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[Tyrant Leviathan]

Yes we need anti armor as the field report states. Have ideas for suits and no, no more energy weapons. They would be meaningless, right now need a bigger gun to kill the Hell Houbds. Will vote on what I think makes sense.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

My take:

The Leviathan PAA Unit: A shoulder mounted launcher that has a large charge shell which the firing mechanism is a gas discharge deployment system. So can be fired underwater as well as in air.

Portable Anti Armor unit. Aside single massive explosive charges, another magazine of ordinance is a pack of three smaller war heads that scatter in a designated arc mid flight seconds after launch, for more hits. Said war heads have heavy enforced tips. Can come in explosive or a charge net just to crack open that smith armor.

[dgr11897]

Resources
3 Ore, 1 Organics, 0 Contherinal, 0 Advanced components.

Spoiler: Mason Designs (click to show/hide)

Weapons
Mk1 Rifle
A .303 caliber bolt action rifle with an attached bayonet. Sturdy, reliable, and the bayonet won’t rust when exposed to water. As the propellant has its own oxidizer, allowing the weapon to fire in vacuum with little issue. Costs: 1 ore, 1 organics Cheap

• APA rifle grenade
  A simple rifle grenade with an impact fuse. Useful at hitting targets behind cover. Costs: 2 organics, 1 ore Expensive

Dirty gun
A crude SMG with a tendency to jam. The low caliber ammunition can’t penetrate anything except the faceplate area of the basic LSF1 suits, but with the number of bullets it sprays, that frequently doesn’t matter. Can shoot in space. Cost: 1 ore Cheap Obsolete

MK2 SMG
A vastly improved SMG model, with a better stock, and completely rebuilt mechanisms. The Mk2 has 5.7x28mm steel rounds that allow it to pierce through armor more effectively, along with higher accuracy, higher effective range, and far higher reliability. Cost: 2 ore Cheap

Suits

LSF1-Exo
A survival suit with a powered exoskeleton attached. It’s lightly armored, with a few simple plates being it’s main defense, but it can handle everything from underwater combat to the vacuum of space. The enhanced strength is also great as it allows for brutally effective melee combat. The attached exoskeleton grants a 1.25x boost in strength compared to the average human, and allows people to safely carry larger loads without killing themselves. The suit it’s based off of is manufactured en masse by the automatic systems aboard the arcology as a standard survival suit, said suit could be used as the basis for future power armor, as it provides a solid life supporting base we could strap further enhancements to. Cost: 1 ore, 1 organics Cheap

LSF 1 life support survival suit:
This mildly hardened suit, capable of surviving both vacuum and extreme depths, is mass manufactured by the automated systems up to a quota of 1 suit per person. These suits have mounting points for an optional exo rig, which both sides have taken advantage of. Unfortunately for those using it in combat, it has a large bubble helmet with lights on it that is Exceptionally vulnerable to being shot.Consider this thing Cheap

Warrior M1
A heavier, stronger exoskeleton. With Heavy armor, a new helmet design, and around double normal strength. Cost: 3 ore, 1 organics Cheap
Misc Gear

Survival kit:
A small set of stuff that comes with every suit, includes a large knife, multitool, emergency battery, emergency suit patch kit, flaregun, and a flashlight. Mostly useful for the knife and other miscellaneous gear. The knife is of decent quality, though not meant for combat which means its a little awkward to use in melee. Also cheap
- Now comes with a can and bottle opener.

Contherinal Biogel:
A Medical gel administered through a small handgun like apparatus. Heals gunshot wounds and seals up suits, but isn’t particularly useful in the field due to it not really being faster to grab and use than a suit patch. It does mildly improve survivability, but not by much. 1 Contherinal Expensive

Misc

Contherinal:
Contherinal is a miracle substance when it comes to growing or altering living tissue. Though its origins are mysterious and alien, the substance is what allowed Europa to be colonized at all. Contherinal acts as raw material for genetic enhancements, as it's a mass of cells which lack many of the defense mechanisms that prevent foreign DNA from being implanted into the cells, which allows researchers to plug in new strands of DNA with ease. This, combined with a viral component that spreads the change, allows Contherinal to be used to sculp life into myriad new forms. Unfortunately it hasn’t been produced or harvested in large quantities. Which creates some limitations when it comes to large scale use. We suspect contherinal to possess greater potential than it lets on.

It is now Design phase 4

[Scholar Knight]

I'll agree, with only 1 organics, energy weapons are going to be a long ways out. Though I should also warn, that heavy explosives will also be rather expensive due to the required organics as well. We can afford a 2-3 resource deficit and still be "expensive".

Therefore, I think we should go for a bit more of a cheaper/weaker explosive, that we can field more of. Keep the armor-piercing capabilities, but reduce the amount of splash/AoE they can do. Make it a pure armor cracker for cost reasons. That way we can afford to field more of them, and not have to try to predict where the Fenris are going to be deployed. In the situation where some explosives are fielded where fenris aren't, we can just use them to crack through armored barricades instead.

A shoulder-mounted launcher sounds good. I'm slightly leaning in favor of the Leviathan, mainly because getting the edge in underwater, and securing that extra organics, will be really useful. If the roles work well in our favor. That shouldn't be too big of an issue, since we already have grenades which should make the tech jump easier. If not, I'd suggest a revision to get either of the shoulder launchers to have underwater-capable warheads.
Not to mention wire-guided might cost an advanced component, which would reduce the number of organics we can fit on it.


Other idea:
"Vibro Knife": Taking the base knife from survival kits, we refit it with a high-frequency vibration-blade capable of cutting through armor and suits with ease. Designed more for combat, giving it a better grip and reach.
This one would likely just require a revision, and would give us an edge in underwater melees. We already have a huge advantage, as we just need to crack open the bulb helms to drown them. But advancing from just bludgeoning each other with powered fisticuffs would go a long way to speeding that take over.

A better primary, extra-mobile armor, or an anti-material rifle would also be nice, but I feel the launcher is the best bet for dealing with this immediate issue of the super heavy frames.

[Scholar Knight]

Since it might be in poor taste to vote for someone's design but change it without any input, I'll just throw up my own quick fusion of the two launchers.

Mk.1 ACAM Launcher, "Sea Serpent": Cribbing notes from his two fellow engineers, another proposal lands on the chopping block. The All Conditions Anti Mech Launcher is shoulder-mounted and designed to be operated both in air and submerged. It utilizes a shaped charge to get the maximum amount of anti-armor capabilities for the amount of explosives used. Said warheads' also have shaped nose cones, giving them better hydrodynamics to allow for largely unaffected trajectories when fired underwater.
With our current excess of metal, putting extra care into the construction of the launcher itself to keep it robust and operational in harsher combat conditions should be a consideration. But overall priority is to keep the launcher no more than "expensive" in terms of resource requirements.

And just to get the process started...

Gleipnir M1 HEAM Missile System: (0)
The Leviathan PAA Unit: (0)
"Sea Serpent" Mk.1 ACAM Launcher: (1): SK

[Stirk]

I'll agree, with only 1 organics, energy weapons are going to be a long ways out. Though I should also warn, that heavy explosives will also be rather expensive due to the required organics as well. We can afford a 2-3 resource deficit and still be "expensive".

Therefore, I think we should go for a bit more of a cheaper/weaker explosive, that we can field more of. Keep the armor-piercing capabilities, but reduce the amount of splash/AoE they can do. Make it a pure armor cracker for cost reasons. That way we can afford to field more of them, and not have to try to predict where the Fenris are going to be deployed. In the situation where some explosives are fielded where fenris aren't, we can just use them to crack through armored barricades instead.

A shoulder-mounted launcher sounds good. I'm slightly leaning in favor of the Leviathan, mainly because getting the edge in underwater, and securing that extra organics, will be really useful. If the roles work well in our favor. That shouldn't be too big of an issue, since we already have grenades which should make the tech jump easier. If not, I'd suggest a revision to get either of the shoulder launchers to have underwater-capable warheads.
Not to mention wire-guided might cost an advanced component, which would reduce the number of organics we can fit on it.


Other idea:
"Vibro Knife": Taking the base knife from survival kits, we refit it with a high-frequency vibration-blade capable of cutting through armor and suits with ease. Designed more for combat, giving it a better grip and reach.
This one would likely just require a revision, and would give us an edge in underwater melees. We already have a huge advantage, as we just need to crack open the bulb helms to drown them. But advancing from just bludgeoning each other with powered fisticuffs would go a long way to speeding that take over.

A better primary, extra-mobile armor, or an anti-material rifle would also be nice, but I feel the launcher is the best bet for dealing with this immediate issue of the super heavy frames.

APA explosives should be shaped so that most of their energy goes toward the target, splash damage should already be at a minimum for any APA rocket. We just need to field enough to take care of their heavy suits, I don't think strapping a tiny knife to our own dudes and telling them to chop up a melee monster is going to be more effective than giving them a missile launcher :V

Gleipnir M1 HEAM Missile System: [1]: Stirk
The Leviathan PAA Unit: [1]: SK

[Scholar Knight]

I suppose that's my mistake for making a votebox, then editing it to include my own variation.

Gleipnir M1 HEAM Missile System: (1): Stirk
The Leviathan PAA Unit: (0)
"Sea Serpent" Mk.1 ACAM Launcher: (1): SK

APA explosives should be shaped so that most of their energy goes toward the target, splash damage should already be at a minimum for any APA rocket. We just need to field enough to take care of their heavy suits, I don't think strapping a tiny knife to our own dudes and telling them to chop up a melee monster is going to be more effective than giving them a missile launcher :V

Aye, I agree with the APA part. Which is why I made my own variation that focuses on anti-armor, rather than having just a generalized warhead with HE variants like the Leviathan.

I don't agree with the idea that we should just field enough to match their suits, though. Because it'll let us use the device more freely, and not have to try to assign the very limited number where we think the enemy will deploy theirs. This will avoid both strategic and tactical logistic issues of not having launchers where they desperately need to be. Letting roughly every squad have a single launcher will be a major way of curbing the Fenris' effectiveness. It is also a safeguard for the future. If the smith (quite likely) manage to take the mines, and get enough resources to reduce the Fenris down from very expensive to just expensive, then at the very least we will already have the equipment in place and widespread enough to deal with them.

The knife option was more specifically for underwater melee fights, and a revision on top of that, not as the main development. Currently, no-one's guns work underwater, so its already knife fights and fisticuffs down there. The Fenris is about 1-in-100 for them. So while we just utterly trounce the normal exo suits, even more so if we get a proper melee weapon, the Fenris will actually have a potent and cheap threat. Or they just use one of the two amphibious launchers to take the Fenris mechs from range.

[Stirk]

I suppose that's my mistake for making a votebox, then editing it to include my own variation.

Gleipnir M1 HEAM Missile System: (1): Stirk
The Leviathan PAA Unit: (0)
"Sea Serpent" Mk.1 ACAM Launcher: (1): SK

APA explosives should be shaped so that most of their energy goes toward the target, splash damage should already be at a minimum for any APA rocket. We just need to field enough to take care of their heavy suits, I don't think strapping a tiny knife to our own dudes and telling them to chop up a melee monster is going to be more effective than giving them a missile launcher :V

Aye, I agree with the APA part. Which is why I made my own variation that focuses on anti-armor, rather than having just a generalized warhead with HE variants like the Leviathan.

I don't agree with the idea that we should just field enough to match their suits, though. Because it'll let us use the device more freely, and not have to try to assign the very limited number where we think the enemy will deploy theirs. This will avoid both strategic and tactical logistic issues of not having launchers where they desperately need to be. Letting roughly every squad have a single launcher will be a major way of curbing the Fenris' effectiveness. It is also a safeguard for the future. If the smith (quite likely) manage to take the mines, and get enough resources to reduce the Fenris down from very expensive to just expensive, then at the very least we will already have the equipment in place and widespread enough to deal with them.

The knife option was more specifically for underwater melee fights, and a revision on top of that, not as the main development. Currently, no-one's guns work underwater, so its already knife fights and fisticuffs down there. The Fenris is about 1-in-100 for them. So while we just utterly trounce the normal exo suits, even more so if we get a proper melee weapon, the Fenris will actually have a potent and cheap threat. Or they just use one of the two amphibious launchers to take the Fenris mechs from range.

There isn't currently any reason to not match their suits, the launcher is overkill on their standard infantry that gets eaten up by our standard arms. Our infantry are already capable of holding off and slowing down the enemy suits, so long as they can do that long enough to report the location of enemy targets for those with the APA weapon to deploy. If we go back to comparing this to modern warfare, we don't give every infantry squad an anti-tank launcher since it just slows them down and they can call for fire support whenever they need it. Our infantry can respond to the presence of enemy suits, it isn't like we have to "guess" where they are.

If we don't worry about the Fenris we can just make our rifle shoot special underwater bullets :V

[Scholar Knight]

There isn't currently any reason to not match their suits, the launcher is overkill on their standard infantry that gets eaten up by our standard arms. Our infantry are already capable of holding off and slowing down the enemy suits, so long as they can do that long enough to report the location of enemy targets for those with the APA weapon to deploy. If we go back to comparing this to modern warfare, we don't give every infantry squad an anti-tank launcher since it just slows them down and they can call for fire support whenever they need it. Our infantry can respond to the presence of enemy suits, it isn't like we have to "guess" where they are.

If we don't worry about the Fenris we can just make our rifle shoot special underwater bullets :V

Fair, it wouldn't really be necessary in most conditions, where troops are able to coordinate and are close to allied locations that would already house the stockpiles. However, having more availability would allow faster response times. It's also the difference between several squads having to pull back and draw out the firefight for several minutes waiting for the launcher, or just dealing with the fenris right then and there. Especially on the offense, where we can just lob a bunch of explosives at the enemy to quickly mulch any super heavy suits and send the rest into retreat behind less-exploded cover.

Though it should also be mentioned that our command and coordination between troops is far less than the enemy, thanks to their recently discovered relay network. That means they have a greater ability to respond to us than we do to them. Our current advantage is our baseline is universally better kitted out than theirs. Keeping that baseline higher, with the ability to knock out their primary elites more effectively, is something I think we should strive to maintain as long as possible.

In terms of modern warfare, its a bit different. While lugging around a missile launcher per squad would slow down normal human troops, let's not forget we are fielding men in heavy power armor that are also twice as strong as a normal man. The weight penalty of carrying a launcher will not impact the squad as much as it would for a normal infantry squad.


If the Fenris wasn't such a big threat, and the use of a underwater-capable harpoon rifle/self-propelled gyrojet round/whatever wasn't so specific to just two of the nine zones, I would unironicly considered the underwater rifle. However, with the case of the ACAM, I'm trying to design something that is useful in all nine of the zones. While also giving us an edge in the most finicky of the environments we are dealing with.

[Taricus]

Gleipnir M1 HEAM Missile System: (1): Stirk
The Leviathan PAA Unit: (0)
"Sea Serpent" Mk.1 ACAM Launcher: (2): SK, Taricus

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Gleipnir M1 HEAM Missile System: (1): Stirk
The Leviathan PAA Unit: (0)
"Sea Serpent" Mk.1 ACAM Launcher: (3):SK, Taricus, TL

Okay. Given how I made a vow to not vote for my own stuff anymore leaves me wondering why the Sea Serpent is getting more love. I mean, it’s even named after the other launcher ( although a Leviathan is anything big and underwater, so whales count to.)

We already have better guns than their standard infantry. We just need to topple their bigger units.

[dgr11897]

Mk.1 ACAM Launcher, "Sea Serpent": Cribbing notes from his two fellow engineers, another proposal lands on the chopping block. The All Conditions Anti Mech Launcher is shoulder-mounted and designed to be operated both in air and submerged. It utilizes a shaped charge to get the maximum amount of anti-armor capabilities for the amount of explosives used. Said warheads' also have shaped nose cones, giving them better hydrodynamics to allow for largely unaffected trajectories when fired underwater.
With our current excess of metal, putting extra care into the construction of the launcher itself to keep it robust and operational in harsher combat conditions should be a consideration. But overall priority is to keep the launcher no more than "expensive" in terms of resource requirements.

Difficulty, Medium, Rolled 6, Average result.
Though a bit bigger than anticipated, the Sea Serpent is a decent weapon. With enough explosive power to challenge a Fenris, it is a potent anti Armor weapon. It's ability to operate both in and out of water is also nice, if a bit glitchy. It's unguided and thus not exactly the most accurate, and it's expensive enough that we can't deploy too many of them. Its size makes it less mobile, but it's a necessary sacrifice to let it hold enough fuel and a large enough warhead to have the desired effect.
Mk.1 ACAM Launcher "Sea Serpent"
A rocket launcher sized for power armored troops, this thing is equally effective in and out of water. Unfortunately it's rather innacurate, demanding that the user get dangerously close to a foe if they want to be certain of a hit.
1 Organics, 2 Ore
Expensive

Resources
3 Ore, 1 Organics, 0 Contherinal, 0 Advanced components.

Spoiler: Mason Designs (click to show/hide)

Weapons
Mk1 Rifle
A .303 caliber bolt action rifle with an attached bayonet. Sturdy, reliable, and the bayonet won’t rust when exposed to water. As the propellant has its own oxidizer, allowing the weapon to fire in vacuum with little issue. Costs: 1 ore, 1 organics Cheap

• APA rifle grenade
  A simple rifle grenade with an impact fuse. Useful at hitting targets behind cover. Costs: 2 organics, 1 ore Expensive

Dirty gun
A crude SMG with a tendency to jam. The low caliber ammunition can’t penetrate anything except the faceplate area of the basic LSF1 suits, but with the number of bullets it sprays, that frequently doesn’t matter. Can shoot in space. Cost: 1 ore Cheap Obsolete

MK2 SMG
A vastly improved SMG model, with a better stock, and completely rebuilt mechanisms. The Mk2 has 5.7x28mm steel rounds that allow it to pierce through armor more effectively, along with higher accuracy, higher effective range, and far higher reliability. Cost: 2 ore Cheap

Suits

LSF1-Exo
A survival suit with a powered exoskeleton attached. It’s lightly armored, with a few simple plates being it’s main defense, but it can handle everything from underwater combat to the vacuum of space. The enhanced strength is also great as it allows for brutally effective melee combat. The attached exoskeleton grants a 1.25x boost in strength compared to the average human, and allows people to safely carry larger loads without killing themselves. The suit it’s based off of is manufactured en masse by the automatic systems aboard the arcology as a standard survival suit, said suit could be used as the basis for future power armor, as it provides a solid life supporting base we could strap further enhancements to. Cost: 1 ore, 1 organics Cheap

LSF 1 life support survival suit:
This mildly hardened suit, capable of surviving both vacuum and extreme depths, is mass manufactured by the automated systems up to a quota of 1 suit per person. These suits have mounting points for an optional exo rig, which both sides have taken advantage of. Unfortunately for those using it in combat, it has a large bubble helmet with lights on it that is Exceptionally vulnerable to being shot.Consider this thing Cheap

Warrior M1
A heavier, stronger exoskeleton. With Heavy armor, a new helmet design, and around double normal strength. Cost: 3 ore, 1 organics Cheap
Misc Gear

Survival kit:
A small set of stuff that comes with every suit, includes a large knife, multitool, emergency battery, emergency suit patch kit, flaregun, and a flashlight. Mostly useful for the knife and other miscellaneous gear. The knife is of decent quality, though not meant for combat which means its a little awkward to use in melee. Also cheap
- Now comes with a can and bottle opener.

Contherinal Biogel:
A Medical gel administered through a small handgun like apparatus. Heals gunshot wounds and seals up suits, but isn’t particularly useful in the field due to it not really being faster to grab and use than a suit patch. It does mildly improve survivability, but not by much. 1 Contherinal Expensive

Misc

Contherinal:
Contherinal is a miracle substance when it comes to growing or altering living tissue. Though its origins are mysterious and alien, the substance is what allowed Europa to be colonized at all. Contherinal acts as raw material for genetic enhancements, as it's a mass of cells which lack many of the defense mechanisms that prevent foreign DNA from being implanted into the cells, which allows researchers to plug in new strands of DNA with ease. This, combined with a viral component that spreads the change, allows Contherinal to be used to sculp life into myriad new forms. Unfortunately it hasn’t been produced or harvested in large quantities. Which creates some limitations when it comes to large scale use. We suspect contherinal to possess greater potential than it lets on.

It is now Revision phase 4