Bay 12 Games Forum

Finally... => Forum Games and Roleplaying => Topic started by: andrea on March 29, 2018, 04:15:30 pm

Title: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on March 29, 2018, 04:15:30 pm
Core thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=170065.msg7722792#msg7722792)

Welcome, scribes of Thoth.

Take a seat at the Celestial table, holding the wisdom of Thoth, standing a meter above the ground with no support at all. This will be your main discussion area, which you can conveniently relocate wherever you wish… slowly (floating or not, it is kind of heavy). You will also find the Hall of relics, where the artefacts of the Sky Gods are disassembled, analysed and hopefully replicated. Objects that float, push, release energy. It is an invaluable treasure, but incredibly hard to decode.

Our God Thoth was a gentle owner, rare among his peers. He taught us how to use the divine artefacts and how to repair them. We enjoyed great important and influence during the reign of the Gods and being the sole remaining keepers of this knowledge we still have a duty to bring Egypt to Greatness. The current war was officially started due to escalating border incidents, but in truth we discovered that Anatolia hosted significant operations of the Gods, which likely left many relics that must be collected and studied, which will only be possible if we completely own it. So, design! You have exclusive knowledge from the Gods themselves and your minds have been sharpened from trying to decrypt it.

Since the war was not as sudden as it might seem from outside, we can do a design and a revision before fighting begins.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

Resources 2 Ore, 2 Wood, 1 Relics
TC needed:2 - Available:2
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Maximum Spin on March 29, 2018, 04:20:49 pm
thoth*damn it you beat me to it
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: 10ebbor10 on March 29, 2018, 04:38:37 pm
War Chariot A devastatingly fast weapon made of wood and bronze, the war chariot is a two wheeled cart drawn by 2 horses. Three soldiers stand atop it. 1 Charioteer, and two others equipped with bows or other weaponry.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: FallacyofUrist on March 29, 2018, 04:59:12 pm
FallacyofUrist, priest of Bastet, takes his seat at the Celestial table. "I have arrived."

Anyhow.

Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist

Let's start out by sticking to our strengths. For our next design, I'd suggest a boat, currently we only have our solar barge. Maybe a floating(in the air) battleship?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Rockeater on March 29, 2018, 05:17:44 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater

I am for a boat but a flying one feel early
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 29, 2018, 06:05:51 pm
I was thinking something in a slightly different direction than a chariot.  Why not a Ballista?  Pick up an alternative, cheaper weapon for artillery/ship-to-ship combat purposes.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Rockeater on March 29, 2018, 06:27:45 pm
Make sense, better then my ship idea.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: RAM on March 29, 2018, 06:52:07 pm
Sky Chariot
Quote
By using three sacred Shu Stones placed around a bronze-clad wood structure, we create a platform that can float and remain stable above any surface, even water, that offers some protection to its three passengers(one driver and two archers). When pulled by beasts or boats it allows swift motion for a force that ignores much of the struggles of war. Or it can be propelled slowly by using an oar...

I am thinking that we could revise Khopesh onto sticks. Halberds anyone?

For a bit of fluff I am thinking that Shu Stones are antigravity with nonsense networking that keeps them at the same altitude relative to the local gravity-well and a consistent distance from the nearest solid or liquid surface beneath them. A single stone would be perfectly stable, but we are bad at structures so whatever we tried to attach to just one would break from its mooring and flip upside-down, even though the stone maintains its orientation. Also we could use them to fly and probably add propulsion if we knew how to control them... It provides lots of room to improve while respecting our current incompetence...

Also also! I would like to make a national effort. A self-propelled floating temple with multiple big beam weapons would have to turn the tide on occasion... Especially seeing as we can't use our big guns on land. Speaking of, perhaps we should make temples on land as defensive bunkers... It ought to be a revision to get a Sun temple with a bit more armour and just plonk a few down around ports and passes...
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 29, 2018, 08:04:33 pm
Got a stupid idea that could prove interesting:

Star Gate: An archway with a base of 10 Cubits that utilizes many relics of the Gods.  By utilizing a strange panel that when a set of five of thirty buttons shaped like constellations are pressed, the archway can create a portal to another Archway, allowing forces to move between battlefields rapidly, and quickly reinforce threatened areas.  Messengers and supplies can also be sent through, improving coordination and help build the economy.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: andrea on March 30, 2018, 12:19:45 pm
Unless there is more voting going on, I shall probably roll for the chariot this evening (european time)
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 30, 2018, 01:03:31 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (1): Zanzetkuken
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: andrea on March 30, 2018, 02:01:10 pm
As explained in discord, I am offering some difficulty advice until the war starts. The more you ask, the less you get until I will finally remain silent.

Q:How difficult would each of the three proposed designs in the thread be?

A:The chariots are of lower difficulty, which one is easier may depend on the exact performance you try to squeeze out of them.
The stargate is a much, much more challenging design, which will likely not work as advertised on the first try.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Atomic Chicken on March 30, 2018, 02:53:10 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (2): Zanzetkuken, Atomic
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: 10ebbor10 on March 30, 2018, 03:28:24 pm
Eh, I still dislike the Stargate.

It's very likely not going to work, and even if it does, it'll be bloody expensive. Also, because it needs Gates on both ends that'll make it practically useless.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 30, 2018, 03:43:43 pm
Quote from: 10ebbor10 on March 30, 2018, 03:28:24 pm
Eh, I still dislike the Stargate.

It's very likely not going to work, and even if it does, it'll be bloody expensive. Also, because it needs Gates on both ends that'll make it practically useless.

Not really.  Sure you may not be able to dump your guys into the middle of the battlefield (yet.  Might be able to spring off of this to invent that.), but you can deploy them at the very least in various cities and potentially in command posts.  You'd drastically reduce supply lines, communication lines, allow for redeployment of armies between front lines rapidly allowing larger deployments in a region with lesser concern as we can move them between theaters rapidly, adding them to ships could easily allow us to create much larger weapons since we could fire through them (since if matter can get through, so can energy) thereby making our ships far lighter and thereby faster as well as proving a way to get sailors in a sinking ship out, we could mount them on landing ships and be able to keep sending soldiers through multiple points in essentially unlimited number rather than only having the capacity of said ships, increase our transport capacity to the point we may never need to worry about it again, sieges would be forced to end in assaults because we can always resupply fortresses and cities through it, and potentially many other uses.

By contrast, the chariots are very minor upgrades at best that are an underutilization of our potential and don't really lead us to any new advances.  Hell, since we already have carts and they've been noted to be fairly easy, we could quite possibly get them done in a revision (though this turn's should be dedicated to doing something on our navy, since existing boost land).
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: RAM on March 30, 2018, 03:53:31 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (2): Zanzetkuken, Atomic
Sky Chariot (1): RAM

I theory it would be great, It might not get us a beachhead, but the ability to reinforce and resupply any front would be amazing. The drawback is that I am not sure how closely that is simulated. Probably just a bonus transport capacity and a morale buff in regions they are built?.. Also that it likely won't work.

On the topic of difficulty advice. What can we expect in terms of progress with a relic, progress on new relics, and what is the limit on relics?
Like, can we jump from lift to thrust to flight to U.F.O.-motion in single designs? What if they were pure research designs? Could we go straight to Inertialess motion if we rolled well?
Is there anything that relics can't do? Can they revive the dead? Can they identify friend and foe on sight? Can they accurately predict the future? Can they call upon divine mercenaries? Perpetual power providers? Cause a solar eclipse? Produce a field that corrodes orichalcum? Build fully autonomous and independent machines capable of achieving independence, declaring war upon the other factions, and starting their own design projects?
If we keep working on power-sources for a dozens of designs, can we eventually build a contained galactic-core-scale black-hole and just open the containment to produce an instant arc of total suck? Can we produce a special sand, which requires only a single grain be dropped upon any conductive object to grant it near-limitless mobility? What of Grey goo? In short, is there anything that we just aren't allowed to ever have?

Quote from: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 30, 2018, 03:43:43 pm
(since if matter can get through, so can energy)
Remember that the G.M. mentioned Stargate as a likely influence, and that Stargate worked on the rule of plot-convenience...
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 30, 2018, 04:17:00 pm
Quote from: RAM on March 30, 2018, 03:53:31 pm
I theory it would be great, It might not get us a beachhead, but the ability to reinforce and resupply any front would be amazing. The drawback is that I am not sure how closely that is simulated. Probably just a bonus transport capacity and a morale buff in regions they are built?.. Also that it likely won't work.

In mechanic terms, it'd probably provide TC and fill the same roles as a strategic level Radio bonus given the messengers needing to travel shorter distances (for tactical we'd need to advance the tech a bit, or craft a Semaphore type system), and a secondary bonus to infantry thanks to being able to field larger armies.

Quote from: RAM on March 30, 2018, 03:53:31 pm
Quote from: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 30, 2018, 03:43:43 pm
(since if matter can get through, so can energy)
Remember that the G.M. mentioned Stargate as a likely influence, and that Stargate worked on the rule of plot-convenience...

Just propel a beam of plasma through it.  Momentum does need to be preserved in order to actually walk through the thing without harm.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: thatroleplayerGal on March 30, 2018, 04:30:55 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (3): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Rockeater on March 30, 2018, 04:33:15 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (3): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal
Sky Chariot (2): RAM,Rockeater
Why people want to have the first desing something that have barly any chance to work?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 30, 2018, 04:45:48 pm
Quote from: Rockeater on March 30, 2018, 04:33:15 pm
Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (3): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal
Sky Chariot (2): RAM,Rockeater
Why people want to have the first desing something that have barly any chance to work?

Because if the worst comes to pass and it fails, we can revise our ships to lose the tag that's causing them to be Very Expensive, and we thereby hadn't really risked losing anything crucial and recovery would be simple, while if it succeeds, we get major bonuses for the rest of the game and whole fields of technology openned up (ex. we can create catapults that fire ammunition that creates unstable wormholes to delete their walls, the aforementioned mounting of Gates on ships to equip our ships with larger weapons, unlimited landing forces, eventual tactical level teleportation).  Now is the time when we are able to take a risk.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: BBBence1111 on March 30, 2018, 05:59:51 pm
Sky Temple

The Sky Temple is a pyramid shaped ship, equipped with a Sun Temple cannon and by using the sacred Shu Stones placed around a bronze-clad wood structure, it can float and remain stable above any surface, even water, or move forward and turn when it needs to, on it's own. It's large enough to house troops for a short duration or to carry some other stuff inside.

Quote from: Boatbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (3): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal
Sky Chariot (2): RAM,Rockeater
Sky Temple: (1): BBB
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on March 30, 2018, 06:10:24 pm
Quote from: VOTEbox
War Chariot (3): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist,Rockeater
Star Gate (4): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal, SC
Sky Chariot (2): RAM,Rockeater
Sky Temple: (1): BBB

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Rockeater on March 30, 2018, 06:22:20 pm
 
Quote from: VOTEbox
War Chariot (2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist
Star Gate (4): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal, SC
Sky Chariot (1): RAM
Sky Temple: (2): BBB, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: RAM on March 30, 2018, 07:56:24 pm
It feels overambitious, but it was going to be on the cards sooner or later, and it is getting the votes. I would prefer something like that as a national effort, with lots of guns that is basically a nigh-invulnerable one-unit artillery section that pretty much melts the battlefield wherever it appears, but integrating Sun Temples into a land-forces looks like a big win as far as I can tell.
Don't get me wrong, mundane chariots are thematic and cool, and will be effective early on, but likely have a limited shelf-life. Sort of feels like in a dozen turns time the War Chariots will be gone and we will have nothing to show for the action.
Stargate feels a bit too much the other way. An ambitious design with little immediate impact. Extremely useful long-term, but risks leaving us with primitive forces against something wondrous that the enemy put together.

So now I am reduced tovote politics... : (    : (    : (
Quote from: VOTEbox
War Chariot (2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist
Star Gate (4): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal, SC
Sky Chariot (0):
Sky Temple: (3): BBB, Rockeater, RAM
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on March 30, 2018, 07:58:21 pm
Quote from: VOTEbox
War Chariot (2): 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist
Star Gate (3): Zanzetkuken, Atomic, thatroleplayerGal
Sky Chariot (1):
Sky Temple: (4): BBB, Rockeater, RAM, SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: 10ebbor10 on March 31, 2018, 03:03:15 am
Why?

Our normal ship is already VE. Making it fly will make it unuseable.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: BBBence1111 on March 31, 2018, 08:34:04 am
Quote from: 10ebbor10 on March 31, 2018, 03:03:15 am
Why?

Our normal ship is already VE. Making it fly will make it unuseable.
We're actually only missing 1 relic from the ship. It's VE because it's Alien. I'm hoping that the stones would also get an Alien tag, meaning it doesn't get anouther expense level. If they get complex instead, we just spend a revision getting rid of the Alien tag, making both it and our ship cheaper.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth
Post by: andrea on March 31, 2018, 11:30:22 am
Quote from: BBBence1111 on March 30, 2018, 05:59:51 pm
Sky Temple

The Sky Temple is a pyramid shaped ship, equipped with a Sun Temple cannon and by using the sacred Shu Stones placed around a bronze-clad wood structure, it can float and remain stable above any surface, even water, or move forward and turn when it needs to, on it's own. It's large enough to house troops for a short duration or to carry some other stuff inside.



(Very Hard) (2,4) -2 =4 Below average
The generals commanding the army have always envied the fire power available to the fleet, the marvellous Sun Cannon. Its deployment on land, however, requires a suitable platform. A major breakthrough came when, after a long day of brainstorming around the Celestial table, you took notice of the fact that it was very heavy and floating. After some disassembling, it seems that the levitation effect is caused by small compact objects named “Shu stones”. Those seem to almost nullify the weight of the things they are mounted on, meaning that it takes very little force to lift them off the ground, force conveniently provided by the stones themselves. Servants are sent to scavenge the warehouse for Shu stones, while the Sky temple is being built.

The Sky temple is a relatively large structure, as big as a ship, shaped like a pyramid and covered entirely in bronze on top of its sturdy wood frame. The top of the temple, rather than being pointy, houses the same kind of Sun Cannon that is used on ships. Almost impervious to damage from anything short of a Sun cannon (among the weapons currently fielded), its size means that it can carry some cargo or some soldiers, but it has a couple of problems. First problem: The Shu stones mean that only little force is needed to lift the temple and little force is what they produce, meaning that it can only advance at a crawl. Second: it is expensive. The ships are already barely affordable, and the Sun temple adds Shu stones and bronze armour to it. Only one could be built before the allotted time was over. Due to the elevated position of the cannon, it has trouble aiming at enemies close to its base, but it is a weakness heavily mitigated by the presence of other forces escorting it. The Sun cannon performs as well as it does in the ship.

[3 wood 3 ore 4 Relics][Alien(Cannon, Shu stones)] [National effort]

You will need to decide where to deploy it.
Alien tags don't stack with each other, so it is still only one level more expensive than normal depsite having multiple [Alien] components. However, all components need to be de-[Alien]-ified before the design loses the tag. A word of warning for the future: [Complex] and [Alien] do stack.

It is now Revision phase

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - Revision phase
Post by: Failbird105 on March 31, 2018, 11:45:19 am
well congrats guys, you've built a necron monolith: primative edition.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - Revision phase
Post by: BBBence1111 on March 31, 2018, 12:07:40 pm
Revision: Understanding Sun Cannons

We spend time studying how Sun Cannons work, in hopes of understanding them. OOC goal: Remove [Alien(Sun Cannon)].

Quote from: Votebox
Understanding Sun Cannons: (1) BBB
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - Revision phase
Post by: Rockeater on March 31, 2018, 12:11:51 pm
Quote from: Votebox
Understanding Sun Cannons: (2) BBB,Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - Revision phase
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 31, 2018, 12:34:09 pm
Quote from: Votebox
Understanding Sun Cannons: (3) BBB,Rockeater, Zanzetkuken
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - Revision phase
Post by: Atomic Chicken on March 31, 2018, 01:01:03 pm
Quote from: Votebox
Understanding Sun Cannons: (4) BBB,Rockeater, Zanzetkuken, Atomic
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - Revision phase
Post by: andrea on March 31, 2018, 04:07:34 pm
Quote from: BBBence1111 on March 31, 2018, 12:07:40 pm
Revision: Understanding Sun Cannons

We spend time studying how Sun Cannons work, in hopes of understanding them. OOC goal: Remove [Alien(Sun Cannon)].


(Very Hard) (2+1 )-2 = 1 Utter failure

You set out to disassemble extremely carefully one of the Sun cannons. You already know how to make one work, and what it does, but now you seek to discover how it does what it does and what are the mechanisms inside of it, in the hope that such improved understanding will allow you to simplify salvage, construction and operations.

It took little to figure out that whatever the mechanism that generates the globular projectile is, it doesn’t take tampering kindly. The test article exploded rather violently, taking several disciples (and their notes) with it. Sadly, no progress has been made.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

Now begins the first turn of the game, design phase of 3000 B.C.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: 10ebbor10 on March 31, 2018, 04:19:27 pm
Sunset Altar The sunset altar is a modification of the Sun Temple. We've rearranged it's various parts and systems, allowing it to channel it's power to a smaller version of itself located on top. This version can be moved a fire a barrage of less powerfull shots in all directions.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on March 31, 2018, 04:27:26 pm
I feel like I should point out this part of the description of the Sun staff:

"When activated, it starts humming then it produces a globular light that flies straight toward where the staff was aimed, extremely hot to the point of producing a small explosion on impact."

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on March 31, 2018, 04:33:03 pm
Understand the Infantry Sun Staffs

Andrea has stated both of them are similar difficulty, and either would help tremendously in understanding the other.  Therefore, I believe we should try to understand one as the design, and the other as a revision in order to maximize effect.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on March 31, 2018, 05:55:30 pm
Quote from: VoteBox
Sunset Altar: (1) 10ebbor10
Understanding the Infantry Sun Staff: (2) Zanzetkuken, SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on March 31, 2018, 06:00:40 pm
Quote from: VoteBox
Sunset Altar: (1) 10ebbor10
Understanding the Infantry Sun Staff: (3) Zanzetkuken, SC,Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 03, 2018, 02:52:03 pm
Quote from: Zanzetkuken the Great
Understand the infantry Sun Staffs

(Hard) (1,3) -1 =3 Buggy mess
Experiments on the big Sun temple cannon proved to be far too dangerous at this time, so we moved to the smaller sun staves. Indeed, the results have proven extraordinarily good! Now the disciples set to disassemble them are not killed, but merely disfigured and maimed by the smaller explosions. Since the wounds are immediately cauterized, most of them even survive, able to tell what went wrong.
Now we know which bits are fiddly and explode, and have a few ideas on how to handle them. We have no significant insight in the overall workings of the weapon, but future experimentation should be much easier.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

Now begins revision phase for 3000 B.C.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: 10ebbor10 on April 03, 2018, 03:09:25 pm
Quote
War Chariot A devastatingly fast weapon made of wood and bronze, the war chariot is a two wheeled cart drawn by 2 horses. Three soldiers stand atop it. 1 Charioteer, and two others equipped with bows or other weaponry.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on April 03, 2018, 03:43:52 pm
Quote from: Hookhopesh
A khopesh on a long stick. Used by heavily-trained warriors to maim and pull enemies at a distance, often from behind allies.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on April 04, 2018, 04:22:03 am
Quote from: VoteBox
Revisions:
War Chariot: (2) 10ebbor10, SC
Hookhopesh: (1) RAM
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 04, 2018, 04:34:04 am

Quote from: VoteBox
Revisions:
War Chariot: (3) 10ebbor10, SC, Rockeater
Hookhopesh: (1) RAM
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 04, 2018, 03:52:41 pm
Quote from: 10ebbor10 on April 03, 2018, 03:09:25 pm
Quote
War Chariot A devastatingly fast weapon made of wood and bronze, the war chariot is a two wheeled cart drawn by 2 horses. Three soldiers stand atop it. 1 Charioteer, and two others equipped with bows or other weaponry.

(Normal) (2+1 ) = 3 Buggy mess
There must have been some miscommunication between you and the disciples in the field. While you asked for something inspired by the merchant carts able to carry people in battle at high speed, but it seems that they understood that you wanted to use the very same cart for the purpose. They did add some bronze to the sides, but those sides are too low to offer protection. They are faster than when used to ferry big loads, due to lower weight, but at “high” speed their bulky frame shakes so much that your soldiers need to hang on to something to not fall, meaning that if you want to shoot from it, you need to go at a walking pace. Certainly not a great weapon of war, at least having the carts available for the troops makes them slightly happier about not having to walk all the time. Or nauseous, if the driver pushes the horses too much.
Being converted civilian hardware without significant requirements for the animals attached to it, it is fairly cheap.

[2 wood, 1 ore] [Cheap]


Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

You are now in Battle phase. Please pick a front in which to deploy your national effort.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on April 04, 2018, 04:41:18 pm
2,4,2,1,3,2 = 14(2+1/3) < 25%
I dislike our odds with this technology. We already defeated one set of gods, now it is time to slay the dice!

Quote from: Sky Temple
0: Land(Relic):
0: Sea(deprive wood or lose ore):
1: Nothing(march on the heavens, slay the dice!): RAM




On a more serious note. A win at sea deprives someone of a resource. While the relic is more valuable, unless we get crushed utterly(not impossible) there should be no resource change, so we can wait?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 05, 2018, 12:09:30 pm
By the way, if you gather enough votes I would love to start writing the turn 2,3 hours, even if I can't finish it.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 05, 2018, 12:20:44 pm
But our temple onlywork on land and if not it's the only placce it worth something



Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 05, 2018, 02:35:47 pm
Quote from: Sky Temple
1: Land(Relic): Doomblade
0: Sea(deprive wood or lose ore):
1: Nothing(march on the heavens, slay the dice!): RAM
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 05, 2018, 02:37:16 pm

Quote from: Sky Temple
1: Land(Relic): Doomblade, Rockeater
0: Sea(deprive wood or lose ore):
1: Nothing(march on the heavens, slay the dice!): RAM

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 05, 2018, 03:06:41 pm
Quote from: Rockeater on April 05, 2018, 12:20:44 pm
But our temple onlywork on land and if not it's the only placce it worth something

I leave the determination of worth to you, but I will confirm that the temple floats above water as well as it does above land.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on April 05, 2018, 07:27:34 pm
Quote from: Rockeater on April 05, 2018, 02:37:16 pm

Quote from: Sky Temple
2: Land(Relic): Doomblade, Rockeater
1: Sea(deprive wood or lose ore): RAM
0: Nothing(march on the heavens, slay the dice!):

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 3000 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 06, 2018, 04:29:24 pm
Turn out, design time. Your soldiers would like to have something to help dealing with commonplace armor and giant birds, or to get more of the few things they have that are effective already.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 06, 2018, 04:51:22 pm
Flames of Horus - Using the knowledge of the Sun Staff, we mount six of them within a triad of thick discs, one just behind the area that fires, one in the middle, and one at the back.  The middle and backmost are placed on the inside of a wheel that is grooved to let them spin inside.  An S-shaped handle is attached to the back of the backmost disc that allows for an operator to spin the contraption, and a wedge is placed in the right area to activate a Sun Staff as it passes by, to fire when it reaches the apex.  This contraption is carried on the back of a "War" Chariot, attached via another free-spinning disc construct so the weapon can be turned to face different areas of the battlefield easily.

A poor man's gatling gun.  Should give us more XP on the Sun Staff, and since it doesn't use any new alien tech, if we remove the [Alien] tag from the sun staff, this will lose it as well.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 06, 2018, 04:59:47 pm
I vote that for the revision we fix the chariot.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on April 06, 2018, 05:00:26 pm
But that would only increase the rate-of-fire. Wouldn't we get the same effect from removing the alien tag?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 06, 2018, 05:04:00 pm
True.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 06, 2018, 05:12:37 pm
Quote from: RAM on April 06, 2018, 05:00:26 pm
But that would only increase the rate-of-fire. Wouldn't we get the same effect from removing the alien tag?

While it is true that while volume of fire would increase, we would not be getting the same effect.  Think of our existing staffs are basically single-shot bolt action rifles, with the cool down serving as a stand-in for reload time.  While effective, it isn't the same scale of effect as a gatling gun.

Oh, and future idea: while this is small enough to be operated by one guy when it is deployed, in the future we could have a team using a similar aparatus to fire Staff Cannons like this.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 08, 2018, 09:22:19 am
It is probably time to start a votebox, so we can have a turn on monday-
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Atomic Chicken on April 08, 2018, 11:20:22 am
Well then, may as well get the ball rolling.

Quote from: design votes
(1) Flames of Horus: AC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 08, 2018, 12:39:50 pm
Quote from: design votes
(2) Flames of Horus: AC,Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 09, 2018, 12:30:09 pm
Is the thing supposed to be used effectively while the cart is moving, or is the cart used just for repositioning?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 09, 2018, 02:03:39 pm
Quote from: andrea on April 09, 2018, 12:30:09 pm
Is the thing supposed to be used effectively while the cart is moving, or is the cart used just for repositioning?

I don't see why you couldn't theoretically fire it while moving, though I'm pretty sure you'd really only be able to fire it when facing backwards in such a case given it is pulled by horses and I don't think there would be much clearance to either side.  It's not a requirement if attempting to would increase difficulty level, though.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 09, 2018, 03:12:02 pm
Quote from: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 06, 2018, 04:51:22 pm
Flames of Horus - Using the knowledge of the Sun Staff, we mount six of them within a triad of thick discs, one just behind the area that fires, one in the middle, and one at the back.  The middle and backmost are placed on the inside of a wheel that is grooved to let them spin inside.  An S-shaped handle is attached to the back of the backmost disc that allows for an operator to spin the contraption, and a wedge is placed in the right area to activate a Sun Staff as it passes by, to fire when it reaches the apex.  This contraption is carried on the back of a "War" Chariot, attached via another free-spinning disc construct so the weapon can be turned to face different areas of the battlefield easily.

(Easy) (1,1) +1 =3 Buggy mess

Tie staves together, get concentrated fire. Mount on cart, get mobile concentrated fire. Sounds good? Maybe too good even…  you are forgetting an important detail. Staves are made to be used by hand, and a mechanism that can trigger them reliably isn’t trivial. Furthermore, you are not actually increasing the number of staves on the field, so unless you can tweak them to fire faster, you aren’t getting more shots.

You manage to cobble together a trigger pressing mechanism, activated by a handle on a rotating table. It works, but between the gears required for trigger pulling, the bulkiness of the frame and the unsuitability of the trigger for fast firing, the results are very underwhelming.  It does shoot, yes. But in the end the advantage compared to just giving the staves to 6 soldiers is minimal, and consists mostly of having all shots directed by a single mind and at a constant rate of fire, which would require exceptional training for your soldiers to pull off. Then again, it is a single big target. You suspect you will have to do more work on the trigger to make this a truly fearsome weapon of war.
[2 wood, 3 ore, 2 relics] [Alien][Very Expensive]


Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)


It is now Revision phase for 2999 B.C

It may be time to bring out the sacrificial goats to please the gods.

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 09, 2018, 04:03:29 pm
Better Chariots

Update the chariot cart to be a proper, more mobile war chariot with braces for archers. Armor it if there is time.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 09, 2018, 04:21:47 pm
Here's two options I see:

Modify the Chariots to use Shu Stones for levitation, still pulled by horses, to remove the problems with stability and speed.

Modify the Flames of Horus to be more conductive to outputting a higher volume of fire.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on April 09, 2018, 04:33:02 pm
So that brings our rolls to three 1s, three 2s, and a single 3 and 4. Maybe killing all the gods except knowledge was a bad plan... Did we break a god of mirrors somewhere along the way?

Quote
1: Better chariots: Doomblade187
0: Hovering Chariots:
0: Fix Flames of Horus:
1: Understand Sun Staves: RAM
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: Atomic Chicken on April 10, 2018, 12:38:13 am
Quote
1: Better chariots: Doomblade187
0: Hovering Chariots:
0: Fix Flames of Horus:
2: Understand Sun Staves: RAM, AC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: Rockeater on April 10, 2018, 12:40:19 am

Quote
1: Better chariots: Doomblade187
0: Hovering Chariots:
0: Fix Flames of Horus:
3: Understand Sun Staves: RAM, AC, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 10, 2018, 01:28:46 am
Quote
0: Better chariots:
0: Hovering Chariots:
0: Fix Flames of Horus:
4: Understand Sun Staves: RAM, AC, Rockeater, Doomblade
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on April 10, 2018, 03:56:06 pm
Quote from: vote
Understanding the sun staff

(Hard) (2,2) -1 =3 Buggy mess

Now that you know how to open the staves without having them explode in your face, you set out to disassemble a few so you can test the interactions of sub components. But, well, it seems that recent experiences made the disciples you delegated the task to a bit overcautious.  It turns out that they started delegating tasks to lower disciples, which delegated to their chief servants and so on until slaves who couldn’t refuse were found. The long chain of command resulted in a lot of wasted time, so that it is only near the end of the year that you receive the disassembled staff heads which you requested.

Then, as you start cataloguing, arranging and sorting the components, your hopes for a quick solution evaporate as quickly as a jug of water struck by the might of a Sun cannon.  It seems to be, indeed, very complex with a great deal of subcomponents and connections. There is no way to finish the work this year, but now you have all the sub components you could ask for neatly arranged on your table. Dedicating yourselves to the task, it should be relatively straightforward to finally solve the puzzle.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)



It is now Battle Phase. You have 2 to 3 days to work on your submission for the competition, while I work on the battle report.
Starting 2 days from now, consider the turn at risk of being written, so don't delay contributions too much.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on April 10, 2018, 05:15:24 pm
I am not entirely certain of my maths. I know I messed up the percentage the previous time and it was more likely than I suggested, but now, according to the site I am referencing on account of being lazy, the chance of getting a total of 20 or less from 10d6 is under 0.3%... I am not really sure what we have that could be sacrificed to improve our fortunes. Does anyone have any dirty limericks that might appease the fates?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 10, 2018, 07:09:11 pm
Quote from: RAM on April 10, 2018, 05:15:24 pm
I am not entirely certain of my maths. I know I messed up the percentage the previous time and it was more likely than I suggested, but now, according to the site I am referencing on account of being lazy, the chance of getting a total of 20 or less from 10d6 is under 0.3%... I am not really sure what we have that could be sacrificed to improve our fortunes. Does anyone have any dirty limericks that might appease the fates?

System uses d4 not d6.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on April 10, 2018, 07:54:03 pm
Quote from: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 10, 2018, 07:09:11 pm
System uses d4 not d6.
Ah, I see, okay...
2+4+2+1+1+3+2+1+1+1+2+2=22/12>1.8=under 2 is not great from a 2.5 standard.
4^12=16777216=lots of outcomes from 12d4...
Andthe odds are, umm, (gives up on doing the maths) ... about two-and-a-half percent?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on April 12, 2018, 02:05:35 pm
I forgot to mention, but in addition to the event, you also have to vote for the deployment of your National Effort. If you don't vote, I'll assume it will be deployed where it was last turn.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on April 14, 2018, 04:47:39 am
Last chance, turn is being written.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on April 14, 2018, 05:50:22 am
Quote
Roses are red, violets are few. I'm going to bed, give us land from the blue.
There, I tried. May knowledge guide us!
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: BBBence1111 on April 14, 2018, 06:53:54 am
One might ask "How does an island just appear?". After all, new land isn't created overnight. Not by people, at least. This can mean one thing, and one thing only! The gods have gifted us! A new landmass, filled with resources, arable land, and likely gifts in the form of artifacts! The foul Atlanteans want to conquer us, but we are the people of Thoht! He was the one who gave us this gift, and to own it is our God given right!
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2999 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on April 14, 2018, 07:31:59 am
Turn is out. The battle of Anatolia was close, but that was due to the advantage of birbs being mostly negated by mountains. Your generals clamor for something new to the field, feeling that you haven't given them much to work with.

Admirals are annoyed by the permanent tie and would like something to tip the balance.


Begin Design phase for 2998 BC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on April 15, 2018, 01:44:35 am
Breaking news! Team Egypt phones it in! Follow our ongoing coverage of the situation as it undevelops!

Quote from: war canoe
A three-man canoe with two rowers and someone with a sunstaff. Comes with a rope and ring so as to be towed outside of combat. Their role is to shoot holes through sails, oars, hulls, and rudders in an effort to stall and disrupt enemy shipping using man-portable cannons. They have an off-set design so that one can act as a cover for another to keep the weather out of them when not in use or if two crews are willing to lie on top of one another.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 15, 2018, 01:06:01 pm
Quote from: vote
war canoe[2]:RAM,Rockeatr
This ended quickly
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 15, 2018, 01:11:58 pm
Basic armor

We will equi our soldiers with curiass and, and give them reinforced shields.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 15, 2018, 09:57:43 pm
Ra's Wrath - A modification to the Sun Cannon, this creation operates off of similar technology at roughly the same size (only slightly bigger), but instead of firing a single ovaloid sphere of energy at the target, it instead fires a continuous beam for multiple seconds.  It can be mounted on a cart to be carried into battle, or in any existing emplacement that uses a Sun Cannon.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: BBBence1111 on April 16, 2018, 03:40:07 am
Un Armoring
Take off enough armor from the Temple so it's VE. Proceed to use it everywhere.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on April 16, 2018, 05:26:36 am
You really need to get vote-boxing or else the lazy canoe will win by default...
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 16, 2018, 09:42:53 am
Quote from: vote
war canoe[2]:RAM,Rockeatr
Ra's Wrath (1): Zanzetkuken
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on April 16, 2018, 09:50:42 am
Quote from: War Camel
The dromedary camel that we have “acquired” from Arabia has so many uses for military usage as a mounted and workforce animal. The main strength of wielding the camel as our cavalry against the elephant birds is because of their stockiness and yet speediness, that allows them to be quite survivable and have the ability to handle direct fire. Another thing combine aside from its usage as a sturdy yet fast camelry option, is that its is a great work-generating animal and can push carts and other things that need to be horse-drawn much more effectively because of its heightened bulkiness compared to our lithe horses. Finally the last usage of this beast is of its disorienting smell that they can produce that just makes other cavalry quite uncomfortable (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry), that not even the elephant birds will be on their full concentration against these war beasts.

Quote from: VoteBox
War Canoe: Ram, Rockeater
Ra’s Wrath: (1) Zanzetkuken
War Camel: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 16, 2018, 09:51:21 am
Quote from: vote
war canoe[2]:RAM,Rockeatr
Ra's Wrath (2): Zanzetkuken, Doomblade
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 17, 2018, 01:05:27 am
If the tie is broken, I plan to write turn this evening.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 17, 2018, 01:29:11 am

Quote from: vote
war canoe[1]:RAM
Ra's Wrath (3): Zanzetkuken, Doomblade, Rockeater
Now please get it to work
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 17, 2018, 03:14:40 pm
Quote from: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 15, 2018, 09:57:43 pm
Ra's Wrath - A modification to the Sun Cannon, this creation operates off of similar technology at roughly the same size (only slightly bigger), but instead of firing a single ovaloid sphere of energy at the target, it instead fires a continuous beam for multiple seconds.  It can be mounted on a cart to be carried into battle, or in any existing emplacement that uses a Sun Cannon.

(Hard) (3,3) -1 =5 Average

It is now the time of the year where, as usual, you set out to disassemble explosive divine relics. Or, well, you would be if most of your servants hadn’t abandoned you by now. They will need to be flogged and replaced, but for now you take a less invasive approach. What makes the weapon fire only a short burst? Simple: the trigger rebounds after being pressed. It is an easy enough problem to solve without messing with the interior components, with a system of levers that allows the operator to keep the trigger pressed for a longer time. You are however left wonder as to why it was built this way.

Gods are mysterious, but this particular mystery doesn’t last long. During the first test the cannon does indeed fire a continuous beam, for roughly a second. Then it melts. Then it explodes throwing molten metal in the thankfully empty (except for the operator) field. The Wrath of Ra is too much for even divine materials to contain. Lowering the power of the cannon is beyond your current understanding, but while you study the problem you have another solution: water buckets. While the operator keeps the trigger pulled, a pair of slaves showers the weapon head with water. Operators are instructed to only firewhile water is pouring and stop when buckets are empty. Even then, it takes a while for it to stop being red from heat and the flowing water absorbs part of the power of the weapon, making it less powerful than the Sun cannon… instantly. But it can keep delivering that power for a couple of seconds. While it may not be an extraordinary breakthrough to break a hypothetical wall of stone, it has a couple of advantages: the continuous beam makes missing hard since you can scour the field around the target and you can hit larger numbers of small targets (such as soldiers) while still being lethal; most importantly perhaps, it was decided to bring them to the field using the war chariots. It is predicted to be revolutionary.

Ships and Sky Temple have been upgraded with it.
[3 wood, 2 ore, 2 relics] [Alien][Very Expensive]

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)


It is now Revision phase for 2998 B.C
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Failbird105 on April 17, 2018, 03:24:44 pm
Hmm, I feel like the whole "needs water to continue firing" thing makes it a bit of a bad idea to just straight up replace your current sun cannons with it. It shouldn't be too much of a problem if you just make a system to gather water from the sea for the ones on your boats, but the Sky Temple one is effectively going to have a limited number of uses before it can no longer fire anymore, even if the firepower is fairly drastically increased.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 17, 2018, 03:36:55 pm
Understanding the Sunstaff: we already have mostly disassembled the sunstaff. Now let's understand it, and figure out how it works. This should remove the [Alien] tag.

Dearmor the temple: the sun temple is overarmored for it's purpose. We could remove it's armor to make it less expensive and field more of them. Alternatively, we could make a dedicated scaffold to make building them easier.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Chiefwaffles on April 17, 2018, 05:31:32 pm
Floatchariot (name is super-pending, please please please give me a better name)
By adding Shu Stones to the underside of the "War" Chariot instead of wheels, we can fix a massive amount of issues!

While we still use horses to keep a fast speed and no reliance on the Shu Stones' minimal forces, the chariot is no longer unstable as it no longer has to deal with rough terrain (as long as the horses can handle it, that is); the fact that it is no longer physically touching every part of the ground with bad wheels and bad [suspension] means that it no longer shakes at speeds - it's a silky smooth ride always, meaning shooting is easily possible at any speed. And the best part is that as we don't have to worry about friction or max wheel speed at all, the cart can go as fast as the horses can go!
((Or faster, if the elimination of weight also includes elimination of inertia, but I don't think Shu Stones do that?)

We are aware that the use of Shu Stones will increase the expense due to the salvaging requirements, and accept that as a necessary sacrifice for the time being. It sure is nice when you don't have to worry about interactions with the ground at all, and all we have to do is glue on some Shu Stones and hack off the wheels!
TL;DR: Replace the War Chariot's wheels with Shu Stones put on the underside (but still use horses). Much higher max speed, perfectly smooth rides, cooler, and more.

Quote
Understanding the Sunstaff (0):
Dearmor the Temple (0):
Floatchariot (1): Chiefwaffles
And Failbird: Sometimes, the benefits outweigh the consequences. Even if the change made it so a Wrath-equipped vehicle had only a certain amount of ammo before running out, the damage it could do before it runs out would be well worth it.
But that's not a huge problem anyways. The Sky Temple is big and slow enough that keeping a water supply line will be trivial (and it's powerful enough to keep that supply line safe). Solar barges are on water themselves.
And if we ever put the Wrath on smaller more mobile things, then they won't be on the field long enough to have ammo be a concern, and can easily move back for resupply.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on April 17, 2018, 05:42:42 pm
Quote from: Failbird105 on April 17, 2018, 03:24:44 pm
Hmm, I feel like the whole "needs water to continue firing" thing makes it a bit of a bad idea to just straight up replace your current sun cannons with it. It shouldn't be too much of a problem if you just make a system to gather water from the sea for the ones on your boats, but the Sky Temple one is effectively going to have a limited number of uses before it can no longer fire anymore, even if the firepower is fairly drastically increased.

It doesn't explicitly have to replace the gun on the Sky Temple, it just can be done as an option.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 19, 2018, 01:28:24 pm
votes, anyone?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 19, 2018, 01:30:21 pm

Quote
Understanding the Sunstaff (1):Rockeater
Dearmor the Temple (0):
Floatchariot (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on April 19, 2018, 01:34:10 pm
Quote
Understanding the Sunstaff (2): Doomblade, Rockeater
Dearmor the Temple (0):
Floatchariot (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: Atomic Chicken on April 19, 2018, 02:09:24 pm
Quote
Understanding the Sunstaff (3): Doomblade, Rockeater, AC
Dearmor the Temple (0):
Floatchariot (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2998 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 20, 2018, 04:32:32 pm
Quote from: Doomblade187 on April 17, 2018, 03:36:55 pm
Understanding the Sunstaff: we already have mostly disassembled the sunstaff. Now let's understand it, and figure out how it works. This should remove the [Alien] tag.

(Normal) (4,1) =5 Average
Finally, you did it! You understand how the Sun staff works. Well understanding may be a far too great word as the works of the gods are mysterious, but you know what is inside it and how those components interact. This already provides some benefits: some of those components are relatively common in other devices, and there are some failures that you can kind of patch up. In the end, your ability to source components and maintain the staves is significantly increased, leading to greater presence in the battlefield. Is the age of the bow at an end?
Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)


It is now Battle Phase. You can vote on where to send your national effort. If no votes are cast, it will stay in the land lane.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Design
Post by: Chiefwaffles on April 25, 2018, 03:29:17 pm
Ibis Chariot
Called the "Floatchariot" by our less... educated, soldiers, the Ibis Chariot is a wonder of technology.
In the simplest of terms, it's a war chariot but with the wheels (and horses, for that matter) replaced with Shu Stones. It's no longer affected by rough terrain, we no longer have to worry about the durability of the wheels, it no longer shakes and rattles as it moves preventing accuracy from soldiers, and it can go as fast as its propulsion allows as we no longer have to worry about the wheels breaking off.
Now, the above isn't that difficult. Just a matter of kicking the wheels off and gluing on Shu Stones on the underside. While on our rightfully-deserved breaks, we realized we could probably do something else with our time.

Shu Stones are great and all, but they only provide a small amount of force. After we finish with the lifting stones on the Ibis Chariot, we shall set to work on figuring out a method of modifying Shu Stones to devote all their divine energies to forward movement, rather than only a tiny portion (with the rest going towards [gravity nullification]).
As all we - the head researcchers - have been told is that the Shu Stones are "tiny objects", we hope that our underlings will make the most out of this instruction. But our leading theory is that perhaps, given that the sun staff works in components, there's a "gravity" component in the Shu Stones that we could remove. And once this component is removed, then the divine energy has no choice but to all go to powering propulsion.

If the Shu Stone modifications are succesful, then they shall be applied to the Ibis Chariot and the Sky Temple (for non-snail movement). If not, then the Ibis Chariot shall use horses for now. It still has extreme stability, faster (because no bad wheels) speeds, and more. But if we get a workable variation of the Shu Stone as desired, then we can increase the speeds of the Ibis beyond that of horses *and* even use it to some degree over water and other terrain not usable by horses (or men)!


Quote
Ibis Chariot (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on April 25, 2018, 03:31:37 pm
Quote from: VoteBox
Ibis Chariot (2): Chiefwaffles, SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on April 25, 2018, 03:34:01 pm

Quote from: VoteBox
Ibis Chariot (3): Chiefwaffles, SC, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Design
Post by: Atomic Chicken on April 26, 2018, 11:20:06 am
Quote from: VoteBox
Ibis Chariot (4): Chiefwaffles, SC, Rockeater, AC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on April 28, 2018, 05:57:53 pm
(Normal) (3,3) =6  Above average
You already know how to make Shu stones move stuff forward, but they seem to have a strong preference for upward. It turns out, there seems to be some setting regulating it, and that you are nowhere near the maximum.  The slider seems to go up to half the corner of a square away from vertical. That represents, of course, an enormous increase of thrust.

You mount it on a “chariot” and add a way to control the slider from the chariot itself. And the test is a success! The Ibis moves smoothly forward and can move almost as quickly as an unladen swallow horse, making animals redundant for the task. It presents however a small side effect: the craft isn’t pushed forward. Rather, it falls forward, as if “down” itself changed direction. Nothing that couldn’t be accommodated through a redesign of the chariot to suit the tilted orientation, however. The Sky temple probably already suffered from this, but it just wasn’t big enough an effect to be noticed.

The real downside is that, as more energy is directed forward, vehicles using shu stones as a method of fast propulsion require more relics. Regardless, you implement it in your Sky temple design as well as the chariot, although you could still decide to deploy them with regular stones.

It is fast, provides a smooth ride and can house 2 fully equipped soldiers which can fight while moving.

[2 wood 2 ore 2 relics][Alien][Very expensive]

Deployed with horse traction:

[2 wood 2 ore 1 relics][Alien][Expensive]
Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)


It is now Revision Phase.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on April 28, 2018, 06:34:06 pm
Quote from: animal heads on everything
Intimidation is a key to success. It keeps the slaves in line, breaks the enemy will, and reminds everyone which side their on. So lets get some decorations on our stuff. Nice copper ornamentation, some glyphs here-and-there, a few depictions of our glorious accomplishments... And maybe take a once-over on the designs to clean off rough edges and smooth some surfaces and turn some abrasive corners into sleek curves and see a tiny hint of performance out of more professional designs...

Quote from: andrea on April 28, 2018, 05:57:53 pm
Above average
Well golly gee, never did I think to see the day.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on April 29, 2018, 03:31:30 pm
Comprehending Ra’s Wrath:

We have finally understood the tangible bits that allows a sun staff for our personnel to function properly and create bolts of energy, and we have spent time reimbursing ourselves with the trigger system that allows for continuous fire for the Ra’s Wrath Cannon, and the larger and more complicated components of the cannon and for us only needing to understand the minor differences between the vehicle and personnel variants to allow us to create cannons, with giving us the grasp on the intricate parts that allows them to function as capable weapons of war. Therefore making the continuous beam cannons less alien to us.

Quote from: VoteBox For Revisions
Animal Heads BOI: (1) RAM
Comprehending Ra’s Wrath: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: Chiefwaffles on April 29, 2018, 04:43:17 pm
Quote from: VoteBox For Revisions
Animal Heads BOI: (1) RAM
Comprehending Ra’s Wrath: (2) SC, Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: Rockeater on April 29, 2018, 11:09:14 pm

Quote from: VoteBox For Revisions
Animal Heads BOI: (1) RAM
Comprehending Ra’s Wrath: (3) SC, Chiefwaffles, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: Atomic Chicken on April 30, 2018, 05:58:03 am
Quote from: VoteBox For Revisions
Animal Heads BOI: (1) RAM
Comprehending Ra’s Wrath: (4) SC, Chiefwaffles, Rockeater, AC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on May 07, 2018, 02:35:47 pm
(Hard ) (4,2) =5 average
As it turns out, you are getting skilled with divine fire. Experience from the smaller weapons and your recent tinkering allow you to disassemble a cannon with no casualties among people which matter.

You feared it being too different from the small scale staff, but many components are fairly similar. You reach a decent understanding on how it works, and it becomes easier to deploy it in larger numbers.

 
Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)



Sorry for delay, begin battle phase.

small note: both your de-alien actions succeeded on a 5. However, a 5 is not always a clean success. It depends on where I consider it within the difficulty level (in this case, an "easy" hard), it may have side effects such as small bugs or increased relic cost. I think I stated it in discord but not here.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on May 07, 2018, 03:26:07 pm
Quote
Sky temple:
 1 Sea: RAM
 0 Land:
Ibis Chariot:
 0 Horsie:
 1 No horsie: RAM
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on May 07, 2018, 03:35:58 pm
Quote from: RAM on May 07, 2018, 03:26:07 pm
Quote
Sky temple:
 1 Sea: RAM
 0 Land:
Ibis Chariot:
 0 Horsie:
 1 No horsie: RAM

Think the Ibis are deployed both with and without horses, given the different expense levels, so we only have to worry about the Sky Temple.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2997 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on May 07, 2018, 03:47:15 pm
Zanzetkuken would be correct. Ibis os deployed in small numbers without horses and in larger numbers with horses, no choice needed.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on May 10, 2018, 03:37:39 pm
Quote from: Form of Indirect Fire
Osiris’s Judgement:
After realization, we were scared of being outranged by the enemies ballista and wanting to make attacks against enemy fortification more beneficial for us and not having to deal with their artillery before we assault forts, we have deceived a new Sun Cannon that has some basis in Ra’s Wrath, with firstmost it having a more elongated barrel that is set on an angle that provides with more range. Most interestingly is the combination of alienic runic inscriptions among the barrel that allows the continuous beams of light to be more affected by gravity as a higher concentration of energy of the Sun is stored in the cannon. Therefore this allows the cannon to fire arcing beams of light at great ranges, often times even past visuals of our artillery crew, and when the arcing beams of light hit the ground the intense concentration of light rumbles the ground and causes a significant splash zone against enemy soldiers. *With the creation of this cannon, suddenly our scholars have learned some principles of Azumith study, making our society more mathematical advanced*. ((Fluff))
Quote from: Improved Auto-Loading Sun Staves
Horus’s Inferno:
We have through our searches in the warehouse have learned of a “cooling inscriptions/runes” that can be placed on things that generate a mass amount of heat, a gift of the Sky Gods so that the people can survive in the dry months of the dessert and Nile when the river drys up and the Sun draws upon our people, like a good form of national military we have to weaponized it, and therefore we have deceived a new generation of rapid-firing weapon of Horus before with a improved trigger system and rotational discs that allows for it to be an auto-loading Sun staved that can cause lots of suppressive fire in an area, as well as the new cooling inscriptions allows the cannons to even further sustain fire, before we have to keep water buckets to cool them down.
Quote from: Guardian Golems Boi.
Call of Anubis Crystals: After a search in the warehouse of the relics of the Sky Gods, their was shiny blue crystal gems that we found and when put to the ear, you could hear the call of the actual dead of Sekhet-Aaru, and the lost warriors had come back into these newfound objects and for one last time they will have their requiem, and we have devised 8ft stone statues with bronze ornaments that are lean and have facial features that depict our Gods!, that we refer to as Ushabti Warriors, they are the living embodiments of the Gods, powered and demanding vengeance for the lost, these guardian statues shall be the sword and forefront of powerful warriors that we can manifest. Unfortunately, we haven’t conceived that the “crystals” are artificial intelligence system created by the Aliens, and that these guardian statues have a reference to the Terracotta Army. Or that we used a reference of the people of Judaism, and that they have a guardian golem in their mythos.

Quote from: VoteBox
Osiris’s Judgement
Horus’s Inferno
Call of Anubis Crystals: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: Chiefwaffles on May 10, 2018, 10:09:53 pm
Shankh Shield
Named after I a very brilliant researcher combined the words Shu (Stone) and Ankh to make the best name ever. Pronounced Shank.

The Shankh Shield works fairly straightforwardedly. Shu Stones manipulate the fall-y-direction-thing -- that we are now officially calling Gravity -- in a linear direction away from the Shankh and user to prevent projectiles from hitting them.  Actually slightly downwards too. In order to preserve size and mass and expense, we can't include enough Shu Stones to completely reverse projectiles (also we maybe accidentally launched a few unimportants at lethal speeds into the lab walls with too many Shu Stones; we're sorry for the damage to the walls) so we're just aiming to slow down projectiles a bit while pushing them into the ground rather than reflecting them.
Besides, as the unimportants proved to us, we don't want enough power to throw around our own soldiers when the Shankh is used in proximity to them. If someone walks in front of an active Shankh, they'll just feel like a reeaally strong wind pushing them down/away. They may trip backwards, but that's better than being launched at lethal speeds. The power should be enough to handle the much lighter projectiles.

The Shankh takes the form of a fairly large shield. Standard shield materials at front, and behind that the Shu Stones. Its a bit heavier than what a conventional shield of the same size would be, so it's not amazing in melee combat. Still useful and better than nothing (i.e. what we have right now). A switch to toggle the stones on/off should be trivial, given our experience with manipulating switches in alien technology.
The Shankh is not designed as a melee shield. It is designed to be used tactically as cover for advancing infantry, staff-ers, on Ibises, and on boats; primarily against artillery and archers. Enterprising soldiers may choose to try and use the Shankh to disrupt enemy soldiers in melee combat (being heavily pushed downwards/backwards and possibly tripping backwards tends to be a bad conductor to good fighting), but we don't expect a huge advantage in melee beyond "we technically have a shield now."

...
Or, in less complicated words, we take Shu Stones, configure them to push everything on ~1 m away from the forward of the Stones away and downwards from the Stones. Take enough of them to reliably & consistently ground projectiles (or at least decrease damage/devastation of larger projectiles) by the time they reach the stones. Make a basic shield big enough to hold the stones on the back. Use this shield to protect our guys/Ibis/boats/whatever from bolts and arrows. And also use it as a sub-par-but-existent regular shield.

Quote from: box o votes
Osiris’s Judgement
Horus’s Inferno
Call of Anubis Crystals: (1) SC
Shankh Shield (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: RAM on May 10, 2018, 11:38:43 pm
Thoth's Hammer.
By placing a Shu stone in a hammer, and another in a gauntlet, and creating a channel between them, we can cause the one in the hammer to lock its intended position relative to the one in the gauntlet. This effectively nullifies the weight of the hammer(up to the limits of the stone in its head((effectively the only thing wielding the hammer)), which exceed anything we could currently make small enough to swing effectively in battle) relative to wielding it, but not to anything else. To capitalise upon this, the hammer's massive head is almost entirely lead, with bronze cladding and bands to help it holds its form, and a bronze haft that itself is capable of blocking with almost the full force of a shu stone's power. There is the added benefit that enemies and our own forces not ordained for its use would find it to be almost impossible to move.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on May 12, 2018, 03:12:53 pm
Ushabti Warriors:

After perilous and continuous death through the warehouse of the Sky Gods, their seemed to have had been antique and archaic sculptures and effigies made completely out of stones from the previous pharaoh we had to presume, they were only 2m tall but the most scary thing is that they could still be activated and even had glowing eyes when we triggered the systems of these “golems”, their rustic and antiquated shape meant that they can only move their human-like arms and legs very slightly. After an autopsy from our best scholars, we have discovered that these golems were first monuments to the Sky Gods from our ancestors, and second contain shiny yet enigmatic crimson-stones for the emplacement for the golem’s eyes. After more study and after auricular analysis of the stones, you could hear something faint yet that sounded like a barely auditory screech if you close it to the eyes. After realization, the Scholars have realized that these stones are the gifts from Anubis, and tell the enigmatic story that Egyptian and Nubian soldiers even through death will serve pharaoh and country for one last time, and that is why the human-sized golems in the warehouse could move.

After this discovery, the only course of action is create a new statue designed for war, one that is 3m in length that is sculpted with the heads of the gods from jackal heads of Anubis to Falcon heads from Horus, and contain bronze ornaments around them, even many crafted with fine marble. This raises the question of their durability and being just stone constructs, they may be very resilient to the Atlantlean blade, as how does iron sword break through a stone wall and how does a shield of an Atlantlean handle the force of a khopesh being struck from a 3m stone statue with such momentum. The final creations all have the Anubis Crystals, that carry the call of the dead with them, as emplacements for their eyes and the unrefined bronze (copper) wiring that the previous antique human golems had, that their most common pose is when they are sedentary and stationary like depicting their structure counterparts. and have their arms crossed with the two khopeshes are inactive, yet when a threat is detected by them, their eyes begin to glow and the guardian statues with the gift of two khopeshes and might of a tall machine swing their swords with incredible force against smaller human infantry. The final and given product is one that can stare into the sun for eternity and are the physical (yet mechanical) embodiments of the gods, helping us deal with the Atlantlean threats to their knees.

The only sad thing to realize of the Ushabti is that they contain some form of guardian yet enigmatic artificial intelligence from us, that it’s even difficult for us the Scholars to interpret, we have often heard the myths from the Judaic tribes and their myth of a guardian golem yet until now we only believe those things were fictional depictions existed, an army that can still exist in the afterlife

...To the commonality of people, the constructs may seem unnerving and imposing sight to the common man, and mostly just that stationary and immobile constructs, though the soldiers in war that see the constructs fight and are actually sentient is a sight to be bestowed and the main thing that depict them are the glowing Anubis Crystals and the core unrefined bronze, or copper, wires that run through the statues like veins of a normal man. It seemed the Sky Gods wanted the Ushabti fought alongside our armies, for who could fail to be inspired by the physical representations of their gods marching into battle at their sides?

Quote from: VoteBox
Shankh Shield: (1) Chiefwaffles
Thoth’s Hammer: (1) RAM
Ushabti Warriors: (1) ShadowClaw
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: Atomic Chicken on May 12, 2018, 03:27:34 pm
Quote from: VoteBox
Shankh Shield: (2) Chiefwaffles, AC
Thoth’s Hammer: (1) RAM
Ushabti Warriors: (1) ShadowClaw
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on May 16, 2018, 02:59:14 pm
(Hard ) (1,2)-1 =2 utter failure
Shu stones can deflect stuff, enough to make chariots go fast and float. There is, in theory, no difference between a chariot and an incoming arrow, so a shu stone equipped shield should be able to deflect or slow down projectiles.

Simple in theory, but when you build and test the first prototype, you notice something odd: the soldier is indeed pushed back as expected, but the incoming projectile seems entirely unaffected until it gets really, really close. You try ramping up the power to the limits of the shield and the human behind it, but all you get is a stronger effect still limited to the same tiny distance. It is very noticeable if you slowly drop a pebble on it, but it is too short ranged to affect fast projectiles.

Disheartened, you decide to take the shu stones out and get at least a shield out of it. Sadly, it is all built around them so while a serviceable shield it will have to carry expensive unused alien technology until redesigned. Furthermore, it is heavy and unwieldy.

Shank shield [2 wood, 2 ore, 1 relic][Alien][Expensive]

 
Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)



It is now Revision phase
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: BBBence1111 on May 16, 2018, 03:04:18 pm
We can totally make a gun out of that.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on May 16, 2018, 03:58:53 pm
Quote
1: Learn Shu Stones: RAM
If we drop the cost on those shields then we ought to have an effective shield bash...
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: Chiefwaffles on May 16, 2018, 04:34:57 pm
Hmph.
Revision: Scarab Jump Pack
Okay, so maybe the Shankh is a cumbersome shield full of Shu Stones that ends up just making our soldiers fly away. But it was exactly when our seventh servant flew into the sky holding another Shankh prototype that a researcher came up with a brilliant idea. What if we made people fly into the sky intentionally?
The Scarab is surprisingly similar to the Shankh, which is good for time reasons. It's basically just a Shankh attached to the back like a shell (of a Scarab, even!) with controls for the Shu stones modified to be available to the person whose back the Scarab is on.

We honestly don't have many expectations for this. We don't want to be overambitious, so we'll just accept as high/long-lasting flight as possible without extra effort. Steering is done however it's done. Flying soldiers would be great, but super-high/long jumps would also be great. Imagine the mobility, travelling ability, skirmishing, and just general combat. A soldier jumping 3 meters above your head then shooting down is pretty devastating.

So, to sum it up:
Take a Shankh, put it on the back of a soldier, and just see what happens!

Quote
Scarab Jump Pack (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: Failbird105 on May 16, 2018, 04:43:17 pm
... I want to see how that trainwreck goes.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: Rockeater on May 18, 2018, 11:15:18 am

Quote
Scarab Jump Pack (2): Chiefwaffles, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on May 18, 2018, 04:20:35 pm
You didn't notice my votebox.

Quote
1: Learn Shu Stones: RAM
2: Scarab Jump Pack: Chiefwaffles, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: Doomblade187 on May 18, 2018, 09:15:02 pm
Fuck it! :D

Quote
1: Learn Shu Stones: RAM
3: Scarab Jump Pack: Chiefwaffles, Rockeater, Doomblade
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on May 20, 2018, 12:02:44 pm
(Normal ) (1,2) =3 Buggy mess

Your soldiers are wary when you ask them to keep testing the shankh shields, but you are quick to motivate them with tales of flying – above the clouds or off a cliff, depending on who you ask.
The idea behind the scarab shield is sound: strapped on the back of the soldier, it allows the soldier to jump high in the sky, and it helps softening the blow of landing. Or rather, it would if in its current form there was a way to reasonably control it.
The force can’t be adjusted on the fly and the direction is fixed relative to the shield. Landing on your feet is an hard task during testing, it would only be worse in the heat of combat when the soldier can’t focus on keeping the proper orientation. After many broken legs , arms and a couple of skulls, you settle for a low power version, allowing to jump roughly one meter high without much effort. At that height, soldiers can still retain sufficient control to avoid injury. Fighting while flying however is absolute madness and its combat usefulness is rather limited.
Scarab jump pack [2 wood, 2 ore, 1 relic][Alien][Expensive]

 
Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)


It is now Event phase. Vote for what to do with the temple.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Event
Post by: RAM on May 20, 2018, 03:33:12 pm
Bring forth the temple to the tallest peak, from where it may see all.
Array upon its surface those who saw to its design.
Joyride it downhill.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Event
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on May 21, 2018, 03:19:24 am
Attack the Atlanteans instead of the Servants
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Event
Post by: Doomblade187 on May 21, 2018, 06:12:57 am
Attack servants!
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Event
Post by: BBBence1111 on May 21, 2018, 07:13:13 am
Quote
Attack Atlanteans: (3) BBB, Shadow, Rockeater
Attack Servants: (1) Doomblade
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: Rockeater on May 28, 2018, 01:58:15 pm
Shankh armour(better name required)
After our sheild Carrying soldiers where very happy to not die to arrow fire we decided that some protecion to the entire body could be done and we decided to use the shu stone to improve it, the armour set is ordinary bronze armour exept the front part which is connected to a shu stone, the goal of the stone is not to stop arrows in the short time the stone have, but to give a blowback to the enemy hitting the armour, the armour comes with ordinary round wooden shield.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on May 28, 2018, 10:26:17 pm
Quote
Ushabti Warriors:

After perilous and continuous death through the warehouse of the Sky Gods, their seemed to have had been antique and archaic sculptures and effigies made completely out of stones from the previous pharaoh we had to presume, they were only 2m tall but the most scary thing is that they could still be activated and even had glowing eyes when we triggered the systems of these “golems”, their rustic and antiquated shape meant that they can only move their human-like arms and legs very slightly. After an autopsy from our best scholars, we have discovered that these golems were first monuments to the Sky Gods from our ancestors, and second contain shiny yet enigmatic crimson-stones for the emplacement for the golem’s eyes. After more study and after auricular analysis of the stones, you could hear something faint yet that sounded like a barely auditory screech if you close the statues to the ears. After realization, the Scholars have realized that these stones are the gifts from Anubis, and tell the enigmatic story that Egyptian and Nubian soldiers even through death will serve pharaoh and country for one last time, and that is why the human-sized golems in the warehouse could move.

After this discovery, the only course of action is create a new statue designed for war, one that is 3m in length that is sculpted with the heads of the gods from jackal heads of Anubis to Falcon heads from Horus, and contain bronze ornaments around them, even many crafted with fine marble. This raises the question of their durability and being just stone constructs, they may be very resilient to the Atlantlean blade, as how does iron sword break through a stone wall and how does a shield of an Atlantlean handle the force of a khopesh being struck from a 3m stone statue with such momentum. The final creations all have the Anubis Crystals, that carry the call of the dead with them, as emplacements for their eyes and the unrefined bronze (copper) wiring that the previous antique human golems had, that their most common pose is when they are sedentary and stationary like depicting their structure counterparts. and have their arms crossed with the two khopeshes are inactive, yet when a threat is detected by them, their eyes begin to glow and the guardian statues with the gift of two khopeshes and might of a tall machine swing their swords with incredible force against smaller human infantry. The final and given product is one that can stare into the sun for eternity and are the physical (yet mechanical) embodiments of the gods, helping us deal with the Atlantlean threats to their knees.

The only sad thing to realize of the Ushabti is that they contain some form of guardian yet enigmatic artificial intelligence from us, that it’s even difficult for us the Scholars to interpret, we have often heard the myths from the Judaic tribes and their myth of a guardian golem yet until now we only believe those things were fictional depictions existed, an army that can still exist in the afterlife

...To the commonality of people, the constructs may seem unnerving and imposing sight to the common man, and mostly just that stationary and immobile constructs, though the soldiers in war that see the constructs fight and are actually sentient is a sight to be bestowed and the main thing that depict them are the glowing Anubis Crystals and the core unrefined bronze, or copper, wires that run through the statues like veins of a normal man. It seemed the Sky Gods wanted the Ushabti fought alongside our armies, for who could fail to be inspired by the physical representations of their gods marching into battle at their sides?

The physical rules is that the “Anubis” Crystals for the Golems are essentially a complex alien computing system given by the Sky Gods, and is also the power source that recharged from solar energy, that is why the statuettes are often still. However the “unrefined bronze” or copper circuits that run through the Golems are effectively wires of a computing circuit for the Golems, the copper wires are like a “nervous” system” for the Golems and through the electrical energy from the Anubis Crystals it allows the Golems to swing swords and move their legs. The “Anubis” Crystals also act as a sensor system for the Golems, a basic visual sensor that the Golems utilize to track threats, such as Atlantean soldiers, and murder them.


Quote from: VoteBox
Shankh Armour: (1) Rockeater
Ushabti Warriors: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2996 B.C Design
Post by: Doomblade187 on June 01, 2018, 11:35:09 am
Quote from: VoteBox
Shankh Armour: (1) Rockeater
Ushabti Warriors: (2) SC, Doomblade
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: andrea on June 14, 2018, 03:45:50 pm
(Very Hard ) (2,3)-2 =3  Buggy mess
The Ushabti warriors were brought out of their graves, in order to fight once again for Egypt. Only the soul contained in the Anubis stone and the mechanisms however: the shell is brand new, made of engraved stone and decorated brass. Armed with a pair of khospesh and extremely resilient, it is a formidable opponent in a melee, almost impervious to swords and arrows. However, transferring them from their 2 meter tall ushabti into the new war suited 3 meter statue seems to have caused some problems.
First of all, they are slow. They lumber slowly across the battlefield, and even their attacks are slow enough that a nimble opponent can evade them, although not without risk. Then, they need to rest and bask in the sun relatively often and are inactive during the night.
Finally, they have trouble recognizing Atlanteans as enemies, only engaging after an Egyptian or themselves are hit near them, probably because they have no memory of Atlanteans in their previous life.
Regardless, for all their faults they kill whatever they hit, without question.
Ushabti warriors [ 3 ore, 4 relic][Alien][Very Expensive]

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on June 14, 2018, 09:34:19 pm
Clarity of the Shu Stones:

We as the scholars do a top-down review of the Shu Stones to see how the mechanism and intricacies of the floating stones actually function and work properly so that we can mainstream their production onto all of our designs and technology. Thus simplifying them to a greater understanding for us, and making the purpose of it more easier to replicate

Quote from: RemoteBox
Clarity of the Shu Stones: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: Rockeater on June 15, 2018, 05:24:21 am

Quote from: RemoteBox
Clarity of the Shu Stones: (2) SC, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: Doomblade187 on June 15, 2018, 12:29:11 pm
Quote from: RemoteBox
Clarity of the Shu Stones: (3) SC, Rockeater, Doomblade
let's get that understanding!
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: andrea on June 19, 2018, 03:51:30 pm
(Very hard ) (3,4)-2 =5 Average
Between jump packs, temples and chariots, you know shu stones.
Nevertheless, they are extremely complex and small devices. Opening them reveals only an intricate mess of wires, energy and other small incomprehensible things, of which you can’t reasonably find spares. However, your experience is still worth something.

 It takes a few of them to hover a chariot, but the gods had giant temples crossing the sky to reach their home in the stars. That requires enormous quantities of them and now you have enough knowledge to take much more accurate guesses as to where they are. Considering the relative quantities of what is available and what is needed, supply is no longer a concern.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2995 B.C Event
Post by: andrea on July 03, 2018, 03:01:25 pm
A new year dawn on you. Begin Design phase
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Chiefwaffles on July 03, 2018, 03:42:51 pm
Cooling Stones
Well, they're not really stones but that's the closest thing they're similar to.
Basically, these divine relics look rather inconspicuous but are found in a lot of divine machinery. It's only when things started spontaneously combusting after assistants took off the stones for "aesthetic reasons" that we felt it'd be a good idea to investigate them further. This investigation showed us that the Cooling Stones, well, cool. They're evidently used to counter the heat caused by other relics.

They're pretty small and don't individually cause a tremendous cooling effect, and are most effective in numbers. We can attach varying amounts to all our Sun-based weaponry to improve either their reload times or cooldown/firing duration times, depending on how they operate ((i.e. Put as much as we can -- depending on what the result is -- in our weapons before it'd start to increase effective expense, ignoring the alien tag).
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on July 03, 2018, 04:33:30 pm
What we have against armour?
Quote
Shankh armour(1): Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Chiefwaffles on July 05, 2018, 12:54:57 pm
Akhet Shield

Okay, so the Shankh Shield is largely a bust (other than the somewhat-arguably-useful Scarabs we got out of the mess). But it doesn't have to be. The Shu Stones may not be terribly effective, but what we do have is a shield designed with alien technology integration in mind as use as an advanced defensive device. So let's use that.

We've been doing some digging into the limited historical records of the revolt, and found some accounts of the gods vessels being protected by "invisible armor" which made them tremendously hard to take down if at all while allowing projectiles from the vessels to pass through. After some deeper analyzing and digging, we believe we found the divine devices capable of projecting this "force field". In fact, the force field is surprisingly similar to how we originally planned the Shankh Shield -- an invisible protective force stopping projectiles before they even hit the shield. These Akhets are to be placed in the Shankh shield -- relieving some effort that would have went into creating the shield like we had to do for their original design -- and configured to generate a force field ahead of the shield.

Ideally, the force field should be larger than the shield as to allow a single Shankh shield to protect important emplacements, vehicles, or groups of soldiers. If possible, we aim to include a dial -- like that on the Shu stones which we sort of understand a bit more now -- that allows bringing the force field closer to the shield, allowing it to be used effectively in melee combat as more than just a mundane shield.

((I'll let Andrea decide the form/appearance/whatever of Akhets as the only thing I could think of was "stone" which is a tad unoriginal))
Quote
Shankh Armor (1): Rockeater
Akhet Shield (1): Chiefwaffles
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Rockeater on July 05, 2018, 03:35:28 pm

Quote
Akhet Shield Mk.2(2): Chiefwaffles, Rockeater
[/quote]
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Parsely on July 05, 2018, 04:05:36 pm
Ushabti Training
Ushabti are equipped with wicker platform or basket-shaped backpacks for carrying their rider (or other cargo such as wounded men). The rider is an experienced warrior usually armed with a sun staff whose job it is to protect and oversee the Ushabti both in and out of combat so he is being maximally effective. The riders are required as a part of their program to report in detail on Ushabti behavior, the goal being to develop a training program that newly indoctrinated Ushabti go through that turns them into independently functioning soldiers and teaches our soldiers how to communicate effectively with them. If the training is successful the riders are to be phased out.

Quote
Akhet Shield Mk.2 (2): Chiefwaffles, Rockeater
Ushabti Training (1): Parsely

What if we put Shankh shields on the Ushabti? They're heavier than soldiers so we could crank their shields up to eleven, not that it would be useful since you can't kill them with arrows anyways I'm assuming.

E: Ushabti as heavy weapons platforms could also be interesting if we had any heavy weapons for them to use.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on July 07, 2018, 09:31:21 am
Quote
Akhet Shield Mk.2 (3): Chiefwaffles, Rockeater, SC
Ubshati Training: (1) Parsely
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: andrea on July 12, 2018, 02:14:28 pm
(Very Hard ) (2,1)-2 =1  Utter(est) failure
You go scavenging for the source of that invisible armour being talked about. It only takes a few deaths and explosions before you determine the component that can generate such an effect and find an intact one on the divine temple.

As far as working, it works. It is not quite invisible, giving a faint blue colour to the air around the edge of it. It seems to be in a weakened state: it resists damage, but at some point it yields and starts to overheat. It is theorized that it might do so explosively, but you haven’t tested it that far. You have some dials allowing to change the area a bit.

The Akhet shield is a giant monolithical structure as tall as the temple itself shaped like an ankh. It can be controlled and powered from the ship it was found on, providing significant protection to Memphis in case of siege. It is also a giant monolithical structure larger than the door of the temple and way beyond your lifting capabilities, integrated with the ship and absolutely immobile.
Maybe you will have success searching the armouries for personal sized ones next time. But at least you already know how to operate dials.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)


Begin Revision
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Design
Post by: Parsely on July 12, 2018, 09:33:25 pm
Quote from: Parsely on July 05, 2018, 04:05:36 pm
Ushabti Training
Ushabti are equipped with wicker platform or basket-shaped backpacks for carrying their rider (or other cargo such as wounded men). The rider is an experienced warrior usually armed with a sun staff whose job it is to protect and oversee the Ushabti both in and out of combat so he is being maximally effective. The riders are required as a part of their program to report in detail on Ushabti behavior, the goal being to develop a training program that newly indoctrinated Ushabti go through that turns them into independently functioning soldiers and teaches our soldiers how to communicate effectively with them. If the training is successful the riders are to be phased out.

Quote
Ushabti Training (1): Parsely

I'm still liking this idea a lot but I didn't really do anything material to the Ushabti with this revision. Is this too doctrinal? If people are interested in this, maybe we could try tinkering with their brains?
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: RAM on July 13, 2018, 03:01:01 am
Our Cursed Dice: We bury the invisible shield generator, to be dubbed "O.C.D." under the ground to produce undirected field across a large area. The lack of containment is hoped to remove the discolouration, making it truly invisible and resulting in fluctuating terrain that does not conform to its observable surface. Thus, the enemy will occasionally trip, misstep, tumble, or otherwise suffer from poor footing. Thus they will fail, over and over and over again, due to invisible forces that they have no control over, and will probably result in explosions as the conditions persist. While the direct effects of this device may not be extreme, it is believed that such things produce a growing feeling of comical frustration at the malevolence of the universe in general, and may cause them to waste time mathematically deducing how unfortunate they are.
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on July 15, 2018, 05:02:15 pm
The main problem with the Ubshati is that their like artificial intelligence Golems with the Anubis Stones acting as advanced alien CPUs, we should revise them to have more functional sensors and acquire more solar energy to power themselves, so that they could be more effective units

Quote
Ubshati Sensor System Update: We the Egyptian Scholars, noticed significant problems with the Ubshati Golems with their threat detection system and that their power capacity for combat requires frequent rests in the sun to become functional again. We have made alteration to the Ubshati body and their eyes so that they can more effectively acquire on target and see things as threats with a changed to their visual sensors, allowing for quicker combat analysis and being effective soldiers for the front of the assault as they can see what is coming and charge into the combat more easily. The solar recharge system of the photovoltaic copper wiring of the Golems has also been improved and be made even more efficient than before, requiring less hours during the sun to be fully charged, and can even be put into sentry system as effective guards of camps and fortifications; as they’ll activate momentarily during a night raid and such when their passive visual sensors detect movement from our Atlantlean menace and even made more easier by their easily noticeable giant birds, and will be effective watchers for ambushes and the like.

Quote from: MopeyVoteBox
Ubshabti Training: (1) Parsely
Sensor System Update: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: Rockeater on July 19, 2018, 07:55:56 am

Quote from: MopeyVoteBox
Ubshabti Training: (1) Parsely
Sensor System Update: (2) SC, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on July 22, 2018, 10:21:40 am

Quote
Ubshati Sensor System Update: We the Egyptian Scholars, noticed significant problems with the Ubshati Golems with their threat detection system and that their power capacity for combat requires frequent rests in the sun to become functional again. We have made alteration to the Ubshati body and their eyes so that they can more effectively acquire on target and see things as threats with a changed to their visual sensors, allowing for quicker combat analysis and being effective soldiers for the front of the assault as they can see what is coming and charge into the combat more easily. The solar recharge system of the photovoltaic copper wiring of the Golems has also been improved and be made even more efficient than before, requiring less hours during the sun to be fully charged, and can even be put into sentry system as effective guards of camps and fortifications; as they’ll activate momentarily during a night raid and such when their passive visual sensors detect movement from our Atlantlean menace and even made more easier by their easily noticeable giant birds, and will be effective watchers for ambushes and the like.

(Hard ) (3,2)-1 =4 Below average
Clearly, the ushabti must be blind. How else could they not instinctively recognize Atlanteans and that they are threats to us?

The first step is to determine how bad their vision problem is. Therefore, you inscribe some hieroglyphs of decreasing size on a papyrus scroll and ask them to read from it.  Initial results suggest that they are, indeed, blind since they can’t read the scroll. Only later it is discovered that they can’t actually read.

 After adjusting your tests, it seems that their vision is at least as good as your own.  Rather, perhaps they just don’t have an instinctual, embedded knowledge that Atlanteans are enemies, and that people with orichalcum armour are Atlanteans. One thing you learned during the tests however is that they readily respond to commands, so you assign an handler to each of them in order to give them orders. It is not always easy to make yourself heard or seen in battle, but it kind of works.

Spoiler:  Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)




Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on August 15, 2018, 06:37:22 pm
Djet Deflector:

The Djet is based on the monolithic ankh emplacement that utilizes a combination of Shu Stone technology to be inverted in the energy it flows through, so that it rejects and directly spurts out gravity in a selected direction as well as the Akhet Shield that projects an invisible barrier. What was concluded was that a deviant device had to be created and a energy source had to be installed. Effectively the Djet Deflector is a bronze and wooden-made cube-like contraption that stores the Shu Stones and significant direction-arrow inscriptions and technological drilling on the end of the Djet that also utilizes electrical copper wiring we found from the Anubis Golems, that it directs the flow of the gravitational pull and makes it a push. As noted the contraption is the size of draft horse or significantly large for chariots, but not for the floating temples and naval ships. As well, the drilling of the Djet will allow the cube through its mechanical rotating lever and cone pulley to activate the force of the Shu Stones against projectiles for a period of time that we haven’t fully tested out yet, but the problem of the Shu Stones against the cubic contraption is that water buckets are pulled over the Djet to cool it down like in the Ra Cannons, after it heats too much and another cycle of gravitational deflection begins. This device in practice is a thing that can be installed onto Sky Temples and Solar Barges for effective gravitational deflectioning technology with a cool down period

Quote from: MopeyVoteBox
Djet Deflector: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: Rockeater on August 17, 2018, 08:20:02 am

Quote from: MopeyVoteBox
Djet Deflector: (2) SC, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on September 10, 2018, 03:40:13 pm
(Very Hard ) (4,2)-2 =4  Below average
The shank shield didn’t work well. The effect either was too small, or it would crush the soldier using it.
But, soldiers are squishy. Inspired by the giant shield in your capital, you think: what if we just need to think bigger? Get more Shu stones, more powerful, in more directions. But don’t trust the weak flesh to sustain the strain. Rather, you use thick and strong structural supports bearing the load.
Once activated, this system unleashes a pushing wave all around the vehicle it is mounted on, deflecting projectiles. It can keep up for a bit, before it needs to be turned down for cooling. So far, so good.
However, the pushing effect is in all directions, meaning that soldiers around it, friend or foe, are affected too, rather strongly. Furthermore, pushing the ground as well it causes a strong levitation, making it unsuitable for devices that aren’t built to float in the air, else they would crash down on the surface.
It can be mounted easily on a Temple, but on the chariot the space is more limited, and it fits only at the expense of everything else. That said, activating it in the middle of an enemy formation should still be effective, even if it comes at a cost of a loss of agility while engaged.

Djet Deflector [+1 wood +1 ore +1 relics]

Spoiler: Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)

Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: Shadowclaw777 on September 10, 2018, 04:29:32 pm
Djet Dial: The main problem we have with the Djet Deflector is mainly on it pushing against the ground and that’s annoying when you don’t want your grounded emplacements to crash down onto the force of the ground and waves. The Dial that is attached to the Deflector Box alleviates this problem through pressurization of the repulsion waves towards the Dial device and directs them towards the area where we want it to go, and it is made of sturdy material meaning that the repulsion waves can only go through directed areas of the Deflector Box, meaning that the repulse waves not affecting the ground significantly, and moderately reduce the ability of the repulse waves to target horizontal areas we don’t want it to go, such as behind the Deflector.

Quote from: TheVoteBox
Djet Dial: (1) SC
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: Rockeater on September 14, 2018, 11:58:04 am
Quote from: TheVoteBox
Djet Dial: (2) SC, Rockeater
Title: Re: Ancient arms race - Temple of Thoth - 2994 B.C Revision
Post by: andrea on January 06, 2019, 05:07:33 pm
Public service announcement: The coming battle report will be the last, due to GM inactivity.

(Hard ) (3,3)-1 =5 Average

The Dject deflector is powerful, but unfocused. The solution employed is twofold: first of all, the faces pointing toward the ground and other sensitive areas are removed. This leaves some leakage, but a system of baffles is implemented to further direct the pressure. It is heavier, but it works and doesn’t send whatever it is mounted on flying, which expands its use to horse chariots and ships. It still has an averse effect on mobility while active

Spoiler: Egyptian equipment (click to show/hide)