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Total Members Voted: 14

[Chiefwaffles]

It's just that my #1 Pet Peeve in all Arms Races is a single bad roll ruining something forever. But we'll see just how ruined Gavrilium is.

Revision: M2 Dispersion Grenade
A small traditional charge inside the Gavrilium Grenade causes the superheated Gavrilium to rapidly disperse across a wide area. The casing switch is removed, as we don't have the time to make it useful at the moment. Bits of molten Gavrilium flung across a wide area should be extraordinarily devastating to enemies.
As the Gavrilium only melts after the charge goes off, we really have no other concerns. The charge should go off when the grenade is in its desired position, like literally every other grenade ever.

Design: Reactive Combat Armor
Gavrilium exposed to sudden bursts of energy melts, taking the energy with it.
Great!

By armoring our soldiers in this stuff (and pretending it's a different material than the one used in our grenades), we can create surprisingly effective armor. A front layer of Gavrilium melts when it encounters sudden bursts of energy -- like from bullets or other weapons, nullifying it. As we aren't purposely detonating an explosive designed to get all the material to go off at once like in the M1, we're not worried about a chain reaction causing the rest of the armor to melt. The inner layer is just our best heat-resistant material, so soldiers won't be affected by the small amounts of melted Gavrilium that some bullets will create.

Designs (2 total)
Reactive Combat Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

Revision: (1 total)
Senepang-b Rifle, Self Loading (0):
M2 Dispersion Grenade (1): Chiefwaffles

[NUKE9.13]

Hokay, well, we could've rolled better on that grenade. But it is always thus.

Anyway, we have two designs and a revision to work with. I think one design should be for a Gavrilium engine, that can be used in future designs. Perhaps we could also do some work on a Gavrilium energy shield.
Unfortunately, the Senapang is about as good as it's going to get, and the M1 is unsalvageable... so we don't have much to spend a revision on. I don't think converting the Senapang into a semi-automatic is a revision-tier action.

The discovered Gavrilium property might make it a very effective core for an AP shell; have an explosive charge trigger on impact, en-moltening the Gavrilium, resulting in a jet of the stuff piercing armour and wrecking whatever's inside.

[Taricus]

We'd be better off using a solid AP shell rather than stuffing HE into an AP round. The combat armour is also impractical, though that's more a simple weight thing (Which we COULD'VE had the solution for >.>)

[Chiefwaffles]

...what makes you think it'd be too heavy, Taricus?

[Parsely]

I don't think converting the Senapang into a semi-automatic is a revision-tier action.

Why not? We're modifying an existing design, so it should qualify as a revision, right?

The discovered Gavrilium property might make it a very effective core for an AP shell; have an explosive charge trigger on impact, en-moltening the Gavrilium, resulting in a jet of the stuff piercing armour and wrecking whatever's inside.

You're talking about the Munroe effect, used in anti-tank warheads. That's caused by the shape of the explosive, just adding a material that will melt when the explosive goes off isn't enough, the reason shaped charges fire the jet of molten metal through armor is because it's an impact that is highly concentrated on a very small point.

Munroe effect demo

[Baffler]

We'd be better off using a solid AP shell rather than stuffing HE into an AP round. The combat armour is also impractical, though that's more a simple weight thing (Which we COULD'VE had the solution for >.>)

That and it'd probably seriously burn whoever ends up wearing it. I'll support the M2 though since the M1 is completely broken and the Senapang fills our service rifle niche well enough for the first turn. For our designs I think we'd be best off using at least one on filling out the basics of our arsenal. How's this?

Mercun Pattern Heavy Machine Gun
An air cooled, recoil operated machine gun chambered in the same 7.7mm ammunition used by the Senapang, fed using 50 round belts which can be linked together or stored in a detachable box. It has an integral bipod, but is capable of being placed on a tripod for use in defensive emplacements. It has an open bolt, and is equipped with a barrel shroud and finned aluminum heat sinks to improve heat management. It aims for a rate of fire of at least 550 rounds per minute.

[Madman198237]

The thing about the Monroe effect is that it's improved if the projectile is incredibly hot---if Gavrillium's melting point is unusually high, even a failed penetration could melt partially through an enemy vehicle's armor and force the crew to bail out or die to literal heat stroke. Also, we could use it in incredible incendiary bullets.

[Taricus]

...what makes you think it'd be too heavy, Taricus?

Same reason any sort of non-ballistic fibre armour was never in general use; the material just weighs too much for our soldiers to use it effectively. Not to mention convection would be a problem for hits close to the head and such too.

[FallacyofUrist]

...what makes you think it'd be too heavy, Taricus?

Same reason any sort of non-ballistic fibre armour was never in general use; the material just weighs too much for our soldiers to use it effectively. Not to mention convection would be a problem for hits close to the head and such too.

Yeah.

There's a reason it's called powered armor and not just armor.

Incidentally, Myomers would have been perfect for power armor.

[Jilladilla]

Incidentally, Myomers would have been perfect for power armor.

It could have been perfect for power armor. For all we know, the first usage could've rolled a two, and it turns out the only way to make it behave the way we want it to behave is bulky enough that a working suit is less power armor and more a mech.

Like I said earlier, a good chunk of this is likely going to be figuring out how to play the hand we were dealt with the super-materials.
We didn't draw the card we hoped for with Gavrilium. But this doesn't change the fact that it did give us a card to play in respect to it, nor does it mean we can't draw again.

[Baffler]

It's actually common practice to convert coal into liquid fuel for various reasons. Maybe we could try developing an analogous process. That could be maybe be seen as a separate special resource, but an extra processing step shouldn't be too hard to work in, and once we develop it for use in one project we could apply it to other things. It'd certainly be a more convenient fuel in liquid form, and liquid gavrilium could even have the explosive properties we want it to where the solid stuff comes up short.

[Man of Paper]

Not all specialty resources are super materials and will not all have the same rules applied to them. Gavrilium is directly stated in the design as having multiple potential theoretical uses as opposed to one. As a result, to avoid "x does y because we say so" and the potential imbalances it brings I applied a set of rules that would still provide advancement of the material regardless of the design's rolls. Any design could advance the material, no path is locked on a failure, and even the lowest roll still provides benefit in some way, so giving occasional unexpected results with said failures is a fair way to balance it out in my opinion.

Just clarifying for everyone and expanding upon the last bit in Jilladillas post.

Also, as with Gavrilium, other specialty resources won't be rolled for, just subject to balancing and oversight by myself. This is the case for both resources you design as well as resources you discover through designs.

There is a chance you guys will design something that will unknowingly require a specialty resource designed by me before the game started. You'll definitely know when it happens, but I'll clarify the rules for it once it happens - it's easier to explain with an example. Just know that I've made sure failure and experimentation is an integral part of this AR and isn't going to become a hopeless march to defeat even after a series of low rolls.

[NUKE9.13]

I don't think converting the Senapang into a semi-automatic is a revision-tier action.

Why not? We're modifying an existing design, so it should qualify as a revision, right?

Yeah, but we're in the equivalent of 1914. Making a semi-auto would be tricky as a design- the fact that a bolt action was Normal (I was expecting Easy or even Trivial) suggests that designing a semi-auto would be Very Hard at least. To do so with a revision would probably require a very good roll to get something that isn't toilets.
I'd say that we wait and see what the enemy brings to the table. If they show up with an effective semi-auto that wrecks our shit, then I would suggest spending a full design on turn 1 to create our own, using the Senapang as a base. However, I doubt that will be the case, and I expect we will be able to roll out a semi-auto in due time, a couple of turns in to the war, when technology has moved on a little.
Like, there were 'revisions' of bolt-actions into semi-autos. But they were generally complicated affairs, and generally not worth the cost.

For our designs I think we'd be best off using at least one on filling out the basics of our arsenal. How's this?

I suspect that, just like we were asked this turn to make a primary and secondary infantry weapon, in the following turns we will be asked to make the basics- machine guns, artillery, etc. I think we should spend our 'free' designs on the non-basics, stuff that defies normal military doctrine.

Like I said, I'd like to spend a design creating a Gavrilium Engine. Any vehicle we create will want one, and we'd like it to be effective. Doing the engine by itself should make things easier, reducing the risks of a poor-performance engine.
On that note, does anyone have any good ideas for how to build one? There are, broadly speaking, three options: a Gavrilium-fired steam engine (piston or turbine), where we just replace coal/oil with the more energy-intensive Gavrilium; a Gavrilium-fired internal combustion engine, where we use liquified Gavrilium instead of petrol; or a 'unique' Gavrilium engine, that somehow directly extracts rotational/reciprocating motion from Gavrilium. A jet engine would require metallurgy that is beyond us at present, I think.
The steam engine would be fairly heavy, although we could probably soft-sci-fi-bullshit our way into steam engines small enough to build effective cars. The ICE would be kinda boring. I'd prefer the unique one, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a good explanation for  how one would work.

[Taricus]

An ICE would be more weight efficient for it's power, not to mention we could do some rather... nasty stuff with the fuel as well.

[Madman198237]

...what makes you think it'd be too heavy, Taricus?

Same reason any sort of non-ballistic fibre armour was never in general use; the material just weighs too much for our soldiers to use it effectively. Not to mention convection would be a problem for hits close to the head and such too.

Ever heard of plate armor? Stops early gunshot as well as basically every other projectile ever, and I'm not actually exaggerating. How about plate carriers? They use ceramic or metal plates (or a combination) to provide protection that a simple ballistic-fiber vest can't match.

The plate armor is, in fact, not a bad idea. It would certainly be interesting.