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[Chiefwaffles]

We don't have a design credit. We have a Research Credit.
Unless I'm missing something here?

And now for another design.
Design: Mindscreech
Using the same principles displayed in our mindmagic with falcons, we can use this spell to, in a way, stun others.

We use magic to channel extremely disruptive thoughts into a group's mind. They interpret this as an almost constant screaming while in constant pain. The victims are unable to do anything, including operating weapons or magic. The spell can be channeled at quite a decent range and can be focused towards groups of people, such as the crew of an airship.

With this spell, we can completely stun the crew of airships while our weapons take care of them, or stun carpet riders and cause them to fall off their carpets of their own accord.

[Andres]

We don't have a design credit. We have a Research Credit.
Unless I'm missing something here?

((Got the names mixed up. Fixed.))

[Chiefwaffles]

I kind of like the idea of the AS-SPA, so I wrote a more extensive fluff-heavy version. This good?
Design: AS-SPA-1
Uses Research Credit

Too long have we allowed Moskurg to control the sky.
Perhaps it's a good thing. They've grown complacent with their "airships" and carpets. They don't know how to truly utilize the nature of air warfare. But we do.

The AS-SPA-1 is what we call a gyrocopter - it houses a single steam engine that powers two rotors, one for lift and a smaller one for control. The entire construction is made out of crystal, making it tough, light, and cheap.
The steam engine is also made of crystal, making it lighter and more durable, especially given the crystal self-regeneration. It also benefits from the miniaturization of the steam engine that occurred during the Restless project. If required, we're willing to increase the power of the steam engine as part of the project.

Nickel circuitry powers the vehicle. Using techniques learned from countless past designs and the timer incorporated into the newer Equalizer, we can successfully make circuitry "smart" enough to allow for easy control of the steam engine, cannon, and rotors.

This is a single-seat vehicle. The single seat is open-air, though it has a cage-like design giving decent protection against arrows and other projectiles while its closed top protects the occupant from lightning.
An AS-HAC-1 is integrated into the front of the cockpit, with its swivel controls accessible to the driver from inside. Ammunition is also stored in the aircraft - not enough for extended bombardment, but more than enough to easily defeat its foes in the air. The AS-SPA-1 can always simply quickly return to base for reloading, after all.
The AS-HAC-1 is useful against any target - ground or air. Carpets can be shot down, airships can be shot at where their armor is lacking, and the ground can be bombarded from above.

A basic integrated AA Magegem buffer is designed to allow for up to a minute of flight with a mundane user (but no use of the cannon). This allows mage pilots to be able to switch their complete focus onto other things without constantly paying some attention to the engine.

The gyrocopter is also light enough to be stored on a Crystalclad for quick deployment at sea. Given its armor and the lacking air-to-air weapons Moskurg has, just using one AS-SPA-1 per ship shouldn't be of issue. This pushes a Crystalclad's weight limit, but during combat the AS-SPA-1 should be deployed regardless, so it shouldn't affect a Crystalclad's combat performance. At land, the Gyrocopter can be transported via train, fly itself to the theatre, or by some regular method. Makeshift landing sites can very easily be prepared by our soldiers.
Disregarding ammunition for its cannon and the needs of its pilot, the AS-SPA-1 can stay in the air indefinitely. It can fly across the sea, land - anything. This combined with its tough crystal construction means that it can very effectively close the gap between it and an airship, continue operating at sea without a Crystalclad, and much more.

TL;DR: A 1-seat crystal gyrocopter armed with an AS-HAC-1. It may not have extreme firepower but it's very durable, can stay in the air indefinitely, be very effective against their airships + carpets + ground forces, and just secure the air in general. Can serve as a scout too. The crystal construction + crystal regen should make it resistant to pretty much anything they have. A closed top prevents lightning from hitting the pilot, it has a crystal engine eliminating that weak point. A cage-like design protecting the cockpit should give some protection against direct projectile attacks too.

DESIGN

1 AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought" (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
0 Aether Blink (w/ Research Credit):
0 Ritual of the Enflamed Wasp
0 Jetbirds
0 Pillar of unmagic
1 AS-SPA (w/ Research Credit): Andres
1 AS-SPA-1 (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles

I can make changes if requested

EDIT: Added Andres' requested stuff.
EDIT2: Changed Magegem stuff based on what Evicted said.

[VoidSlayer]

Uhhh I thought A rated mage gems were the biggest, and could barely power a flare.

[Chiefwaffles]

Yup. But that's a single A-rated Magegem, which is also very expensive.
By "AA Magegem Battery" I mean multiple AA Magegems connected in series. Not enough to raise the effective expense of the component to Very Expensive, but hopfully enough to just give 10 minutes of flight. It's just for the steam engine, which I assume is our most energy-efficient design.

If it's not enough, then Evicted just won't include it. It doesn't add to the complexity of the design.

[Andres]

DESIGN

1 AS-SPB-3 "Dreadnought" (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles
0 Aether Blink (w/ Research Credit):
0 Ritual of the Enflamed Wasp
0 Jetbirds
0 Pillar of unmagic
0 AS-SPA (w/ Research Credit): Andres
2 AS-SPA-1 (w/ Research Credit): Chiefwaffles, Andres

I can make changes if requested.

1. Change "making it both tough and cheap." to "making it tough, light, and cheap."
2. Include the presence of circuitry.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[evictedSaint]

To reiterate how expense levels work for mages:

Cheap can be cast by any Wizard or Apprentice
Expensive can only by cast by a Wizard
Very Expensive can only be cast by a group of wizards working in tandem, or a very high-level wizard depending on the nature of the spell.
National Effort can only be cast by Myark

Right now your gems really aren't powerful enough to act as a huge battery.  They can be used as a sort of buffer, so that a caster can look away or do something for a few seconds without casting, but they require a circuit and a bunch of low-level gems in a group increase cost.  You got away with the current expense level for Crystalworks using the A gem batteries because I justified it as a one-time expense, rather than a machine you have to keep building.

[VoidSlayer]

To reiterate how expense levels work for mages:

Cheap can be cast by any Wizard or Apprentice
Expensive can only by cast by a Wizard
Very Expensive can only be cast by a group of wizards working in tandem, or a very high-level wizard depending on the nature of the spell.
National Effort can only be cast by Myark

Right now your gems really aren't powerful enough to act as a huge battery.  They can be used as a sort of buffer, so that a caster can look away or do something for a few seconds without casting, but they require a circuit and a bunch of low-level gems in a group increase cost.  You got away with the current expense level for Crystalworks using the A gem batteries because I justified it as a one-time expense, rather than a machine you have to keep building.

As a quick question, what are our wizards actually casting right now?  None of the spells we have seem to be used.  Mostly because we are making cannons and boats and our spells are useless.

[Andres]

GM, I have questions about our anti-magic shells: why aren't they more useful? Why aren't they being used to disable the magical protection of the enemy ships? Why aren't they being fired at enemy air assets so that even if they completely miss they'll still take them out by getting them within range of the anti-magic effect?

[VoidSlayer]

GM, I have questions about our anti-magic shells: why aren't they more useful? Why aren't they being used to disable the magical protection of the enemy ships? Why aren't they being fired at enemy air assets so that even if they completely miss they'll still take them out by getting them within range of the anti-magic effect?

They are very expensive.  We are basically shooting expensive gems at them.  Lots of expensive gems.

[evictedSaint]

[quote author=VoidSlayer link=topic=163277.msg7480829#msg7480829 date=1497120424
As a quick question, what are our wizards actually casting right now?  None of the spells we have seem to be used.  Mostly because we are making cannons and boats and our spells are useless.
[/quote]

Your mages and apprentices are all mostly artillery operators, providing PSF's for HA1's, HC1-E's, and HAC-1's.  They also operate the Crystalworks and provide power to your steam engines on your Crystalclads and Crystaltrains.  Aside from a few select things, most of your equipment can be operated by apprentices or multiple apprentices working in unison.

GM, I have questions about our anti-magic shells: why aren't they more useful? Why aren't they being used to disable the magical protection of the enemy ships? Why aren't they being fired at enemy air assets so that even if they completely miss they'll still take them out by getting them within range of the anti-magic effect?

They've helped make Moskurg ballistas utterly irrelevant, except for the one aboard their airships.  There's no point in firing them at airships or air troops, because even a mundane HA1 shell will annihilate the air asset.  Near-misses will cause magic to fail, but only while in the field of effect.  That's not long enough to cause the ship to fall out of the sky.  They are also very expensive, so you can't afford to load every cannon with them.

[Andres]

They've helped make Moskurg ballistas utterly irrelevant, except for the one aboard their airships.  There's no point in firing them at airships or air troops, because even a mundane HA1 shell will annihilate the air asset.  Near-misses will cause magic to fail, but only while in the field of effect.  That's not long enough to cause the ship to fall out of the sky.  They are also very expensive, so you can't afford to load every cannon with them.

What about their water ships? Load up a HC1-E with an anti-magic shell and have it punch through their hull. The shells might be Very Expensive but only one needs to hit. Once the shell is inside the ship the entire thing is covered in the anti-magic effect, making it slower and less durable.

[evictedSaint]

Their waterships are fairly non-magical.  The only thing that'd be affected by the shells are their ballistas, and their ballistas aren't effective against crystalclads anyways.

[RAM]

I think that you are underestimating the weight of crystal and gems. Our crystals are lighter than steel, there is a lot of room in which one can be lighter than steel and heavier than pretty much any rock. Steam engines have certain pressure limitations, you can only make the armour around them so light before they stop working. Gyrocopters are not going to be appreciably less vulnerable to wind magic than balloons would be. You are going to need to come up with a way to make superior boilers, honestly, I do not think that steam is viable in the air using its current applications. We could probably get a pulse-jet to work while being light enough, though it would be unstable. We could try better crystals, well, not better crystals but better crystal patterns, thinks like cardboard-box patterns, with lots of little tiriangles or pyramids or something between layers so that you reduce density a lot more than your reduce structural strength. But no matter what, I think it is doomed to fail unless we have pulse-jets for low-mass propulsion in order to fight against their wind. or somehow combat their wind, such as upgrading our frost towers to use convection. I am telling you, given the sheer volume of air that the frost towers chill simultaneously, it would be effortless to make a convection reaction that sucks their entire airforce over the top of the frost tower and then smashes it into the ground at more than terminal velocity. Dangerous, yes, but glorious. I mean, it would be silly if we were dealing with sane power-levels here, but the frost towers effect an insane volume of air.

Celestedemorte
A larger, stronger, more powerful frost tower that effects a pillar of air rather than a disk of air. This creates a massive version of the convection effect that we have been constantly observing around our firewalls and steam engines and fireballs and fire wasps and every single tiny little thing that we do with all this fire in cold climes. This creates a massive Massive MASSIVE wind force as untold millions of tonnes of air are compelled to move down as quickly as they are able, and with al their friends doing the same thing, that is very quickly indeed. This will, in short, rip their storm coulds out of the heavens, and all the pathetic insects shall plummet from the air with them. And, as fortune would have it, it seems that as the water grows colder, the number of storm clouds is reduced.

Enduring this insane force is no small feat. The worked-crystal tower's walls are ten centimetres thick and must be transported in great panels by rails and cavalry teams before being assembled by leaning them against each other and bound together with rapidly grown vines. A great steel pole, 3 centimetres in diameter and running along one corner of the pyramidal structure and sunk into the ground renders the tower and its surrounds immune to lightning as we have learned that lightning loves metal. Finally, there is a 1-centimetre thinck shell around the structure of summoned crystal, that can easily be renewed. Within, the traditional elements of the tower of forever frost have been combined with circuitry to create a massive multistorey circuit to better unify the magic, inhibiting magical seepage and wastage resulting in a much more efficient tower and magems are included to make its operation more consistent. Access is granted by a ladder through a hole in the centre of the crystal foundation slab and requires that a tunnel be duge which benefits from crystal supports.

[Chiefwaffles]

I disagree completely.
Crystal isn't just slightly lighter than steel. It's significantly lighter. And while it still is of notable weight, actual helicopters lift a lot more weight. The massive reduction in weight, primarily due to size and to a somewhat lesser degree in crystal, should allow our steam engine to provide more than enough power in order to lift the AS-SPA-1.

You want to use wind magic to do this stuff. While it's definitely not a huge leap to be able to draw wind magic from our mastery of hot/cold, it's still wind magic. And Moskurg specializes in wind magic. We don't want to go head-to-head against Moskurg in the one thing they've been truly specializing in for practically the whole game. It'd be like if Moskurg suddenly tried making better cannons than us instead of building on their own advantages.