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

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Character Sheet
  • Informational


    • ​
    Stress
    0​
    Office Stress
    0​
    XP
    5​

    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.

    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)
    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.
    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
    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.



    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.​
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • [X] Let's reinforce it as much as we might a standard aircraft, to be safe. (2 G limit)
    This may sound like Heresy, but it's not the end of the world if we don't win. I would much rather have a 90% chance of our pilot coming home with a silver than a 50% chance of them coming home in a box.
     
    Last edited:
    [X] Let's reinforce it as much as we might a standard aircraft, to be safe. (2 G limit)

    It's 2Gs. Minor yes, but this is for endurance. Not speed.
     
    [X] Let's reinforce it as much as we might a standard aircraft, to be safe. (2 G limit)

    Yeah, we do not want a surprising strong gust of wind force us into maneuvers or a position we can't recover from in fear of breaking the plane.
     
    [X] Let's reinforce it as much as we might a standard aircraft, to be safe. (2 G limit)

    And now for the new to the thread idea shotgun. One airplane that might be interesting to replicate would be the Piper Cub, or more accurately it's predecessors. I really like the idea of designing something that will last. The first airplane in the lineage was designed in 1928, and it was improved and evolved through the 1980s. There are still several thousand of them registered with the FAA.

    I want to mess around with replicating it in the system, to see just how many tech advancements are necessary. I've found the version 8 design rules, but I can't seem to find the version 9 rules.

    The other idea that I had was for an omake set in the space race. Approaching the end of their career, Matsura decides to create something remarkable. The CEO decides to go along with the crazy plan, and sinks nearly every penny of Ohara Aviation into the venture. As the various powers prepare to put the first person into space, a tandem wing Skylon takes flight with Satomi at the controls. It goes into orbit, and drops off the Type 2 racer, before returning to Terra Firma. Two weeks later Ohara Orbitals performs the first orbital rendezvous to bring the old girl back home.

    I'm just amused by the idea of a new generation of engineers going to break new boundaries only to be immediately dunked on by Matsura Asuka. They go down in the history books as one of the greatest minds of the human race.
     
    Last edited:
    neutronium95 said:
    I want to mess around with replicating it in the system, to see just how many tech advancements are necessary. I've found the version 8 design rules, but I can't seem to find the version 9 rules.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Himmelhand said:
    Construction rules are up to version 9 now!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    No one has posted since, so I assume this is the latest version of the plane building auto-spreadsheet, if you want to suffer play around with that. But plane building discussion usually happens in the plane building thread because pages and pages of spreadsheets is bad for quest discussion.


    Also, I don't think I've voted yet, so;
    [X] Let's reinforce it as much as we might a standard aircraft, to be safe. (2 G limit)
     
    Faith said:
    No one has posted since, so I assume this is the latest version of the plane building auto-spreadsheet, if you want to suffer play around with that. But plane building discussion usually happens in the plane building thread because pages and pages of spreadsheets is bad for quest discussion.


    Also, I don't think I've voted yet, so;
    [X] Let's reinforce it as much as we might a standard aircraft, to be safe. (2 G limit)
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Thanks for the link. I kept narrowing my search down to only posts by open_sketch.
     
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    SakaneQuest 2-9: Must Go Faster
  • Sidestory
    • As the day crawled to an end, you were fairly happy with the results you'd produced. The resulting machine would be no means be the fastest thing in the sky: the amount of support the engines needed in the wings meant it wouldn't be going over 180 kilometers an hour in level flight. However, it could do so for an extremely long time on its fuel tanks, and glide easy on the 26 square meters of wing it hung under. It would be pretty comfortable to fly, a bit stiff on the controls but incredibly stable. It was simple, robust, and safe. A fairly conservative design that could win the race by sheer endurance, coasting over refueling points and on to the end.

    ... it wasn't nearly as fast as you'd hoped.

    Okay, perhaps more work was needed. Maybe you needed to stay later and make some changes to refine your machine. Maybe there was some way to get some more speed out of her. Maybe you needed to reconsider materials and how you assembled them. Maybe there was something you were missing.

    You glanced at the clock. You really didn't want to stay too late. You wanted to go out, have some drinks, and get home to your family. But... there was the honour of the company to consider.

    • x2 Hornet R-3 Boxer Engines
    • x1 Low Panel Radiator, 16 Cooling
    • x2 13m2, 10m wings (Parasol & Shoulder, Extreme Positive Stagger)
    • x3 Internal Fuel Tanks
    • x2 cockpits w/ windscreens, copilot controls
    • x1 Water tank
    • Standard tailplane
    • x1 Wooden Strut, x2 Steel Strut, Wires
    • Basic landing gear
    • 5 hull slots, wood & canvas covering
    180kph top speed, Dropoff 10
    Stall Speed 10 at full load, 6 Empty
    Stability 7
    Toughness 28, Max Strain 23
    Mass: 31
    Drag: 106
    ----
    ​
    Modifications (Unless otherwise specified, costs 1 Stress. You are at 2 Stress.)​
    ​
    [ ] Let's throw some fairings over those engines to reduce their drag.​
    [ ] This is wild, but what if we installed a crank on the landing gear to move them up into the hull? It would weigh a lot, but... (+2 Stress)​
    [ ] If we install some flaps, we can trim the wings down without making landings any more dangerous.​
    [ ] ... maybe we can do with less supports. It'll be dangerous, but speed is speed...​
    [ ] If we took a fuel tank out, it'd save a lot of weight. They'd need to land to refuel but maybe that's okay?​
    [ ] The canvas skin isn't good enough. We should make it from molded wood like the Dragonfly, and damn the extra weight!​
    [ ] Let's lean the propeller pitch all the way out and get every last bit of speed we can from it.​
    [ ] Write In.​
    [ ] Let's optimize for higher speed, taking a hit to...​
    [ ] Lift efficiency, which means a higher stall speed.​
    [ ] The amount of room in the cockpit, which'll reduce their visibility and ability to escape if it goes wrong.​
    [ [ Mass, which means a heavier aircraft with a higher stall speed.​
    [ ] Internal structure, which means that damage or bad landings will hurt more.​
    [ ] External structure, weakening the wings.​
    [ ] Reliability of the engines. Let's run them hotter!​
    [ ] My own personal life. If I just put the hours in, I can make it faster! (+3 additional Stress)​
     
  • Sidestory
    • Oh Christ. It's a dog.

    Prop pitch only slows our acceleration and extends our takeoff run which is probably irrelevant over these sort of distances and flaps are essentially free. Everything else comes with tradeoffs.

    In terms of options not presented, paper coverings would probably be very helpful at the cost of only slightly increased fire risk (doped canvas also burns like hell if an engine catches fire). We also have a bit of mass and drag overhead right now so there's room to add to one to reduce the other.

    Something worth considering is putting one of the fuel tanks in the wings (+3 Drag) so we can remove a fuselage section that's only half full (-2 Drag, -1 Mass). Find another Mass somewhere and we go to 29 Mass which reduces Drag by 1 and then by another 1 for the landing gear, net change -1 Drag.
     
    So for reference, what exactly is the roll we'll be doing against Stress after this?
     
    So, going entirely by instinct-

    [ ] Let's throw some fairings over those engines to reduce their drag.

    Flat four, external radiator? Seems like a solid bet.

    [ ] This is wild, but what if we installed a crank on the landing gear to move them up into the hull? It would weigh a lot, but... (+2 Stress)

    I'd like to see some real innovations in our design, and this seems like a good bet for evolutionary improvement. Not sure it is worth the extra stress... Let's see if there's a better option below.

    [ ] If we install some flaps, we can trim the wings down without making landings any more dangerous.

    Good bet for an airplane we are optimizing for endurance at crossing speed.

    [ ] ... maybe we can do with less supports. It'll be dangerous, but speed is speed...

    Not sure I love this one. We are going to be landing on unimproved airfields far away from repair facilities. Things break, we are done.

    [ ] If we took a fuel tank out, it'd save a lot of weight. They'd need to land to refuel but maybe that's okay?

    Hmm. Would prefer the long-distance endurance to this as a strategy.

    [ ] The canvas skin isn't good enough. We should make it from molded wood like the Dragonfly, and damn the extra weight!

    Unclear what this helps. Does it reduce drag for speed? Does it increase structure to minimize external struts? Idk. I like the aesthetics though.

    [ ] Let's lean the propeller pitch all the way out and get every last bit of speed we can from it.

    Should be fine and an easy win, since we are optimizing for long-distance cruising.

    [ ] Let's optimize for higher speed, taking a hit to...

    Yes. Personal life ideally, but also mass- higher stall speeds should be ok, since I don't think we face sort runways or steep climbs anywhere.

    This is our first project as lead designer, it is our glory on the line. Personal life can wait a bit.
     
    Okay, PSA: I just checked fairings, they are actively extremely harmful to the design and weigh so much that they create a net drag increase by the time you bulk the wings up to carry them.
     
    Okay, first off, here's the design so we're all singing from the same hymn sheet. Don't direct edit it.


    There are two ways to go about this in my view. Both will get you to the 250kph overspeed limit of the engines while retaining all of the requested design features. You can either take the stress hit to design the world's first retractable landing gear or you can do what I'm going to propose at the bottom:

    [X] Plan Paper Crane
    -[X] If we install some flaps, we can trim the wings down without making landings any more dangerous.
    -[X] Let's lean the propeller pitch all the way out and get every last bit of speed we can from it.
    -[X] Write In. The canvas skin isn't good enough. We should make it from treated paper like the Dove, the increase in fire risk is negligible over canvas! Wings and fuselage.
    -[X] Let's optimize for higher speed, taking a hit to...
    --[X] External structure, weakening the wings.

    Yeah, I know. But right now we have 37 strain and we only specified for 20. There's no way of arranging the struts for lower drag while keeping strain above 20, but we can use optimisation to sacrifice some of our excess strain capacity easily.

    Paper structures are the big winner here though, for civil applications they're simply superb.
     
    [X] Plan Paper Crane

    This seems like a good option. It's +4 stress, which would give us 6 total. Against a 2d6 roll, that gives us better than even odds of a success.

    If someone has a good plan that's only +3 stress, I'd happily change my vote
     
    [X] Plan Landing Gear
    -[X] This is wild, but what if we installed a crank on the landing gear to move them up into the hull? It would weigh a lot, but... (+2 Stress)
    -[X] If we install some flaps, we can trim the wings down without making landings any more dangerous.
    -[X] Let's lean the propeller pitch all the way out and get every last bit of speed we can from it.

    +4 stress for what I think are the simplest effective choices. The retractable landing gear cuts out a massive amount of drag, and is thus probably worth the 2 stress. Flaps and propeller pitch both have effectively no downsides for us aside from the stress.

    I wanted to include an Internal Structure reduction but don't think that's quite worth the stress. (we shouldn't be taking damage or landing badly anyway)
     
    Last edited:
    Does a landing gear plus flaps plus paper get us anything? It seems like if we are going sleek/light we might as well go all the way.
     
    Gotta say, I'm a bit skeptical of making our first paper plane do a long endurance run with minimal chances for maintenance if anything goes wrong (burns, rips, etc.).
     
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