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Total Members Voted: 14

[Maximum Spin]

(MoP said it exploded in reaction to explosive force during one of the combat reports, but this kinda goes against what we know about it through our grenades)

When were we told that? That makes no physical sense given the other properties we have about it. Unless something has been screwed up somewhere, it's not an explosive.

[Madman198237]

So, to clarify, at some point (apparently when we used it to make Gavpowder) it was decided (by MoP) that Gavrillium, basic Gavrillium, explodes, and that the Gavrillium in the M2 Incendiary is a variant. It was tangentially mentioned (according to MoP) when the two Keratas detonated, though we all assumed that "oh we're just getting shelled".

When Abbera saw (most, apparently) of our designs, they put 1 and 2 together and got 3, whereas we've been putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4 when the answer you're supposed to get is 3, if that makes any sense. We have *too much* information about our intents and the in-progress stages of getting where we've gotten to, and so when Abbera figured it out, MoP went "yeah, I guess it can be figured out" and didn't tell us til it was guessed in Discord.

Things got somewhat salty, MoP got angry (he's fairly stressed), and discussion has ceased for now. We'll see what comes of it.

Oh, and apparently he also rolled some of our designs "at advantage" in a way---after something like half our designs so far rolled 2s and 3s he immediately re-rolled them so we'd have a functioning arsenal at game start.

[Twinwolf]

(MoP said it exploded in reaction to explosive force during one of the combat reports, but this kinda goes against what we know about it through our grenades)

When were we told that? That makes no physical sense given the other properties we have about it. Unless something has been screwed up somewhere, it's not an explosive.

Discord, when we were trying to figure out the answer and figured out it was something with the engine. We didn't know it was that they would violently explode until he said such. The fact it goes against what we were told regarding Gavrillium was what caused a rather large explosion of salt (and I'm not sure the justification was as Madman presents it). I'm going to wait and see what MoP decides to do. Worst case scenario we revise the gav-engines to be more "stable" or more fortified against explosive force or something.

[Maximum Spin]

(MoP said it exploded in reaction to explosive force during one of the combat reports, but this kinda goes against what we know about it through our grenades)

When were we told that? That makes no physical sense given the other properties we have about it. Unless something has been screwed up somewhere, it's not an explosive.

Discord, when we were trying to figure out the answer and figured out it was something with the engine. We didn't know it was that they would violently explode until he said such. The fact it goes against what we were told regarding Gavrillium was what caused a rather large explosion of salt (and I'm not sure the justification was as Madman presents it). I'm going to wait and see what MoP decides to do. Worst case scenario we revise the gav-engines to be more "stable" or more fortified against explosive force or something.

I meant where did the explosions happen in combat reports because I'd clearly missed them. But anyway. Yeah, they shouldn't explode, that's nonsense. At no point did we use Gavrillium as an explosive.

[Man of Paper]

Okay, let me lay it out like this and paint as clear a picture as I possibly can.

The grenades utilized a specific type of Gavrilium, Gavrilium-U. The gavpowder uses powdered gavrilium, unmodified in the design save for the fact that it's added to cordite, to add potency to the propellant. Unmodified powdered gavrilium is going to share some properties with base gavrilium. Caelium, when in the otherwise unmodified powdered form that Abbera made (or the foil that I gave you because it made more sense than powdering a metal in my mind at the time), does exactly what base caelium does - creates lift when power is supplied. You can't just crush something and expect it's properties to completely change. Or perhaps you meant to use Gavrilium-U, which would end up requiring barrels being swabbed like old-school cannons to get the gavrilium shit cleaned out. Admittedly I also didn't think of the effects on the GGG and LGG due to sharing the motors, largely as both the GGG, which defined gavpowder, and the GavEngine were created in the same phase and so it took a little bit for me to realize implications.

As I admitted in Discord, in hindsight I should have been more obvious, but suffered from the fact that I knew exactly what I was looking at when I wrote it. As stated, I also mentioned the lack of a complete understanding was in part my fault, and I was going to bring it back up in this combat report to give you and Abbera the chance to find a workaround next turn before youse all met. I also noted specifically that they would not go up in a massive fireball, citing Fallout vehicles as an example, and in fact I haven't actually even said how much of an impact the [VOLATILE] tag would have. Forsaking OpSec for another few moments since I'm still on the fence about continuing this at this point, Abbera created something using their version of a GavEngine that saw combat and also saw destruction. They immediately asked about the potential reaction with the Gavrilium and asked about the results of the destruction, where I specifically described the engine as "slagged", not disintegrated, or nonexistent, or in many tiny fragments scattered across the land, after the thing suffered from an explosion or two.

And so Max knows as well, the GavEngine, GA1, M2, Mountain Suit, Sled, and latest Gravite proposal all rolled a 2 or 3 unmodified for some ungodly reason. My frustration comes in large part from the fact that I've really been trying to help you guys out but as soon as something less than desirable pops up I'm some sort of Satan/Hitler. Understandably and admittedly you guys didn't understand how much of a hand I've been giving you. Still, Abbera has shared many of your experiences and as of this moment has had exactly zero issues. I said from the start that failure and experimentation are key parts of this AR (not a half dozen design failures clumped into four turns though), so it was never my intent to spell everything out. Could I have handled it better? Yes, obviously, I'm still learning. But it's hard to improve when you get brow-beaten for every perceived mistake, because then you start getting frustrated and vindictive and lose the will to put up with it.

So at this point here are the options I see:

We go as is and you revise some way to stabilize Gavrilium
We retroactively switch to using Gavrilium-U, which would cause more problems with your weaponry but keep gavrilium from having any kind of an explosive reaction in it's base form
We continue in some hellish middleground where everything I do is picked apart in detail while my use of your details is forsaken
We decide everything's fucked and end the game

It's up to you guys at this point.

[Taricus]

We'll soldier on. As salty as we are and have been, we'll continue on and find a way to stabilise the stuff.

[Twinwolf]

Ah, my mistake in interpreting what it did. I honestly didn't know how big Fallout vehicle explosions are and kinda assumed 'big' when you made the comparison because Fallout has a lot of nuke-powered things.

While going off that information perhaps it isn't as big an issue I thought, and it's not ideal, I think continuing as is and just revising Gavengines to be stable or armored is what we should do. Or just deal with it. If it messes with resource requirements then we take an extra node of whatever resource it is.

(I also think that people should perhaps stop blowing up over everything that doesn't go our way - debate is fine, dangerous levels of salt, not so much. )

Question related to such a revision: If we revise a component, does it automatically apply to all things using that component?

[Man of Paper]

Yes it would.

[Taricus]

Given the chemical compounds we have access to, I wonder if we can't make a stable form that's optimal for power generation in addition to shielding the engine. The stuff is already pretty damn good as a fuel, so being able to enhance that or being able to compact our engines more would be nice.

[Madman198237]

I would think it'd be easiest to just...make things the way we've been reading them as for I'm-not-sure-how-many-turns-now. Basically, Gavrillium heats very rapidly when exploded, thus making cordite even more powerful (since the expanding gasses are now extra-heated and the reactions proceed quicker, etc.) exactly as it has functioned so far. I will note (in defense of my arguments) that exploding is actually not a desirable quality of gunpowder---you want a "rapid burn" as opposed to the extremely-rapid-burn of an explosive.

If that for whatever reason is absolutely not an option...I'll outright admit that I don't like being forced to spend even a revision on this since we really did have no way of knowing about this possibility, but if absolutely necessary I guess we could spend a revision to fix it.

Hey now I sound like I'm whining and complaining at length again. Ah well, read with less salt that you (apparently normally) would. Oh, and read the next section with a healthy dose of humor, I almost started laughing while writing it and mean less than half of it seriously.

Anyway, I would argue that it doesn't make any logical sense for us to be able to stick the quality of "explosive" on basic Gavrillium, not once we've already defined one interaction---it'd allow us to do stupid things, like revising "Detonates when rubbed wrong" into Abberan Royal Kinetic Sheep Wool, and suddenly soldiers scratching that itch under their arm go up in miniature mushroom clouds. Far better to just have the cordite modify the qualities of basic Gavrillium. I mean, if you really want to I'm sure that'd be a HILARIOUS Arms Race, but I don't think that that sort of thing was actually your intent (if it was, please inform us now so we can get to making their sheep explode on impact or extremely susceptible to rabies or something).

[Maximum Spin]

I'd definitely argue that it absolutely does make sense for a material to have different properties when powdered and mixed with cordite than in an otherwise unmolested solid bulk form. Any chemist can tell you that that kind of manipulation can totally change the thermodynamics of a material. Moreover, since cordite is already in fact an explosive (and to clarify for Madman's sake, the difference here is between a high and a low explosive), something you mix with it to increase the potency doesn't need to and in fact shouldn't also be an explosive. The "explosive" needs of the mixture are well satisfied, whatever else you put in there should be doing something different or you will manage to screw up the exploding part too. So it really doesn't make sense for gavrillium to be an explosive, though I can see how insufficient research might make you think it would.

Anyway, for the record, I'm not and have never been "salty". I'm just stating my position that something doesn't make sense. Unless it's in Discord, nobody is calling anyone literally satanhitler anywhere. Although, while I hesitate to say this and don't want you to take it too personally, saying "you shouldn't complain because I've been giving you secret help to keep you competitive this whole time" really only serves to make you seem more capricious. Understand that I'm not upset about it and honestly don't even particularly care, but the fact is that what you read into the design intention really was silly from a physical perspective, and, while it's nice and I appreciate that you didn't let us fail dramatically due to bad luck (although it does get into the whole question of why use dice at all, but since I don't like randomness in games and that's one of the reasons I don't usually join arms races unless badgered into it by Fallacy *cough*, I'm not about to complain), the two things really don't counterbalance each other in any way; it's like saying "I bought you free groceries, so don't be upset that I pushed you down the stairs". Sure, it was only a short flight of stairs and we got away with some minor bruising, but we still didn't ask for exploding engines. Wait, I feel like I lost the metaphor somewhere there. Anyway, I really think that the only sensible way to move forward is to make gavrillium act in the way that makes sense, ie, not exploding on its own.

[Jilladilla]

Personally I'm a member of the 'just trudge on through with it' camp. The way I see it; there is going to be no solution that ends with everyone happy; just more salt to be had trying to dig out that ideal. This way we can at least bury the hatchet and move on from this salt mine ASAP. As such; we suck it up and deal with the situation as is; as we always do when a situation is less than ideal for us in these games, and we do have a few ways to do so.

I feel we can reinforce the engines easily enough; uparmor the things, maybe see if we can give the rods themselves a sleeve that'd cushion them from a blast that wouldn't total the rest of the engine (you know, so a rifle sized explosive bullet can't cause the entire thing to go up in flames) while not being sufficiently heavy enough to turn it into a large M2 grenade in rod form. And of course design our stuff so a gav-engine isn't directly above any form of ammo storage....

Hang on; is the reaction as it is right now more explodey or melty? Mostly asking as our countermeasures against this are likely to depend somewhat on what exactly it is and I for some damn reason can't seem to keep it straight in my mind.

Like, my earlier comment of not keeping it above ammo storage was more intended for melting; so it doesn't burn its way down through whatever is in the way like a blob of unholy super FOOF and cook off the ammo; if it's more explosive, we can reinforce the engine and include some crude blow-off panels to the thing to try and channel the blast away from anything important..... I guess we could just go 'well why not both?' in our reinforcements....

Alternatively, we could try and make a stable gavrilium form; one that doesn't explode/meltdown/whatever at a moments notice.

[Twinwolf]

[snip]

There hasn't been a ton of salt here. There has been a ridiculous amount of salt in the discord, as well as getting on his case for every little thing, which has likely caused this impression.

(I do actually agree that making it work like we thought it did would be the ideal but wouldn't put up a fuss over moving on and revising a more stable version in the engines. Maybe even use the research credit for it.)

[Man of Paper]

Apologies to you MS, if you took my comments about salt as being related to you at all then that's my mistake. Your name isn't on the radar at all for unreasonable salt.

Which is another point I want to make (this is directed generally, not at any one person). I can be reasoned with. Come at me with reasons and not pitchforks when something doesn't seem right and I'm very open to looking into it. The range on your 105mm is a prime example: I initially put down a grossly small effective range, the error was pointed out and I was asked why I made my decision. I looked into what I did and realized I had taken numbers from the wrong real-life gun. Shrieking "this doesn't work like we want to, make it work like we want to" (which has happened so many times now) isn't an effective argument. I know a couple of you have not thrown any salt around at all, and most of you just want a fun, fair game. But there is a consistent communications gap between myself and this team specifically for some reason.

So here I go explaining my decision once again. Not mad or salty at this point, I'm just making sure you guys know exactly why I made my decision so you can effectively counter-point. I have stated before that I am no vehicle or weapons engineer, I'm a bowling alley mechanic without enough time to thoroughly investigate every single aspect of design proposals. I do my best to get things right but if there's something I'm getting wrong, point it out and give me a hand. Don't jump to crucifixion (intentional slight overstatement, felt the need to clarify).

You crushed gavrilium and used it in cordite to amplify the effects of rapid expansion of heat propelling the bullet forward. This is not augmenting the gavrilium, it's defining an interaction between a relatively low 'n' slow explosive force and the gavrilium. You are adding Gavrilium to something to manipulate the other material, not adding something to Gavrilium to change how it acts from the base Gavrilium (i.e. chemical treatment in the modified gavpowder). Anyone stating "make it work like it's supposed to", if you want to do more than frustrate me, is going to need to make a solid argument without lynching me as to why. And not once did I say gavrilium wasn't explosive. It didn't work as an explosive the first time you tried it. As I said, perhaps you were looking for utilizing the reaction of the Gavrilium-U, and it would be no problem to swap to that and act like you never made gavpowder using base gavrilium. That has it's own issues, but it's fine, my poor bookkeeping and finding my AR legs for the first turn and a half can be blamed for the miscommunication there.

As for how the engines go off right now engine, it's more of a popping detonation, much like when a tank suffers a bad hit and cooks off except the rods generally go off at once. And before anything is said, yes I know in hindsight I could have been clearer about the engines going off. Live and learn and all that.

[Twinwolf]

I was confused for a while where "Gavrillium-U" was coming from, and it was the first grenade - Chiefwaffles specifically stated it wasn't normal gavrillium being used. So it's not like Man of Paper is coming up with this from nowhere.

Design: M1 Dispersion Grenade
Naturally, the first war-time use of Gavrilium our scientists came up with, was explosives.
Gavrilium processed in the right way becomes a tad bit unstable (something we never thought as useful beyond accidentally blowing up factories that had messed up refining). So we put this unstable stuff in a special casing and hook it up to a pin. The grenade is shaped as a stick with the explosives bundled on one end, to facilitate throwing.

A switch on the grenade casing, if switched on, causes the casing to start falling apart roughly around the time where a thrown grenade would reach max height. This causes the Gavrilium-U to fall out of the grenade, dispersing itself into a wide area. Once it hits the ground, it should explode quite volatilly for a wonderful area of effect. If the switch isn't messed with, the Gavrilium-U explodes all at once on a timer with the rest of the grenade.

The main problem I see with saying that normal gavrillium is unstable like that, is the design that defined Gavrillium-U also said that Gavrillium became unstable as a result of a specific process or botched refining. It's fine if that turns out not to be the case - we failed the roll for that so very hard. That said, I think the main point of confusion for us comes from how it was not said this was a reaction of Gavrillium-U. The design result stated specifically it was a result of Gavrillium, and the design for Gavrillium still assigns that property to base Gavrillium.

At least we have learned that applying an explosive force to Gavrilium causes it to rapidly heat past it's melting point.

Gavrilium: A wondermaterial with many unknown qualities. So far we know that low applied heat produces a slow burn with results similar to coal, *a sudden explosive force agitates it until it becomes a molten blob*, electromagnetic energy can be drawn from it, and depleted gavrilium has a dangerously low temperature.

This is the reason people thought that since we were using base gavrillium for everything, it was not explosive. That said, you have already admitted fault and I'm not going to flay you for that - I'm just trying to explain the reason that people have been so sure it does not react like that. I recommend, if we decide to soldier on as is, you edit the design description to clarify that it is Gavrillium-U that has the melting reaction and that normal gavrillium reacts as you've stated - while we haven't known this before, I imagine it is something that would have come up in the design of the engine or from combat and we'd still reasonably know it.

((If I come across as salty, inform me - I find salt counterproductive to reasonable discussion))