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[RoseHeart]

Man, if only we had arc throwers next turn.

  X•COM TRUSTEE   
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[Blood_Librarian]

We should revise it so our troopers have a fighting chance of getting shot and living.

XenoCeramics people. It works.

[Happerry]

Man, if only we had arc throwers next turn.

It'd still be useless, because we got two nat ones on 2d4, and that would turn anything useless. It didn't matter at all what we did this turn with that roll.

Roll (probability): Result
2 (1/16): Utter failure. You get nothing except the knowledge of what not to do.

[RoseHeart]

Since the VP token will aid the VP crunch, I will change my vote for this revision phase to the railgun.

What can be revised
Revisions are a lot more limited than designs. A revision must be based on an existing piece of equipment.
You can fix bugs, make modifications, or even make 'new' equipment as a variety of the old. Difficulty again depends on the amount of new tech and engineering work required.

Seems about right.

Also, please consider this.

South America
--->Argentina
--->Brazil

2 is the smallest region. This was likely a targeted attack. We don't have a panic reducing mission type. Once the continent is lost, it may be harder or even impossible to get it back.

Railgun Revision (1 Alien Alloy Token)
Alien alloy is used to replace components prone to malfunction and improve durability. The shock absorbing potential of this material is also explored to make the weapon safer. As a second priority, if other goals are achieved, scopes sensitive to drone electronic signatures are added.

Designs
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (2) Blood_Librarian, Happerry
Railgun revision: (1) roseheart
Avalanche II: (1) Strongpoint

Other
1VP token=SkyRanger: (1) roseheart

  X•COM TRUSTEE   
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[Chiefwaffles]

I like the idea of creating armor, but XenoCeramics is not a revision. It wants to design an entirely new alloy, make armor plates with this alloy, then design a new suit of combat armor using this alloy and multiple other things. That would be more fit for a design and revision or multiple designs. Not a revision.

So instead:
Revision: Alloy Armor (Alien Alloy Token)
By incorporating alloy plates along with some heat-resistant underclothing into the sets of armored issued to every soldier, we can greatly increase field survaivability. Alien alloy plates cover more important parts of the body while the heat-resistant stuff goes under the plates and where the alien alloy can't.
We also try to make it resistant against syringes and shocks and whatnot, but that's 100% not a priority.

[Blood_Librarian]

[Snip]

No, it is not. It is simply putting Alien alloy beads into an otherwise normal ceramic plate that gets turned into armor. Please don't pretend its anything more complex than that, Please.

[Chiefwaffles]

Xeno Ceramics
Things are not completely bleak, commander. Although our first attempts at manipulating the Alien Alloys has failed, (It had to go down to getting an "Engineers" laser lathe to cut it into a small enough piece to analyze.) We have already made discoveries that would revolutionize traditional material sciences by leaps and bounds. To that end, We have used the enemies recovered weapons to test how well traditional armors would predictably fare; Miserably.  However, by using plates designed to handle the thermal shock of the enemies standard weapons, we have managed to create a set of armor that decreases the chance of death or severe maiming by as much as thirty percent. This extreme success is accomplished by custom fabricating otherwise "normal" ceramics with the tiny beads of Alien Alloys we could chip off recovered material. The Beads are then deposited into the Cermaics-making Progress, resulting in a plate with no terrestrial parallel in terms of heat resistance. The plates, which are around two inches in diameter, are promptly layered over a heat-resistant metal alloy to form a ballistic weave that can in some cases take a direct hit from an alien weapon and survive. Combined with a fire retardant undersuit often worn by Firefighters, we have managed to manufacture the first generation of Xenomaterials into a combat-ready set of armor.

That's four things.

You want to:
1.) Design a new type of alloy using both alien materials and our ceramics to create something with extreme increases in durability.
2.) Use this alloy to create specifically-specified armor plating.
3.) Combine these armor plates with a "heat-resistant metal alloy" to form a ballistic weave
4.) Combine this ballistic weave with the fire retardant undersuit
All to make a new set of armor.

This is called a "design".

(edit)

Designs
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (2) Blood_Librarian, Happerry
Railgun revision: (2) roseheart, Chiefwaffles
Avalanche II: (1) Strongpoint
Alloy Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

[/b]Other[/b]
1VP token=SkyRanger: (1) roseheart

[stabbymcstabstab]

Designs
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (2) Blood_Librarian, Happerry
Railgun revision: (3) roseheart, Chiefwaffles, Stabby
Avalanche II: (1) Strongpoint
Alloy Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

Other
1VP token=SkyRanger: (1) roseheart

This is mostly because i feel our armour should be a design instead to get the most out of it.

[Cnidaros]

I told you guys, rifle-sized railguns are hard. 

Designs
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (2) Blood_Librarian, Happerry
Railgun revision: (3) roseheart, Chiefwaffles, Stabby
Avalanche II: (2) Strongpoint, Cnidaros
Alloy Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

Other
1VP token=SkyRanger: (2) roseheart, Cnidaros

I would have liked the mass production revision to get 7 VP allowing us to go for 3 Ravens + 2 Skyrangers with the VP token. But I suppose better missiles would have much the same effect.

Also, it occurs to me that we are moderately screwed if they revise their UFO weapons to be turreted, allowing landed UFOs to contribute to both the air battle (if it's low enough) and their own defense.

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh no, a Hard design, whatever shall we do?!
I consider the XH1 a success, especially given the natural roll we got. We have an effective rifle-sized railgun. It may be difficult to use and may not be fit to be given to every soldier yet, but it's very close.

Also Stabby, just as a note, if you want to design armor later you'd be better off voting for an armor revision that we can use as experience for designing a proper suit, or vote for something that doesn't use the token. While I personally am (mostly) okay with using it in a railgun revision, it'd make our lives harder when designing armor if we use the Alloy Token for the Railgun revision.


Also Roseheart, mind editing the Railgun revision to change the name of the railgun to the XH2 Railgun instead of the XH1?

[Happerry]

Revisions
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (1) Blood_Librarian,
Railgun revision: (4) roseheart, Chiefwaffles, Stabby, Happerry
Avalanche II: (2) Strongpoint, Cnidaros
Alloy Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

Other
1VP token=SkyRanger: (2) roseheart, Cnidaros, Happerry

[Strongpoint]

I am not a big fan of spending alien alloys on the rifle. We may need this token to react to enemy action next turn, should we fail to get any

XS-1 heavy railgun
XH-1 is a good concept, but got many problems due to excessive miniaturization. In attempt to fix it, larger version was created. It got larger heat sinks, larger capacitors, more space between crucial parts and generally more weight reducing recoil problems. XS-1 is mostly the same weapon but with a weight closer to a machine gun, it requires crew of to to operate it effectively and meant to be used from prone position. Also, It can have an attached scope and be operated by a sniper and his assistant, forming a sniper pair.

Instead of trying to give to every soldier make it more like squad weapon, more like anti-tank rifle of the past. After all it is the role it will play. Also, we'll get an option to field both version should we wish.

Revisions
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (1) Blood_Librarian,
XF-2 Railgun revision: (4) roseheart, Chiefwaffles, Stabby, Happerry
Avalanche II (2): Strongpoint, Cnidaros
Alloy Armor (1): Chiefwaffles
XS-1 railgun revision (1): Strongpoint

Other
1VP token=SkyRanger: (2) roseheart, Cnidaros, Happerry

[Chiefwaffles]

It's the XH1 Railgun, not the XF-1 Railgun.
And the goal is to eventually make a weapon we can give to every soldier. It doesn't need to be immediate or necessarily done this revision, but we won't ever get it by purposely making it bigger. It's already handheld(?), we just need a revision to fix its bugs. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot if we made it bigger on purpose.

Revisions
Adjusted Interceptor Missiles: (1) Madman
XenoCeramics: (1) Blood_Librarian,
XH2 Railgun revision: (4) roseheart, Chiefwaffles, Stabby, Happerry
Avalanche II (2): Strongpoint, Cnidaros
Alloy Armor (1): Chiefwaffles
XS-1 railgun revision (1): Strongpoint

Other
1VP token=SkyRanger: (2) roseheart, Cnidaros, Happerry

I just re-added the formatting and changed it from XF-2 to XH2.

[Strongpoint]

And the goal is to eventually make a weapon we can give to every soldier. It doesn't need to be immediate or necessarily done this revision, but we won't ever get it by purposely making it bigger. It's already handheld(?), we just need a revision to fix its bugs. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot if we made it bigger on purpose.

Don't be attached to the initial plan you formed in your head when you proposed XH1. We can get both things. Smaller railgun to give to every soldier, heavier to be used as armor piercing weapon. Experience gained in developing working larger version will help us to revise XH better next turn, maybe with another alien equipment token attached. Experience in developing larger version may help developing aircraft sized railgun, too.  What is important - making weapon larger is a natural way to fix some of it flaws like recoil or overheating,

Even this turn we may be able to field both, may be needed if decide to go one skyranger + 3 ravens

[Chiefwaffles]

I'm attached to the most viable plan currently present. We already have a functional effective handheld railgun that's not particularly expensive. We just need to fix its bugs before it becomes a weapon viable to give to every soldier.

You seem to forget why revisions exist - they're not "sacrifice some aspects to fix other things." We can use it to fix the flaws without arbitrarily increasing it in size. We also don't need experience in making bigger railguns, since we had that from the start. Nearly 100% of the effort in the XH1 design was making it smaller. Let's not waste that by suddenly backtracking.