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[Twinwolf]

A1 Iwa

Nalu Kawehi was careful with his brushstrokes. The Tales had to be rendered without flaw, at least in his perfectionist mind. His father, Doctor Kawehi, understood - in fact he’d probably have had his plane grounded if it went without proper adornment. If his son would fly into battle in his invention, the father of Initharian aviation had declared, he would bring their family with him. Nalu had no special knowledge of the planes that qualified him for leadership - but the young man had more hours of practice than the rest, and so he was the flight group leader. The responsibility inspired him almost as much as the fact he’d be flying did. As the first set of paint dried, he started on the second.

-

While Inithar’s dominance in the seas is effectively uncontested, and our ground troops of high quality, a third theater of war has opened in the modern day - the air. Biplanes buzz over the battlefield like birds. Inithar will not be left behind in this regard, and the Fellowship of Aviation was established to ensure that no enemy aircraft goes unchallenged.

In this period, the main plane coming off Initharian factory lines was the Iwa. It was one of the first truly combat capable planes to come off the lines, instead of merely a reconnaissance craft. The aircraft used a variant of the coil engines that powered Initharian ships so well, but with some adjustments to the gauge of the coils to make them discharge faster, improving the power of the engine (and thus rotations per minute of the propeller) in exchange for the duration before it needs a recharge. The engine used a small geared power transmission system placed above the engine in line with the coil to increase the RPM received from the coil. This enabled the designers to let  the coil retain some of it's originally designed torque. While normally, the adjustments would reduce the operational range of a craft, a new reaction of refocyte and nickel was discovered - for some reason, nickel is able to transfer energy between two pieces of Refocyte, from a charged piece into a non-charged piece. The “Refocyte Battery”, as it’s called, consists of a piece of moderately pure and fully charged refocyte, sheathed in rubber to prevent accidental detonation, and a nickel wire wrapped around it and poking through that sheath at one point. The wire, when attached to another, less charged piece, will transfer energy from the “battery” to the uncharged piece, refilling it. As the coil is recharged, it recompresses - the energy release is what uncoils it in the first place, so the recharging of potential energy does the opposite.   

The plane is a two-seater biplane, with one pilot and one gunner/engineer who operates a machine gun mounted on the top wing as well as charging the engine when needed. The plane is steel-frame, with a canvas covering on the fuselage - pilots frequently painted them in accordance with the Tales of Colors, with new marks for each downed plane. Pilots were also equipped with signal flags for communicating due to the plane not having room for a bulky radio.

----

I don't think that version of the battery is quite what was meant when the battery was discussed. So I'm doing my own plane.

[Powder Miner]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (1) TricMagic
A1 Iwa: (1) Powder Miner

[Twinwolf]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (1) TricMagic
A1 Iwa: (2) Powder Miner, Twinwolf

[Taricus]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (1) TricMagic
A1 Iwa: (3) Powder Miner, Twinwolf

[flabort]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (2) TricMagic, Flabort
A1 Iwa: (3) Powder Miner, Twinwolf,Taricus

I still don't like the idea of Refocyte interacting with only specific materials in only specific ways.

[Twinwolf]

I mean, that's how special resource interactions work; thing A leads to result B. Mechanically, it's the same whether it's involving some other material or just different kinds of Refocyte, so I'm not sure of the problem. And the Phoenix's battery doesn't actually do what we need batteries to do - recharging other pieces of Refocyte. The Phoenix's battery instead just works by having a single piece of refocyte with several distinct discharges which, while also useful, is in this case just doing what the coil engine does but less gradually.

[Powder Miner]

It just is so much more widely usable than is sandwiched specific purity plates in specific ways, as it can be shaped far differently and can allow for general purpose refocyte transfers, as well as for indirect connection like through wires — and doesn’t force increments of energy transfer in the cases where we *don’t* use them, as well as being usable with empty refocyte of any purity, rather than stacks ending in the highest purity. It’s much more versatile.

[Doomblade187]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (2) TricMagic, Flabort
A1 Iwa: (4) Powder Miner, Twinwolf,Taricus, Doomblade

[TricMagic]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (1) Flabort
A1 Iwa: (5) Powder Miner, Twinwolf, Taricus, Doomblade, TricMagic

[Man of Paper]

Initharian Defining Tech: The Air War Design

Proposal: A1 Iwa

Nalu Kawehi was careful with his brushstrokes. The Tales had to be rendered without flaw, at least in his perfectionist mind. His father, Doctor Kawehi, understood - in fact he’d probably have had his plane grounded if it went without proper adornment. If his son would fly into battle in his invention, the father of Initharian aviation had declared, he would bring their family with him. Nalu had no special knowledge of the planes that qualified him for leadership - but the young man had more hours of practice than the rest, and so he was the flight group leader. The responsibility inspired him almost as much as the fact he’d be flying did. As the first set of paint dried, he started on the second.

-

While Inithar’s dominance in the seas is effectively uncontested, and our ground troops of high quality, a third theater of war has opened in the modern day - the air. Biplanes buzz over the battlefield like birds. Inithar will not be left behind in this regard, and the Fellowship of Aviation was established to ensure that no enemy aircraft goes unchallenged.

In this period, the main plane coming off Initharian factory lines was the Iwa. It was one of the first truly combat capable planes to come off the lines, instead of merely a reconnaissance craft. The aircraft used a variant of the coil engines that powered Initharian ships so well, but with some adjustments to the gauge of the coils to make them discharge faster, improving the power of the engine (and thus rotations per minute of the propeller) in exchange for the duration before it needs a recharge. The engine used a small geared power transmission system placed above the engine in line with the coil to increase the RPM received from the coil. This enabled the designers to let  the coil retain some of it's originally designed torque. While normally, the adjustments would reduce the operational range of a craft, a new reaction of refocyte and nickel was discovered - for some reason, nickel is able to transfer energy between two pieces of Refocyte, from a charged piece into a non-charged piece. The “Refocyte Battery”, as it’s called, consists of a piece of moderately pure and fully charged refocyte, sheathed in rubber to prevent accidental detonation, and a nickel wire wrapped around it and poking through that sheath at one point. The wire, when attached to another, less charged piece, will transfer energy from the “battery” to the uncharged piece, refilling it. As the coil is recharged, it recompresses - the energy release is what uncoils it in the first place, so the recharging of potential energy does the opposite.   

The plane is a two-seater biplane, with one pilot and one gunner/engineer who operates a machine gun mounted on the top wing as well as charging the engine when needed. The plane is steel-frame, with a canvas covering on the fuselage - pilots frequently painted them in accordance with the Tales of Colors, with new marks for each downed plane. Pilots were also equipped with signal flags for communicating due to the plane not having room for a bulky radio.

Difficulty: Hard
Result: (4+2)-1=5, Below Average

The Iwa was Inithar's response to the aircraft filling their skies like so many locusts. It was a fairly average plane of the era for the most part, with a handful of pilots attaining the status of Ace throughout the opening stages of the air war. What set this aircraft apart from the rest was it's utilization of the first refocyte battery.

Nickel was discovered to be capable of transferring energy between pieces of refocyte. Refocyte batteries were chunks of high-charged refocyte contained within a protective layer of rubber with a single nickel contact extending from the sheathe. With the Iwa's engine (a downsized coilengine utilizing purer, more tightly coiled refocyte for increased power overall relative to it's size) the batteries were installed so the thread would be stricken by the coil as it spun, imparting some of it's stored energy to increase the speed of rotation and decrease the rate of decoiling. While the battery does work as intended, and it does provide benefit to the Iwa, the transference of stored energy from one piece of refocyte to another does not exactly translate to the means of charging a coil. A coil is, after all, a plain untreated rod of refocyte that's been, well, coiled and compressed. The rod releases the energy in a matter similar to how it's applied. What winds up making the battery work with the coilengine is the fact that the rod is releasing energy through it's rotation and so while it's not completely unfurled the energy added by the battery will "hold" the coil's shape until the energy in the coil is back to where it should be at whatever level of unfurling it's attained. The battery cannot recoil a spent coil - it'd simply transfer energy to the rod until it triggers as refocyte normally would.

For safety reasons the battery was designed to expend it's charge well before the coil itself was spent (though pilots tried not to test the limits of their craft re: flight time - rough landings did not bode well for the refocyte in the engine). This turned the air war into a race against time as the Iwa was able to move to engage enemy forces at a rapid pace but began to lose effectiveness as the battle wore on. The Great Powers began to deploy their numerically (and sometimes outright) superior aircraft in staggered waves, forcing Initharian pilots to react and expend their batteries to provide openings for the next group of aircraft.

----------------

You are getting one Revision this phase to fix issues or modernize. Good luck.

It is now the Revision Phase.

Spoiler: Preliminary Proposals (click to show/hide)

Voyaging Canoe: A single-outrigger canoe with a sail. Constructed of stone-carved wood and 8-10m long. Stable, sturdy, seaworthy, and reliable. This stands out not just in Inithar history, but in the history of the world.

Refocyte Longbow: A bow as tall as a man with great range known for it's pairing with Refocyte Arrows. The arrows use Refocyte heads capable of transferring the stored energy within through the tip and into the target to devastating effect.

--Refocyte Firearms: Stout firearms with less penetration and range than gunpowder firearms but significantly quieter. 

Refocyte Spear: A spear with a Refocyte tip capable of causing debilitating blasts on top of the normal ability of a spear to stab.

Coilboat: A small, agile naval craft powered by the Coilengine. While unremarkable on it's own, the Coilengine revolutionized Initharian industry.

A1 Iwa: An aircraft that saw limited success. Used a refocyte battery to act as a sort of supercharger for early to mid-flight. Otherwise not very notable.

Tales of Color: A highly complex system of identification and communication relying solely on colors and patterns. It is nearly impenetrable for outsiders even by today's standards.

Inithar's Folly: A tragic historical event wherein a large number of Initharian Refocyte-smiths of high standing were killled in a dam collapse.

Unique Resource - Refocyte: A metal that in it's base state stores energy applied through impact until a threshold is reached, where it will deliver the entirety of the stored force at the point of impact. An uncharged piece resembles silver and will become a dark green as it charges. Twisting and compressing rods into coils leaves them slowly unfurling with force relative to their gauge and the tightness of the coil. Purification to varying levels manipulates the capacity of the metal. Rubber negates the charge/discharge effects of impact. Nickel transfers energy from one piece of refocyte to another.

[TricMagic]

Refocyte Recoil Module

Making use of the lack of wight, batteries can be used along with clamps to recoil the engine in-flight. While this does mean the plane is gliding while this is going on, once recoiled, the engine can be started once more.

This has obvious repercussions, as it means that we need to be able to move the clamps to the coilengine once it's been stopped midflight.

[Doomblade187]

Refocyte Recoil Module

Making use of the lack of wight, batteries can be used along with clamps to recoil the engine in-flight. While this does mean the plane is gliding while this is going on, once recoiled, the engine can be started once more.

This has obvious repercussions, as it means that we need to be able to move the clamps to the coilengine once it's been stopped midflight.

While this would theoretically be effective, I am unsure if this gives us any significant range boost over just the battery. The battery prevents uncoiling, and while it doesn't stop us from running out eventually, it would take too long to reset the coil with enough energy to be useful with a crank or clamp. It would maybe be viable if we had a dedicated engine worker, but I am unsure if that would be worth it. We could always add a second coil, for instance.

We were thinking an improvement on the battery contact to be always connected or always disconnected (via lever) would let our pilots better regulatd flight time.

[TricMagic]

Isn't the coilengine constantly spinning though?

[Doomblade187]

Isn't the coilengine constantly spinning though?

Until it is un-coiled, yes. It doesn't really extend in length, however. To re-coil it, you would have to spin it back the other way, which means you would have to be gliding, not a great proposition for this era.

[TricMagic]

Why not a doubled engine then?

And the current issue is them using stagger tactics to make us run out of time. If we could stop the coilengine and rewind it midflight, as well as activate it if enemies appear on the horizon, it would give us the abilty to adapt. At least it would end their stagger tactics, and allow longer flights.