Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TricMagic]

You are trying to get the cloth to survive having the force of a bullet travel through it without tear.... Adding steel thread wont help matters there.

Making sure the excess is properly dispersed without destroying the cloth through innumerable tears.

[NUKE9.13]

You are trying to get the cloth to survive having the force of a bullet travel through it without tear.... Adding steel thread wont help matters there.

Making sure the excess is properly dispersed without destroying the cloth through innumerable tears.

Steel wire, not steel thread. But I sort of see what you’re saying, we should reduce the amount of force applied to the garnment in addition to reinforcing it. Trying to outright reflect the force, though, is not the way to do that. I’ll edit in a line about reducing bleed.

[TricMagic]

Revisions
Directed Radio (1): Rockeater
Fulcrum Armor V3 (2): Chiefwaffles, D7
Gauntlets of Force - Energy Burst (0):
Fulcrum Armour, V3b (4): NUKE9.13, AC, Jerick, TricMagic

Dice Spending
Save 2 Dice (0):
Save 1 Die, Spend 1 Die (5): Chiefwaffles, D7, NUKE9.13, AC, Jerick
Spend 2 Die (0):

[evictedSaint]

Revision Phase, Turn -1.

Fulcrum Armour, V3b (Steel wire, again):
Fire the people who tried to feed steel wire into a loom. Obviously that's not what we meant. Rather, the idea is to add steel wires afterwards. So let's try this again. The principle remains the same; the steel wires will serve as channels for the redirected force which are less likely to break (not channelling 100% of the force, but reducing the strain on the fabric to the point where a single bullet won't shred it). These specifically designed ‘channels’ should also serve to redirect force with less ‘bleed’, further reducing strain.

Revision: Fulcrum Armour, V3b (2) [Normal]
We continue work on the Fulcrum Armour amidst a flurry of pink slips.

Fabric isn't the greatest material for transferring and redirecting stress, which is why we introduce a steel wire to the trench coat.  In theory, the force of incoming high-velocity objects can be directed through the wires, allowing the coat to withstand damage without exploding into confetti.  These wires are attached to the outside of the coat, going up each arm, around the chest, the back, and a few branches going down the legs.  During testing, the wires are able to successfully bear the brunt of the stress without exploding.  The fabric portions of the coat still have a tendency to rupture near the sites of impact, but the radius of the destroyed area only extends to the closest wire.  The opposing side of the coat (where the force "leaves") will feature an area of destroyed fabric of similar size.  The end result is that the coat is still left mostly intact after taking an impact and can stop multiple impacts from small arms, assuming they don't hit the same area.

The stiff steel wires make the coat a little cumbersome, and the wires tend to wear and break in locations of high flexibility, such as in the elbows and shoulders.


It is now the Design Phase, Turn 0.

6 Dice Available.

Spoiler: Projects (click to show/hide)

Galilei Lensing | (11/14)(3) | 4 Dice Spent | [Rookie] | [4] | Sorcery
Gauntlets of Force | (6/12)(3) | 3 Dice Spent | [Competent] | [5] | Sorcery
Fulcrum Armor V3b | (6/14)(2) | 6 Dice Spent | [Rookie] | [6] | Enchantment
Thaumic Radio | (3/15)(3) | 3 Dice Spent | [Competent] | [8] | Enchantment

[Madman198237]

Trench Broomstick
Based on the Sava rifle, the Trench Broomstick is a magical modification that installs a couple enchantments on different parts of the rifle. First of all, the bolt is no longer worked by human hands. Instead, an enchantment holds closed a straight bolt (i.e., it doesn't get locked into vertical positions, simplifying the bolt travel but requiring a different source of force to keep the firing chamber closed during operation) during firing. This enchantment uses the force of recoil plus a little magical force redirection/force-providing to work the bolt. This enchantment is always active, triggered by firing the weapon (duh). It is expected to have a low enough draw to be near-constantly recharged by the Mage's own mana with minimal effects on the Mage's combat capability.

A second enchantment lies on the rifle itself. When activated by a Mage's will, it jerks the rifle's barrel to point directly at what the Mage is looking at, as a sort of adaptation of the motive power of Gauntlets of Force, the calculation and small-movements power of Rabbit's Foot, and the vision aspects of several of our other spells. This spell is only meant to work when the Mage's point of view and the rifle's sights are relatively closely aligned, as attempting to allow a Mage to "hipfire" their rifle using this spell to correct for the abysmal accuracy of such a shooting position would require additional components allowing the spell to do trigonometry. Regular trigonometry is bad enough, magical trigonometry is a truly horrifying concept. This spell is partly powered by stored Mana in the enchantment, but the primary source is expected to be the Mage's own mana, hence why this enchantment is meant mostly to be used in emergencies, or for the last little bit of adjustment on an extremely long-ranged shot.

The only thing this gun doesn't do is fire itself, the perfect weapon for lazy mages. And once we're done with this, we can do an even more comprehensive/fast-acting/powerful aiming enchantment on a pistol or SMG, so that our mages can literally jump into trenches and just start firing at every head they can see, because they're darned hacking aimbotters super soldiers with excellent aim.

EDIT: Added NUKE's proposal that we note experience from Rabbit's Foot as being integral in making the aim assist option. I believe that the straight-bolt action will accelerate firing and simplify the enchantment enough to be worth the increased magic-provided force necessary to hold the bolt closed for the short duration necessary to prevent any ill affects on the bullet's ballistic characteristics.

[Talion]

Animated Wire Whip Wand
This device consists of a handle connected to a long steel wire with a spike on the end. One hundred metres of 1mm diameter steel wire should weigh a bit less than 1kg, but some testing will be required to find the right combination of diameter and length for a flexible and resilient wire. The device is enchanted to move under the direction of the handle holder. Force can be applied all along the wire to allow full three-dimensional traverse. Movement is primarily directed by moving the handle and fine-tuned with the aid of buttons on the grip. If possible the force redirection enchantment is reused to allow transmission of force from the handle end to the spike end of the wire.

A quick idea for a tool that builds on the force redirection tech. In addition to use as a short ranged weapon, the idea is to shorten the effective range needed for a force spell by using the redirection enchantment to transmit the force over longer distances.

[TricMagic]

Evocation: Hardened Air

An Evocation focused on turning the air into a wall using molecular compression via magical energy. By replicating the makeup of diamond structure in a wall of air, we can block shots fired at us, as well as anything else that tries to pass it.

It can be conjured in a wall ahead, or in the form of a dome. Requires 1 Diamond and an Air Source. Thankfully, the air around us qualifies; and the diamond is just for handy reference for how the magic should shape the air, and is not used up.

Note that the Dome variety does not allow movement, but the wall variant does allow itself to be moved to the caster's will, including raising it, moving it forward or down into or onto the ground, or simply the caster moving while the wall is kept up in it's current position.

Still have this for defense.

[Madman198237]

Gauntlets of Gesticulation
The Gauntlets of Force are a wonderful invention, capable of allowing our men to wave their hands as hard as they can to produce magical effects. The Gauntlets of Gesticulation are an enhancement of those enchantments. Instead of being tied mostly to telekinetic manipulation, they are purpose-built to provide a helpful focus for our Mages to use in all magic. They act sort of like a wand, except provide greater Direction by virtue of being tied directly to any gestures the Mages use to focus.

Constructed similarly to the Gauntlets of Force, the Gauntlets of Gesticulation have wires and rings to grant both magical conduits and a sense of weight to the user. These connect to the foci as well when necessary to provide magical conduits.

The Gauntlets are constructed to have four spots (one on each palm and one on the back of each hand) in which a more particular focus can be inserted. These foci are intended to allow a user access to Sorceries through the simple expedient of having the requisite focus (or one of a series of requisite foci) built into their hands, allowing them to hold other magical tools, weapons, or to make any complicated gestures required to aid the Direction of their spells.

There's only two foci available right now: one that carries the enchantments that allow the gauntlets to act like Gauntlets of Force. and a focus that allows the Mage using the gauntlets to instantly explode the brain of any enemy within a short distance, merely by raising their middle finger when staring at an enemy. If necessary this can instead be made of multiple foci in a set, which allows the Mage to store a significant amount of Mana in the Gauntlets prior to enemy-exploding shenanigans.

These should probably be done *after* Gauntlets of Force are finished, and only started when we have some Evocations and Sorceries that would actually require something like this. Or we could do it now, for eS's wonderful suggestion about exploding enemies via middle finger.

Wire of Greater Reach
A spool of steel wire 150 meters long and 1mm or so in diameter, the wire is meant to be connected to the Mage's Gauntlets of Force and used to extend their reach---literally. This wire can be used for anything from strangulation, to moving explosives to a target, to removing documents (well, documents with a puncture hole or two).

The connected nature of the wire (with occasional copper rings or whatever is necessary to help the Mage focus on the wire) should allow the entire thing to be manipulated with sufficient dexterity to accomplish rather delicate tasks.

Neither one of these is really "finished" and the wire is presently just a slightly modified version of Talion's very good idea for the Wire Whip Wand---this time making direct (and exclusive) use of the Gauntlets of Force to simplify (and cheapen!) the wire itself. More ideas and lots of criticism welcome.



As for my own criticism, the Hardened Air system seems like it will be very difficult (both to design and to cast) at best, and the assumption of which foci would work well for it is also a bad idea (ESPECIALLY trying to acquire sufficiently large and perfect [remember, geometric perfection matters in magic] diamonds of all things for foci. That's just going to throw expense through the roof, I imagine).

[Chiefwaffles]

Evocation: Mirage
So while we've decided that invisibility is still a while away (if anyone stumbles upon an invisible folder, please let us know, it's all our invisibility research), we can still use our experience in light towards other ends.

Specifically, mirage. It's best described as the light bending from Galilei but much shorter-ranged and much more intense. The idea is that a mage can temporarily bend the light coming from an area (usually the mage or the mage's squadron or whatever) to make it appear like it's coming from somewhere else. Kind of like the effect of a straw in a half-full glass of water, but more intense.

In order to fit the evocation "requirements", we've opted to forego any semblance of accuracy in the spell. When a wizard casts Mirage, you'd have to squint really hard in order to even begin to think that the weird wavey "image" is where they're actually are, and anyone with any sense would immediately know it's Mirage. But that's not important.
What's important is that their original position is disguised, and while someone with a bit of time and practice could likely determine the position that's been Mirage'd, they wouldn't be able to do any precision-requiring actions (like shooting at a specific person or thing) in the protected area, and figuring it out in the first place would take time. Time that's invaluable in combat.

So, in summary. A mage bends the light coming from their area to a significant degree, with no precision (to maintain evocation difficulty). It kind of sort of looks to an outside observer like the area that Mirage was cast on is somewhere else.
But everyone will notice something very off, and many will be able to determine where the original position is. But determining that takes valuable time, and precision is greatly hurt even if you know the general area that's being protected.

Trench Broomstick (0):
Hardened Air (0):
Animated Wire Whip Wand (0):
Mirage (1): Chiefwaffles

I don't think we have the experience to be making straight-up mainstay magical weapons just yet. Personally, I think we should do some revisions with the Rabbit's Foot first before doing stuff like applying it to aiming, and just getting more experience in areas that could be applied towards weapons, is a good idea to do first.
We need some evocations, anyways. Stuff to give our wizards constant tools to survive situations and improvise with. Mirage gives us some very useful light-bending experience, and serves as a versatile survival-enhancing evocation.

[Jerick]

Evocation: Light Burst
This fairly simple evocation gathers light at a target location before unleashing it in a blinding burst. This causes a temporary dimming in the target area prior to spell being unleashed. The mage can filter the gathered and unleashed light which allows the spell to appear as different colours. This allows the spell to function both as a flash-bang and a signalling tool that can communicate to local forces even if they do not have a radio.

[NUKE9.13]

Number of dice to spend:
Three: (1) Chiefwaffles
Four: (1) NUKE9.13

New Designs:
Trench Broomstick (1): NUKE9.13
Hardened Air (0):
Animated Wire Whip Wand (0):
Mirage (1): Chiefwaffles

Project Progress:
One die to Fulcrum Armour: (1) NUKE9.13

I'd like to at least start work on a superior rifle- it doesn't have to be much better, but I'd like to have some sort of offensive potential available in the not too distant future.
I'd also like to continue work on FA, since I feel any mage that's operating on the front lines would greatly appreciate not dying to the first stray bullet to hit them.
I don't want to start two designs, since FA needs at least one more revision.

[Rockeater]

Ignore this vote

[NUKE9.13]

So, for one thing, Hardened Air isn't an Evocation if it requires a focus, it's a Sorcery. As such, it will have a cost (I mean, we aren't going to get free diamonds). And without the benefit of being free, why would we develop it when we already have Fulcrum Armour in the works?
And that's assuming it worked as described, ignoring the extreme difficulty of turning air into a diamond-esque barrier.

[Rockeater]

So, for one thing, Hardened Air isn't an Evocation if it requires a focus, it's a Sorcery. As such, it will have a cost (I mean, we aren't going to get free diamonds). And without the benefit of being free, why would we develop it when we already have Fulcrum Armour in the works?
And that's assuming it worked as described, ignoring the extreme difficulty of turning air into a diamond-esque barrier.

Didn't read it right, but having something to protect people around us is useful, I have another idea, I'll write it soon.

[Chiefwaffles]

Mirage is very useful to protect people. Best way to not get killed is to not be shot in the first place.

That and it gives us light bending experience. Which is, again, extremey useful.