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[Iris]

Alright, difficulty checks for all of Asea's proposals. The difficulty is somewhat subjective and will vary based on your experience in an area and the complexity of a task; these are guidelines.

Spoiler: Components (click to show/hide)

Basics Powerplant Family: Easy. Steam engines are very simple and the most complicated part is phlogiston chemistry and electricity generation.
Propellers: Easy. Just a copy of designs already in use, and the design poses no significant engineering challenge.
Rotational Motivators: Normal. Novel, but simple in principle.
Compressed Aetherstuff Propulsion: Normal, borderline Difficult due to demands of deplogistication.
Sails: Easy; proven technology.
Mk0 Wireless Family: Difficult. Sorlaria has no experience with electronics or radio.
Mk0 Cannon Family: Normal. The cannon designs are Easy but some shell types push it up a level.
Mk0 Fire Control System: Normal, borderline Difficult. Sorlaria has no experience with electronics but this is a relatively simple application.
Mk0 Rocket Family: Difficult. Sorlaria has no experience with missile systems, especially guidance.
Electronic Eye Systems: Normal. Simple in principle.
Bio Eye Guidance & Detection System: Normal. Simple in priciple.

Spoiler: Ships (click to show/hide)

Toenail-class Lighter: Normal. No significant deviation from simple designs, but Sorlaria has not designed a parasite before.
Eye-class Picketship: Normal. The most significant engineering challenge is carrying three parasites, and the likely increase of size over previous domestic ships this would cause.
Foot-class Patrolship: Normal, borderline Difficult. An ambitious design, but just barely within reasonable capabilities.
Rock-class Monitor: Difficult. A ship of that size and armament is unprecedented.

Edit: forgot to add the Foot-class partrolship.

[Nirur Torir]

Your difficulty table looks odd to me, since easy designs have twice the chance of giving breakthroughs.
Does the research difficulty relate to the industrial difficulty at all?
Can we kludge civilian components into a ship design if needed? Using a random assortment of civilian engines and propulsion might be useful if we want to start with basic carriers and put more research into parasite components.

[Iris]

The Difficulty of a design is not directly related to the final result's Complexity Rating, but a poor roll is more likely to push up the Complexity Rating compared to a good roll.

House Sorlaria's civilian industry is in just as much difficulty as the military industry - borrowing designs is possible, but will likely result in high Complexity Ratings (as they are not being manufactured locally).

Ninja edit:

Your difficulty table looks odd to me, since easy designs have twice the chance of giving breakthroughs.
Does the research difficulty relate to the industrial difficulty at all?
Can we kludge civilian components into a ship design if needed? Using a random assortment of civilian engines and propulsion might be useful if we want to start with basic carriers and put more research into parasite components.

On further inspection, you're right. I'll consider whether to amend the Easy table.

[Aseaheru]

 A few edits have had to be made, mostly where I didn't actually say how many missiles fit in a pod or most of any of the design for the Rock... I also have some slightly longer-term designs im going to add in here


And now, those designs I promised

Spoiler: Upgrade Steam Turbines (click to show/hide)

 Turbine systems allow for significantly higher pressures and speeds than reciprocating engines, although they do cost rather more. With the right design, a reciprocating engine can be torn out and a turbine put in its place realitivly easily, perhaps along with improved steam boilers.

Spoiler: Aetherturbine (click to show/hide)

 It is long known by the Xinderi that a device that dephlogisticates aether and combusts the products within a specially-constructed turbine will result in motivational power, both from the exhaust and from the rotation of the turbine. This has hitherto been out of reach of the sadly dilapidated industry of House Sorlaria, but with some work efforts can return.
 Two lines of inquiry are thus carried out, a "turboshaft" focused on producing electrical or mechanical power and a "turbojet" focusing more on efficient dephlogistication equipment sufficient enough to supply enough fuel for the engine's exhaust to actually produce thrust.

Spoiler: Countermeasures (click to show/hide)

 Missiles require guidance. Some of these are based on wireless signals, some on light, some on heat. Designing countermeasures is thus important in the extreme. These consist of the following;
 Directional jamming via high-powered wireless transmitters
 Metal "chaff" dispensers to create false, oversized targets for wireless sets
 High-temperature(and bright) flares and their dispensers
 Light "dazzlers", attempting to blind optical sensors via high-intensity flashing lights
 
 Once developed, these systems should be integrated across the fleet, with at the least chaff and flare dispensers being mounted on all craft.
 

Spoiler: Battlewagon-Class Assault Lighter (click to show/hide)

 The Battlewagon-Class Assault Lighter is named for the wagons of history that carried Xinderi into combat long ago. Protected by armor both light and medium(with the medium armor protecting the "nose" of the craft), Battlewagons are comparably heavily armed with a RFW turret in its "nose", two "wings" each with four hardpoints along their length capable of mounting RFW pods, Group A rocket pods or the two-round Group B boxes. Propulsion is via compressed aetherstuff and two large propellers(designed to be folded down to reduce space), all powered/supplied in bulk by a pair of small aetherturbine turboshaft engines.
 These parasites are notable in the carriage of assault troops, with up to a hand of hands(16) being carried in its internal crew bay, which is capable of acting as an airlock on its own.
 Integrated sensors include electronic eyes and a wireless detector.
 

Spoiler: Dart-Class Assault Parasite (click to show/hide)

 This class of parasite has one role: to seek out the enemy and engage it. Small, lightly armored and propelled by a pair of large(for its size) aetherturbine turbojets, the Dart is armed with a forward-fixed RFW, three wings each with three internal hardpoints for RFW pods or Group A missile pods, and three external hardpoints on the main body each capable of mounting a two-round Group B missile pod, a group C missile, a wireless guidance set for group B or C missiles, an oversized wireless detector pod, or a pod containing additional consumables for the vessel(i.e., batteries and oxygen)
 Integrated sensors include electronic eyes and a wireless detector.

[NUKE9.13]

Okay, so. First things first: power and propulsion. Everything else is secondary.

Basics Powerplant Family: Easy. Steam engines are very simple and the most complicated part is phlogiston chemistry and electricity generation.
Propellers: Easy. Just a copy of designs already in use, and the design poses no significant engineering challenge.

We could do these two, and be fairly confident of getting decent kit, leaving us with plenty of design actions to spend on other tech (sensors, weapons, etc). It would also probably be relatively cheap stuff. (Let's call these tier-one tech)
An alternative option would be to do something a bit more experimental- target of Normal/Difficult (tier-two tech, as it were). If such a project succeeds, then we'd be skipping a tier, which would save actions in the long run. However, if they fail, we'd have to spend a second action to fix them (at the end of the day we'd still be spending two actions for tier-two tech, though). And it would probably be more expensive.

I could see going down either path. I think I'll write up designs for the second option, to get a difficulty check if nothing else.


E: Okay, I dunno if I went too far off the rails with this one. It may conflict with existing lore, for all I know. Iris, plausibility/difficulty check please:

Enlightened Propeller:
Long live House Sorlaria! Now that we are free from the repressive yoke of House Nitidid, we can finally unleash the true potential of our greatest minds! After a brief recovery period, our technology will far outshine that produced by the conservative engineers we left behind. Take a propeller. It's just a propeller, right? Not much that can be done to improve it, right? Wrong! Just look at the hominid designs- so much less efficient than our own ducted propellers. Why shouldn't it be possible to improve even further?
Aetheric currents are the topic of much speculation. Where do they come from? Why do they flow the way they do? Eccentric scholars of House Sorlaria have studied this phenomenon, and while they can't answer every question, they believe they have uncovered a relevant piece of the puzzle. They believe the currents are created by the stars, specifically the interference of two (or more) stellar frequencies. The discordance is unnoticeable to all but the most sensitive electronics, but the Aether is affected, creating currents. They can't quite explain why, or indeed predict what effect any particular confluence of frequencies will have, but the basic idea- that interference between two stellar frequencies can cause Aetheric motion- is enough to start with, the rest is just trial and error.
An Enlightened Propeller system consists of a standard ducted propeller, but the blades are coated with a special non-reflective paint. Then there are two 'stellar frequency projectors' (a contraption of mirrors, lenses, and various electric (heat/light/uv)lamps) that shine on the propeller, carefully calibrated so the interference between the two beams happens on the propeller itself. The intended effect is for the propeller blades to interact more strongly with Aether, giving greater thrust than an unenlightened propeller of the same size and strength. Though the frequency projectors require a non-trivial amount of power themselves, overall the system is expected to be considerably more efficient.

[Iris]

Alright, difficulty check.

Enlightened Propeller: Difficult. While the basic principles are sound, the combination of exotic physics and projected mechanical complexity make the proposal much more challenging to design than a simple electric ducted propeller.

[NUKE9.13]

Right, well. I'm going to suggest doing one Easy and one Difficult design. That way we have a shot at getting some more advanced stuff, but don't run the risk of messing up two designs.

Basics Powerplant Family: (1) NUKE9.13
Enlightened Propeller: (1) NUKE9.13

[Aseaheru]

Works fer me.

Basics Powerplant Family: (2) NUKE9.13, AseaHeru
Enlightened Propeller: (2) NUKE9.13, AseaHeru

[Rockeater]

Basics Powerplant Family: (3) NUKE9.13, AseaHeru, Rockeater
Enlightened Propeller: (3) NUKE9.13, AseaHeru, Rockeater

[Kashyyk]

Basics Powerplant Family: (4) NUKE9.13, AseaHeru, Rockeater, Kashyyk
Enlightened Propeller: (4) NUKE9.13, AseaHeru, Rockeater, Kashyyk

[Iris]

Alright, this seems to be a solid lead. Votes are locked, I'll roll and do a writeup.

[Iris]

Basics Powerplant Family:
Easy: 3 (As Expected)

The Basics Powerplant Family is several steam engine setups all sharing a common design: several water-tube boilers firing phlogiston-enhanced oil, a steam engine with a design roughly comparable to hominid examples, and an electrical generator. They are quite easy to construct and are reasonably efficient - a side effect of the boilers and fuel more than the piston engine, which is a simple triple-expansion design - but lack in power-to-weight ratio compared to other, more advanced options. Uniflow designs were considered but ultimately found impractical.

The design team has come up with Basic Powerplants in 30u, 100u, 300u, 500u, and 1000u sizes - sufficient to power anything from a parasite craft to a heavy combat ship. They project that the design will be Complexity 1, allowing Sorlaria to produce it without expensive tooling.


Enlightened Propeller:
Difficult: 3 (Subpar)

The Enlightened Propeller design takes a foray into the exciting new field of stellar interference. It was known that the aether can react in response to 'frequencies' given off by stars, and it was speculated that these frequencies can be created artificially. The design team was partially correct on this assumption. While this effect has been proven to occur, it is also more subtle than expected.

This means a larger - and thus more power-hungry and vulnerable - array (called the Resonating Element by the design team, partially as a handy nickname and partially to obscure the new field of work). The base electric propeller works sufficiently, but the Resonating Element can be turned on to significantly increase the thrust of the propeller. Unfortunately, combined with the relatively weak Basics steam engines, the Enlightenment can only be used when high speed is desired. This is still, however, a major boon compared to comparable unenlightened designs.

The propellers come in 10u, 50u, 100u, 300u, and 500u sizes. They are projected to have a Complexity Level of 3.


The High Queen is pleased with your work so far.

As the dust settles, the fourteen planets of House Sorlaria begin to come out of panic mode. Civilian industries are starting to reform, and the military is rebuilding. This development worries the other Houses, who view Sorlaria as a buffer state between them and the more developed Houses.

Specifically among the murmurs are House Lapilli, House Nitidid, and House Cadidus. These are the Houses that 'border' Sorlaria - borders being a tenuous concept in the aether - and the ones that feel the most threatened by the slow march to recovery. House Cadidus and Nitidid are much larger and more well-developed than Sorlaria, while Lapilli is smaller and between the two and Sorlaria in technology. The High Queen would like to ask for your opinion on the best way to repel a House Lapilli assault - knowing that they prefer medium, fast craft with many medium-sized missiles and a few large ones.

[Aseaheru]

 well, anti-missile work will probally want up to six designs; the cannon for shooting at them, wireless detection, electronic eyes and/or bioeyes or training them, the countermeasures to distract them, and possibly the rockets/missiles for both shooting at them and carrying countermeasures to distract them
 First proposed vessel requires the cannon, compressed-aetherstuff propulsion, bio-eyes, electronic eyes, radio, some form of parasite craft, and optionally the rockets.

[Iris]

I should note that the High Queen would merely like suggestions and proposals; the patrol ship remains the only demand at the time.

[NUKE9.13]

I think a basic weapon & sensor suite should be our next goal. Maybe even just a cannon, but rockets or very rudimentary missiles might also work.