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[Powder Miner]

Refocyte Rifle: (3) Doomblade, Twinwolf, Powder Miner

[Jerick]

Refocyte Rifle: (4) Doomblade, Twinwolf, Powder Miner, Jerick

[Man of Paper]

Initharian Defining Tech: Age of War Revision

Proposal: Refocyte Rifle

The refocyte weaponry of Inithar remained relevant in warfare long after it’s equivalents in other nations fell out of service. When other nations developed crossbows and pikes, the longbow and spear’s explosive force still allowed Initharian forces to defeat a force that outnumbered them by a wide margin. When crude gunpowder weaponry came into play, the same happened; a line of musketmen was just a wide target for the longbowmen, while the gunmen were lucky if they hit the terrain near an Initharian soldier. But as weapons tech developed, it became practical for the enemy to use wider and more dispersed formations, far more difficult to disrupt with a single well aimed arrow or stab.

The Folly was one of the worst events in Initharian history. But it carried some beneficial effects. With the loosening of the once strict rules for craftsmen and engineers, the replacements for the old Refocyte Craftsmen were far more willing to innovate and learn from the innovations of others - after all, anything they can do, we can do better. Thus as the drums of war beat loud, the engineers looked at the weapons of their enemies, scoffed, and decided to show them how it’s done - after all, a gun is just a tube with which you fire metal at high speed at someone else, how hard can it be?


The firing mechanism of the rifle is simple. Every bullet has two main components; the bullet itself (a thin rear layer of a metal like iron, a thin layer of rubber, and then the rest is refocyte charged before entering the engagement), and a small cap of charged refocyte behind it. When the trigger is pulled, a mechanism rapidly forces the cap forward into the bullet, discharging the kinetic energy into the iron base to shove the bullet down the rifled barrel at high speed. Then, the rifleman ejects the cap to let another bullet into the chamber, and it repeats.  While individual bullets are able to store less energy than an arrow due to small size, there are two factors that make up for it - speed of firing (no need for a long draw time and the shot moves faster than an arrow), and ease of training. The rubber layer in the bullets is a result of a recent discovery; in the aftermath of the folly, it was discovered that kinetic energy that travels through rubber treats refocyte as if it were a normal object, rather than refocyte. Thus, the layer of rubber prevents the refocyte bullet from prematurely detonating.

The rifle itself is primarily made of wood, with the mechanisms made of metal; spent caps are ejected from the top of the weapon (and can be recovered for later recharge). The gun has an average sized clip (with a rubber inlay so as to avoid premature discharge of the bullets). Compared to the firearms of other nations, the Refocyte Rifle has a notably shorter barrel, on account of using refocyte propellant rather than gas.

Difficulty: Very Hard
Result: (6+5)-2=9, Above Average

It was unfortunate that more oversight wasn't provided to the engineers who first produced Refocyte firearms. Being created during the Opening of the Castes meant that the more skilled refocyte-smiths were either recently deceased or focusing on cultural reform to allow their trade a chance at survival. While gunpowder was standard during the early era of firearms, the refocyte-working trade eventually caught up with everyone else and began producing modern weapons. The road was difficult, and would have been an impossible feat before the discovery of Refocyte impurity. While refining purer forms of refocyte proved to be time consuming and expensive, the results granted refocyte-smiths a wide spectrum of refocyte to work with to get the proper amount of force storage in the proper sizes of parts, mechanisms, and devices. The discovery of rubber's ability to neutralize the effects of impact on refocyte also changed the game wildly. Inithar's relatively medieval armory, though effective, had been rapidly losing it's dominance and these two advancements directly resulted in the unique firearms we see from Inithar.

Refocyte rifles had shorter barrels of their gunpowder counterparts by about half, but made up for it in general bulk thanks to the need for rubber lining anywhere refocyte may touch that wasn't meant to set it off. A refocyte-tipped hammer slammed into the refocyte primer in the end of the refocyte bullet that then impacted said bullet to propel it forward at subsonic speeds, with each refocyte component purified to the proper levels to trigger at the proper times. While range and penetration suffered, the guns were much quieter than their powder-propulsion counterparts. They were a tad more difficult to produce, so making them in bulk, especially with the industrial issues of Inithar at the time, could cause reliability issues.


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The Air War

Refocyte firearms proved useful when defending the tropical islands of the Initharian Archipelago. While The Great Powers were slow to get a foothold on Initharian territory, it became an eventuality. Bodies were thrown into the sea to "put an end to the Initharian Menace", but even if the Powers took an island it was never truly safe. It was difficult to zero in on where shots were coming from in the middle of a gunfight, and Inithar took advantage of this with smaller, highly mobile units. These jungle warriors were not enough to hold off the invading forces however, especially as another front they couldn't contest opened up: the skies.

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You are currently charged with designing an aircraft during an era dominated by biplanes. Keep that in mind when trying to estimate difficulty. Note that you may choose to design something other than an aircraft if you deem it more important, but it will impact the path of your nation in a way that will adjust requirements for your final design as well as dramatically influence the narrative.

It is now the Design Phase.

Spoiler: Preliminary Proposals (click to show/hide)

Voyaging Canoe: A single-outrigger canoe with a sail. Constructed of stone-carved wood and 8-10m long. Stable, sturdy, seaworthy, and reliable. This stands out not just in Inithar history, but in the history of the world.

Refocyte Longbow: A bow as tall as a man with great range known for it's pairing with Refocyte Arrows. The arrows use Refocyte heads capable of transferring the stored energy within through the tip and into the target to devastating effect.

--Refocyte Firearms: Stout firearms with less penetration and range than gunpowder firearms but significantly quieter. 

Refocyte Spear: A spear with a Refocyte tip capable of causing debilitating blasts on top of the normal ability of a spear to stab.

Coilboat: A small, agile naval craft powered by the Coilengine. While unremarkable on it's own, the Coilengine revolutionized Initharian industry.

Tales of Color: A highly complex system of identification and communication relying solely on colors and patterns. It is nearly impenetrable for outsiders even by today's standards.

Inithar's Folly: A tragic historical event wherein a large number of Initharian Refocyte-smiths of high standing were killled in a dam collapse.

Unique Resource - Refocyte: A metal that in it's base state stores energy applied through impact until a threshold is reached, where it will deliver the entirety of the stored force at the point of impact. An uncharged piece resembles silver and will become a dark green as it charges. Twisting and compressing rods into coils leaves them slowly unfurling with force relative to their gauge and the tightness of the coil. Purification to varying levels manipulates the capacity of the metal. Rubber negates the charge/discharge effects of impact.

[TricMagic]

Given I have no discord access, talking may be slow for me..

So, two ideas. The first is a... Turboprop I think it's called? Or turbofan. This idea mostly makes use of the Coilengine and new rubber reaction.

The other is to just ignore biplanes and go with a literal airship design. Coilengines to power it's movement through fans, and plenty of weapons and armor. Closer to steampunk, only Coilengines. This could also be a turbofan, but such a design would also need turrets. It would be capable of keeping us up there though, and at good enough speeds. We really just need a helium vein, and maybe titanium deposits. Later on we can upgrade the design with the gravity material to allow for true airships capable of deploying planes.

Needless to say, the second is crazier, and would need someone sane to design them. Is there any way to use Refocyte as armor and control when we set it off? Like using plates of it to absorb kinetic energy, and then setting them off on purpose later so the energy is directed outwards. Or perhaps into some form of Refocyte storage.

[Jerick]

The Phoenix was one of the first aircraft ever constructed by the Inithar. It built in the shadow of the Inithar's folly. Enemy presence in the skies forced them to adapt and try to recover the arts of refocyte that were lost in the folly. The coil engine while a capable source of power was too heavy for aircraft and provided a lot of torque but very very low RPMs. If they wanted to contest the skies they needed to create something new. After the folly they had discovered refocyte impurities and how to manipulate them while forging. They just needed to find ways to make use of this new knowledge.

By stacking refocyte plates into a hydraulic press and pressing them together the refocyte would act as a single piece. This process was dangerous but skilled metalsmiths keeping an eye on the metal could spot and stop it before it crossed it's threshold and release the energy safely before resuming the process. This by itself is not all that useful. The Inithar had been manipulating refocyte for their entire history. The breakthrough happened when a stack of refocyte plates were pressed with very different purities. It was found that the stack could release several times without needing a recharge. The cause was that if you had three plates pressed together with one high purity plate, a very low purity plate and a plate with a purity even a little lower than the first plate, kinetic charge would flow from the last plate to the first. In these kinds of arrangements charge will always flow from low purity refocyte to higher purity refocyte. The very low purity refocyte acts as a buffer preventing the whole stack being unleashed when triggered but still allowing charge to move across it when the higher purity refocyte has been emptied.

Using this concept they built the refocyte battery. Created by combining refocyte plates. The fist plate would be the highest purity and it would alternate between low purity plates and higher purity plates. Each successive high purity plate would be a little lower in purity than the last ensuring charge could flow up the stack as it was emptied. This whole assembly was wrapped in rubber to protect it from accidental discharge except for the impact point. Since the purity needed to be high the refocyte plates were small and very thin. This meant they could pack a lot of energy and impacts into a light battery.

They created the impactor aircraft engine. It consisted of a refocyte battery, a flywheel, some gears and mechanisms and a shaft that drove the engine. The throttle controls for the aircraft worked by either applying a brake to the fly wheel or by operating a level that would that would trigger another release of energy. Each release of energy would spin up the flywheel which would in turn power the prop. It was first installed on the Phoenix.

The Phoenix was a single seater, fighter/scout biplane. It's main armamant was a pair of machine guns mounted on the top wing. These were fired by cable that led to the cockpit.

The Phoenix's fuselage was a frame of steel covered in canvas. Being Inithar they in a way used this canvas as intended and painted the tales of colour across it. Unlike in other theaters of war however the enemy began painting their own equipment in an attempt to out do the Inithar by being more colourful than them. They didn't understand the tales of colour and painted their planes how they liked. But the Inithar would incorporate elements of the paint schemes of notable enemies they downed into their tales of colour recording them in the history of their plane. The tales of colour and sea-faring Inithar's familiarity with signalling meant that even without radios they could coordinate effectively in the air.

Compared to it's contemporaries the Phoenix was both shocking light and very simple. Most petrol engines needed air fin or liquid cooling, fuel supplies and combustion chambers. The Phoenix was far lighter than petrol powered aircraft due to being able to ditch them. This gave it a potent power to weight ratio.

Adding the shotguns might make it a little too complex but we need something we can dog fight other planes with and I'm not trying to add a machine gun to this. Even I'm not that crazy.

[TricMagic]

Hmm.. Seems good, and I can see the advantage of being able to actually transfer force properly.

Airship can be done later. +1 for the Phoenix if a Votebox gets made.

[Doomblade187]

My notes on the Phoenix.

I like the Refocyte battery idea, but if we don't wish to develop it now, we could also work it through a series of mechanically swappable coils linked to the driveshaft by a short geartrain. Also we can do non-refocyte pellets on the shotgun - they can bounce in the barrel, that would be bad. Just large bore it.

[TricMagic]

So long as the actual case is rubber/paper, it should prevent it. And we want to completely destroy the enemy in that general direction.


The same method that makes a battery can also create a cable to transfer the force from armor plates safely. So combined with other metals, it would make good armor against physical weaponry in the case of Airships or Sky Fortresses.

We can actually make a Sky Fortress. Can the Coilengine be boosted with the Gravity material to create a type of gravity propulsion system? If so, Sky Fortresses could be doable on a design, though we'd probably start with an Airship Carrier to start. Or just a regular boat/vehicle that uses it.

[Taricus]

We may want to stick with regular machine guns for the Phoenix for the time being. We can update them for refocyte use later, but given the battery we don't want to go overboard for the design.

[TricMagic]

While it may be possible to make some off others designs.. We don't really use regular guns at all, do we?

[Doomblade187]

A conventional firearm would be harder than a Refocyte gun upgrade, given our lack of experience. Also, since this is apparently the era of shooting at other pilots with sidearms, we can probably just strap a Refocyte Rifle to the front of the plane.

[TricMagic]

Not that much difference between a rifle and a shotgun. It sounds silly, but we are using the shotgun for the scattershot, which is more likely to hit targets. And with the force involved, only one needs to hit to wreck a plane.

Alternatively, we do it old school and just shoot them. From the cockpit. But the scattershot is a good idea.

a shell loaded with charged refocyte pellets rather than a bullet.

Once launched, the shell will break apart midair, releasing the pellets forward. Just one hit would release the energy in them, and like the bows of old, will likely drop the plane as it becomes too damaged to actually stay up.

[Powder Miner]

I don't want to fuck with the guns any -- you haven't been on Discord to see me emphasizing this, but we need to make the plane and I really really really want to get a battery interaction in (another version with my preferred version of this is being worked on) so that we can revitalize Initharian industry by drastically boosting reliability. Being able to charge refocyte through simple contact with the interaction material and an amount of charged refocyte means we do not need to constantly rework our refocyte in order to use it, which means not only that it takes less manpower to use again, and much less easily becomes warped and unusable, but it's also something we can do in the middle of using it -- this allows for multiple-use items, and allows for much more mechanical complexity.

Now, a functioning biplane and a refocyte battery are I think probably at least Hard together, even if each is rather simple, so I don't want to risk going into Ludicrous territory at all.

[Jerick]

I don't want to fuck with the guns any

The way I see it we need to do something with our guns so it can fight other machine gun armed planes. If we don't then there is no point even making a plane. They'll be taken out too quickly and too easily.

Now some people have been suggesting using our standard weapons. This is not a good idea. Back in the very early years of WW1 when air combat was still in its infancy people used side arms, rifles, rocks, grenades and grappling hooks. But it didn't work. I don't remember the exact number of planes confirmed shoot down with rifles and pistols from other planes but I do remember it was in the single digits. It was basically impossible to hit one plane from another with a bolt action weapon while you were both flying through the air. Then someone showed up with a machine gun strapped to their plane and in a matter of weeks every plane had a machine gun. Machine guns are great for air combat because they make hitting the enemy something you can do. If we are to contest the skies at all we need something like that. Something that can hit a fast moving slippery enemy plane. If we don't we're just going to get swatted out of the sky left and right.

Edit:Well following some clarifications from MoP on discord I've edited my design. It turns out we can just stick on a machine gun on it without increasing difficulty so long as we do not design the machine gun. We'll get an appropriate machine gun for the time.

[TricMagic]

Phoenix IAF Mk1: (1) TricMagic

Edit is in, so Battery plus the Plane.