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[piratejoe]

2 Adaptive Genes: (2) TricMagic, Frostgiant
1 Adaptive Gene: (1) Piratejoe
1 Superior Gene: (2) Frostgiant, Piratejoe
1 Ethereal to help us for a design: (1) TricMagic

[TricMagic]

2 Adaptive Genes: (1)  Frostgiant
1 Adaptive Gene: (1) Piratejoe
1 Superior Gene: (3) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic
1 Ethereal to help us for a design: (1) TricMagic

[/quote]

Not nearly as good.

[frostgiant]

2 Adaptive Genes: (0) 
1 Adaptive Gene: (2) Piratejoe, Frostgiant
1 Superior Gene: (3) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic
1 Ethereal to help us for a design: (1) TricMagic

[/quote]

Meh, I'll still take it, Lets us deploy muton's quickly in the game or the horrifying chrysalid. Easier we have it deploying our current lifeforms, the quicker we can work on new weapons and armour with which to clad them

[Failbird105]

2 Adaptive Genes: (0) 
1 Adaptive Gene: (2) Piratejoe, Frostgiant
1 Superior Gene: (4) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic, Failbird
1 Ethereal to help us for a design: (1) TricMagic

What does the Ethereal assistance even do? Like, I'd assume it's a form of Research token, but for what purpose? Does it specifically help with psionics?
If so, then I'm actually rather interested, mostly because of a design I've been working on which could greatly benefit from such a thing. So I guess I'll hold off on my second vote until I know.

Also guys, we get to make another design now.

[TricMagic]

I'd say a proper vehicle. For our next mission.

[frostgiant]

Sectoid Wardisk
A Floating disk, like a Ship in miniature, the war disk is piloted by three cybernetically connected sectoid brains working in harmony, using their limited capacity for the gift to collect intelligence from nearby lesser species in order to aid in targeting its heavy weaponry. The floating Capabilities of moving over Small forms of cover and impediments along with being able to increase its altitude in order to shoot at targets that would normally be protected.
The outer shell of the wardisk is reasonably well armored, with the three operating brains held inside of the most heavily protected center, making it difficult for anything except for a shot from directly below or above to take out the operating brains.
The war disk is equipped with a simple Gas compression mortar designed to launch lerium grenades in long ranged arc's through the use of little more then the local atmosphere and what could most accurately be described as 4 plasma PDW's connected into a single weapon, designed to fire in sequence allowing for long-lasting suppression and the rapid destruction of anything without effect armor or cover. even so, it is rather obvious that most of the work went into producing the well-made chassis over the weapon system in a desire to best manage the time of the designer minds.

Here's a proposal for a vehicle, easy improvements would be giving the sectoid brains the ability to do things like mind merge with nearby sectoids and improving the weaponry.

[Failbird105]

The Ophanim provide an interesting opportunity for us. A sapient, Gifted mind in such a compact and simple body. Though they may be weak on their own, they provide an excellent base to improve. Enter, the Chariot; A combination of organic mind and mechanical body. At the core of the Chariot lies an organism based upon the DNA of the Ophanim, a blob of spongey flesh wider than the Ophanim and substantially thicker, to be closer to a sphere, and with a majority of the eyes removed to provide more space for cybernetic implants. The purpose in the increase in size is to facilitate a larger, more complex brain, with greater capacity for the Gift.

The Chariot itself is, in some ways, like a miniaturize version of a human 'tank'. A set of treads as mobility, permitting the Chariots armor to be heavier than if it where instead to hover. Atop those treads sits the body, a sleek structure that rounds out as it goes forward, with space for a large, dense mechanical orb closer to the rear. This orb contains the being, directly attached to the Chariot through its implants to allow it to be controlled mentally, the organism acting as organic hardware and software. The orb an pivot a full 360 degrees horizontally, and possesses a series of cameras allowing it to see its surroundings. On the 'front' of the orb, is a pair of plasma PDWs attached together in a vertical formation, and connected to a rail built into the orb to allow them to move vertically along its surface, permitting the Chariot to aim in any direction... excluding down, but it's on treads, so the chances it will be in a position where such is necessary are very low.

While this makes the Chariot well defended, its true draw is in its abilities with the Gift. Though not particularly stronger than a Sectoid on its own, it possesses the ability to access the Ophanim choir, allowing it to draw upon their combined psychic effort, and focus that power into more direct psychic attacks. Striking at the minds of their targets to cause direct pain or even harm, or even to see their allies as enemies for a time.

(For scale, I'm imaging the XCom Hover SHIV. As for squad size, we're aiming for cheapness. So as few as is necessary for it to cost 1, unless a single Chariot costs more than that, then just 1)

Continuing on the Angelic theme a bit, the Ophanim where said to be the wheels of the Chariot of god. Hence, the Chariot, a unit designed to work in tandem with Ophanim choirs, and it does not have wheels since that's the Ophanims job.

[NUKE9.13]

Is Superior DNA functionally the same as Ancient DNA?
Do Ethereals have a speciality, or are they just a general boost to design efficacy?
Will Meld be useful on Ancient DNA missions?

[10ebbor10]

Is Superior DNA functionally the same as Ancient DNA?
Do Ethereals have a speciality, or are they just a general boost to design efficacy?
Will Meld be useful on Ancient DNA missions?

No. Ancient DNA is restricted to ancient creatures, superior DNA is not.
Ethereals are better with psionic and more expensive stuff.
Yes. It'll be useful on any mission, though not nesseciarilly in completing the objective. Sometimes, it just gathers DNA while you do other stuff.

[NUKE9.13]

Right. Well then.
I think grabbing some Adaptive Genes is pretty crucial, as being able to breathe is pretty important. Obviously we can make things that can survive on Earth without them, but I imagine things will be a lot easier with them.
I figure our plan this turn will be to launch two Ancient DNA missions, hopefully resulting in us getting at least one Ancient DNA token. Combined with some Adaptive Genes, we should be able to make a decent combat unit.
We could also grab the Superior Genes, to further amp up the potential power, I suppose. On the other hand, I'm not sure how often an Ethereal token will show up, so we might want to grab it now just so we have one for the next psionic design we do.

I'm going to go with Adaptive and Ethereal for now, but I could be convinced to switch to Adaptive and Superior.

For our design this turn... I sort of like the Chariot- we could use something armoured and hard-hitting, something that rookies with conventional rifles cannot (easily) kill. It might be worth noting in the proposal how many Chariots are in a unit- I'm imagining each 'unit' is a single SHIV-sized Chariot, thereby making it not too expensive, but maybe the idea is that there are three or four smaller ones per unit?

Alien Supplies
2 Adaptive Genes: (0) 
1 Adaptive Gene: (3) Piratejoe, Frostgiant, NUKE9.13
1 Superior Gene: (4) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic, Failbird
1 Ethereal Assistance: (2) TricMagic, NUKE9.13

Design
Chariot: (1) NUKE9.13

[Failbird105]

Alien Supplies
2 Adaptive Genes: (0) 
1 Adaptive Gene: (4) Piratejoe, Frostgiant, NUKE9.13, Failbird
1 Superior Gene: (3) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic,
1 Ethereal Assistance: (2) TricMagic, NUKE9.13

Design
Chariot: (2) NUKE9.13, Failbird

Hmm, yeah you've convinced me to go Adaptive.

Also, the notes about the Chariot have been added.

Also, a good thing to note about the Chariot, it gives us more experience towards both machines and cybernetics, so we'll be better prepared for both of those things later.

Ebbor. can we use these tokens on this turn, or not until later? If yes then I want to go Ethereal to help with the Chariot, but if no I'd rather go Superior Gene.

[Kashyyk]

NUKEWagon, toot toot.

Alien Supplies
2 Adaptive Genes: (0) 
1 Adaptive Gene: (45) Piratejoe, Frostgiant, NUKE9.13, Failbird, Kashyyk
1 Superior Gene: (3) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic,
1 Ethereal Assistance: (3) TricMagic, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk

Design
Chariot: (2) NUKE9.13, Failbird

[NUKE9.13]

NUKEWagon, toot toot.

:I
Please do not poke the Roseheart. I try not to vote for something without explanation, even if people have already made the points before, just to make it clear that I am not simply jumping on a bandwagon.

To be clear, bandwagons are not unstoppable in ARs; they are often turned around if someone brings up a good point (especially in ICAR, votes would often swing wildly throughout a turn, with one seemingly unstoppable bandwagon unseated by another, only for that one to be unseated again by a completely different proposal). Please do not feel like there's no point in proposing a design after one has already gotten a few votes- even if it doesn't get voted on, proposals are often revisited later, or at the very least used as inspiration for future designs.
If you are looking to convince people to vote your way, a clear & concise explanation of why you are voting the way you are is often effective- assuming that there is merit in your arguments, of course.

[Shadowclaw777]

Yes I’m back from my year-ish hiatus, I’ve been continuously lurking on threads that keen on the interest but I feel like a little bit of my insight can be provided here.

The previous arms race gave me crucial knowledge on how this game works... Information, I like my aliens to be effective at machinery as well as their biomanipulation, and the thing is that for these combat encounters knowing the positions of enemy squads is, is key into defeating enemies so this proposal for a scout role that provides “real-time” useful information to the enemies, a deployable and self-propelled camera with expertise in stealth and being inconspicuous.

Spider Seeker Drones: Instead of being an actually unit that provides direct fire power to the aliens, this developed object fulfills a purpose more closely akin to a useful gadget for our aliens extractions squad. It it deployed like a grenade and the device is unleashed, a half-meter spherical machine with several limbs that have metallic silica allowing for the ability of “spider climb” or rather the device can climb difficult areas to reach, upside down and ceilings and position itself in key visual areas to utilize its real-time camera sensors that watch the battlefield, to further its role of its inconspicuous camera role the device has the ability to deploy a meta-material cloak allowing it to blend in its surroundings from the crevices of buildings, trees, and large boulders due to its small size. The device provides its real-time camera feed to a basic wrist-mounted device that is only intended to be combine with the drone to track enemy positions. The autonomous mini-computer on the grenade sized drone has simple function, make a evaluation of a crevice that provides most visual view of the battlefield to transmit the data and than most readily available area that can most easily combined with the meta-material cloak to be inconspicuous to a human’s perception, it is not designed to move and track human targets.

Things to further note, a IF Camera Sensor is probably not necessary since I doubt the enemy would use smoke grenades this early on, I think making the “autonomous camera” a ground unit would probably make it more difficult to spot and allow to use the technology of a metamaterial cloak more effective compared for it being a flying device and more complicated to build, I don’t know if it being remote controlled or being autonomous of the two is more effective, it’d be hard to decipher the... combat tactics of sectoids and capabilities but they should be able to work tandem with this device. Also don’t know the “light” vision of the sectoids but hopefully their good during the night?. As well maybe the drone sensors can be further improved to work with the psionic senses of the sectoids and Orphanims

As for the “fluumphs” or pancake Orphanims I don’t believe they provide an effective information gathering role, and this device designed for our sectoids would be surely helpful for position and intel gathering of designated targets, and also shows the robotic advances of the aliens for some hybridization.

Alien Supplies
2 Adaptive Genes: (0) 
1 Adaptive Gene: (6) Piratejoe, Frostgiant, NUKE9.13, Failbird, Kashyyk, SC777
1 Superior Gene: (4) Frostgiant, Piratejoe, TricMagic, SC777
1 Ethereal Assistance: (3) TricMagic, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk

Design
Chariot: (2) NUKE9.13, Failbird
Seeker Drone: (1) SC777,

[NUKE9.13]

As for the “fluumphs” or pancake Orphanims I don’t believe they provide an effective information gathering role, and this device designed for our sectoids would be surely helpful for position and intel gathering of designated targets, and also shows the robotic advances of the aliens for some hybridization.

Uh... why do you think the Ophanim (note spelling, there's no R) will be ineffective at their primary purpose? They rolled okay. I really don't think that basically re-doing them before we've seen how effective they are would be a good use of resources at all.