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[andrea]

@helmacon no, it is an actual box.

[RAM]

I would prefer something a bit more mobile. And I worry about using a fence against a cloud. It probably has about as much chance of working as anything, so it is not bad, and we left ourselves in this ridiculously horrible situation with an aircraft that, as predicted, loved to go into unrecoverable dives when confronted with inclement weather, and desperate for a great roll that somehow converts our entire army into antimagic immunity... I would, however, rather like to separate ourselves from our extreme dependence upon being inside glass houses... Also, as much as I genuinely love the Faraday cage reference, I am a touch concerned about the viability of the described action.

 Faraday cages do not "block particles", it is more of a channelling effect, and with good reason. We are trying to stop a cloud with bars. Clouds go through bars, and the bars are made out of material that has proven prone to being dispersed by antimagic. I feel as though our existing antimagic resistance on our crystals is more of a "hiding" effect than an "immunity" effect. But this concern is not well substantiated so hopefully is not an issue. We need something that acts as a conduit to antimagic and, well, the Faraday cage works because electricity is looking for a path to go from one place ot another, the antimagic clouds are happy to just loiter, we really need some form of active suction...

I also worry that we really don't have any experience in getting crystal to respond to magical energies. We have crystals that conduct or resist mundane forces, and want to get crystals that attract and control magical forces out of a revision. I just find it kind of unfortunately risky to make what seems to me to be rather a large leap.

Antiantimagic charms
We know that Kegger antimagic is different to our own. It extinguished our crystals when our own antimagic did not, which proves that, while our own antimagic can completely drain a region of magical potential, their's actually engages with magical presences and forces them to cease. We can see from this that it is definitely an active effect, imposing itself forcefully, where ours is a passive effect of simply draining the magic as the magic becomes active.

Another major observation that we have is that Kegger antimagic has no interaction with our own. The visible fields happily passed over our charms without any effects. This demonstrates that whatever it is, it is not a free-floating magical effect. This would suggest that it is not, in fact, magic. But we have seen that stabilised magic can maintain its integrity within an antimagic field from the performance of our own fireballs and crystals. There are no reports of our antimagic charms being damaged in any way from this... It seems that the Kegger antimagic is somehow stabilised magic in its field form. Which is ridiculous given its variable size and shape. It is clearly being modified actively while in progress, so must be escaping from our antimagic in some other way...

Finally, we have seen that the Kegger antimagic is produced by seemingly-magical staves from definitely magical wizards, and yet, despite its toxicity to crystal constructs, it has no effect on these staves, and has no long-term detriment to any of their other magical equipment.

From this there has been much speculation, but it seems that only one explanation fits all of the criteria. That of this "antimagic field" being thus:
 A sustained magical effect with a fundamentally mundane nature. Its mundane nature allows it to behave as a mundane force, thus not being absorbed by our charms while it imposes mundanity within its influence, yet it is still clearly a magical construct, performing feats that are clearly impossible in the absence of magic, namely being stable in an inherently unstable shape. It is a small thing, but any builder can plainly see that such a cloud would collapse and disperse regardless of how immaterial it were, and certainly wouldn't adjust itself to the whims of a controller...

Thus, it is clearly magic, just of an extremely exotic form that our charms are not attuned to. No doubt there are other exotic forms of magic that our charms may also be incompatible with, which may lead to later developments of magical forms which can be used while wearing a charm, but for now it should be a rather simple matter of going over the mathemagics of charms and tweaking them to respond to the overtly mundane. Given the function of the charms, that they merely absorb magic, they should still be unable to damage anything that is legitimately mundane(although very careful testing with failed or low-potential applicants to The Academy is advised, lest we unknowingly distribute an effect that can permanently strip the magical potential from a mage) but should now be able to absorb this mundane-themed magic as well as it does any other. Given the broad and unfocused style of Kegger antimagic, it should be a simple matter to have a single charm steadily drain an entire field, and thust prevent it from crossing a certain point. Thus we can defeat their antimagic by simply sticking an antiantimagic charm between whatever is to be protected and the source of antimagic. Be that gluing one onto a protector or mounting it on a stick and holding it in front of some wizards.

In short: We change our antimagic charms so that they do the antimagic thing to antimagic fields. Being fields, you just need to get it into one point to suck up the whole field as though you were deflating a balloon...

[Andres]

Antimagic-immune circuits: Protect our circuits from the effects of antimagic so that they can channel magic and cast spells even within an anti-magic field.

4 - Antimagic Shielding: Kadzar, Draignean, Helmacon, Andrea
1 - Antimagic-immune circuits: Andres

This is better than antimagic shielding. It means that things don't essentially need to be a box in order to be protected against antimagic. Honestly, that requirement is stupid and I'm not sure why people are so gung-ho about imposing that limitation on themselves.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[RAM]

I have severe concerns as to the viability of casting magic within an antimagic field, just as a request, and as a revision no less, and from completely undynamic circuits as opposed to wizards who could try to react to things intelligently and try to resist the antimagic. There is a chance added that it would be able to channel magic within antimagic but not actually do anything with that magic, thus being the equivalent of E.M.P.-hardened computer-box with all the inputs and outputs fried.

Antimagic is a design, a big design, with many actions going into it. Just asking it to go away and stop bothering us as a revision won't work. Not unless the G.M. rolls well and feel the need to give us a freebie, at which point the enemy can just revise our revision away as a revision, likely with an enhanced antimagic effect out of the deal. I know that my proposal is a bit wall-of-texty, but it is based on existing technology that already does what we want and extensive observations as to how the unknown hostile effect actually operates. Additionally, it ought to give us something that can be used anywhere to protect anything, albeit perhaps in low quantities. I still think it will need to roll well, but it actually seems somewhat plausible. I really can't see "change our circuits so that their design does not work anymore" as going to go down well as a revision.

[helmacon]

Eh, ... Swap my vote to RAMs deal.

[Chiefwaffles]

4 - Antimagic Shielding: Kadzar, Draignean, Helmacon, Andrea
2 - Antimagic-immune circuits: Andres, Chiefwaffles

I would swap helmacon's vote to RAM's thing, but I'm on mobile and would rather not go through the effort, sorry.

[Kadzar]

I've made the antimagic shielding as a revision because people were very emphatic about the idea that antimagic protection should only require a revision. We at least have to try it, because we have no other option at this point; we already have our design for the turn.

Antimagic-immune circuits I don't see as being very viable, since they won't let wizards cast inside of enclosed environments (crucial for the Avenger's gun, for one example, since it isn't battery-powered), and there's no guarantee it will let spells be cast at the terminus, since only the circuits themselves are shielded.

I actually like RAM's suggestion of our own antimagic charms made to work on Moskurg antimagic, though I'm hestitant to support it unless it specifically was attuned to pick up just the Moskurg antimagic field, rather than also affecting our own magic.


EDIT: I've added Helmacon to RAM's thing, though I haven't added RAM, since sometimes he doesn't vote for his own designs, so I'm not sure.

3 - Antimagic Shielding: Kadzar, Draignean, Andrea
2 - Antimagic-immune circuits: Andres, Chiefwaffles
1 - Antiantimagic Charms: Helmacon

[Chiefwaffles]

This is probably going to be impossible to get through, but we're so close!
Future Design: ASAF-F45

The F45 will (hopefully) be the final evolution of Artstotzka's first fighter.

KPD Mk.3 - Modify the continuous blastball effect to work across the craft without a nozzle while still remaining focused in one direction for great agility. Also hopefully increase acceleration. This more advanced method of thrust should make control+stability somewhat easier too as ability to thrust in literally any direction from any part of the craft allows for much greater compensation for shifts in center of gravity + movement.
Efficiency - We further work on increasing the efficiency of the craft so we can use up less power.
Reactor - Hopefully efficiency has been increased, so we can switch to A-level Aethergems instead of Daethergems. Not overcharging the Aethergems would also be nice, but is only if we do well enough with efficiency.
Turret - Make the ball turret 20mm and make it powered via mechanical controls easily accessible to the gunner.

TL;DR: We've made significant progress with the F44. Now we just need to focus on adding directional focusing to the continuous blastball spell and eliminate the use of nozzles, increase efficiency so we can use Aethergems and thus make it Expensive, (hopefully +acceleration), and finally fix that damn turret.

This should finally make the fighter.


Also.
Future Revision: Flakshell
We take the Blastshell+R and switch its core out for an AA Magegem. The single timer AAA gem remains.

Instead of detonating a PSF-C for propulsion after the timer runs out, the Flakshell will instead detonate itself with a SPSF-C when the timer runs out. The smaller gem and size considerations allow for fitting into the AS-HAC-1.

The ideal use of the Flakshell is for anti-air. Direct hits against enemy aircraft will no longer be required and the explosions will render enemy armor much less effective as repeated explosions can critically damage the armor, explosions can knock the aircraft out of the sky, kill the crew, knock the crew out of the sky, and more.

TL;DR: Make a smaller Blastshell+R (+R so we already have the timer) using an AA Magegem instead of whatever it was using before (I think 9 AA Magegems?) and have it detonate itself with an SPSF-C instead of propelling itself with a PSF-C. Should make a great flak shell.

[FallacyofUrist]

Forgive me, but I don't see how these revisions actually help us fight, given our main thing is artillery. Our wizards do have some combat magic, but the only one that works to protect them without needing them to be in an enclosed space is RAM's charms. Actually, they don't even help our wizards, given all they do is cancel out Moskurgian antimagic, leaving our own useless, cancelled out by our own antimagic. Wait... no? It's supposed to be some anti-anti-magic shield... eh, whatever, I'm making my own revision. Here goes... oh. Oh yes.

Cloud Cover: We've improved our fog spell. This new variant, Cloud Cover, built off our channeled fog, is projected into the air, where it forms a large amount of fog... above our forces. This is a very simple change, simply increasing the range of the spell slightly. The second improvement is slightly more complicated, charging the fog with magic slightly, making it hold together better, and possibly confusing magical sensing techniques. The idea of this spell is to spread some apprentices around our sites and project this into the air. Basically: we're going to make it impossible for Moskurg to tell what our ground positions are from the air. Seeing as the only reason Moskurg's winning is their air force, this should be devastating.

If they can't see our ground positions, they won't be able to bomb us. Lucky Strike still needs to be aimed.

Revision:
3 - Antimagic Shielding: Kadzar, Draignean, Andrea
2 - Antimagic-immune circuits: Andres, Chiefwaffles
1 - Antiantimagic Charms: Helmacon
1 - Cloud Cover: FallacyofUrist
Orders:
1 - Don't deploy the Avenger yet: FallacyofUrist

[Pavellius]

Ptw

[Andres]

Forgive me, but I don't see how these revisions actually help us fight, given our main thing is artillery.

Moskurg is disabling our artillery with antimagic. Making our artillery's circuits out of antimagic will mean they can no longer disable our artillery. Since our artillery is not in the shape of a box, Antimagic Shielding will not protect them from antimagic, which is part of why Antimagic Shielding is such a stupid idea. Antimagic circuits would, on the other hand, protect the HA1 from being disabled, as well as make all other things which use circuits (basically everything except melee weapons) also be able to ignore antimagic.

Glory to Arstotzka.

EDIT: To clarify, anything with AM-immune circuits will be immune to enemy anti-magic. They will be able to channel magic and produce spells as normal. The entire point of AM immunity is to prevent anti-magic from disrupting their ability to do so, after all.

[RAM]

A reminder, some people are not going to conform to the whole "one vote per round" thing, so we may as well all give up on it, or clamp down and ask the G.M. to ignore such votes or pass a vote permitting people to vote multiple times.

I really want to see avengers falling out of the sky in droves to prove a point, but... I also don't want to fail horribly. I really don't see them surviving enemy wind effects at all as they currently are.

As I understand it, we could put a box around the base of our guns. Or incorporate a box into the design. I mean, we can't go changing all our designs with a revision, but we are past the point of avoiding that. It is basically a cage, as far as I can tell, so it would be possible to have the gun sticking out between the bars. Awkward, obviously, but they would presumably work...

Revision:
4 - Antimagic Shielding: Kadzar, Draignean, Andrea, RAM
2 - Antimagic-immune circuits: Andres, Chiefwaffles
2 - Antiantimagic Charms: Helmacon, RAM
1 - - As above Antiantimagic charms, but attempt to prevent them from affecting conventional magic: RAM
1 - Cloud Cover: FallacyofUrist
Orders:
2 - Don't deploy the Avenger yet: FallacyofUrist, RAM
0 - Include The Avenger with our forces as soon as possible:

[Andres]

As I understand it, we could put a box around the base of our guns. Or incorporate a box into the design. I mean, we can't go changing all our designs with a revision, but we are past the point of avoiding that. It is basically a cage, as far as I can tell, so it would be possible to have the gun sticking out between the bars. Awkward, obviously, but they would presumably work...

Please for the love of all that is good vote for circuits instead. It means that NONE of our designs will need a Revision to work, none of them would have to be changed. It's a very easy way to fix all of our problems with no downsides whatsoever. Antimagic Shielding is just crap and awkward.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[RAM]

My problem is that I am not convinced that they are likely to work, and that I do not like the effects. It is completely incompatible with protecting our mages. It could fail if our power-sources are still affected. It could fail if the circuits only go so far as to send magic through the circuit, but not enough to manifest any spells which would still be trying to manifest outside of the circuit, which even our mages cannot do. But maybe circuits are better than mages because they are more rigid?

But mostly I see the circuits as failing because they have no description of how or why they would work. It is just "our circuits are immune to antimagic now". It doesn't even reference how this is aligned to our prior knowledge. It would be like trying to turn fireballs into poison-cloud-balls. It wouldn't be that difficult if we had poison magic, but we don't. And our conjurations which have venomous wasps A: use venom, not poison, so not much use in a cloud, and B: are conjuration, which is vulnerable to antimagic, instead of thermal/force magic, which is only vulnerable when it is being summoned. So filling the sky with clouds of toxic gas is not viable because we don't have the necessary background. If we did then we could hook up some toxin towers and shoot giant extreme-range mushroom clouds in front of incoming forces. Of course, they would probably just use wind magic to ignore being completely surrounded by deadly gas, but it is a pleasant thought.

But hey, Chiefwaffles says that antimagic is easy, so we ought to be getting a +2 no matter how we phrase it...

[Kadzar]

I don't get how people think antimagic shielding is limited to box shapes. A Faraday cage doesn't have to be a box around a thing; you can just wrap it to conform to the shape of whatever you're protecting. So it wouldn't be just one whole box covering an artillery piece; it would be a covering over the barrel and maybe a box for the mage to sit in.

It may not be perfect, but, as it stands, I don't see antimagic-immune circuits working for anything but the Mundane, as our wizards wouldn't be able to cast to power any of our devices.