10:43 Piecewise Anyways, sean, is there some way we could work out this flight pack of yours in a way that doesn't involve me becoming depressed at these posts.
10:43 SeanMirrsen Probably, yes.
10:44 Piecewise Really, I just want to give it some form of limitations
10:44 Piecewise limited battery or the like
10:44 SeanMirrsen It's limited by the atmosphere of the planet it's shipped to.
10:45 SeanMirrsen But okay. Really, just how long, or how far, do you think it should be realistically able to go?
10:46 Piecewise hmm. Well, the idea is to prevent it from being op because it allows people to fly through the whole mission
10:46 Piecewise lemme think
10:46 SeanMirrsen Flying like an aircraft, horizontally, it theoretically goes 200 kilometers in an hour. Think how far you think it should be able to fly on a battery backpack.
10:46 SeanMirrsen Then you get how many hours it can generally stay in the air from that.
10:47 SeanMirrsen Multiply by however much the bluerad cells are more effective than batteries.
10:47 Piecewise 125 miles eh?
10:47 Piecewise Hm
10:48 SeanMirrsen If I can't have a generator, I'd like to at least have both a rechargeable option that on-mission people could maintain the charge of, and a single-use but very long-lived bluerad-based option for a more Mk3-like behavior.
10:48 Piecewise What was your goal with this system, by the way? Why did you want to make this as an alternative to the rockets? What did you expect to have over them?
10:49 SeanMirrsen Basically, in the year-long mission on the planetoid, we had limited resources. The biggest asset in that regard was the pedal-powered electric vehicle - it could go as far as we needed it to.
10:50 SeanMirrsen So any other long mission on a non-airless body, as well as any planet-bound NPC armies, would benefit from a similar method of transportation that does not require an expendable resource to maintain.
10:51 SeanMirrsen The suit form-factor is just the coolest one, riffing off both the Mk3 we have in ER and the ducted fan jetpacks we sort of have IRL.
10:52 SeanMirrsen Anton will totally get to making aerodynes later. He's just had the fanpack idea for the longest, and actually did a fair bit of work on it already.
10:52 Piecewise So basically a jetpack suit with a renewable or infinite fuel source?
10:52 SeanMirrsen Pretty much.
10:53 Piecewise Ok, thats doable. We just have to take the negative you're removing in the form of fuel and move it elsewhere. It's already slower, which is helping...
10:53 Piecewise Weight might be one we could do.
10:54 Piecewise Ie, the suit has a max weight it can carry and still manage to lift off
10:54 SeanMirrsen Far less lift capacity, yes.
10:54 Piecewise If we make it so that this means that only light people with light loads can use it, then that would be fine
10:55 Piecewise Humans with laser rifles in these things are fine
10:55 Piecewise I just want to avoid synthflesh giants with fission instigators flitting around like humming birds
10:55 SeanMirrsen I believe the TWR me and Devastator agreed was close(r) to plausible was 1.5 - i.e. it can only lift half its own weight (pilot included) on nominal power, which amounts to just over the weight of an average unarmored person - and even then it'd only hover.
10:56 SeanMirrsen Having batteries would mean you could burn longevity for more lifting power if you absolutely needed something lifted, like a rescue op, or if you needed to dodge or something.
10:58 SeanMirrsen You'd still max out at maybe a TWR of 2, because even that is patently ridiculous for a ducted fan. The Sikorsky Skycrane has a TWR of 2.
10:58 SeanMirrsen (i.e. it can lift the same mass of cargo as it weighs itself)
10:59 Hapah How big's the fan? Can you squeeze through a door?
10:59 Hapah Can/should we just handwave it?
11:00 SeanMirrsen They'd be on the same kind of mounts the MkIII rockets are. I think the idea is to have them swing back like overly round angel wings, so your cross-section is more door-shaped instead of T-shaped.
11:00 Piecewise Ok, Here's what I'm thinking. We keep your design for the most part. We'll say that it can lift and fly about at that 200 kph speed with a normal human and very limited cargo. Thing runs on a rechargeable battery with the amount of time it can run limited by how much you use it. It would have 4-5 hours worth of flight.
11:01 Piecewise Doing lots of maneuvering would suck it up faster.
11:01 SeanMirrsen That seems perfectly reasonable. I'm assuming a bluerad cell would last longer?
11:01 SeanMirrsen (Nevermind it costing as much as the suit itself)
11:01 *** Parisbre56 joined #einsteinianroulette
11:02 Piecewise Option to attach batteries to overcharge the system, increase the lift and speed for a limited time and with the chance of causing mechanical damage.
11:02 Piecewise for when you absolutely need something lifted right now
11:02 Piecewise Hey paris
11:02 SeanMirrsen Toss in the EMM-replacement that overcharges the synthetic muscles, and I'm sold. ^_^
11:03 Parisbre56 hey
11:03 SeanMirrsen Chance of mechanical damage and drains power like flying does.
11:04 SeanMirrsen (Heh, chance of mechanical damage. Chance of your limbs imploding on you would probably be more accurate. )
11:04 Piecewise Do you mean to overcharge the exoskeleton or the user's robotic muscles?
11:05 SeanMirrsen The exoskeleton.
11:05 Piecewise Alright, we can do that, though failed dex rolls are gonna be nasty
11:06 Piecewise Remember that scene in ironman with the failed attempts to copy the suit?
11:06 SeanMirrsen Actually, one idea in the OOC thread was to make the exokeleton one of the stripped-down versions that give fractional bonuses, instead of the full thing in the MkIII. So that it could be a cheaper alternative flying suit.
11:06 SeanMirrsen And yeah, that was about what I was thinking.
11:08 SeanMirrsen Okay, and on that note, on cost. So, just taking the same base exoskeleton and minimal armor the Mk3 has, and straight-up replacing the rockets for batteries and the ducted fans - what change of cost would that incur?
11:09 Piecewise I assume you'd want it to be cheaper?
11:10 Piecewise Than a MKIII
11:11 SeanMirrsen Ideally yes, though there likely won't be enough of a cost difference to make the suit any less situational. If a weaker exoskeleton is used though, maybe it could get away with costing some 9 token?
11:13 Piecewise If we go from a +1 to a +1/2 we can get it for 8.
11:13 Piecewise maybe 7
11:15 AoshimaMichio oh hey, how's the new rolling system?
11:15 SeanMirrsen That'd be pretty cool.
11:16 Swordsmith04 New rolling system starts with the next set of missions.
11:16 Piecewise The new rolling system is alright. Really I just need to work out how things will be limited. More on that when the missions end though
11:16 AoshimaMichio how will current skill levels transform into it?
11:16 AoshimaMichio and bonuses
11:17 Piecewise And Sean, if thats good for you, then do a quick outline of what was spoken of here and post it in the thread. Thats pretty much fine for me from a gameplay point, I just wanna run it by others.
11:17 SeanMirrsen Okay, so assuming, optimistically, 7 for a standard version. The prototype is going to be armored in the fancy new materials - specifically hexsand, just a thin enough layer to absorb a stray laser pulse or reduce damage from a gauss slug. Not full amor, just a chestplate, helmet, and the outer surface of the fan ducts.
11:18 Piecewise Well, if you have a +1 then you stay at that level
11:18 Piecewise it's just that you don't get Numerical bonuses to the rolls
11:18 Piecewise the +1 doesn't stop you from getting 1's
11:18 Piecewise It just makes your 1's less bad
11:19 Piecewise Someone with 0 in con might murder his teammate with a roll of 1
11:19 SeanMirrsen With that armor, would that be 7 or 8?
11:20 Piecewise Lets bump it to 8 to take care of that. We'll assume it covers the ducts as well as any of the other major failure points
11:21 Piecewise Someone with a +1 will only injure them.
11:22 SeanMirrsen Okay. Posting in the thread then. Thanks PW. And this is definitely a faster way of deciding on design specifics, you/we should do it more often.
11:23 AoshimaMichio Since 1/3 and 2/3 will disappear that means essentially three missions worth of dedicated skill raising before seeing any effects
11:23 AoshimaMichio It's... a little harsh
11:23 Piecewise I was thinking about changing the progression of levels
11:23 Piecewise less points to reach +1
11:24 SeanMirrsen Oi, and final bit that I need to pester you for, PW. Never got an answer - a bluerad cell for the suit, how much longer working and how expensive?
11:24 SeanMirrsen Need to include that in the writeup.
11:25 HB How much blueraditititite did you guys get anyway?
11:25 SeanMirrsen We apparently can make more now, but it takes lots of energy, and is presumably slow.
11:25 SeanMirrsen And with how efficient it is at storing energy, batteries made from it would be expensive.
11:26 Piecewise Depends on the amount of power in the cell. And the size of it. For a battery of equal size to the conventional one, you'll probably get several days of flight, even at overcharged energy levels. Shoot for 4 or so tokens
