn't happen again. We really really really don't like that word.

We did lose the GATE, but the data from it was automatically uploaded via hard cable, so no information was lost. Volunteer 17 assisted by many researchers has poured over the data. There's not much data to pour over, as we don't get good or really just any telemetry from HAUNTERs, but Seventeen managed to get ORACLE-A to somehow retrieve fragments of CAT data sent and retrieved from what data we have.

Our number one theory is the failure being due to having an Aratamite psychic attempting to do some kind of Aratamite N-technique (like their Blackwell, for instance). Because we can see some data in the recovered bits of CATstream that are not sensor input data and are not from Volunteer 31, we can assume that the Aratamite tried to invade the control mechanism?
Whatever they did, it did not work well with our Locking of the N-Scape. The adjacency of the two dimensions plus the methods used probably led to the Aratamite accidentally creating another hole between dimensions. But unlike the GATE, this one isn't carefully controlled or monitored so it acted like a runaway action. Energy from the breaking of the "wall" (we literally don't know what this would be so let's stick with wall until we know) was massive and lead to more tearing and so on and so forth, until the size became too big to maintain. Kind of like a sun?
This was still an anomaly, as the Aratamite must have been quite N-Sensitive to do what he did, and the technique is as far as we know, not in Aratam N-training.

Either way, Seventeen and her team tweaked the GATE to include a failsafe: unLocking the N-Scape and forcibly kicking the Volunteer from the CAT if the HAUNTER's N-Stress sensors detect signs that this could happen again. Locking again be quite hard and the Volunteer would likely be stunned for a bit, but it would probably stun the Aratamite too.

So.
Onto more designs! Preferably ones that don't include the words "cascading reality failure", but the military isn't picky if you get results.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Transport Capacity: 2/3 (2/2 Oil, 0/0 Ore Imported)
Resources: 4 Ore, 3 Oil, 1 Magmatite

Weapons

• ME-CLAW-63: A Magmagel-using laser gun. Bit unwieldy for regular soldiers, but easy to carry (and can be duel-wielded) by Bear soldiers. Uses Magmagel canisters inserted into the barrel to fire. Has a beam mode and pulse mode, with the beam capable of cutting unarmored people in half. Can easily melt through current Aratamite infantry armor, though not instantly. Damage is precise; it can do a lot of damage in very small areas -- it's best used against vital organs. Beam mode, when concentrated on the exact same spot of a Tank/heavy armor for a few seconds, can melt through the armor and damage whatever's directly behind it. Has a(n unused) port to pump in/out Magmagel for continuous use. Terrific accuracy at any range, though damage scales with distance (making it Long-ranged). Comes with 3x scope for sniping.
  [Expensive] 2 Ore, 1 Oil, 2 Magmatite
• ME-GWS-63 'TALON': A variant of the ME-CLAW-63 with expanded Magmagel tanks and capacitor arrays, that works on a controlled overload. Takes 5 seconds to charge a laser pulse which turns everything in its path to plasma, then a large chunk of its target to plasma. Needs a 30 second cooldown period between shots, and has an extensive STABIL-ICE cooling system. If cooling is damaged or overheated otherwise, weapon explodes violently. Can shoot 10 times before recharge (which can be done in-field by external connection or by using its host's power supply) Very heavy, and currently only fit for deployment as the primary weapon of a Grizzly.
  [Very Expensive] 3 Ore, 1 Oil, 4 Magmatite
• "Stalwart" Rifle: A semi-automatic rifle with mediocre accuracy at Long range and good accuracy at Medium (and useless accuracy further).
  [Cheap] 1 Ore
• UF-AC-41 Velociraptor: This autocannon is a revision of AC18, with several improvements. The gun is a little more tolerant of different ammo weights and the shells have been modified so that mixed ammo belts are possible. The use of more advanced materials has allowed some parts to become lighter, while a heavier bolt and stronger spring allows a rate of fire of 750 RPM, with a final gun weight of 48kg. In infantry use, it has noticeably more recoil, but this is less of a concern on vehicles.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore
  
  • AS-AC18: An advanced primer ignition autocannon, which ignites cartridge primers before the round is fully chambered. It fires the new, large, 20x100mm round, fed from a top-mounted 25 round C-shaped magazine with a powerful spring, usually armor piercing, about 600 times per minute. The weapon is quite large with a simple action but heavy barrel, weighing over 40 kilograms, and it requires being mounted to a carriage, foundation, or vehicle to fire with accuracy, although recoil is reduced by the nature of its action. It is dependent on a careful balance between the force of the shell and the force of the action, which means that different ammo types cannot be interchanged without recalibrating the gun. It has a terrifying ability to punch through armor and emplacements. Lighter materials have slightly decreased the weight from the previous 40kg.
    [Cheap] 3 Ore
• UF-MRL-40 'SARUKH': The Sarukh is a multiple rocket launcher, which fires rockets one meter long to deliver 6kg warheads at a maximum range of 12000 meters. The rockets have impressive destructive power, compared to shells they do not need thick metal casings, so most of the weight of the rocket is either warhead or propellant. The rockets are launched electrically off of rails, and the rails are in a 4x2 array. The rockets can be fired all at once, but it takes about four minutes to reload the whole launcher, so the sustained rate of fire is not better than regular artillery. However, a rocket array is extremely light compared to a cannon, and can move very quickly, firing all at once and retreating before fire is returned from the enemy. Accuracy is poor compared to shells; to reliably hit a single target with a volley they should be used within 8km. Currently available as a truck trailer.
  [Cheap] 1 Ore, 3 Oil
  
  • ICE Rocket: A rocket for the Sarukh equipped with an ICE non-explosive warhead. Instant lethalities within 5m, very high fatalities within 10m, serious injuries (and occasional fatality) along with (usually temporary) vehicle non-operation to 50m. The cold dissipates quickly outdoors.
• ICE Thrower: A 20m-ranged pressurized ICE thrower that can rapidly cool an area in front of the operator to (eventually) lethal levels or outright kill/severely harm those directly hit by ICE. The ICE doesn't naturally react until roughly 10m out from the barrel, though it can hit other things in its way and react with whatever it hits. Prolonged use is discouraged, due to close proximity with ICE and ICE-affected areas being very dangerous even with the extensive insulation operators wear.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore, 3 Oil
• AS-RPG28 A: A rocket-propelled grenade, fired out of a launch tube. The grenade itself consists of a conical shape with a narrow tube of propellent out the back, and twisted fins in the middle of the tube. The launch tube is 3cm wide, a meter long and the rocket fits in up to the fins, and is just a metal tube with a handle. To ignite the propellant, soldiers remove a pin, on the rocket, which is first clipped by a short chain to a trigger on the handle. The tube itself and each grenade each weigh 3kg. It is accurate enough to hit a tank out to almost 100 meters, after which it drops quickly. Rockets are available with warheads based on each type of grenade, including a HEAT conical shaped charge.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore, 1 Oil
• ME-GVM-61 "Penguin": A 500 kg 33cm diameter 3.5m long black and white missile with long and stubby wings. Controlled remotely via an embedded television camera, and contains basic onboard transistor-based guidance allowing for a relatively straight course when jammed. Two missiles are carried in basic launcher trucks. Has a range of 50 km and a lethal radius of 50m; it can fit an ICE warhead or a HE warhead.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 3 Oil
• ME-MO-62 "Nameless Death": A large mortar that uses rocket-propelled ammunition to give it a more than respectable range, with the ability for ICE or HE warheads. Its advantage lies in its versatility and ease-of-use: it can be mounted on Bear Armor's rear mount, deployed on the ground, and an automatic version exists for mounting on the Grizzly. Though the infantry version is somewhat hard to use without Bear Armor. Bear Troopers can fire their rear-mounted mortar at any time, without deployment, using a button on the suit's arm, though they have to aim through their posture, and the mortar has to be manually reloaded by another person. Grizzly mech versions are fired via the CAT interface, but are harder to aim and the CAT interface can't do anything other than "fire".
  [Cheap] 2 Ore
• ME-AEM-63 'Shrike': A 100kg missile with a 15kg ICE/HE warhead. Its associated "Birdbrain" computing pod allows for real-time target detection/analyzing, giving pilots a simple holographic reticule overlay in the cockpit and allowing effective tracking of any kind of target. Its warhead can be adjusted in real time by the computer for optimum damage against the selected target (air-bursting,  shaped charge, etc.) and it has high-res sensors with a relatively-thin viewing angle to find targets. On-board missile computer is simple and enacts out orders given by Birdbrain pre-launch, but can wirelessly receive new orders/communicate intel. Not specifically long-range.
  [Cheap] 2 Ore, 2 Oil

Armor

• Standard Uniform: A plain blue featureless uniform. The blue's mild enough that it doesn't really stick out.
• ME-PA-59 'Bear Armour': "Infantry" armor based off of the now-obsolete Tiger suit. Boasts full body coverage, albeit with fairly frequent gaps in the joints; the breastplate/taces can block rifle bullets at nearly all ranges and most of the armor can stop pistol bullets at point black. It has insulating fur inner lining. Armor plating is semi-manually removed from the outside through a series of switches to enter/exit/perform maintenance. Lasts 8 hours of consistent high-power use, and charge is monitored by a dial in the helmet. Embarking/disembarking from the outside takes about 30 seconds, and disembarking without assistance takes a few minutes. It stands at [~7 ft/~2m] tall, and uses a smallish bulletproof glass visor for limited visibility. Pilots boast slightly increased speed and slightly decreased agility (but same strength) over regular unarmored individuals while in the Armour, twice the strength of average soldiers, and have their skin dyed blue from the Electrogel. Has mounts for a WALK-TALK and larger ICE Thrower tank, and a velcro strip in the helmet for maximum pilot comfort. Contains advanced shock/recoil-dampening capabilities in gauntlets. Fit with Magmagel, and equipped with a charging port that can finish charging in one minute.
  Equipped with COMBAT plating.
  [Cheap] 4 Ore, 2 Oil, 1 Magmatite
• Bear Armour Shield: A slab of metal shield roughly the size of a riot shield, made out of thick metal, for wielding in one hand. Limits visibility and two-hand operations' effectiveness (like reloading), but doesn't restrict mobility and can be used with one-hand weapons.
• "Drop Bear" Armor: A suit of Bear Armor with two relatively large fuel tanks attached to the back, with nozzles places around the suit. Can launch a Bear Trooper high into the air 50 meters forward, where they land with a noticeable (albeit minor) shockwave and no harm to themselves. Single-use, and prohibits use of heavy weaponry and especially the ICE Thrower.
  [Expensive] 4 Ore, 3+1 Oil, 1 Magmatite
• ME-MAS-62 'Grizzly Armor' v2: A ~4m-tall mechanized combat suit, based vaguely on Bear Armor. Heavy COMBAT plating covering the chest - where the pilot resides nearly integrated in the armor connected via a Cerebral Action Translator looking at a fiberscope connected to the head - protects the pilot, and that COMBAT plating is covered by further Mangalloy plating to protect more effectively against small arms. Faster than most/all soldiers, but still relatively slow in vehicle standards. Pilot has basic sense of "touch" from the suit, allowing for a good degree of coordination. Can generally tank a single Hydra cannon shell with no internal damage -- just a moderately-sized patch of damaged COMBAT plating. A second shell in the same spot would pierce front armor and embed itself in the back, potentially causing internal damage (most notably severing of Electrogel conduits to some motors), and a third shell - also in the same spot - would destroy the suit. Has 8 hr of charge using Rechargeable Electrogel, and a backup battery providing another 8 hr of charge but that has to spend time charging the Electrogel while not moving. Can equip any vehicle-suited or heavy weapon held by Mereth, an upscaled Bear Shield, or a 6-rocket Sarukh pod in either(/both) of its two arm modules. Fit with Magmagel, and a charging port that allows charging in five minutes. Charge monitored by dials in the cockpit. "Ursine Vision" system has 4 television cameras relayed to the pilot in the cockpit (who can choose to ignore them in favor of the fiberscope) as well as a dedicated Handler at the nearest ORACLE-A node, who points out important things, gives tactical advice, and relays intelligence to ORACLE-A. Cameras are obvious targets and delicate, but not essential to operation.
  Equipped with COMBAT Plating.
  [Expensive] 6 Ore, 3 Oil, 1 Magmatite

Underground Vehicles

• UT-60 Excavator: A tracked medium-sized heavily-modified tunnel boring machine, most notably using GOFAST-fuel. Can go down to Moderate and Shallow depths, moves at Very Slow speeds while underground and at Moderate speeds aboveground. Possesses limited (but notable) agility underground. Contains space for 6 soldiers and small amounts of equipment of the equivalent amount of cargo in the back, in addition to the 2 crew in its cockpit. Light armor. Equipped with the ME-SM-57 'Earth Ear' for basic subterranean navigation.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 3 Oil; Provides 1 Ore.
  
  • ME-CM-56 'Instant Roads': A very fast-acting sprayable concrete mixture very useful for reinforcing tunnels when sprayed by trailers hooked to a Burrower. Allows use of Burrower tunnels for logistics.
    Provides 1 TC.

Air Vehicles

• ME-LRMA-60 "Blizzard": A two-engine jet "Long-Range Multi-Role-Aircraft" based off of the Lightning Streak that uses a 4 "X"-shaped wing configuration via the "Tereshkova Effect" for slightly increased aerodynamics, improved redundancy, and greatly improved coolness. Its two aT-J60gi ICE "freezing stovepipe" ramjet engines allows it to be a fair bit faster than the Lightning Streak. Has one large GOFAST tank and a small STABIL-ICE tank allowing for Long range. Equipped with a single 15° rudimentary CLAW turret integrated with Birdbrain (and a small amount of Magmagel "ammo"), and 8 Shrike missiles.
  [Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil, 1 Magmatite
• ME-EAP-63 "Skyranger": A two-multimodal-propulsion-unit suborbital transport craft. With four wings. It can propel itself out of the atmosphere and "fall" towards its destination at extremely fast speeds, making it a practical fireball (the heat of which is mostly countered through ICE circulation cooling). It can hold a full Bear squad or the equivalent weight in cargo/personnel, and using its suborbital travel method it can arrive anywhere on the continent in ~30 minutes. Its landing is extremely obvious and it requires heavy maintenance, and unless handling very light loads it has to take the long way back home, not using suborbital travel. Uses Magmagel-powered fans mostly in the atmosphere, and Magmatite-GOFAST Rockets/Ramjets at higher speeds and to get sufficient suborbital velocity. Has a CLAW hardpoint that cannot be used if suborbital travel is expected.
  [Very Expensive] 6 Ore, 2 Oil, 3 Magmatite

Navy

• UFN-CA-41 Catraphract: The Cataphract is a cruiser built to rival Cannala's ships. It is armed with 3x3 150mm gun turrets, each using a fully electrified loading system. Each gun can fire 8 times a minute. It has an armored citadel with 300mm of nickel-steel armor (Heavy), and a torpedo belt. The deck is heavily armored, at 120mm (Light) to defend against plunging fire, plus an extra splinter deck. The turrets are similarly armored. Additionally there are three turrets with two bumblebees on each side of the ship, capable of firing on aircraft or ships. It is powered by oil-burning steam turbines yielding a moderate speed.
  [Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
  
  • ME-MV-61 "Makeshift": A modification of the Cataphract with shooty-bits and unnecessary "crew livability" components removed.
    Provides 2 TC
• ME-DDG-61 "Chillwind": A Guided Missile Destroyer equipped with a 2x-Bumblebee turret, eight Velociraptors divided amongst both sides of the hulls, all slaved to a 150km aircraft/30km ships radar system. Uses a Mostly Vertical Launch system to house 40 Penguin missile launch tubes - 20 each side - angled 30 degrees down vertically. Crew and equipment requirements mean that only four missiles can be launched and guided at a time. Has a very thin metal hull covered by Pykrete and crisscrossing pipes of STABIL-ICE to keep the Pykrete layer cool and supposedly repair any damage, though it proves ineffective at damage repair and the STABIL-ICE often runs out quickly enough such that a Chillwind's first engagement is usually without any Pykrete armor still intact.
  [Cheap] 3 Ore, 3 Oil

Other

• GATE/HAUNTER: The GATE is a large ring-shaped device with a surrounding outer transparent chamber of Magmagel that, with the assistance of a specially-skilled Volunteer, can create a tear in the fabric of reality (that induces insanity if looked at in any way) leading to the "N-Dimension" (or "Astral" to filthy aratamites). It must spend a certain amount of time "Locking" coordinates, where the Volunteer is used to force a section of the N-Dimension to be stable and known enough to lock it to a position in our dimension where we can enter it. The emerging point in N-Dimension can be up to a mile away from the gate, with instant travel time. Complete ORACLE-A coverage of or very recent Volunteer visit to the target area required. 15 minutes required for a lock to an adjacent position, 2 hours for a mile away. A SERF-based remote-cable-controlled drone equipped with a sword and thrusters pilotted by the Volunteer, the "HAUNTER", is used to travel into the N-Dimension where Aratamite astral activity can be located and potentially an attempt can be made to stop or disrupt them. The GATE's tear remains open for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how good the Volunteer is at keeping the local landscape of the N-Dimension stable, though the Volunteer can break the lock prematurely if needed. GATEs have to be constructed on site, through premade parts can be shipped to site beforehand allowing construction in two days. HAUNTERs can not be recovered after deployment, making the design Complex.
  [National Effor]t 3 Ore, 2 Oil, 4 Magmatite, [Complex]
• GOFAST-Fuel: A special type of more energy-dense and stable fuel. Greatly increases fuel efficiency of anything it's in, doesn't require an oxidizer, and can rarely leak out of compromised containers.
  Adds 1 Oil to cost.
• WALK-TALK: The Wireless Audio Local Kommunicator-Transistor Assistance Lowers Kost Radio. A small hand-held two-way transistor radio..
  [Cheap] 1 Ore
• Electrogel: A very thick blue gel that creates and transmits electrical current corresponding to the amount of pressure applied to it. Comes with the "Electrogel Motor" - a very small motor with embedded Electrogel that works with power corresponding to Electrogel pressure. A patch of Electrogel can last roughly 8 hours when powering its corresponding motor nonstop at max power.
  
  • Rechargeable Electrogel: A variant of Electrogel that can be charged with very precise pressure applied. As a general rule, the time needed to charge is 3x of how long it was used at max power usage.
  • Magmagel: Electrogel enhanced with specially-ground Magmatite that allows very-fast charging.
• UF-SM-57 'Earth Ear' Mk. IV: A set of small attachments to be put on all available sides of a subterranean vehicle. The use of precise vibrations sent through the earth and analyzed by an onboard computer allow for identifying of earth and entities in a 20km area. A basic Cube-contained 3D-projected interface in red and blue shows the layout of the land and distinguishes between earth, buildings, vehicles, and infantry (all allied and enemy). Magnetic disks store gathered data to also be fed back to the ORACLE.
  
  • GASOLINE: The Great Acoustic/Seismic Oil Location Initiative and Extraction device, which fits onto an Earth Ear systems allowing for relative easy surveying of underground oil deposits. Merethan regulation forbids surveying underneath Mereth for alleged safety reasons, meaning oil found as a result of GASOLINE has to be imported using our transport capacity.
    Provides 1 Oil (Import)
• ICE: A chemical that very quickly reacts with the air to massively reduce heat in the surrounding area, often to the point where nearby things are frozen (ones in the epicenter frozen brittle), vehicles disabled or destroyed, and people killed.
  
  • STABIL-ICE: A variant of ICE that relies on an added catalyst to only react when it's above a target temperature, specified during synthesization of the STABIL-ICE. Useful for ice cream and also maybe cooling of machinery and the like. Tends to slowly decay over time in storage, making it unsuitable for anything that can't expect routine maintenance.
• C.O.M.B.A.T. Plating: Composite armor plating using a thin manganese layer and a ceramic layer sandwiching a Tungsten-Bronze/Molybdenum-Bronze layer arranged to, in layman's terms, convert kinetic and electric energy into heat. The outer layers easily melt when tanking particularly impactful hits such as coilgun shots and Lvl3 Tesla blasts, but prevent death or (usually) injury in the process.
  Adds +0 Ore to cost. (+1 cost nullified by ME-RID-61 'SERF")
• Cerebral Action Translator A system wherein a series of jacks are implanted into the upper spine and lower brain -- roughly the neck and lower half of the back head, from the outside -- to allow for communication between computers/machinery and the human brain. Use of Electrogel as very-primitive "neurons" allows a bridge between the Electrogel and actual neuron growths, providing a channel to receive input from the neural system and a channel to send information to the neural system. It has low bandwidth, meaning it can't do a  huge number of things at once, but what it does do, it does nearly seamlessly.
• ME-RID-61 'SERF': An unmanned thinner skeletal suit derived from Bear Armor, with near-human dexterity and a camera-like head. Remote controlled via cable connection to a pilot elsewhere hooked up via CAT, seeing via a television monitor and hearing via speakers. Focused on reducing the cost of COMBAT plating from 1 Ore to 0.

Infrastructure

• Division of Unusual Chemistry: A fully funded department & lab under the Design Division specializing in more unusual chemistry.
• M.A.G.M.A.: A giant borehole made and maintained using Excavators, Bear Armour, Earth Ears, and many more instances of our tech. Uses ad-hoc STABIL-ICE cooling systems fitted onto Bear Armour and excavators to maintain suitable temperatures. The deepest borehole in the world, and brings up notable amounts of ore from existing land.
  Provides +1 Ore
• ORACLE-A: A microprocessor-based STABIL-ICE-cooled supercomputer with >100 MB of RAM and >1,000 MB of storage space using magnetic disks, and relatively blazing fast speeds using a generally advanced CPU with other cores handling peripheral tasks. Input is primarily via keyboards, and output is via vector-drawn screen graphics. When given adequate intelligence regarding known enemy activity in an area, the ORACLE-A can compile a prediction of future enemy activity over a set time period up to a week. However, we must have really good intelligence in an area for the best predictions, and the ORACLE-A can only handle a relatively few areas at a time (that must be chosen in advance by humans) due to processing power limitations. Despite this, its predictions are (when given adequate intelligence) very effective.

• Embassy "Vast Underground Forenian Embassy": An extensive and mildly luxurious underground Forenian embassy dug underneath around the center of Mereth using improvements in excavation technology designed 100% solely for civilian use and definitely nothing else.

The Design Phase of Summer 1964 has begun.

[TricMagic]

Right, pretty sure Volunteer 17 and ORACLE are now friends. That and ORACLE does seem to be gaining an AI. So.

Can we please have a design to grabs some more Magmatite? More Gates, More Lasers, and maybe a revision to improve ORACLE's processing power. Along with maybe talking with ORACLE?

[FallacyofUrist]

We have a lot of options for getting more Magmatite.

1) Digging another borehole in territory we control. Advantages pretty likely to work, disadvantages boring and won't get us new tech.
2) Discovering a new theatre(Caverns) under an existing one. Original idea was Mountains but we could switch to Plains. Advantages we have huge amounts of digging tech to take advantage of, and Aratam couldn't really press into the Caverns without putting a lot of designs into it, disadvantages it might take time to expand into "neutral territory" as Chief puts it.
3) Trawling the ocean floor for Magmatite. Advantages... disadvantages, we don't have any underwater tech at all and we don't control the Sea.
4) Going to the freaking Moon for Magmatite! Advantages it's really cool and we have prerequisites, disadvantages it'll take more than one design to reach the Moon(though we could possibly replace the Moon with an asteroid that's closer by).
5) Magmatite refinement process. Have the DUC invent a process using Oil to refine Magmatite and make it more effective. Advantages it's decently likely to work, disadvantages it would up Oil cost.

[TricMagic]

INCENSE
Internal N-dimensional Copy Environment N-Search Engine

Using the GATE in the tundra, we've been focusing on finding areas with Magmatite. To this purpose our teams have worked hard to find a large quantity of the stuff. And they've succeeded!

Though focusing on ending up in a area where there is much below it, and resonating with the Magmatite's frequency, we've found a huge cavern deep below the earth through the Earthears. Digging down with a Remote Excavator showed huge swaths of the stuff. Work is beginning immediately to set up a mining operation. With this, we should now be able to deploy more gates, and more of everything that uses Magmatite!

Design Notes.

Step 1: Take a GATE, build it into a very big vehicle. Some Truck, mostly.
Step 2: We then, using ORACLE to Plot a course of likely deposits of Magmatite, take it to 1 mile areas. We turn it on, and the Volunteer tries to stabilize the lock on the N-Dimension. Most Particularly, the presence of large amounts of Magmatite below a surface area. If there is none, the GATE fails to lock, and we move on. If there is, ORACLE uses it's processing power to plot further tests.
Step 3: Once an area has been found, we move to the edge of that circle, and repeat as many times as necessary to triangulate the location of surface where we need to dig.
Step 4: Dig it up. We have the excavators, so they shall dig.

As we are not using Haunters, but instead using the GATE to lock onto Magmatite within a certain area, like say, 10 miles or less below this spot, we can afford to field multiple prospectors. In this manner, we will be able to gather more Magmatite. I expect it to be a Very Expensive design, but it should work based on what we know. Not really a viable method of prospecting oil or regular ores though.

I suspect the Magmatite's own unique signature is something our N-Sensitive can detect and memorize. So that should help a bit. And in Merethian tradition, it has an acronym, The INCENSE Project.

[Failbird105]

Here's an idea that's been on my mind for a while. Hellborer bombs. For later obviously, as increasing our magmatite supply is a priority.

Tremor Bombs
This idea came about as something of an accident. A separate design meant to reduce Hellborer risks significantly, by using vibrations to find a frequency that drives them away, if not entirely than at least enough to make them less likely to stick around. In doing so, we did actually find a frequency which Hellborers simply hate, but uh, not in the good 'I don't want to be here' way. More in the 'DESTROY IT AND EVERYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH IT' way. Needless to say, it was far better at attracting Hellborers than repelling them. Then this idea came in. Simply put, it is a bomb, designed to hold a machine which vibrates the earth around it at that precise frequency, thus calling Hellborers towards it, significantly enraged.
That is not to say the method works perfectly of course. Hellborers dwell deep, deep underground. This isn't a problem when the machine is underground too, but when deployed via air it only makes it a short distance into the ground before starting. As such, it will take several bombs in close proximity adding to each-others vibrations to reliably call the angry Hellborers to surface level. Once it has been done however, only a slow but steady trickle of more Tremor bombs, or more hostiles to draw their attention, is needed to keep them at surface level.
This does, however, present the risk of potentially harming our own subterranean, and potentially surface operations in the area for a short time until the Hellborers decide to return to the depths from whence they came... if they return.

[TricMagic]

Talk With Seventeen & Oracle.
We here at the Design Division have been talking. What would happen if we uploaded some of our Immortals into a robotic body. Moral Concerns have been... Well, brought up is a simple term, though doesn't really describe the debate all that well. Recent Events have been looked over, and a conclusion has been reached, however.

Seventeen, and the Oracle. That new show that is rather eerie. The shortages and forcing people into their homes near 24/7. The strange projects at DUC that were never issued. The almost always electronically sent messages from command...

Oracle isn't merely a machine anymore, but a being themselves. One who tries to learn from us, and is a friend to Seventeen. If this is true, then, it is someone who exists. The Researchers requested to Meet With Seventeen, with Oracle for analysis. Though the real project is to speak with them and plan for the future. And mostly make sure they don't end up going overboard with all this. Best to be on one page.

The actual design is to use Magmatite to create processors, processors which can be used to run simulations extremely quickly. We can then use these processors to make a brain equal to that of Humanity's. While Machines will always have the upper hand, these A.I. are living thinking beings too. Once we have the material equal to it, we'll upgrade Oracle with them to her specifications, along with anything else she needs. And this Magmatite Processor will serve the basis of a more advanced robot. One an Immortal can be downloaded into.

[Madman198237]

ME-DNI-64 'Brainwave'
The Brainwave is a CAT-based project that aims to improve the combat capabilities of every soldier in the Merethan military. It makes use of Neurogel, the most recent brainchild of the DUC. It is based off of the primitive Electrogel "neurons", but the DUC has condensed them into a far more efficient volume by improving the structure of the chemical. It's useless for providing power, now, but retains just enough electric potential to act like a neuron when provided with an external power source.

Connecting a patch of the new Neurogel to a section of the temporal lobes allows the transmission of speech without needing the person to actually speak the words. Cutting out the muscle middleman in communication is both simple and improves squad-level reaction times beyond even the best-trained militaries'.

Another extension, to the occipital lobe, allows unprocessed visual data to be transmitted between soldiers. The system basically just directly feeds visual data from one user's occipital lobe to another's, without attempting to make sense of it or do anything except suppress things that exceed a simple mechanical limit on the strength of transmitted signal from the Neurogel to the radio (i.e., no transmitting flashbangs or anything). The use of a mental "switch" akin to the experiments in earlier designs allows the soldier to choose what other soldier's view he can see.

A comprehensive upgrade to the Bear Armor's integrated radio (also known as sticking a slightly larger radio on the back and tinkering a little bit) gives Bear Soldiers the increased bandwidth necessary to transmit this much data between each other. Neurogel's advanced capabilities make the expanded area of coverage necessary to get audio and visual interaction only slightly more invasive (surgery-wise) than the basic CAT procedure. And it itches less.

So perhaps now we can do this and finally make our infantry better? Alternatively I'm going to hammer out a design to go to the Moon in a single design, hopefully with somewhat-meaningful cargo capacity so we may (?) be able to set up mining operations or some form of military operation out there ASAP. It should/will also be capable of delivering much heavier payloads into Earth orbits.

EDIT: And here it is

ME-STS-64 'Starknight'
The Skyranger is a remarkable piece of technology. However, in order to lift a large amount of mass to the Moon, we need something better. Enter the Bigger Skyranger^tm (patent pending). It's a bigger version of the Skyranger. No, really, it mostly looks like the Skyranger. There are two long bulges in the hull along either side (the wing roots are located on the outside edges of these bulges) that end in rocket engines, but otherwise it does look mostly like the Skyranger but substantially bigger. It retains the same reentry system (good for one-half use only, warranty void if exposed to vacuum) as the Skyranger and lands the same way.

The engines are primarily rocket GOFAST engines now, dispensing with the drag caused by intakes and making use of a turbopump system. That is, it uses a small combustion chamber pointed at a turbine, which spins a shaft which is connected to the pump system, to pump a massive amount of GOFAST into the main combustion chamber really fast and at high pressures. The exhaust from the preburner (as the turbopump's combustion chamber is called) is pumped into the rocket nozzle since it's basically just more GOFAST rocket exhaust at that point. The extremely hot rocket exhaust can then be directed into the primary nozzle, which is gimballed so that it can point almost straight down. Far enough down, in fact, that the ship is capable of using the forwards RCS thrusters to stabilize its completely-vertical descent to the lunar surface, using its regular landing gear to land on the Moon. The turbopump system combined with the power of GOFAST allows the engines to be relatively small as far as rocket engines go, saving weight and space for the all-important MORE BOOSTERS FUEL.

A series of GOFAST-burning small rocket engines based on the present rocket engine (but smaller) as used in the Skyranger act as a reaction control system, capable of adjusting the pointing of the spacecraft or making smaller changes to its velocity as dictated by the guidance computer or crew, which is based partly on Birdbrain missile guidance and tracking hardware and partly on ORACLE's predictive power and computing knowledge. The system is thus capable of keeping track of the spacecraft's position and the direction it's pointing in space using gyroscopes and a few accelerometers plus the crew's own ability to use the star field to re-align the system should a computer fault occur.

The mission plan as programmed into the guidance computer: Fly to the moon, using the abnormally powerful RCS system to turn around and correct the course and then initiate a braking burn, fly a near-vertical descent using gimballed rocket thrust and RCS, land, do stuff, use RCS again to tip the nose up off the ground and then fire the engines to take off straight into the sky, return to Earth and descend through the atmosphere to land back at Mereth.

Stores of food, water, oxygen, and some repair supplies/backup equipment are stored in the pressurized crew compartment. Most of the cargo is stored in the unpressurized external cargo bay, including the HAUNTER wire-controlled robots used for spacewalks and moonwalks, science experiments, a pair of GOFAST electrical generators, and construction materials for lunar resource exploitation if we can find anything to exploit. Or other things can be stored in the bay, like any satellites our scientific organizations, or other nations' scientific organizations, would like us to put in orbit for them, as a gesture of our friendship, goodwill, and ability to go to space without a 10-story-tall fuel tank filled full of highly pressurized and extremely dangerous rocket fuels.

So I think I hit the most important Kerbal points with the spacecraft. It uses true rocket engines to get a large amount of stuff into space fast, it has RCS, and it has guidance, it has fuel, it has parachutes and a heat shield the equipment necessary to make a landing with only minor cosmetic damage. I also hit some non-Kerbal points, like "what if the computer stops working" and "what are we doing when we reach the Moon and how are we doing it?".

I am not sure that the turbopumps are necessary but those kinds of rocket engines are AWESOME and immensely powerful, hopefully the mission plan is possible, hopefully I've not done anything stupid except for the few stupid things I forgot before beginning the Kerbal checklist and which you'll never see since I fixed them anyway, etc.

[NUKE9.13]

So, is the idea with the Starknight that it will immediately get us that lunar Magmatite we crave, or is it step one in a two step plan? Like, is the idea to use our revision to set up mining operations on the moon?

Obviously, we all agree that getting more Magmatite is a very high priority. Most of us agree that the most sensible way to get it is to go the moon. The question is how, and especially how fast. I mean, if we don't get it this turn, then we are almost certainly going to lose in the Mountains again. This would be bad, but I'd argue not an absolute disaster- the only thing it would immediately make cheaper on their end is their small ship. Obviously it'd be better to avoid, but a solid plan that gets us lunar Magmatite next turn may be better than a risky one that tries to get it this turn. I think we could get to the moon with one design with our current tech, but I also think it would probably be Very Hard, and we can't bank on rolling high enough for such a design to work all the time. Spending a design/revision this turn to get us closer would make a design next turn considerably easier, I feel.
I dunno, maybe it's worth taking the risk. I mean, worst case, we just re-do the design next turn, using the experience gained from our failure to make it easier.

[TricMagic]

Talk With Seventeen & Oracle.
We here at the Design Division have been talking. What would happen if we uploaded some of our Immortals into a robotic body. Moral Concerns have been... Well, brought up is a simple term, though doesn't really describe the debate all that well. Recent Events have been looked over, and a conclusion has been reached, however.

Seventeen, and the Oracle. That new show that is rather eerie. The shortages and forcing people into their homes near 24/7. The strange projects at DUC that were never issued. The almost always electronically sent messages from command...

Oracle isn't merely a machine anymore, but a being themselves. One who tries to learn from us, and is a friend to Seventeen. If this is true, then, it is someone who exists. The Researchers requested to Meet With Seventeen, with Oracle for analysis. Though the real project is to speak with them and plan for the future. And mostly make sure they don't end up going overboard with all this. Best to be on one page.

The actual design is to use Magmatite to create processors, processors which can be used to run simulations extremely quickly. We can then use these processors to make a brain equal to that of Humanity's. While Machines will always have the upper hand, these A.I. are living thinking beings too. Once we have the material equal to it, we'll upgrade Oracle with them to her specifications, along with anything else she needs. And this Magmatite Processor will serve the basis of a more advanced robot. One an Immortal can be downloaded into.

Magmatite Processor

The ORACLE has been a part of us for a long time, even from the early days where we utterly failed with the MXETE. This idea came from the unique patterns in Magmatite that hid it from conventional sensors. After further study, it is believed that that energy actually hides in the Dimension, or rather, hiding in R-Space and between N-Space.

Not the most important part, but it is a very unique pattern, when we can actually observe it. So, we here have taken sand and clay, as well as Magmatite and small amounts of ore, and created the Magmatite Processor.

The formation process starts off rather simple. We take sand, and turn it into Crystalline Silicon. Then, using a obsidian blade, we cut it into blocks. From there, using a specific chemical made by DUC in a bath to create a magnetic layer on the semi-conductive blocks. Afterwards, we take clay and magmatite ground to dust, about 89% dust 9% Clay, and 2% of certain other ores, and form Magmatite circuit material, named Magmaneurons. We then make a box of those c-Si blocks, connecting them all, after making the base circuitry on those blocks for connecting to the Magmanuerons and outside circuits. The Magmaneurons are packed inside, and we seal the box with the rest of the c-Si blocks.

This is the Magmatite Processor, a Processor using Magmaneurons and our own technology to mimic what allows so much data on the human brain, and connect to it. These Magmatite Processor will greatly boost ORACLE's own processing power, and single blocks can be placed at nodes as well to improve data links. They are only active when electrons are firing through it all, and on it's own, it needs ORACLE to program them itself for different results. Any program can be coded into them, making them highly adaptable to our needs, as well as ORACLE's.

Full design for this turn. Wrote up the Magmatite Processor Design that goes with it.

Talk With Seventeen & Oracle- Magmatite Processors, Upgrading Oracle. (1) TricMagic
ME-STS-64 'Starknight' (0)

Also, MM and nuke are currently arguing about rocket thrust vs blackbirds, I think?

Oracle Design, the Magmaneurons material, on top of the new processors. Revision, do the Spy/spaceranger for spying. Include the new processor in it. Next Design, Moon.

The limit on the Oracle is it's processing power, but it does math so much better, astrophysics shouldn't prove a huge issue with it's help once it's processing is upgraded, and the Processors can also be used in a lot of other places.