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[Atomic Chicken]

Sheltered Outposts (1): Doomblade
Wóz Zwiadowczy (Scout Cart) (1) UristMcRiley
Outpost Stations (3): MoP, Failbird, AC

[Rockeater]

Sorry about that

[Shadowclaw777]

Sheltered Outposts (2): Doomblade, SC777
Wóz Zwiadowczy (Scout Cart) (1) UristMcRiley
Outpost Stations (3): MoP, Failbird, AC

[DolosusDoleus]

Prelude Revision Phase: Colony Transport

Proposal: Outpost Stations

Once tracks are laid it becomes important to ensure the safety and security of any who would travel along them. Outpost Stations prove sufficient for the task. Between settlements any number of things can happen, most of them bad, so we've littered the railways with "rest stops", officially called Outpost Stations.

Each OS has a supply of supplemental materials left by trains passing by with excess supplies and the occasional designated supply train. If a train comes limping into a rest stop chances are there will be enough of whatever they need to get them to the next stop down the line until they reach their destination. A skeleton crew mans each outpost, with six month shifts staggered so that there's never a crew completely unfamiliar with the area.

Outposts Stations can be identified by their blue lanterns and a small aboveground shack. The shack acts as an entryway to the OS itself, dug into the ground beneath the ice and snow.

Difficulty: Trivial [+4]
Result: 3+3+3 [10] = Superior

It soon became apparent that though the colony trains were able to transport large numbers of people and resources along long distances, they were ill-equipped to fully handle the elements. Additionally, the old steam locomotives used to ferry equipment and resources to the fledgling colonies were still not built to withstand the ice and snow and required frequent repairs. In order to remedy these issues our people established a series of resource caches along the rails, staffed by a skeleton crew of engineers, medics, and scouts.

After a few years, the small corps of rangers assigned to these Outpost Stations grew into a surprisingly resilient task force capable of repairing light damage to machinery, providing emergency treatment to the wounded, and guiding people around the local area. In time, they became a highly resilient force responsible for the continued success of the Morecaz rail network.

It is now the Design Phase

With the rail network set up, it was obvious that our people would be able to quickly reclaim the earth from the ever-encroaching frost. Sidestepping the need to cross the blasted earth, our nation's leaders began preparations for a mass exodus of colonists from the homeland. Five great caravans of trains left the motherland for the Morecaz colony, with our own forefathers in the fifth. But when our ancestors came across the colony site, we found an empty shell of a city. The great generator was powered down, the food reserves were gone, and there were naught but a few shivering survivors, huddling around burning piles of refuse in crude tents. After the first few colony trains arrived at their destination, their parts scrapped to build the growing colony, a group calling themselves the Jarnskeggi had struck, slaughtering the civilians and taking our resources for themselves.

In our rush to reclaim the Frostlands, we had neglected to arm ourselves against the world. Certainly, we had never expected to encounter others in the frigid wastes, and even less that they would attack us on sight. Going back to the homeland was not an option; we had used up the last of our coal reserves in reaching Morecaz. Our only option was to defend ourselves against these savages. Design the main small-arms weapon your people used to push back against the Jarnskeggi.

Spoiler: Preliminary Designs (click to show/hide)

Colony Train: A thirteen-car steam locomotive capable of transporting upwards of 100 civilian passengers safely to a destination. Circumvents the need for an already existing track by laying out track in front of itself during the night, and travelling very slowly during the day.

Sheltered Outposts: A network of underground resource caches and repair equipment laid at fixed intervals along the train tracks. Staffed with a skeleton crew of engineers, scouts, and medics capable of dealing with a large variety of minor issues.

Spoiler: Cities (click to show/hide)

Total Resources: 2 Coal, 2 Wood, 2 Metal

Morecaz: 7 Coal, 2 Wood, 2 Metal (3/3)
Garenbrig: (0/3)
Middlehall: (0/3)
Kirholm: (0/3)
Screamer's Reach: (0/3)

EDIT: Grammar

[Doomblade187]

Stake Rifle

Bitter and frustrated, the few hunters who had brought their weapons along quickly formed a militia, and handed out any spare guns, with scrap train sections being painstakingly machined in dugout shelters. The Stake Rifle was the product of this effort, created from the simple, reliable, bolt action designs and made to fire large caliber rounds at temperatures lower than currently experienced.

Spotting scopes were repurposed into sniper scopes where possible, though the rifle came with built in ironsights (ring and post) and lumber not fit for firewood was used to make a minimalist stock design, with a triangular leather wrapped  metal grip pinned through a flange under the barrel, and a pistol style leather wrapped metal grip under the receiver. The rifled barrel was not left exposed to the elements, but rather fixed within a metal housing with a bottom-facing flange, as to prevent direct exposure to the elements. The barrel shield extends past the barrel a small amount and is preforated, reducing the amount of muzzle flash. The firing mechanism was also treated a similar way, with a light iron reciever cover, with room only for the bolt. An air gap was intentionally left present between these covers and the components, held in place by external bolts and sealed as well as possible against the elements. A spring loaded box magazine with removable cover is fed into the bottom of the reciever, and is protected by a cloth seal against loose moisture. The bolt was designed to pull up then back in order to make it easier to break free if frozen. The trigger cover is a small, roughly shaped quarter-sphere of metal placed directly in front of the trigger guard, and pinned through the barrel shield flange. A bayonet loop to place daggers sits under the barrel.

[Failbird105]

Our greatest enemy in this world, if it is not Dubrovich, can easily be said to be the environment, particularly the cold. Our heaters and the generator may keep us comfortable, but will they suffice as the temperature drops ever further? We think not. Luckily, the creation of our Outpost Stations has given us an idea. Instead of expending our resources to build and support new structures going upwards, we look down, and dig out the Earth, allowing the ground itself to insulate us from the cold, while limiting the materials that must be spent on construction to supports that protect against cave-ins.

The simplest place to start with the process of moving ourselves into the Earth, is with living spaces. The Sheltered Homes are, in construction, larger Sheltered Outposts. Several rooms carved into the Earth, each one roughly large enough to house an entire family, if somewhat cramped. These will also contain the usual heaters that we put into other homes anyway.
All in all, the Sheltered Homes are not comfortable to live in, but our citizens will be glad when their bodies are warm, and our lumberjacks will be glad when they can put down their axes and stay home for just a bit longer.

A revision to be done in the prelude turns, assuming there isn't something that urgently needs to be done. This will put us along the path of subterranean(read: Dwarven) living, to hopefully be blossomed into something greater by the GM come the start of the real turns.

It is intended to help protect our people from the cold and, if it does well, perhaps secure us a bit of 'extra' wood by virtue of not using as much to build civilian homes with.

[UristMcRiley]

Firstly would like to say im against the mole people lifestyle theirs such a great logistical hurdle and a defensive one for example were going to have to pump in fresh air from the surface just how these things go. Not only is that a bit of a stretch for 1800's era tech which is where were starting from may i remind you. The particular world we find ourselves in is even worse off for shit the snow could block the vent and suffocate our whole populace or at least make it quite hard to breathe in one region. Enemies could just set charges at the vents collapse them on themselves. There is no reason to pursue this full hardy course of action when a conventional strategy would prove more effective. I am not against creativity and there is a argument to be made for underground living quarters at least, once constructed frankly it would be easier to protect them from the weather at the very least and there is some defensive advantage to it. But that is only if we can protect the necessary surface infrastructure and if were going to need to invest into doing that why wouldn't we just primarily stay on the surface let the civilians burrow to escape the weather and the Brave Men of Morecaz defend them from the surface.

Pies Myśliwski
Our forebears under equipped and under prepared sought to fight back against these savage warriors. However many attempts to arm ourselves were swept away in the biting winds. The near constant snow would make even the best produced muskets and rifles misfire (as this is the eighteen hundreds generally we cant count on having ready made cartridges so im assuming percussion cap and ball style weapons were the norm at least when we left. When the weapons did fire accuracy was abysmal between the low visibility and the men shaking from the cold. Bows while much easier to throw together with the materials we had brought fared little better the light arrows being thrown off target in even the mildest of gusts. While their was limited success with crossbows and similar weapons the time to produce them as well as the material cost was prohibitive. In this time of need we found our unexpected saviors mans best friend, many dogs made the journey along the trains sled dogs, hunting hounds, aristocratic pets and they made fine helpers for our soldiers. There nose and hearing leading our men unerringly through the worst of the white outs to the enemy far before we could ever hope to have found them. In combat these dogs served to pin the enemy while the handlers rushed forward to finish them with whatever weapons they had at hand from heirloom dueling pistols to table legs crudely fashioned into clubs. As our battles continued more tactics and standardization of this way of fighting occurred with typically teams of two men each with two dogs would head out one man would often carry a simple thrown net and melee weapon while the other would ideally have the ranged weapon. The hounds would hunt down the enemy and distract them then out men would finish them. In this way we drove back the Jarnskeggi into the wastes where they belonged.

[Doomblade187]

@UristMcRiley, join us on discord.

[Failbird105]

So Urist, before you(or, well, anyone else) talk any more about how low our tech level is, I just asked the GM about this, and they confirmed that when the Core Thread says our pre-Frost tech level was 'half-way to steampunk', what it means is that stuff like autonomous robots already existed.(granted in the source material at least they where fucking huge, and I imagine a lot of that size is dedicated entirely to their brains, and even then they weren't particularly intelligent, but still)
So like, while obviously we don't currently have access to or knowledge to reproduce that kind of tech(well, easily at least, it would probably be Very Hard at the lowest), I feel like you're underestimating our actual tech level by a good bit. Much like we overestimated the difficulty of the Outpost Stations.

[UristMcRiley]

Robots wont save the mole people sure build a underground city and have the enemy defeat it by just making a bunch of chlorine gas above a vent. Even if we can do it doesn't mean its a good idea the logistics of that frankly even if we have the potential i doubt we have the ability. Also from a design philosophy standpoint I would prefer many simplistic designs that can be multi-functional then these big somewhat ludicrous projects. Ask anyone who served in the military the only plans that ever work are the simple ones. Let the other side waste there time on wunderweapons let us win through practicality and simplicity. Also why i specifically went with the dogs for my design is because in the revision phase we can go straight to dog based transportation to provide a alternate to the trains especially closer to the front.

[Doomblade187]

But the rule of cool and steam drills. I vote cool things.

[Failbird105]

Yeah I'd rather have a sub-optimal but entertaining faction than an optimized but boring one.

[Man of Paper]

I'm going to counter this point by point so I can keep my own argument straight and make sure I make the points I want. I know this format of response is usually seen as someone being a prick, but that's not my intent, it's for organizing my own thoughts.

Robots wont save the mole people sure build a underground city and have the enemy defeat it by just making a bunch of chlorine gas above a vent.

If we're unable to either build air scrubbers/recyclers, countermeasures for gas, or construct a method of emergency lockdown then we've failed as a people. If they get to something as vital as ventilation then we lost the war well beforehand. Notably, there's early arms race evidence of the fact that chemical weapons are an easy single-action counter which makes them, like radio encryption, almost a waste of time in most player's eyes because it devolves into each team throwing counters at one another and ultimately resulting in a stalemate for that branch of research.

Even if we can do it doesn't mean its a good idea the logistics of that frankly even if we have the potential i doubt we have the ability.

We have trains capable of transporting enough men and material to start a colony while also building their own tracks as they go. Making underground outposts was trivial. Expanding on that will not be impossible, and we certainly do have the means for doing so.

Also from a design philosophy standpoint I would prefer many simplistic designs that can be multi-functional then these big somewhat ludicrous projects.

I agree with the spirit of this statement - that we shouldn't do a bunch of ridiculous stuff. We also have yet to do anything ridiculous. This game is heavily based on the Arms Race system I penned myself (a fact that is very flattering, Dolosus), and while every GM has their own scale for how things work, we haven't hit the level of ridiculous that should be cause for concern. Once we see those -3s and -4s on a regular basis then we're being dumb. We're also defining our entire peoples during these turns, so we almost definitely have a little bit of leeway in regard to difficulty - I doubt the Outposts would have been trivial once we're in the main game.

Let the other side waste there time on wunderweapons let us win through practicality and simplicity.

The problem with this philosophy is that we're playing a game on a forum in a setting that's wholly science fiction. And even then, unlike the real world we're restricted in how many things we can develop throughout a given span of time. We need to cram as much potential into our designs as possible thanks to action economy, and deciding when to take risks vs. when to be safe is a big part of arms races in general. Of important note the GM will be balancing our starting armories, so without a doubt, if anything, this is the time to go big.

Also why i specifically went with the dogs for my design is because in the revision phase we can go straight to dog based transportation to provide a alternate to the trains especially closer to the front.

Dogs are not a small-arms weapon, and while I'm not opposed to dogs, we probably should stick somewhere close to the prompt and ensure we actually start with a gun. Guns that also shouldn't be too hard to produce in bulk enough to arm our forces because a) no gm wants to write about how an army is 70% dudes using their bare hands, b) we're in a world where armies are going to be much smaller and therefore easier to fully arm, and c) we're able to produce entire working railways. We have the material.

[Failbird105]

Without gunpowder or a proper machine shop, the survivors turned to the heating units ruined by the raiders, creating steam operated guns that operated off a backpack mounted boiler. The rounds were loaded in from a leaf spring-pushed box magazine with 15mm rounds. A dial adjusts the regulated pressure of the firing chamber, with calibrated markings. Pulling the trigger opens the valve briefly to fire the projectile at high velocity. A lever cycles the bullet into the chamber.

A design by Doomblade, which I was asked to post.

Edit: Not on Discord right now to communicate this more directly, but I feel like this design needs more, at least in terms of flavor. It feels so bare-bones.

[Doomblade187]

Vent Rifle

Without gunpowder or a proper machine shop, the survivors turned to the heating units ruined by the raiders, creating steam operated guns that operated off a backpack mounted boiler. The rounds were loaded in from a leaf spring-pushed box magazine with 15mm rounds. A dial adjusts the regulated pressure of the firing chamber, with calibrated markings. Pulling the trigger opens the valve briefly to fire the projectile at high velocity. A lever, commonly wrapped in leather, brings the bullet from the top of the magazine back with the open pull and slides it into the firing chamber and reseals bottom of the steam changer with the closing pull. The lever hinge is pinned through the gun, and the lever mechanism can be removed to clear the chamber in case if jams. The magazine holds five shots. The stock is formed out of wood, and a light iron shell over the gun receivedrcovers the firing mechanism section. A rubberized hose connects the boiler to the gun, and the heat from the steam heats the body of the gun, though the wielder will not get burns due to the reciever cover. A small metal jacket connects to the barrel, providing an air gap to protect against the environment, with a flange pointing down under the gun. A metal, leather wrapped angled grip is pinned through the bottom flange. A ring and post sight is set on top the gun.