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[Madman198237]

Alternative turn proposal:

Do one or two or three revisions to Svanire and/or our other items, make a new loadout (or two, not sure if artillery spotters could benefit from being able to pelt their enemies with hypersonic darts...though they probably could), and make the king's gift (I like NUKE's suggestion of a Kolubarian assassin-resistant set of clothing)

One potential Svanire revision could go like this:

Directional Svanire
Presently, Svanire is a nastily complicated piece of magic that blinds the user to his surroundings and is also really expensive and bulky and generally unpleasantly difficult to employ. Changing what it affects should make everything much less horribly complicated. Instead of a full sphere, this version of Svanire is directional. It only works to make the Mage's area invisible to anything in front of him (in a cone about ninety degrees wide, i.e. forty-five in either direction from where the Mage is facing). The Mage will thus be capable of seeing anything in front of him, as none of the light coming from in front of him is being bent. He may have some issues seeing behind himself, but really, that's fine. Right?

And another possibility, a complete redesign after scrapping Svanire:

The Madman's Mirror
This sorcery, based on the (Admittedly less than stellar) Svanire sorcery and all our other light manipulation magics, utilizes a different method of operation. Two magical "panels" are created [some distance] in front of and behind the casting Mage. Light falling on the outside of the back panel is duplicated on the front panel, while the back side of the front panel absorbs all light coming from behind it. The panels shape themselves to the terrain (no taking light readings from inside buildings, etc.) and are always identical in size and shape. Combined, this means that the Mage cannot be seen from in front of his forward panel, but can see easily in all directions since no light is actually prevented from reaching him. Insistence from the testing department that the forward panel gives people a creepy feeling when looked at, and accusations that one test mage had to be...disposed of...in order to keep the civilian population safe are largely exaggerated.

[NUKE9.13]

Alternative turn proposal:

Do one or two or three revisions to Svanire and/or our other items, make a new loadout (or two, not sure if artillery spotters could benefit from being able to pelt their enemies with hypersonic darts...though they probably could), and make the king's gift (I like NUKE's suggestion of a Kolubarian assassin-resistant set of clothing)

First off, Svanire isn't going to be ready to deploy for several turns, so there's no rush to revise it. Whereas the sooner we start a new project, the better. I'm not sure what sort of revisions to our other stuff is really necessary right now, so unless you have some suggestions, I feel like we'd be better off starting a new project.
As for giving artillery spotters gauntlets and darts... no, why on earth would we do that? If they're within a kilometer of the enemy, something has gone wrong.

[Madman198237]

Given that we have the capability to deploy lots of hypersonic darts I imagine our soldiers ought to be able to fire at enemies more than a kilometer away. Also, they're spotters and sometimes they're going to run into enemies. Now, the enemies might be a full kilometer away, but that's still within the lethal range of a barrage of darts. This also allows them to get closer to enemy lines without too much risk. The first time an entire squad evaporates under a hail of darts they couldn't even see until after people started exploding into gore, I imagine the enemy will be a little more cautious about attacking positions manned by those scary people in the robes and trench coats.

You're right that it wouldn't be ready to deploy, but if we revise it sooner we may be able to make a specific loadout using it in "prototype" stage with a pair of binoculars for naval use. That's all we'd need for our mages deployed at sea, IF we can get the sorcery to work properly, thus we could afford the massive cost overrun due to the prototype deployment.

[Jerick]

There is a big difference between throwing something a kilometer and hitting a target a kilometer away.What you are suggesting is that without sights or precision crafted barrels or anything of that nature our mages can reliably hit targets with telekineticly thrown darts from a kilometer away. You're overestimating what our guys are capable of I think. Now the idea with the spotters is that they are with the arty guns, if they are ever under attack then either our counterparts have some infiltration tech or an entire front has just collapsed. Either way I don't think gauntlets and darts would be that useful.

As for the Svanire we need experienced guys to use it in the first place so we'll at least have to wait a few turns before we can deploy it as a prototype anyway.

[Madman198237]

Welllll, eS has said repeatedly that the Gauntlets thing works "as we expect it to". In other words, turn off the magical enhancement on a pair of Galilei Lensing binoculars and start acting like a railgun sniper, because things go where you point them.

And if it doesn't work exactly like that, that's OK, because it's still a massively effective device capable of preventing or partially mitigating "oh crap we're being overrun" and "oh crap we've gone too far towards the front lines" situations.

[NUKE9.13]

I really don't think that eS saying "the gauntlets+darts work" is the same as eS saying "the gauntlets+darts turn our mages into the best snipers in the world".

Anyway, how about a votebox? No rush, like, but if no one else has any proposals, we might as well start voting.

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (1) NUKE9.13
Rabbit's Speed:
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (1) NUKE9.13
Zero:

[Jerick]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (1) NUKE9.13
Rabbit's Speed: (1) Jerick
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (2) NUKE9.13, Jerick
Zero:

[stabbymcstabstab]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (2) NUKE9.13, Stabby
Rabbit's Speed: (1) Jerick
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (3) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby
Zero:

[Talion]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (3) NUKE9.13, Stabby, Talion
Rabbit's Speed: (1) Jerick
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (3) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby
Zero:

[Madman198237]

Heat Vision Visione del Calore Observation With Low-Infrared (OWL-I)
Based on our plentiful experience messing with light, we have come up with this remarkably simple evocation. It creates a small panel in front of the user's eyes, which takes IR photons which pass through, normally not visible to the human eye, and adds some energy. In fact it adds just enough energy that really hot things shine bright blue, while very cool things glow a dull red. This allows a user to make out the area around him as it's all radiating dim infrared even at night (in sufficiently warm regions, anyway. The colder it gets, the harder it is to see), and quite clearly make out brightly-shining humans and vehicle engines and gun barrels, etc.

How did we get such precise energy addition? We made the evocation and then lowered the energy until campfires stopped permanently blinding Mages carefully raised the energy until it reached the desired visual intensity for accurate perception of humans and the terrain and whatnot.

[NUKE9.13]

So, we discussed it in Discord, and whilst I still think OWL Goggles are a cooler concept, Madman's proposal is probably more practical. There is only a small difference between IR and visible light, so it should only require a small bend of reality to convert one to the other. I'm not totally sure it'll work as an Evocation, but as I have to be reminded, their Telekinesis is an Evocation, so my sense of what an Evocation is capable of isn't adjusted properly. It can always be revised to a Sorcery if need be.

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (2) Stabby, Talion
Rabbit's Speed: (1) Jerick
Visione del Calore: (1) NUKE9.13
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (3) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby
Zero:

[Atomic Chicken]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (2) Stabby, Talion
Rabbit's Speed: (1) Jerick
Visione del Calore: (2) NUKE9.13, AC
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (4) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby
Zero:

[Rockeater]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (2) Stabby, Talion
Rabbit's Speed: (1) Jerick
Visione del Calore: (3( NUKE9.13, AC, Rockeater
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (5) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby, Rockeater
Zero:

[Jerick]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (2) Stabby, Talion
Rabbit's Speed: (0)
Visione del Calore: (4) NUKE9.13, AC, Rockeater,Jerick
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (5) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby, Rockeater
Zero:

A point that hasn't been made yet is that the visione del Calore (or what ever it is we end up calling it) should hard counter their new boulder camo spell as well as giving us a way to see in the dark.

[Madman198237]

New Projects:
OWL Goggles: (2) Stabby, Talion
Rabbit's Speed: (0)
Visione del Calore: (5) NUKE9.13, AC, Rockeater, Jerick, Madman
None:

Dice to spend:
Three: (6) NUKE9.13, Jerick, Stabby, Rockeater, Madman
Zero: