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[Blood_Librarian]

Hot-Blind Systems

Standard Chaff systems deployed by Vanila military oprations consist of piezoelectrically ignited Aluminum-Magnesium compounds ejected from the aircraft by pressurized "cannons", with the addition of sticks of thermal flares pushed out to hinder both Thermal and Radar tracking systems. It is obvious that the aliens are using a dozen different methods of tracking our aircraft in addition to Thermal and Radar, as well as unclaimed reports of telepathy.

Hot-blind Systems are designed to use surplus alien alloys and nuclear waste, in an effort to be incorporated to all lines of ships without cost.

These chaff systems are virtually identical to  Pre-War systems except for their payload; The compounds are replaced with an Americium 241-Alien Alloy-Osmium Mixture, essentially a fine dust of large density designed to confuse every electronic tracking system known to mankind. Visually, a large cloud of fine, yellow hot particles are ejected from the craft along with flares when the system goes off, temporarily created a signature that dwarfs the craft that created it, as well as creating false signatures as the cloud disperses.

Magnetic Anti-Missile System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (1) Happerry
Hot-Blind System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (1) Blood_Librarian

[Rockeater]

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Magnetic Anti-Missile System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (1) Happerry
Hot-Blind System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Blood_Librarian, Rockeater

[Chiefwaffles]

Why not just make our missiles better rather than wasting a design on a direct counter?
We have the Rockbreaker lying around, begging for a redesign.

If we improve the range, fix its issues, and do some other tweaks — which should be easy for a design — it could do great.

I’ll write up a design for it later today, when I have access to something I can actually type on.

[Happerry]

Because we can already kill them faster then they can kill us, we did that this time where they died before their missiles did anything, and then said missiles chased down our planes anyway and blew the crap out of our aircraft. Unless we can kill them so fast they have no time at all to shoot their missiles off, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, we need to counter their missiles either through jamming them, shooting them down, or becoming tough enough to take being shot with alien missiles. Better firepower isn't going to change that. Between our Railguns and our already upgraded missiles I'm pretty sure we have better firepower right now already, in fact.

[Chiefwaffles]

It’s just silly to waste an entire design just to directly counter their one thing and nothing else. They’ll be able to revise their missiles to make our design useless, putting us at a huge loss in terms of action economy.

[Happerry]

Really? I've yet to find a way to become completely immune to 'being shot down', which is what they'd have to do to make point defense useless. Even if we can only degrade their missiles by 50% after they make tougher missiles or such that'd still probably be a win for us as we're currently winning each shooty exchange, so getting a second one instead of shooting the shit out of them and then having their missiles render us non-combat ready would be a solid gain for our side. And each round we win gets us more tokens, which are what we need to make the cool stuff, so even if we do get only one or two good turns from it I'd still consider it a win because that'd give us more stuff to bootstrap up with.

If you want to write up a better thing to do this turn then point defense (or the jammer system, which I'm greatly leary of as we don't even know what they use for tracking right now), I could be argued into voting for it, but the one thing we don't need right now is better anti-UFO firepower. We already have enough firepower, what we don't have is survivability.

I'd also like to get the point defense gun so we can take it and make a Railgun Heavy Weapon Platform design from it sometime.

[Emral282]

Magnetic Anti-Missile System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Happerry, Emral282
Hot-Blind System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Blood_Librarian, Rockeater

I think that we need better not-getting-shot-downness than better missiles.

Also, any ideas on what the UFO we didn't shoot down was doing? Something weird is going on there considering that panic didn't raise.

[Man of Paper]

If part of a new missile design works to mimic whatever signature they're sensing then it might be able to throw their weapons off course, or back into them.

We are already lagging behind in our ability to engage the enemy. Designs at this point should be focused on bringing something new to the table or having multiple purposes. It's hard to tell how badly we're losing since there's no real territory to claim. I know we have our panic meter, but how many missions have they successfully accomplished that didn't impact that? A simple counter at this point won't do it, especially if how it works is visible and therefore fairly obvious and easier to figure out how to counter.

Ninjad but most of the statement stands.

[Chiefwaffles]

Yeah. We need a design that actually progresses our standing or else we’ll be stuck on the mud while the aliens actually advance their tech.

[Blood_Librarian]

Would you be okay with the design also producing a shotgun as well? It's completely possible to send have the same concepts of both to be put down.

I'm not gonna change my vote to anything until a design is placed down that would prevent them from shooting our ships down at every turn and does the same thing that our  Hot-Blind Systems while meeting your criteria.

Good luck.

[Man of Paper]

I got another eight hours at work to think on a good design. I have an idea, but it probably won't go up until like 3am eastern.

[Chiefwaffles]

Similar here. I’ll be able to write a design much later today though.

[Chiefwaffles]

Design: Gravity Pulse Drive (Alien Equipment Token)

In the original design documents for the Talon, we had used the aliens' gravity wave drive to, well, we used it in the Talon with some rather crude modifications. It's great when combined with the general effectiveness of the Talon and the fact that it's not a "jack of all trades" like alien craft. But we had intended to do something else: the Gravity Pulse Drive.
Now, we may not have an alien engine to dissect, but it's not like humans aren't capable of invention and improvement on their own. Besides, we shouldn't be dissecting another alien engine. The point of the Gravity Pulse Drive is to use our experience with the Talon -- repairing and maintaining it, reports rom our pilots, and general observations from its performance in the field -- to make a more refined, human drive; one that works with the Talon rather than something we ripped off an alien ship and welded onto a Talon. Though we do use some alien equipment pieces to better work towards "human-ifying" the jury-rigged alien aspect.
((For an obscure reference regarding those of you who've watched the show Stargate SG-1, think about the humans' attempts to reverse-engineer alien craft. Their first attempt is basically an alien craft with some human stuff glued on -- the current Talon's drive -- which is nice but not great and has other bad side effects. The second attempt is a much more "human" fighter, that's more like a human design using knowledge of the principles employed in the alien craft, rather than an alien design adapted to be used byhumans.))

Currently the Talon's GWD is pretty straightforward. It generates a gravitational field to make the craft move. And in the Talon's specific case, the drive is """optimized""" for forward motion, using standard wings to take advantage of the earth's atmosphere rather than try to bluntly fight it like the aliens' saucers.
The Gravity Pulse Drive works off of its namesake: pulses. By configuring the GWD and the way it buffers power, we make it work off of thousands of rapid gravity pulses instead of a constant field. Basically pushing the craft in one direction, vaguely like a standard reaction drive. Though these pulses can be in any direction, as they don't need a thruster or nozzle or whatever to be directed. The direction of each pulse can be instantly changed, allowing for extremely quick agility and general manueverability.
But most of the improvements is in making a human drive and implementing it in the Talon based on our experience with it, rather than just throwing an alien drive onto it and calling it a day.

Overall, we expect much better agility and slightly better speed. The agility should allow Talons to be nimble enough to repeatedly dodge alien missiles (and any other projectiles), and perform generally better in dogfighting. If possible, we implement this drive in the Skyranger (as well as the Talon, which is the obvious default). We hope to in the near future make some further adjustments to allow using the pulses as a defensive measure, "deflecting" projectiles (but this is in the future, not now, even as a stretch goal).

TL;DR: The Talon currently works off of a propulsion system we ripped off an alien ship and glued onto the Talon. Let's make a drive using our experience "making" the Talon's current drive, and the field experience we've had with the Talon. Basically a human drive using alien concepts rather than an alien drive fitted onto a human thing; not completely since we probably don't understand gravity manipulation enough for a 100% human, but at least enough to make a drive that's more than 1% human.
This should make Talons much more agile, and a bit faster, allowing them to dodge alien missiles until the missiles lose tracking/detonate/give up/are outran/run out of fuel/whatever. Also put onto the Skyranger if  possible.

Magnetic Anti-Missile System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Happerry, Emral282
Hot-Blind System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Blood_Librarian, Rockeater
Gravity Pulse Drive [Alien Equipment] (1): Chiefwaffles

Also, any ideas on what the UFO we didn't shoot down was doing? Something weird is going on there considering that panic didn't raise.

Only possible answer is alien infiltration. The aliens are somehow infiltrating the governments and populace in the area.
If they keep on doing this we can expect less help from the government and a possible withdrawal of the government from the XCOM project altogether. Something we do not want to happen. I got a few ideas for revisions to counteract this.

[Man of Paper]

Design: "Starling" Drone Network (Alien Equipment Token)

With a desire for innovation, our engineers have looked to alien technology for inspiration yet again. The alien drones, while effective at their task, are designed for Alien operations, not XCOM's. As such, a design has been put forward to construct a drone that fills our needs. Each "Starling" Drone is a disc approximately two feet in diameter with a fairly short profile and a modestly sized 5mm railgun mounted on the belly. The drones are programmed to automatically fire upon objects sharing the heat and/or EM signature of Alien missiles while attached to aircraft hardpoints. While connected the Starlings draw power from the aircraft to supplement it's own power supply and increase rate of fire of the rail gun.

When released, the drones fly spaced out ahead of the mother aircraft and begin overcharging their power core. If an Alien missile gets past the 5mm fire and passes close enough to a drone it unleashes an electromagnetic burst powerful enough to knock itself and, hopefully, the alien missile's equipment out.

A single Starling can also be used by infantry, using a small backpack computer and a joystick to control the drone directly. The computer needs to be laid down and opened up for the pilot to use the monitor to see through the drone's camera, though a TAV-2 bypasses this requirement by hooking up directly to the pack. The Starling can be overloaded by the controller to fry electronics much like it does in the air. The drone and backpack are unwieldy, so all but the hardiest will forgo most of their standard equipment.

------

The use of the token isn't so much for the drone itself: humans have made plenty of drones before. It's more for the signatures alien missiles emit. It's an ambitious design, sure, but it should be well within the realm of possibility. It'll begin our march into combat AI, hopefully help counter enemy missiles, and can be used everywhere. It utilizes a few different suggestions and ideas various people have had throughout the thread as well, so hopefully it pleases some of you.

Magnetic Anti-Missile System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Happerry, Emral282
Hot-Blind System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Blood_Librarian, Rockeater
Gravity Pulse Drive [Alien Equipment] (1): Chiefwaffles
"Starling" Drone Network [Use Alien Equipment Token] (1): MoP

[Cnidaros]

Magnetic Anti-Missile System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (3) Happerry, Emral282, Cnidaros
Hot-Blind System [Use an Alien Equipment Token] : (2) Blood_Librarian, Rockeater
Gravity Pulse Drive [Alien Equipment] (1): Chiefwaffles
"Starling" Drone Network [Use Alien Equipment Token] (1): MoP

Although we should really go for another base design next turn for more EP. Oh, and revise something to capture the aliens because we don't have that yet.