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[Pandarsenic]

*facepalms*

I'm trying to actually ROLEPLAY coming up with new troop types and nonstandard equipment. Actually justifying them with in universe explanation, and making things more likely to be accepted by the GM, because this is magi*TECH*.

As for kidnythives kidneythieves: what abaut kidnaping somone about kidnapping someone by shoting shooting them with a bulte bullet that has a teleporter init in it that teleports both them and the bullet itself back to base?

Sure, I'm cool with roleplay/fluff stuff, but those are the kind of questions you'd want to ask when trying to research something (e.g. "Okay, we want to improve Doctrine: Superior Ranged Armament. Can we weaponize a teleporter unit?" or "Okay, we want to research Style: Magitech to get some close range weaponry. Let's try to rework the mana barrier tech into a blade!")

I would be so okay with that. I would love that. I just have no idea why you're asking while we have a Thaumatank floating into a village and another unit under attack by bandits.

Also, nothing personal, but your spelling is driving me absolutely insane because I am a nitpicky, obsessive-compulsive nut.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I think we're going to go with option B on the village diplomacy front. We can always return and blow them up if we need to, but we burn that bridge when we come to it.

As to the unit attacked by bandits, have Elites do combat reconnaissance while lesser troops hold back. The better protected and teleport-capable Elites will ascertain strength and number of the raiders so that a proper strategy can be devised. Every soldier is valuable at this point, no need to blindly charge in.

[Armok]

Sorry about the spelling.

Since we're basically a magitech engineer, we presumably already know those things so what's going on in game isn't really relevant since it's not anything new we're researching or looking up or anything. Also, deciding first what the goal is and then seeing if anything existing doesn't work because out of a thousand ideas, maybe 10 can be reasonably done from ANYTHING we have, and the rest would be entirely out of reach. The actual tools at our disposal are needed both as inspiration and as limitation.

[Pandarsenic]

In fitting with the "Magic on the decline" element proposed in the setting, most of what you're doing is salvaging or reverse engineering - it's just the case that even doing that is more than almost anyone else can with this stuff, and directly harnessing magic is even more rare. A lot of the times, you-the-character will be improvising things or doing new things with old matters - if we got Magitech today in real life, who would think to use it for a sword? It wouldn't make sense. But having it taken away then rediscovering it, you can go "Well I have something that blocks bullets, something that allows instant approach, and if I tamper with a barrier generator like this it forms a blade... hmmm...." - but other times, you'll take something you've found but haven't figured out yet like a Magitech no-fuel-required flamethrower and have to figure out what makes it tick in the first place.

Anyway, running option B for the Thaumatank and letting the people at The Shell in under close inspection in a bit. Then I gotta draw up a quick map for your kiting with Squad D (you're having the MGs drop Suppression Fire while your Elites stall and your Recruits back up to cover or something, right?)

[Armok]

Yea, orginal magitech *reserch* is like that, but I'm talking abaut engineering/design, or even just puting stuff together like legos...

[Pandarsenic]

Ehh, some things can be jury-rigged with a penalty to their effectiveness, other things can't. Doctrine: Battlefield Improvisation lets you jury-rig lots of stuff at reduced or no penalty.

Still, you can't cost-effectively do things like teleportation bombs or the like until you have a teleportation unit that doesn't go with whatever gets teleported.

Also, the presence of Mana Barriers on all the units who have Teleporters is related to how you figure out what's teleported.

[Armok]

that kind of thing is exactly what I need more info on all these things! Not to determine things like "how best to make teleportation bombs?" but things like "are cost-effective teleportation bombs feasible"

Anyway, why wont you just answer the questions, rather than have this tedious meta discussion, are the answers supposed to be things we're not supposed to know yet? if so, can you just answer with the main characters best guess?

[Pandarsenic]

B) Less gunboat, more diplomacy. Keep stationery, do not fire or do anything at all. Let them throw everything they have at the tank, it can so far afford to keep it up. Give them a chance to calm the fuck down, we haven't harmed any of them yet. Assuming the incoming fire does stop at some point (either they see they're not putting a dent in us, or they run out of ammo), have one of the Elites crawl out and present the same terms in person. Tell them that if they let us take over rather than fight us, they'll be able to count on technology like this if they need defending, otherwise we'll return with a proper occupation force and let one of these tanks pulverize all your defenders. (never mind that we only have just the one tank at the moment, but we might cook something up later) We'd really rather not resort to force, because we'd like to improve this world, not destroy it. Feed them some high-idealistic monologue, see if they warm up to us. If they don't, pack up, 'port out and return. We'll return with an occupation force, as promised, as soon as we can actually spare one. If they do, park outside the gates and wait until squads C and D return to survey the situation in the place.

The guards of the village continue to flip their shit over their total and complete inability to keep you out of the walls of the village - which was basically their entire job - and have almost turned their heavy guns around when their commanding officer commands them to stop and keep the damn weapons facing the right way in case enemies they can harm with their bullets show up and to quit wasting assault rifle ammo on a target that hasn't taken a single scratch from their bullets. They sheepishly turn their guns back around. In the time it takes to restore order, the Elites radio in having spotted what looks to be six machine gunners and around twenty-five Infantry in this part of the defenses, organized into groups of one MG and four Infantry with an officer of some sort attached to each of those. The commanding officer steps forward - apparently, he was the only one of their defense force calm enough to notice you hadn't fired your rather intimidating weapons yet. A hatch at the back unseals and your Elite steps out - knowing the Thaumatank's back armor is weaker won't help them while the Mana Barrier is up anyway. The Elite activates his mana barrier and takes off his helmet to give them a human face to recognize so they think of them as people instead of as faceless, masked Magitech Elites or just a large and invulnerable but passive tank.

"Allow me to make the state of things clear," he says, speaking loudly and clearly for the crowd to be able to hear. "Our Commander has harnessed the lost technology of mana manipulation. With this power, we seek to make these wastelands safe. With this technology helping you defend - which it will, if you join us - you need never fear banditry or other marauders attacking you again."

"Allow me to make the state of things clear," the Militia Captain snaps back. "The Free Village of Ironhead has stood tall and unbroken against marauders and the Armitage Corporation for generations. We will not give in to your control so easily." Shouts of agreement from the crowd.

"I wasn't done yet." The crowd quieted for your Elite. "If you don't consent, we're going to leave, and pretty soon we'll be back with one of these tanks and a proper occupation force. We'll also have the Thaumatank we bring use its weapons. We don't want to use force, though. We'd like to improve this world, not destroy it. Our goal is not conquest, it is security. Security for everyone. How many villages in the wasteland are not so well-equipped to fight off bandit attacks or looters, do you think? Too many. We want to change that. We won't bow our heads to Megacorp tyranny, either. No, we're going to do one better than that. We're going to give them a goddamn People's Revolution and free the downtrodden citizens of those rat-cages they call cities. We need people who want to bring about a change in this world, people who want to help not just themselves, but to help others as well. We'd like for you to choose to be a part of that."

The Militia Captain and crowd looked more thoughtful than angry or fearful now. "I'll... need to talk to Ironhead's leaders about this," he says hesitantly. "It... may take a while."

Did you guys figure out which research path you intended to use to get moar vehicles?

Mobility at first, for basic (cheap) buggies.  Once we have those, let's move on to hover buggies via Magitech.

At The Shell, a band of 17 raggedly-dressed individuals approaches and requests entrance. You spot a couple children amongst them. Or midgets, maybe. One of those two.

Let them in.  Interview them to look for super-obvious crazies and malcontents, but be generally accepting.

Apparently, the 17 of them are civilian refugees; they've been fleeing for days on end from a corporate recapture patrol from somewhere to the south - they've been pursued relentlessly but it seems that in the last few days the pursuit slowed down, though they dared not slow. Now, dehydrated, exhausted, starving, and generally half-dead, they beg for sanctuary.

that kind of thing is exactly what I need more info on all these things! Not to determine things like "how best to make teleportation bombs?" but things like "are cost-effective teleportation bombs feasible"

Anyway, why wont you just answer the questions, rather than have this tedious meta discussion, are the answers supposed to be things we're not supposed to know yet? if so, can you just answer with the main characters best guess

In most of those cases, if you were already certain it was possible you'd have probably figured it out already. Nobody is totally sure what Magitech can or can't do. A lot of the research - what isn't reverse-engineering or recovery of things - is testing limits or possibilities of stuff. Almost anything you can ask, the answer is "Theoretically, it could probably be done" because by nature magic isn't terribly constrained. In practice, there's no way to know without trying.

I don't even know what the hell you're asking for, though, for that matter.

[Toaster]

Best bet for the village is to port out and let them talk.  Give them a reasonable time frame (I like three days) and be back for their answer.

Let the civvies in.  The shell people may not like it at first, but we have to stick to our plan of making the world a better place for everyone.

Research up some basic (non-magical) buggies.  We can mod on some magitech later.

[Pandarsenic]

Tactical Display Initiating
Displaying desert
Assigning yellow overlay to weak cover areas
Assigning green overlay to strong cover areas
Assigning red overlay to areas general vision obstruction

Generating overall map...

Displaying:

Our forces are to the west; the enemies, to the east. Adding them to the map momentarily...

[Pandarsenic]

Opfors are displayed in white, with a black halo, and their melee range as a transparent red area around them; our units have white halos with a black/gray melee range indicator and their colors are as follows:

Elite: Violet
Sergeant: Blue
Machine Gunner: Orange
Recruits: Black



Turn 0:
Machine Gunners initiating Suppressing Fire on orders of Magitech Elite (no mana cost until first fired or sustained)
Magitech Elites activating Mana Barrier (first mana cost on turn 1)
Magitech Sergeant activating Mana Barrier (first mana cost on turn 1)

Turn 1 begins:
We have the initiative. Orders?

[RAM]

We need field experience with those machine guns.
The elite should teleport to the enemy's flank, probably the large red area at the top-left, and hide until after firing starts to avoid notice.
Rookies should support the M.G.s which can presumably only shoot at one thing at once.

We could try to research a teleportation effect that remains dormant until it interacts with something. It could be a gun the shoots a teleportation 'spell' or one that shoots one of the extant teleportation devices. It would probably be less efficient than just blowing something up, but would have interesting utility options for low-impact damage. You could have something dismantle defenses without creating rubble, remove a target from a protected location without harming them, or retrieve friendly forces from a dangerous location. If you could combine it with a detention facility, and possibly a filter to prevent the teleportation of conventional weapon materials, then it would allow the use of area effect weapons without much concern of collateral damage. An artillery shell that sprays an area with discreet teleportation effects could be used without worrying about hitting your own forces. Any allied forces caught in the effect would simply wait in the detention facility until their identity could be confirmed.
 A more effective detention facility could be designed to keep the subject from arriving at their destination until permitted, essentially 'pausing' the teleportation magic between the point of departure and arrival. This field of research would be invaluable in the production of countermeasures to prevent the use of teleportation by hostile entities.
 Teleportation also opens up theoretical options for teleportation-based protections. They would not nullify attacks, so collateral damage would be a major concern, and would likely be a major drain on energy reserves, but would, in theory, render something completely immune to any entity to which it was attuned. With proper precautions, such as over-lapping fields to prevent teleporting something to an earlier point in its previous trajectory, and limiting the ground-panel's coverage so as to allow motive forces to interact with the ground while retaining coverage against ground-based earthen projectiles. Other than the presumably prodigious energy requirements of maintaining a reactive teleportation effect the major concern seems to be what it would be attuned to. To resist lasers you need to teleport light, which would blind the subject and any pervasive element such as light would massively increase energy consumption. Allowing heat would risk damage from radiant effect, blocking it would induce cold hazards. teleporting all physical mass would risk a limited air supply. Relying upon it as a long-term defence seems impractical but it could prove a valuable asset for major sub-installations, such as energy hubs and observation posts, and temporary requirements, such as a device to render an operator invulnerable whilst they deploy a heavy-weapon.

[HailFire]

Is the sergeant invisible, or taking a smoke off-map? 

[Pandarsenic]

Hurr durr knew I was forgetting something.

Also, going to add movement ranges to the overlay since that probably is useful to know.

[Pandarsenic]

Prepare to have your eyes melted by these range indicators - even split into different frames in a gif it's still awful to look at them. Just remember the "Sprinting" Rule, which basically amounts to "If it's close enough I'll just let them move there so I don't have to put these freaking fields all over."

Normal, Sergeant-is-actually-here map:


Cycling through Everything, then Teleports Only, the non-Infantry movement ranges, Infantry moveranges, and hell I'm starting to feel tired:

Spoiler: Adventures in Future Blindness (click to show/hide)