Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Taricus on August 13, 2018, 08:57:57 pm

Quote from: Jilladilla on August 13, 2018, 08:47:38 pm

Mostly intended for it to be preliminary experience in working with the material; while minimizing cost and still getting some benefit out of it, however minor that benefit may be.

Would I be able to convince you to swap it out in exchange for a revision centring around making Caelium platforms for our Gatling guns and such?

More likely to make a 'Pattern B' or something like that than to change that writeup, Taricus. Sorry.

I'm inclined to agree, but I would like to keep Parseley's grenade projector on the turret so I went ahead and changed it myself. It's a big force multiplier and it really is a very simple addition, but I can definitely see it if people think we're already reaching pretty high on this one. Also went ahead and voted for the SVR-1. The lifting suit and harness are both very tempting, but communications are a higher priority IMO.

ArC-12b 'Kerata Armored Car'
An armored car for general use by a rifle squad, whether in operational travel, tactical frontline patrols, or as a company weapons asset for supporting assaults. The engine compartment contains a powerful Gavrilium engine capable of a blazing fast 72 km/h top speed. Behind that is a fighting compartment which contains a driver, who operates the vehicle from behind an armored viewport they can raise for increased visibility, the gunner, and the assistant gunner who operate a light, hand-rotated turret that mounts an LGG-12 (or any similarly sized weapon) and a simple grenade projector; the projector can be ranged, loaded, and fired from inside the turret and is designed to accept standard hand grenades. The turret has a raised cupola that has armored viewports facing in every direction so it can be used for protected visibility. Behind the fighting compartment is the passenger compartment, enclosed on all sides with a rear exit hatch designed with ease of loading bulky equipment in mind, with seats which fit 4 men on each side and double as storage lockers. The engine compartment, fighting compartment, turret, and passenger compartment are protected by light armor for defending against shrapnel and rifle rounds. The vehicle is equipped with 6 tires (2 front, 4 rear) for off-road travel, an aspect enhanced by the inclusion of a fairly minimalistic set of Caelium plates mounted on the undercarriage. These plates are nowhere near sufficient to properly lift the Kerata, but serve to effectively lighten the armored car, improving performance in areas where high weight is a notable malus; like deserts or swamps, although power to these can be severed if the driver wishes for the full weight and traction of the vehicle. Lugs are on the sides of the vehicle for mounting tools and spare tires in case of emergencies. There are running boards for mounting extra passengers or equipment. It's capable of towing the GA1 cannon and transporting its crew to boost the mobility of our artillery units.

Resource Credit:
Myomer (8): Rockeater, Chiefwaffles, Jilladilla, Taricus, Maximum Spin, FallacyofUrist, Twinwolf, Baffler
Natural Gasses (1): Yami

Infantry Support Vehicle
MArSA (4): Parsely, FallacyofUrist, Baffler, Taricus
Crash Cart (1): Yami
Kerata Armored Car (0):
ArC-12 'Kerata Armored Car' (2): Jilladilla, Twinwolf
ArC-12b 'Kerata Armored Car' (1): Baffler

Non-Combat Support
SVR-1 (3): Parsely, Twinwolf, Baffler
Gravite Harness (2): Yami, FallacyofUrist
'Mountain' Myomer Lifting Kit (1): Taricus

Alternate take on a car. This ought to be much better at fighting and maneuvering, at the cost of not being able to carry passengers.

Kerata Armored Car
Salvios' first attempt at a gavrilium powered vehicle, intended to provide mobile fire support for infantry. It has six tires, two at the front and four at the rear, to give it better purchase in rough terrain and has enough armor to protect its crew from small arms fire and shrapnel. It is made much more reliable, especially on mud and sand, by the addition of a series of powered gravite plates set into the undercarriage. These are not intended to lift the Kerata off the ground and only receive a small amount of power, and they can be turned off entirely in cases where greater weight and traction are needed. It has a crew of four - a driver, a commander, and two machinegunners, and is equipped with a top-mounted GGG-12 turret in a raised cupola with a hand-rotated 360 degree traverse and a pair of sponson-mounted LGG-12 guns to either side, which are able to traverse almost a full 180 degrees. A small open space at the back equipped with cargo netting may be used to store extra ammunition, spare fuel rods, small quantities of cargo, or in a pinch a (rather uncomfortable) passenger. A great deal of engineering effort was made to ensure the reliability of the gavrilium engine under battlefield conditions. The engine compartment is set at the front of the vehicle, and much of the weight savings earned by using a gavrilium engine rather than one powered by petrol is given over to extra armor. It has an air pump intended to cycle warm air into the engine from the top and push the cooled air out the bottom of the engine compartment and out the back via an insulated exhaust pipe, and special attention was made to ensure the lubricants used in the moving parts of the machine remained viscous at very low temperatures. The cabin is also equipped with an electric heater.

I also like the myomer lifting suit, but I feel like we'd be better off using a battery than an actual engine + alternator. They won't last nearly as long but it saves a lot of weight (meaning a lower base load for the suit to carry) and it's not intended for the frontlines anyway so there's not really much of a problem with having to swap batteries. It's probably cheaper that way, too.

C.

We're aligned with the Republican coalition though, even if our country is probably one of if not the most conservative in the whole alliance since we're a plutocratic American Federalist style republic in a big tent anti-conservative alliance that apparently contains everything from democratic republics and direct democracies to revolutionary socialists and literal communists.

Heh, fixed. Also, ManofPaper, can we get a link to the Hub Thread in the OP of this one? It's not nearly as active as the team threads and it's a little troublesome to find it sometimes. nevermind, apparently I am blind.

Strategic Decisions:
Fortify Lowlands: Baffler

Resource Assignment (Lowlands):
Ore (5): Nuke, Taricus, Yami, FallacyofUrist, Twinwolf, Baffler

---

Miscellaneous Votes:
Resource Credit:
Myomer (8): Rockeater, Chiefwaffles, Jilladilla, Taricus, Maximum Spin, FallacyofUrist, Twinwolf, Baffler
Natural Gasses (1): Yami

Hero:
Alexei Raju (1): Taricus
Vitali Volkov (0):
Emilio Antares (1): Yami
Antero Sahay: (6) NUKE9.13, Jilladilla, Maximum Spin, FallacyofUrist, Twinwolf, Baffler

Uniform Changes (If Allowed):
Replace Helmet with a Stalhelm Design (3): Taricus, Maximum Spin, FallacyofUrist
Leave it as is (4): Yami, NUKE9.13, Jilladilla, Baffler

How densely populated is the Damdamian Republic? With Parsia under our influence and Cydwyl close to personal union with us we'll be pretty close to them soon in terms of land area, but if I remember right Cydwyl is mostly featureless steppe and Parsia is mostly featureless desert.

Related, what would annexing Cydwyl and Parsia do to our population score?

The space and weight savings are extremely valuable, this means we can build armored vehicles that are the equal of their historical contemporaries in firepower while being more mobile and smaller overall, and they won't suffocate their crews with the heat and light weight will improve offroad capability, which mitigates many of the issues there were with early tanks and armored cars.

The cooling might be a bigger problem than at first glance though. Vehicle engines, while they're running, can have issues with overheating in cold environments because coolant fluids freeze in arctic or high altitude conditions, so it seems like this problem would be amplified by a Gavrilium engine which runs cold and needs coolant to keep it warm. I think Gavrilium engines will be high performing in warm environments but a worse option for cold environments, which is unfortunate because their light weight and lack of need for air intake for combustion is a massive advantage. Since they don't need air intake to generate energy or to exhaust waste, maybe they could just be really strongly insulated to guard against heat loss?

Worse yet, if we go for a mix of vehicles with petrol or Gav engines then we create supply issues for ourselves.

Vehicles incorporating it could use big air vents or intakes just like an ordinary one would, but as a means of keeping the thing warm rather than keeping it cool or feeding the combustion reaction. It's a vulnerability, and it wouldn't solve the problem completely, but a gav engine is probably pretty damn difficult to actually damage compared to the diesel engines we'd probably be using otherwise. For stuff in really harsh conditions we'll probably need other strategies though.