Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

[open_sketch]

​

Stress 0​

Office Stress 0​

XP 5​

Spoiler: Character Sheet

Matsura Asuka
Head Designer for Ohara Airworks
Age 24 (Legally 25)
Year 12 AF (After Flight)

Design Stats
Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
Structural Engineering - +2
Chemical Engineering - +1
Mechanical Engineering - +1
Ballistics Engineering - +1
Electrical Engineering - 0

Personal/Political Stats
Social Skills - 0
Politics Skills - 0
Importance - 2
Income - 1
Investments - Ohara

Resources
Power - 0
Wealth - 2

Designs
Type 1 Series - Military Variation (Designated T1M1)
Type 2 Racer (World Speed Record October 1910-April 1911, 180kph)
Model 2 Scout (Designated T1M2)
Navy Scout Prototype (Drowned Rat)
Dive Bomber B1M1 "Duck"
Machine Gun Carrier R1A "Dragonfly" (World Speed Record May-July 1911, 200kph)
Naval Rescue Water-Landing Supply Plane NR1M0 "Dolphin" (World speed record 240kph)
Rhino Demon Train Hunter
The world's first airliner
The world's first pulsejet airplane

Assets
Slide Rule
Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

Languages
Albian
Gallian

Familiar Vices
Drinking
Prostitutes
Dancing

Family Life
- Engaged to Arita Yachi, formerly the leading Ace in the Imperial Army. Designated #1 Cutest Army Boy, he's having some serious problems with PTSD right now.
- Taking a second try at dating Mikami Kiho, ex-dockerwork from the south.

Upgrades
- 3 XP to upgrade a stat.

Spoiler: Ohara Airworks

Ohara Airworks
Start Up, Imperial Capital, Akitsukuni

Owner
- Mr. Ohara, Rich. Aircraft Enthusiast. Business guy.

Engineers

Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

Tezuka Kenji, ???
A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

Hasegawa Morio, 26
A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

Kawamura Yosai, 25.
Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1d10.

Koide Hatsu, 24.
One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
Mechanical +2, Structural +1
No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

Kobayashi Ayao, ???
Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

Adachi Ren, 24
Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
Chemical +2, Electrical +1
Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
Ballistic +3

Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.


Other Employees
- Ohara Satomi, 22, Mr. Ohara's niece and the company test pilot, Ohara is a general lesbian disaster. She's good at flying planes, driving cars, and kissing girls. She's bad at being patient, being respectable, and sticking to literally anyones conceptions of gender roles. Deeply in lesbians with Coralie D'Amboise.
- Fujkikawa Sotatsu, old, modelmaker. He's an old man and toymaker and we don't see much of him because he locks himself in his workshop a lot. He's friends with Kawamura?

Assets
- Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
- Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
- Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)

Spoiler: Expanded Cast

Expanded Cast

Akitsukuni Industry
- Homura Mohoko: Head Engine Designer for Kobayashi. First female engineer in the country. A lot of sex appeal.
- Okumura: Head of Akibara aircraft design.
- Yamanaka Hajime: Kobayashi engineer. Young and eager.
- Igarashi Masazumi: Kobayashi engineer. Reserved and experienced.
- Admiral Akibara Toru: Imperial Navy Admiral. Maximum nepotism. Maximum douchebag.
- Lt.Cmnd Akibara Shinzo: The above's son. A hottie but very forward.



Character Families
- Matsura(?) Mizuko: Asuka's sister. Was paralyzed in an accident in Asuka's first flight. Lives Elsewhere and is married now. Can't forgive Asuka, even though she's tried.
- Adachi Motoki: Adachi's husband, an accountant. Legally blind.
- Adachi Yuki: Adachi's 7 year old daughter and wannabe pilot. Very adorable.
- Yachi's Brother: Exists.
- Sakane's Wife: Exists. Drives him a bit crazy, but he loves her.
- Yachi's Brother's Wife: Exists. Is statistically likely to be pregnant.
- Lt. Coralie D'Amboise: Gallian pilot in exile. Satomi's girlfriend. 25. Accomplished bisexual duelist. She flew in the war for a single day, and for her troubles got a hole blown in her cheek and had her left arm paralyzed.

Akisukuni Army & Ex-Army
- Lt. Torio Tanaka: Yachi's former observer as an enlisted man. Was jumped up to fly Ducks and lost a leg on his first mission. A trained painter, married to Torio Saya.
- Captain Amari Shiro: A Dragonfly pilot who ended up flying as Yachi's partner. Kind of delightfully twinky. They sorta slept together at one point, which wasn't great. He lost his previous boyfriend in the April Offensive and turned his plane into a shrine. He was shot in the gut and is still recovering.
- Major Izuhara: Logistics officer, Imperial Army, this bespectled officer stood up to the Caspian Crown Prince and accidentally kicked off the Akitsikuni-Caspian War. The guilt was so much that, after almost a year of running Army procurement, he shot himself in a phone both.
- Captain Nakai Sekien: Army scout pilot. First person to drop a bomb from an airplane, later head of the Duck Squadrons.
- Captain Teshima: A Desk pilot that fought with Yachi. Lost an arm in the process, took over for Major Izuhara after his death. Seems cheery despite it all.
- Captain Nashio: A real piece of shit dude and probably a rapist, he's also a war hero as the second-highest scoring ace on the Akitsukuni side. He was a young shitty kid in way over his head but it's no excuse.
- Lt. Kinjo: Kind of a dumb lump and Nashio's friend, one of the desk pilots. Dead at 19.
- Lt. Okazaki: Yachi's friend from before the war and pilot, he died in a spin in his dragonfly. His death probably hit Yachi the hardest.

Westerners
- Rose & Antoinette Sears: Pioneers of flight. Sisters. Black in 1910s not!America. Yikes.
- Timina Guasti: Famous aircraft designer from Otrusia. Likes big planes and green.
- Prince Protasov Vasilyevich: Crown Prince of Great Caspia. Real dick. You gotta hand it to him though, a decent flier.
- Count von Zeppelin: Invented rigid airships. Runs a successful airline business. Damned impressive.
- Bennhold: Aircraft Engineer. Experimenting with metal aircraft.
- Aileen Middlemiss: Albian reporter for the Artimis Times. Well meaning and oblivious.

Spoiler: Technology

Available Tech

• Materials: Wood, Duralumin, Molded Wood, Wood & Silk Composite, etc
• All engine mounts
• All wing types
• Basic reinforcement
• Wing warping and ailerons
• Basic water radiators
• Flying Wings
• Semi-Monocoque design (requires at least half the slots have frame pieces)
• Valved pulsejets
• Basic weapon mounts and turrets

Tech not Yet Developed

• Custom engines
• Monocoque construction
• Cantilever Wings and associated tech
• V and T tails
• Tailless designs
• Aluminum and titanium
• Cellulose surfacing
• Any kind of radar
• Weapon accessability mods
• Interruptor gear
• Geared propellers
• And Maybe Other Stuff

Spoiler: Akitsukuni & World

Akitsukuni
Island Nation

Government
Constitutional Monarchy
- The democratic portions of the government are dubiously legitimate.
- The head of state is the Empress of Akitsukuni. She gives her blessing to newly formed governments.
- The Navy and a small number of families have undue influence on politics.

Economy
Developing Mixed Market
- Most industry is controlled by a small number of wealthy, family-owned companies.
- The state provides most contracts to industry. Consumer good market is anemic.
- Exports are few, mostly cultural.
- Imports are raw minerals, food, oil, and expertise.
- Currently suffering an economic crash after the last war.

Politics
The Diet is currently ruled by a Constitutional Nationalist government. It has a system of nonlocal proportional representation, with representatives appointed by the party in accordance to their share of the vote.
- Constitutional Nationalists: 50%
- Purity Club: 9%
- New Independents: 26%
- Fairness Association: 11%
- United Communist League: 2%
- Monarchists: 1%
- Assorted Fringe Parties: 5%

Demographics
Akitsukuni is mostly very ethnically homogeneous. Around 5% of the population are various minorities, most from nearby countries. Roughly .1% are westerners here for business or in advisory positions.
- Population: 55 Million
- Religion: Mostly Kodo. Roughly 2% of the population follows western religions.
- Wealth: Most wealth is concentrated in the top 5% of the country. Nearly 20% of the population lives in conditions indistinguishable from peasantry.
- Urbanization: Heavily urbanized for a small economy: 35% and rapidly growing.

Military
At Peace
- Imperial Akitsukuni Navy (IAN): The 6th largest in the world, and the most experienced.
- Imperial Akitsukuni Army (IAA): 150,000 highly experienced soldiers, and a considerable reserve.

Aspects
- Poor Resources: Aluminum costs +1.
- Damn Akitsukuni Engines!: Engines have -1 Reliability.

Spoiler: Old Map

The Main Character Of This Quest Is Nonbinary And Uses They/Them Pronouns.

I Am Putting This Here Because The Next Person To Misgender Them Is Getting Yeeted Into The Trash

Also here's the Gayaverse TV Tropes page, because why not.​

 

[Himmelhand]

Behold:

Rutan Varieze

Click to shrink...

I figure we would need a biplane with no sweep, but otherwise it would be good. Plus if it's a pusher, it'll have a better view out the front for spotters.

 

[brmj]

Volts in this system are a unit of charge, much like horsepower is measured based on some extremely large horses - an abstract term with a familiar name.

Click to shrink...

I kind of feel like that just invites confusion here. Might as well call it something else so that people don't try and fail to apply engineering to a problem.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. The Wright Flyer 3 was pretty reasonable in this configuration. It flew reliably and only crashed because Orville screwed up once and they didn't have time to rebuild it. This was later developed into the Wright Model A, which was sold to the Army. A picture is shown below:

Click to shrink...

It was the "outboard rudders at the end of the wing" part I had a problem with, though it looks like I missed the part where it was specifically a closed wing, likely because of the picture of the Rutan Varieze you posted in reference to it right after. With a closed wing, I have no real structural objections.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

O U T B O A R D T A I L

Click to shrink...

And now it must happen.

Simply way too cool.

 

[Artificial Girl]

I still think we ought to give the Ogre a look.

 

[Wiadi]

@open_sketchbook (or anyone else who already knows), while I understand if we still aren't supposed to have access to the full mechanics of the system, any chance we could get some indication of at least roughly what burnout numbers mean? I assume that higher numbers indicate lower reliability but that's about all I can gather & it doesn't seem to have been explained anywhere in-thread, so far as I can find.

 

[Crasian01]

With a closed wing, I have no real structural objections.

Click to shrink...

Oh, you mean that you were concerned about the bending moment at the winglet? Yeah, that's a potential issue, but I suspect it's not as bad as you fear. It really depends on how you construct it, of course, but it's probably not too big of a deal for a low-speed scout plane. It just needs to be there, at the end of the day, not actually do anything crazy.

This being said, a biplane has obvious advantages.

And now it must happen.

Simply way too cool.

Click to shrink...

You can also, like, just make your ailerons large enough to be your elevators. That drops your weight and makes you control system much easier to design, increasing reliability.

 

[samdamandias]

And now it must happen.

Simply way too cool

Click to shrink...

Not on the Mark 2 Scout, alas. We're designing it while on a boat, away from all our reference texts and testing facilities. (Hence my wondering whether we can tune these Goblins to run rich.). This is not the time to be trying something experimental.

Which means the electric pusher with an O U T B O A R D E M P E N N A G E is sadly not our craft. (We could, I suppose, go tractor, I'd need to run the numbers, it would depend on how much mass of batteries we can shove into a frame section, but if we're tractor than currently a rear empennage is just better.)

any chance we could get some indication of at least roughly what burnout numbers mean?

Click to shrink...

Well, assuming that it is the same way a different system used to work (so take this with a small boat of salt, because I could very well be wrong), every time a pilot opens the throttle fully, they add to a gauge. When they clear the gauge, they roll a number of dice equal to the gauge plus the Burnout. Rolling more dice is bad, and can make your engine break or even catch fire if you are very unlucky.

 

[plotvitalnpc]

Not on the Mark 2 Scout, alas. We're designing it while on a boat, away from all our reference texts and testing facilities. (Hence my wondering whether we can tune these Goblins to run rich.). This is not the time to be trying something experimental.

Which means the electric pusher with an O U T B O A R D E M P E N N A G E is sadly not our craft. (We could, I suppose, go tractor, I'd need to run the numbers, it would depend on how much mass of batteries we can shove into a frame section, but if we're tractor than currently a rear empennage is just better.)
Well, assuming that it is the same way a different system used to work (so take this with a small boat of salt, because I could very well be wrong), every time a pilot opens the throttle fully, they add to a gauge. When they clear the gauge, they roll a number of dice equal to the gauge plus the Burnout. Rolling more dice is bad, and can make your engine break or even catch fire if you are very unlucky.

Click to shrink...

There's also the question of how many batteries we could put on while staying under our very restrictive budget.

 

[open_sketch]

Alright y'all, it is time to show you THE RULES.

You'll want to scroll down to the plane creation section. However, I have a few rules for using these rules for this quest.

We will not be doing things in the same order as they are presented here. We will always follow the familiar pattern; start with an engine, build the frame, put wings on that bitch. This is because plane design in regular Flying Circus is a divinely inspired trip to a dreamworld of flight that pilots take, instead of an actual room full of engineers with slide rules. And also that's how real life aircraft design was done.

I would ask that you not simply design a plane wholesale and get everyone to vote for it. We should do this one section at a time. After all, you guys represent the collective efforts of a team of 9 designers. Let there be a committee! Yes, it might produce less optimal results, but it'll produce more interesting results and I care about that more.

Also remember that you guys don't have access to everything that's avaliable in these rules yet. I mean, some of it is magic... and some of it just isn't doable for you. Flying Circus' default rules make planes from 1910-1930.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Volts in this system are a unit of charge, much like horsepower is measured based on some extremely large horses - an abstract term with a familiar name.

Click to shrink...

[Physics guy randomly twitches]

Please pick something else. Anything, even a completely made-up unit, is better than misusing a real unit that means something else.

You could go like Mark Watney in The Martian and call your new unit 'one pirateninja.'

 

[open_sketch]

Nah. See, in the game itself, you're just looking down at your electric plane's character sheet and going like, oh yeah, I got 4 volts left for my laser gun. And I know its for my laser gun, because its an electricity word, as opposed to the 4 arbitrary fuel units i have, the 12 arbitrary power units in my engine, the 15 arbitrary drag units my aircraft has, and the fact that I have stats named things like "Daring" and "Calm".

Anyway today for art funsies I drew the cast in the sorta Ghibli-style. My hand hurts.

I like the idea of these like, half-kimono, half western shirt&tie thing. It's fun.

 

[brmj]

Nah. See, in the game itself, you're just looking down at your electric plane's character sheet and going like, oh yeah, I got 4 volts left for my laser gun. And I know its for my laser gun, because its an electricity word, as opposed to the 4 arbitrary fuel units i have, the 12 arbitrary power units in my engine, the 15 arbitrary drag units my aircraft has, and the fact that I have stats named things like "Daring" and "Calm".

Click to shrink...

How about "charge", then? That gets across what you are using it for better, and won't make physics and engineering types heads explode?

 

[open_sketch]

A "charge" is a specific term in Powered by the Apocalypse games.

 

[brmj]

A "charge" is a specific term in Powered by the Apocalypse games.

Click to shrink...

Well, it was worth a shot. There's got to be something else less misleading that fits at all naturally. I'm with SJ on this one. When I see volts being used for that, I involuntarily cringe a little.

 

[Ato]

Perhaps Watts or Kilowatts would be a better term. Really it should be Kilowatt hours for the actual units being used, but that's probably a little too clunky.

 

[kpkdktswnw2015]

Is it possible to put 2 Goblin Fan Engines, like in racer?

 

[Michael Lewis]

Perhaps Watts or Kilowatts would be a better term. Really it should be Kilowatt hours for the actual units being used, but that's probably a little too clunky.

Click to shrink...

Even then, watts mean something IRL, so that would still be confusing. Perhaps just kWh without any explanation as to what it stands for?

Seriously though, using Volts for "unit of charge" is about as intuitive as having a universe where doors are referred to as "floors," the Walls are referred to as "windows," and the windows are called "ceilings." I'm not even a physics major, and this irritates me to no end.

 

[Axslashel]

[x] Goblin Fan Engine: 2円, 6hp, 1 mass, 1 drag, 1 burnout. Air cooled. You know it, you love it. Not as powerful as the E-series, but much lighter.
The most reliable engine and we have experience with it.
@open_sketchbook Why do we always have to start with the engine when designing a plane? In this case we already have a frame and are basically just tryingt to replace the engine. If the replacement is to be done as easily and quickly as possible I don't want to change the current airframe more than strictly necessary.

 

[kpkdktswnw2015]

Plus new airframe means army asking Why?

 

[samdamandias]

Since Sketch posted the rules, I can now post this:
Ohara Airworks drawing board
Which does all the calculations for you, and lets you mess around with wing configurations and the like.

Edit: Ignore most of the planes, please. They were designed with a previous iteration of the rules. That and anything involving Whalebone, Dragon Skin, and heat rays aren't actually possible.

 

[Jace911]

Even then, watts mean something IRL, so that would still be confusing. Perhaps just kWh without any explanation as to what it stands for?

Seriously though, using Volts for "unit of charge" is about as intuitive as having a universe where doors are referred to as "floors," the Walls are referred to as "windows," and the windows are called "ceilings." I'm not even a physics major, and this irritates me to no end.

Click to shrink...

99% of people won't be bothered and it's a convenient shorthand that communicates "electrical power".

 

[Jace911]

also @open_sketchbook can you remind me how fuel consumption works with multiple engines? does it just cut fuel in half if you have two engines of the same size?

 

[open_sketch]

Yes.

 

[Artificial Girl]

I'm trying to mess with the drawing board but I'm still not really sure how this works or how to calculate things so it's kind of confusing.

 

[Jace911]

in the interests of not turning this into the Flying Circus general thread and ignoring the quest, anyone who wants help with the plane generator should probably PM samdamandias