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[Man of Paper]

Core Thread

Welcome to the new world. It's time we start solidifying our position in this divided Fortress-City. There are four points of interest on either side of The Wall that we need to keep in mind as we proceed. They are as follows:

UNSA Points of Interest:
Allied Central Bank: A bank in the walled upper-class community in the east of the Fortress-City. Provides and Expense Credit each turn.
Westlan Broadcast Center: A tall building used for both radio and television broadcasts locally. Provides an Advantage Credit each turn.
North Point Observatory: A building used to study the skies. Provides a Research Credit each turn.
Tri-Dream Telecoms: A telecommunications business that provides service to the (northern half of the) Harren Islands. Provides a Sabotage Credit each turn.


We should keep our enemy's Points of Interest in mind if we are to deny them of their services in the future.

SFS Points of Interest:
Tonngaza Refinery: A fuel refinery built on the southernmost tip of the Fortress-City. Provides an Expense Credit each turn.
Loz and Sons Law Firm: A building housing all the knowledge of law (and peoples secrets) that one might need. Provides an Advantage Credit each turn.
Harren University of the Sciences: The most prestigious education center on the island. Provides a Research Credit each turn.
Glaza Private Detective Agency: A popular investigative service among locals. Provides a Sabotage Credit each turn.


The SFS is no doubt positioning themselves to become a dominant and dominating presence globally, and it is up to us to prevent their success. It is the Design Phase, and you have two designs you can create. Good luck.

Spoiler: UNSA Armory (click to show/hide)

Land
UNSA Model 1936A "Median" Self-Loading Rifle: A 4.5 kg, meter long semiautomatic rifle. It fires 7.92x57mm rounds fed into the weapon by a 20-round box magazine. It has variable sights and is effective to 600 meters. Costs 2 Ore and 2 Wood. (CHEAP)
M1 Hand Grenade: A baseball-shaped hand grenade. Causes a lethal blast within 5m, and injures those within 15m. The shape allows for improved accuracy and distance with throwing, but is prone to rolling around until it detonates. Costs 2 Ore. (CHEAP)

UNSA Model 1941 "Combine" Machine Gun: Utilizes 7.92x57mm rounds on 60-round belts that can be linked together for sustained fire. The barrel rarely overheats even at it's 650 rpm fire rate, but effectiveness drops past 1000m. Costs 4 Ore. (EXPENSIVE)
M2 Lawless 120mm: A 120mm artillery piece capable of HE shells. Requires significant maintenance for the uncommon-but-not-uncommon-enough event of a jam, but otherwise works well enough. Can fire shells out to 15km. Costs 6 Ore. (VERY EXPENSIVE)


Sea
Herring-Class Destroyer: A 115m long ship with 120mm belt armor and 100mm elsewhere. Travels at 35 knots. Armed with a triple torpedo mount and 3x2 120mm rapid firing guns capable of firing AP and APHE. Costs 5 Ore and 3 Oil. (VERY EXPENSIVE)


Air
F-42 "Daedalus" Fighter: A three-bladed propeller aircraft capable of reaching speeds of 600km/h. Has a low rate of climb, but is incredibly agile. Armed with four 23mm cannons. Costs 3 Ore and 3 Oil. (EXPENSIVE)

B-43 "Barragan" Strategic Bomber: A large high-altitude bomber powered by four propellers for a maximum speed of 558 km/h. Can protect itself with 10 23mm cannons paired in four turrets and the tail barbette to provide almost total coverage. Can haul up to 6000kg of bombs or a nuclear device. Costs 4 Ore and 5 Oil. (VERY EXPENSIVE)


Other
Fabricated Papers: False identification papers that should allow relatively easy access to enemy territory across The Wall. Costs 2 Wood. (CHEAP)

Enriched Uranium Bomb: A fission bomb utilizing 64kg of Uranium-235 in order to achieve an explosive blast equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT. Can be deployed via Strategic Bomber. Two Available [Availability based on available Fissile resources].

Spoiler: Resources (click to show/hide)

Ore: 2
Wood: 2
Oil: 2
Fissiles: 2
Caelium: 2

Spoiler: Resource Nodes (click to show/hide)

Frosty Mountains: None x3
Coniferous Forest: None x3
Pine Barrens: None x3
Icy Peaks: None x3
Swamp: None x3
Farmlands: None x3
Northern Range: None x3
Northern Scar: None x3
Cratered Fields: None x3

Spoiler: Harren PoIs (click to show/hide)

UNSA
Abbera Central Allied Banking: A bank in the walled upper-class community in the east of the Fortress-City with ties to the defunct monarchy that ran the northern island for a few years. Provides and Expense Credit each turn. NEUTRAL
Westlan Broadcast Center: A tall building used for both radio and television broadcasts locally. Provides an Advantage Credit each turn. NEUTRAL
North Point Observatory: A building used to study the skies. Provides a Research Credit each turn. NEUTRAL
Tri-Dream Telecoms: A telecommunications business that provides service to the (northern half of the) Harren Islands. Provides a Sabotage Credit each turn. NEUTRAL

SFS
Tonngaza Refinery: A fuel refinery built on the southernmost tip of the Fortress-City. Provides an Expense Credit each turn. NEUTRAL
Loz and Sons Law Firm: A building housing all the knowledge of law (and peoples secrets) that one might need. Provides an Advantage Credit each turn. NEUTRAL
Harren University of the Sciences: The most prestigious education center on the island. Provides a Research Credit each turn. NEUTRAL
Glaza Private Detective Agency: A popular investigative service among locals. Provides a Sabotage Credit each turn. NEUTRAL

Spoiler: Credits (click to show/hide)

None

Spoiler: World Map (click to show/hide)

Key:
Red=SFS Territory
Green=UNSA Territory
Grey=Neutral Nations
Orange=Old World

Spoiler: Islands Map (click to show/hide)

Key:
Red=SFS Territory
Green=UNSA Territory
Dark Grey=The Wall
Blue=Ocean

[Quarque]

Ok, let's kick this thing off with a design.

UNSA Agents infiltrate enemy medical services, in order to pollute vaccines in SFS territory with a fluor compound that stunts the mental development of young children. The aim is to disrupt their long term ability to win the research race.

Let us target their bodily fluids.

More seriously, it seems that ore is the most commonly needed resource. So how about..

Tons of juicy ore are just waiting to be delved. Let's not keep them waiting. UNSA devotes massive funds to research and develop more efficient mining methods. Companies are allowed to improve their machines with Caelium, allowing the construction of monstrously large draglines that would collapse under their own weight without it.

Goal: extract more ore

[Man of Paper]

Increasing resource extraction is entirely off the table. Snowballs too fast if only one side does it, and if both sides do it then we’re playing an industry race and not focusing on the stuff that makes the game fun.

[Funk]

Ok let get some armour going.

Spoiler:  M1 "Scythian" Assault AutoMobile (click to show/hide)

A 6 wheeled armoured car fitted with a turret mounted pair of 23mm auto cannons.
Its powered by a 5 liter Gasoline engine of the V8 90° bank design.
The armemt is twin 23mm auto cannon in a powered turret modifyed from B-43 "Barragan" with extra armour and greater elevation and lighty armoured.
The armour is rated only to stop 7.92x57mm rifle rounds an fragments but covers both the turret and the hull.
With a crew of 3 men, 1 diver, a turret gunner and a comander in the hull.
It's 2.5 meters wide by 5 meters long.

[Quarque]

At the moment, I think we really need designs that help in the espionage race (since resource designs are off limits).

Please note aren't involved in direct military conflicts yet, but trying to gain control over our own Points of Interest and deny the opponent control over their Points of Interest. See this part of the rules (under Strategy):

Early Game Strategy: You will have a list of locations, organizations, facilities, and people that you can take over or otherwise make to work to benefit your alliance (with direct bonuses of varying types). All points of interest start neutral. You will be able to choose to take over, purge, or secure up to two PoIs during this phase. It is VERY IMPORTANT to note that you can ONLY take over and secure PoIs on your side of The Wall, while Purges are used to remove enemy control of a PoI on their side of the border. Securing will make it more difficult, but not necessarily impossible, for a Purge to be successful. After some time passes and actions are taken we will shift to the Midgame. I'll cover all the changes that happen again when it happens, so don't worry about needing to memorize everything.

[Kashyyk]

Espionage huh? Let's see what we can put together.

We want to encourage the best and brightest in the world to make our economy stronger, whilst ensuring the rabble, resource drain and other rebellious influences are denied entry.

Thus, anyone who wishes to enter our great Union must first apply for the appropriate Visa or Permit, detailing how long they intend to reside North of the Wall, where they intend to live, what their purpose is, and who sponsors them. Foreign Nationals must ensure they can present their papers when requested, or face deportation.

Internal Security tends to frown on foreigners carrying firearms. To ensure our agents can complete their assignments we will have to provide self-defence that can elude searches.

The Ducat is a small magazine handgun, chambered for a new pistol round, and can be disassembled into a number of seemingly innocuous pieces. It's small form factor mean it should be concealable inside a jacket pocket even when assembled.

Spoiler: P-46 Private Aircraft 'Firefly' (click to show/hide)

This small three seater monoplane is popular amongst amateur and private flight enthusiasts. Powered by two small three-blade propellers (one on each high-mounted wing), it can comfortably cruise at 600km/h whilst producing very little noise. Great for those who enjoy taking in the feeling of being in the air.

It has a low flight-ceiling, but is very nimble and easy to maneuver even at very low speeds allowing pilots and their passengers to marvel at the view from merely tens of meters in the air. Access is by a sliding side door, and the plane can land or takeoff at any mostly flat surface, such as pasture or a disused road, perfect for private individuals who do not have access to an airfield.

Comes with parachutes as standard, allowing passengers and crew to safely bail out of the side door if necessary.
[/quote]

So, we have a proposal to limit access to foreign spies, and allow us to trace those we detain to lockout any fotein-aligned sponsors. We also have your standard spy pistol, and a completely innocent plane that can fly carefully and quietly and drop off private individuals for sightseeing purposes.

This small three seater monoplane is popular amongst amateur and private flight enthusiasts. It is powered by two small three-blade propellers (one on each high-mounted wing), and supported by a small flight core of Caelium. This core uses this resources unique ability to reduce gravity on the aircraft, meaning very little thrust is needed to achieve a comfortably cruising speed of 600km/h whilst producing very little noise. Great for those who enjoy taking in the feeling of being in the air.

It has a low flight-ceiling, but is very nimble and easy to maneuver even at very low speeds allowing pilots and their passengers to marvel at the view from merely tens of meters in the air. Access is by a sliding side door, and the plane can land or takeoff at any mostly flat surface, such as pasture or a disused road, perfect for private individuals who do not have access to an airfield.

Comes with parachutes as standard, allowing passengers and crew to safely bail out of the side door if necessary.

So, we have a proposal to limit access to foreign spies, and allow us to trace those we detain to lockout any fotein-aligned sponsors. We also have your standard spy pistol, and a completely innocent plane that can fly carefully and quietly and drop off private individuals for sightseeing purposes.

Edit: The Caelium version of the Firefly has been added.

[Man of Paper]

Difficulty/Sanity Check:

Scythian is Very Hard at the moment on account of being your armory's first "modern" combat vehicle.
Visas and Permits are Easy. It's paper and ink. The only reason it isn't easier is because bureaucracy is fun.
Collapsible Pistol is Normal, mostly because the writeup is essentially "pistol please" with "also collapsible" added on, which means I get to assume the most average and mundane specs for the goal. Not easier due to the collapsibility increasing complexity of the design process in order to make the product itself simple.
Both Fireflies are Easy. A good ol' civilian prop plane with no bells and whistles. It is important to note that having a Special Resource replace the functionality of something mundane does not increase difficulty of the design just because Special Resources were used, and a "flight core" without additional context for what it could be leads me to assume average-ality and mundaneness as with the pistol. So even though in this case the core is and additional piece and not replacing something (like making a caelium-centric engine would replace an ICE), it isn't going to bump difficulty in an appreciable way.

Also of importance, while you may briefly think you stumbled upon the secret of lower difficulties (leaving most details up to me), the final results will likely be a bit more underwhelming than desires. This is not a dig at Kash though either, since this is a team game and youse can work together to hammer out those details. If you don't want to be the "good 'nuf" team, anyways.

[m1895]

Briefcase Full of Money
It's a briefcase full of money (or the local equivalent) what more is there to say? Actually quite a bit.
For one, while we can run around our territory with briefcases obviously full of money, but moving outside it with one is liable to cause problems. To solve this little conundrum, we've taken a couple of models of civilian combination-locked briefcases and added a false bottom to them. This allows are agents to secret large sums of cash (and probably other things) across hostile borders.

[Quarque]

It's just a fucking bomb.. Except that a small core of Caelium makes it levitate.

By forming a thin shell of Caelium into a semi-parabolic shape, it manipulates the local gravitational field to be almost perfectly nullified. At least that's the theory. Stretching the Caelium shell in the correct direction should allow the purge-o-matic to not only hover above the ground, but move up, down, or sideways as desired. This consumes almost no energy, so no heavy batteries are needed to make it work.
A radiographic sender/receiver should allow it to be remotely controlled.

In order to make the purge-o-matic more difficult to detect, they are camouflaged as gulls, rooks, ducks or jays. At close distance it is obviously fake, but high up in the air no one will notice the difference without a telescope.

The purge-o-matic is equipped with a kill switch to guaranteed detonation as soon as anything touches the device. This should ensure the Caelium is incinerated before it could fall into the wrong hands.

The full name of this substance is formamidomethylthiophenylpropanoic acid. No mortal can remember or pronounce that, so UNSA agents refer to it simply as "powder". Anyone who eats, drinks or inhales a trace of this feared substance dies within a day. It functions by disturbing the electric signal that keeps the heart beating. The victim will first notice feeling tired, drowsy or sick, but after a few hours blood supply to the brain suddenly falters. In other words, it is indistinguishable from a regular stroke.

Assassinating a target with Powder only requires the tiniest amount of it. This makes it impossible to detect the true cause of death with current day post mortem analysis techniques.

[ConscriptFive]

I've been told there's a wall in this game.

A prototype from a wealthy playboy mountaineer, with enough effort we can put Caelium powered boots on our Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents.  Resembling a leather half-calf Alpinist boot, a Caelium powered jump can be activated from a wired trigger run up the leg of the trouser and into an included belt buckle.  With training, the operator can vault higher than humanly possible, bypassing obstacles and/or gaining access to unsecured second-story ingress points.

Furthermore, the gravitic pulse of the "Ankle-Breaker" means a trainer operation can also use them to break otherwise perilous falls.  While they may never reach wide enough production to outfit a Parachute Regiment, our SOE will benefit from safer lower-altitude jumps in military freefall.  (Ideally, flying at altitudes underneath enemy RADAR coverage).  Furthermore, if compromised in an elevated position (such a burglarizing a second-story office), an SOE operator may attempt a daredevil dive to evade capture.  "Aim for the bushes."

To keep the "Ankle-Breaker" viable in clandestine work, the boots and corresponding belt buckle should appear as inconspicuous as possible.

[Man of Paper]

Briefcase Full of Money is Easy and not easier due to needing to be full of money and the processes required to get whatever the recipient's choice currency is without leaving a paper trail. A false-bottom briefcase without the need for money would probably fall another two or three difficulty levels.
Purge-o-matic is the high end of Theoretical in large part due to the whole remote control suicide drone thing in addition to being "adequately" disguised.
Powder is Very Hard, dipping into Theoretical as it's a first foray into chemical mischief that is supposed to emulate a natural death as well as remain undetectable (by late 40s/early 50s standards).
Ankle Breaker is Hard. It's just boots + caelium, but making sure boots+caelium doesn't actually just break your ankles requires some effort in the R&D department.

[Quarque]

M1 Scythian
P1 private airplane (firefly)
Visas and permits: (1) Quarque
Briefcase full of money
Collapsible Pistol: (1) Quarque
Ankle Breaker

[m1895]

Briefcase full of money is probably going to be more immediately useful than the pistol.

M1 Scythian
P1 private airplane (firefly)
Visas and permits: (2) Quarque, m1895
Briefcase full of money: (1) m1895
Collapsible Pistol: (1) Quarque
Ankle Breaker

[Funk]

Lets do the armoured car later.

M1 Scythian
P1 private airplane (firefly)
Visas and permits: (2) Quarque, m1895 , Funk
Briefcase full of money: (1) m1895 , Funk
Collapsible Pistol: (1) Quarque
Ankle Breaker

[Kashyyk]

In response to the diff checks, I've made new versions of thr Visas and Firefly proposals.

We want to encourage the best and brightest in the world to make our economy stronger, whilst ensuring the rabble, resource drain and other rebellious influences are denied entry.

All those who wish to enter our country need to obtain a Visa at one of our Embassies. This consists of a background check, some monetary compensation and answering a battery of questions about their visit (including who sponsored them, what they'll be doing, when they're travelling, where they're going, and why they're doing it). Biometric data is also recorded, and this is all input into a mechanical calculator that produces a "Verification Number" based on the inputs.

Our border and intensity security also has copies of these Verification Machines, and can input the details listed on the Visa to check if the VNs match. Foreign Nationals must ensure they can present their papers when requested, or face deportation. if any nefarious individuals are discovered, their visa details ahpyld allow us to identify those who have aided in their entry to our great Union.

This small three seater monoplane is popular amongst amateur and private flight enthusiasts. It is powered by two small three-blade propellers (one on each high-mounted wing). This core uses this resources unique ability to reduce gravity on the aircraft, meaning very little thrust is needed to achieve a comfortably cruising speed of 600km/h whilst producing very little noise. Great for those who enjoy taking in the feeling of being in the air.

It has a low flight-ceiling, but is very nimble and easy to maneuver even at very low speeds allowing pilots and their passengers to marvel at the view from merely tens of meters in the air. Access is by a sliding side door, and the plane can land or takeoff at any mostly flat surface, such as pasture or a disused road, perfect for private individuals who do not have access to an airfield.

The vast majority of these Aircraft are as mundane as described, however a few have been modified after the fact to include a "flight core" secreted somewhere in the hull. The utmost care is given to ensure the existence of this flight core is impossible to determine without usage of the plane. The flight core consists of a small mass of refined Caelium, which reduces the effect of gravity on the craft, ensuring that the engines have to work a lot less hard (and thus be a lot less noisy) in keeping it in the air, improving it's ability to keep a low profile. Each of these is fitted with a timed explosive, also secreted, that can be activated to self-destruct the craft in the case of capture.

M1 Scythian
P1 private airplane (firefly)
Visas and permits: (2) Quarque, m1895 , Funk
Briefcase full of money: (2)  m1895 , Funk
Collapsible Pistol: (1) Quarque
Ankle Breaker
P-46 Private Aircraft 'Firefly' (version 2): (1) Kashyyk
Visas and Permits (version 2): (1) Kashyyk