We have a mage gem bonus, but I think we should concentrate on making an APC.
If we have steel external armor with cooling circuits and crystal inside it should allow it to survive a large amount of damage by lightning. We would need one or two mages inside the thing to power and repair it but even a slow one with heavy armor carrying like 8-10 soldiers would be devastating. Extra armor would only add weight also, steel and crystal should both be cheap enough, and allow it to not be knocked around by tornadoes or be penetrated by bolts or flying debris.
As an alternative, some kind of strong magic shielding spell might be good, but that veers into new magic territory.
I'm sorry, why are we even
considering steel? Steel should be a banned word in Arstotzka at this point. It's been well established that Crystal is a
very good conductor of energy, electrical or magical. And we also have the electricity-resistant form of crystal (which needs extra precautions to resist lightning). The
only thing you could say Steel beats Crystal at is in brittleness, but the difference is rather minor and beat practically by every other advantage of crystal.
Anyways.
We have the advantage in explosive ammunition. Moskurg's going to need to either counter EA or try to introduce a new aspect of the battlefield to them. Sure, we could improve our designs or make EA even better, but we need to beat them to the punch. Make something so even if they somehow completely counter EA they've wasted their time. Compound our advantage.
So let's try this:
Design: AS-LFV-1 "Protector"Land Fighting VehicleWe aim to change the nature of warfare. Our troops are constantly barraged by ballistae, fire, lightning, tornadoes, and more. Their effectiveness in combat one-on-one may be superior to Moskurg's pathetic "soldiers", but we need to get them to the battlefield in the first place. Then, once transported, what if we enhanced our soldiers' fighting capabilities even further? By introducing the AS-LFV-1 Protector, we can accomplish this.
The Protector is naturally an all-crystal construction. It uses heavy armor that can effortlessly shrug off ballistae bolts. The armor should also be able to easily resist debris from tornadoes and the weight will prevent the Protector from being picked up in tornadoes. Layered insulating/conducting crystal armor presents an evolution to our prior lightning rods - lightning flows to the ground through a conductive upper layer to the ground while the electricity-resistant lower layer prevents the electricity from entering the cabin. The best part is its simplicity. It's a matter of flipping a switch in the Crystalworks for us, but it makes Moskurg lightning useless. They may be able to jump from rod to soldier, but against the Protector there's no other place to go.
The whole creation makes liberal use of Crystal Glass - the front of the cabin is nearly entirely Crystal Glass and a fairly large horizontal stripe of the crystal glass extends across the whole vehicle, allowing for unprecedented visibility.
The driver is situated at the front-left side of the Protector, where a Crystal Glass "bubble" just very slightly protrudes from the rest of the hull. The driver sits here where he uses levers to steer the vehicle. The steam engine powering the entire creation is placed alongside the center of the vehicle. Seats are placed alongside the cabin's inner walls, all facing the cabin. There are 8 passenger seats in total, each one fitting a soldier in full combat gear.
A large door on the back of the vehicle lowers into a ramp allowing soldiers to easily depart behind the vehicle and away from immediate enemy fire. A secured hatch on the top allows for entry from the top in case the back is blocked or for apprentices to cast magic. Like flares.
Cooling circuits across the cabin keep it at a constant temperature despite outside environmental conditions. Cooling circuits are something we can do without an additional thought. We already put them on all our cannons and the steam engine and other things without a thought. Putting them here should be zero extra effort.
Ventilation is added across the vessel in a style similar to combat armor preventing it from becoming a weakness. Fire won't harm the vehicle as it can't asphyxiate such a large vessel and because of crystal and the cooling circuits.
The steam engine is upgraded with our Blastballs, skipping the expensive and large boiler component. The engine's power is greatly increased, allowing the Protector to exceed a horse in speed!
The Protector is equipped with two weapons: A HC1-E located on the front-right side of the vehicle and an AS-HAC-1 on the top. The HC1-E is largely placed behind the armor, with just the barrel sticking out. The HC1-E does have limited swivel capabilities based on our existing mechanical knowledge, but generally relies on the vehicle quickly manuevering for aiming.
The AS-HAC-1 however retains it's swiveling mount. A "bubble" of crystal glass, like the one used to minor extent in the driver's seat, extends upward from the center of the hull towards the front side. The AS-HAC-1 is just outside the bubble but a hatch in the bubble allows for easy and quick reloading, and the gears controlling the AS-HAC-1's rotation are located inside the bubble.
AA Magegems in crystal ports allow for operation of the vehicle and cannons without an apprentice directly charging the weapons or steam engine. The steam engine's increased efficiency and our better Magegems allow for operation of the vehicle for hours without an apprentice inside. The weapons should be fired sparingly without an Apprentice charging it, but they can still be very useful without an apprentice. We aim to fit in as many AA Magegems as possible without increasing the Expense of the vehicle.
Furthermore, we've also created a variant of insulating crystal that uses the principles we've already been using with insulated crystal and the new Magegems and applies them to magic. The magic-insulating (not anti-magic) crystal will be used to prevent our circuits from becoming nonfunctional in anti-magic fields, allowing for the AS-LFV-1 Protector to operate normally in anti-magic fields.
The cabin has space for 10 men, including the driver and HC1-E operator. The AS-HAC-1 is designed to be operated by one of the passengers.
The Protector will be groundbreaking. No longer will countless soldiers die in the fields on their way to battle. Our soldiers will arrive in their lines unharmed en masse, unaffected by Moskurg's many anti-infantry weapons. Then our infantry will be supported by close-range cannon and armored vehicles, securing our melee dominance. Important persons (like Bjorn!) can be quickly and securely transported without ambush.
TL;DR: An Infantry Fighting Vehicle equipped with a HC1-E and AS-HAC-1 that can transport 8 passengers + 2 crew. Crystal armor and conducting/resisting layering allows for it to be impervious to literally any Moskurg weapon. Lightning is harmlessly grounded and can't jump anywhere else. Ballistae bolts bounce off the crystal armor like they've always done. Tornadoes can't pick up the heavy vehicle and debris is blocked by crystal armor.
"Why not just a tank?" You ask?
Crystal armor. That's why. It lets us make a vehicle like this without sacrificing survivability.
Armor - Crystal armor makes it easy to make something that can shrug off ballistae bolts, debris, and fire (more on that later). The weight of the overall vehicle means it can't be lifted by tornadoes.
Visibility - Crystal Glass exists. We use that to allow for extreme visibility.
Lightning Protection - Layered crystal armor: Conducting layer on top, and below that layer is resisting. Extremely easy for us to do (flipping a switch in Crystalworks) but nullifies lightning. Crystal has historically conducted electricity with zero problems, given it's not the resisting variant. The lightning rods on our soldiers failed because the steel didn't conduct as well as crystal and now the lightning jumps from rod to soldier. Here, the lightning can't jump anywhere and is effortlessly conducted to the ground with zero damage.
Engine & Speed - Our engine can make a fully-loaded Restless (it may not be armored, but it should be at least a bit heavier than the Protector with all its carts and cargo) roughly match a horse in speed. So with our
free engine upgrade, we can give the Protector a
very good speed that even beats horses despite its weight and armor.
Free Engine Upgrade - We upgrade the steam engine to use Blastballs to directly power the turbine instead, notably improving power. This should retroactively apply to all our engine-using designs, improving their speed and power. The Restless should go faster and handle steeper inclines and our Crystalclads should move faster. Maybe even make them Cheap due to the decreased complexity?
Cabin Cooling - We can very easily make cooling circuits. The Magical Condenser, the Frost Tower, the circuits of every barrel we have, etc.; we apply those circuits to the cabin to keep it climate controlled in any situation. Doesn't require power because it's an enchantment-style circuit.
Weapons - The AS-HAC-1 and HC1-E are both relatively light to be able to fit on the vehicle and aren't extraordinarily expensive. They should be easy to incorporate. HC1-E is on front with very limited aiming ability but the vehicle maneuvering makes aiming easier. AS-HAC-1 is on top operated by a guy in a crystal glass "bubble".
Passengers - 8 passengers (10 people total) can be brought to the frontline securely in this thing.
Magegem Battery - The better engine + our better Magegems means we can put as many AA gems as possible (without +Expense) to allow for operation of the vehicle without a mage for hours. Weapons can be fired from battery too but should be used very carefully when taking from the battery.
Anti-Magic Resistance - The circuits+Magegems are insulated by a variant of insulating crystal to prevent magic "leaking out" due to anti-magic, allowing operation in anti-magic fields. I believe Evicted stated that our circuits are already close to anti-magic resistance and that our Magegems are definitely already resistant to anti-magic. Magic-insulating crystal should be easy to make because we already know how to influence the flow of magic (Crystal conduits, better Magegems) and already know how to insulate the flow of electricity, which is fairly similar.
Difficulty - We've already made a land vehicle - the Restless. We know how to make land vehicles now and have had experience with the Restless for a while, making this design easier to do. The weapons are all existing designs just being easily integrated. Hell, the only real "new" thing the Protector does is anti-magic resistance, which should be minor (for aforementioned reasons). Most of the Protector is simply combining things we already know well how to do. We know how to make the engine. We know how to make a land vehicle. We know how to do crystal armor and hulls. We know how to do the weapons. We know how to do practically everything in the design.
Expense - Every single component on the Protector is Expensive or less. Circuits are Cheap. Engine is Expensive. AA Magegems are Expensive. HC1-E is Cheap. AS-HAC-1 is Cheap. Furthermore, the Crystal is Crystalworks meaning we
get the Crystalworks bonus! It should be
very easy to make the Protector Expensive.
Purpose - Transport our soldiers to the field unharmed + support them in combat. Protect+transport important people across theatres (like Myark + Bjorn). Scouting + Flare-casting (they're fast and protect the people from getting harmed). And
maybe important good transport. Like if our artillery runs out of ammo. Also, general combat use. Protecting other vehicles/large amounts of moving men. Basically as a secure transport vehicle and as a combat vehicle. Though its main focus is transporting men into combat + supporting them.
But I think we should do this instead: (EDIT: No do Protector instead.)
Design: AS-PSD-1 Kinetic Resistor "Blastshield"Personal Survival DeviceThe Blastshield is a Magegem-scroll combination designed to be fitted onto combat armor.
With our experiencein the Blastball, we've shown we can manipulate pressure to our liking. So what if we created a bubble of a certain pressure around a soldier? We can slow down incoming projectiles as they have to pass through this constant outward pressure to get to the soldier. Other incoming things like swords and melee weapons will also be negatively impacted by this as their speed too is decreased.
The pressure bubble of course can't practically stop projectiles - that'd be too energy intensive. Instead they slow down projectiles
just enough so that they don't kill or grievously injure the occupant in combat armor.
The entire thing is maintained by 2 AAA gems. This may seem like a minor amount of power relatively, and that's because it is. The Blastshield is a constant pressure bubble - a kind of enchantment. While as position change it consumes energy, the amount of energy consumed is nowhere near the levels of an actual spell creating
much more immense levels of sudden pressure and giving it velocity. The Blastshield just keeps a hollow bubble of air around the occupant at a constant outward pressure.
The AAA Magegems should be able to power a shield for 12 hours without recharging, and can be toggled off/on by the soldier.
Expense-wise, it shouldn't be difficult as it's based off of Cheap Magegems and Cheap Circuits.
TL;DR: 2x AAA Magegems + Scroll circuitry designed to be fit into combat armor. When on, maintains a constant hollow bubble of air surrounding the owner at an outward pressure, slowing down any incoming projectiles and attacks just enough to render most of them non-lethal, but likely certain projectiles like ballistae bolts will still tend to hurt. Just not kill or grievously injure. Lasts for 12 hours because it's mostly an enchantment which mostly doesn't need outside energy. It's just "keep air at constant pressure."
Votes to be made more fancy by me later if no one else does it. But I'm tired.
DESIGN
1 - AS-PSD-1 Kinetic Resistor "Blastshield: Chiefwaffles
0 - AS-LFV-1 "Protector":
Author
Topic: Wands Race - [Arstotzka] {COMPLETED} (Read 376990 times)