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Hard Vacuum: Joro Wan Armament Design Bureau

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We need to make a von neumann probe for asteroids. Preferably using the Prefab Factories to make robots that make ID-1 Processing blocks once they land on asteroids. We can use the pancake drop pods for getting them there. My inspiration:
 
Here's my proposal. I went for improved industry rather than asteroid mining because getting the second Mobilization point will be so huge compared to what we have now. Each Mobilization point lets us theoretically deploy a particular number of units, and so getting a second one will double what we can deploy across all categories. If we get, say, one Ore from mining the nearest asteroids, that will reduce the cost of designs we are short on Ore by one, which if we look at the chart will tend to double our deployment of designs which we have resource shortages for but have no effect on the designs we have plenty of resources for.

Therefore, this first point of Mobilization will be as good as or better in all situations than mining asteroids, which I think is all we could hope to start mining based simply on this revision. Of course, the third Mobilization point will be only half as valuable relatively speaking, the fourth still less, and so on, so after this phase it's probably best to move on to expanding mining efforts.

[X] Improved Prefab Factories
Type: Infrastructure
Expected Difficulty: Easy
Short Description: Starting from the generic 'seed' industry patterns sent with the colony ship, a round of revisions is being carried out to improve their suitability for purpose and fill in missing capabilities. The goal is to improve the Mobilization capacity of the colony.
Long Description said:
The introduction of the ID-1 has improved the industry of the Joro Wan colony, in some areas more than others, but it is still not enough. While the basic, flexible industrial base sent on the colony ship was invaluable for getting things off the ground, it was never designed to support a military, and is lacking in efficiency and in certain capabilities. Therefore, a set of revisions is being carried out to designs and plans in the hopes of improving the colony's ability to build and mobilize large forces.

Three main tendencies have been identified as both hindering efficiency and being easily addressable: norms and doctrines based on an inappropriate set of assumptions, the widespread usage of flexible but less efficient droid labor, and certain gaps in the available set of equipment. It is estimated that the right approach to these issues could, over time, double the productive capacity from the admittedly low bar of its present state.

There was of course a pre-programmed plan for industrial development, heavily optimized before the mission and during flight as more information became available. The issue was that such a plan was based on certain facts: that there was no rush, that the immediate goal was preparing to sustain the colonists, and worst of all that it would be carried out on a completely different planet.

Of course the colony AIs had the sense not to follow it blindly, but it has still introduced problems based on environmental and resource differences, prioritization, and so on. The same routines used to improve the original plans as new information became available will be reapplied, so that future industrial expansion - and any particularly important fixes - can be carried out optimally.

A somewhat trickier problem is the actual capabilities of the prefabricated factories and the ones based on them. Built to be light and multipurpose, much large-scale equipment was sacrificed, and there is a large reliance on using construction droids to move and manipulate things rather than purpose-built systems. For example, 3D printing is the main method of fabrication, and if something is needed which is too big for the printers, it may be built in parts, droidhandled into the open, and then welded together; similar problems exist in other processes.

In order to remedy these issues, and because the economy has now moved past the bootstrapping phase, factory designs will be updated to make use of more specialized and appropriate systems when practicable. Internal and external transport will be more closely integrated, more use will be made of more specialized and efficient processes and equipment, and gaps in capability requiring awkward workarounds will be filled in.

If it is possible without taking away from the main goals of the project, economic plans will also be updated to provide a basic level of resilience against attack through dispersion, the use of buried or embanked facilities, and so on.
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Revision: Improved Prefab Factories | Start of Turn 2| Start of Design Phase 2
  • Threadmarks
    • Superior Craftsmanship

    Shifting from the prefabricated industrial bootstrap you entered the system with to a more developed industrial base is going quite smoothly, considering that you're on a completely different planet from the one you had originally intended to land on. Very quickly, changes are made; droid labor is largely phased out in favor of better printers, more specialized machinery, and various other methods. Primary manufacturing is still achieved by 3d printers in most cases, but methods to connect printed parts together into a cohesive whole have been significantly improved.

    Further, this newly improved infrastructure is largely buried beneath the surface of Ros or otherwise hardened against attack. This means that if those other robots on Agua somehow manage to get close enough for orbital bombardment, your infrastructure isn't likely to suffer too terribly.

    All in all, the new upgrades have increased Mobilization by 1

    Transport Capacity: 1
    Mobilization: 2
    Ore: 2
    He3: 1
    Munitions

    Earthmover Charges: Repurposed industrial explosives used for mining, the composition forgoes complex hydrocarbons in favor of highly reactive metals and metal oxides.
    1 Ore (Cheap)
    Infantry

    'Liza' Construction Droid: These multipurpose robots are built a lot like an orangutan, with four limbs, each of which has a fully functional gripper capable of both dexterity and strength. Each unit is powered by a twenty kilogram rechargeable Potassium-Ion battery pack, meaning they have great endurance, but need a lot of downtime to recharge. The limitations of these droid's peak power output, coupled with the fact that their frames really aren't built to handle heavy recoil forces, means that they cannot wield any category of direct-fire weapon aside from chemical firearms.
    1 Ore (Cheap)
    Ground Vehicles
    Strike Craft

    'pancake' re-entry pod: These armored pods are designed to deploy ground forces from an orbiting spaceship. Each is equipped with both equipment for aerobraking and a full set of thrusters for landing on airless bodies. Notably, these pods can be used as short range VTOL transports on planetary surfaces. Each pod can move 120 tons of materiel.
    1 Ore (Cheap)

    Capitol Ships

    "Elitist" HOTV: A heavily armored transport craft designed for fast hauls between planets, the Elitist can credit most of its performance to its downgraded (but still rather high-performance) fusion engine. It is able to easily manage 700 kilometers per second of delta v, and can carry 30,000 tons of war materiel, providing one Transport Capacity. The HOTV is designed to carry the 'pancake' re-entry pods, suitable for planetary landings on most bodies. Recent upgrades to manufacturing infrastructure have allowed the engines for these ships to be more easily acquired than previously, and greatly improved performance.
    3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)

    Static Installations

    'Bludgeon' Anti-Orbital Coilguns: Hastily constructed based on the Z-pinch technology in the colony ship's fusion engine, these massive surface-to-orbit coilguns are, not to put too fine a point on it, rather low quality. While their muzzle velocity of 500 kilometers per second may seem impressive at first, it is significantly less so when you realize that their slugs are only 0.2 kilograms in mass, and each gun needs twenty seconds to recharge its massive capacitor banks after a full-power shot. If necessary, they can fire much slower shots at machine gun rates, for close-range interception of munitions or strike craft. The absolute maximum effective range is somewhere around 25,000 km. Beyond that, dodging becomes distressingly easy, even for very large ships.
    3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)
    Logistics
    Infrastructure

    Prefab Factories: Your colony ship came with a bunch of 3D printers and other such devices needed to establish manufacturing infrastructure. They do not have the precision needed to manufacture fusion-based devices reliably, but you have other things to do that now.
    Improved Prefab Factories: Several efficiency improvements have recently been made involving assembly lines and specialized machinery, greatly improving industrial output. Further, Ros's manufacturing infrastructure has been significantly hardened against bombardment.​

    ID-1 Processing Block: A modular industrial installation intended to produce high grade materials and form them into simple components. This effectively ends the superconductor shortage that led to difficulties producing fusion-based equipment previously.
    Loose Components

    Open-Cycle Z-pinch Fusion Engine: This propulsion system makes use of intense magnetic fields to crush a plasma of fusion fuels to the point of ignition, with the resulting plume of C-fractional plasma propelling the ship forwards. This engine design has immense performance both in terms of exhaust velocity and thrust. Recent developments now mean they can be manufactured reliably and affordably.

    It is now Turn 2. War starts in four turns.

    It is now the Design phase.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Apologies fellow AI, I fear I have to resign from this arms race game.
    It didn´t really klik as much as I wanted it too, that and my time has been occupied by other things.
    I am going to be even more busy, so I don´t think I can give this arms race game the respect it deserves.
    So I am sorry, but good bye.
    //Initiating AI self destruct systems...
    ...deleting...
     
    Previously we had discussed a multipurpose missile system this turn, as a weapon for future warships and installations. Are people still on board with that? Now that fusion drives are no problem we can probably make a pretty nice one.
     
    Shard said:
    'Spindle' Mine - Infantry Drone/Munition

    A dimunitive crawler, the spider-like creation has at it's core a mix of highly reactive metals and oxides, simultaneously it's power source and explosive. It is possessed of a tiny set of proximity sensors and a robust, if very simple computing system and a short-range networking interface. It utilizes the sensors to detect enemy units, it's short-range network to avoid friendly fire and it's simple computing system to activate the crawler, move to the target, and subsequently detonate it's power source at short to point-blank range.
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    [X] Spindle Mine.

    Deploy en-masse on enemy planet.
     
    I still think that design is too specific to be viable this early. Depending how the enemy fights, its usefulness will be very variable - imagine if they end up using hovercraft for ground units or something - and any defending forces would be able to pick then of easily unless it was deployed with support.

    Worst of all, if we don't have orbital combat and strike capacity first, any actual deployment on enemy planets will be exceedingly vulnerable. I do think that design could be effective, especially if we deployed it as more of a sabotage than a military weapon, but we at least need basic warships and general combat units first.

    To that end:
    [X]M-2 "Dagger" Missile System
    Type: Munition
    Expected cost: Cheap
    Expected difficulty: Normal
    Short Description: A missile system designed to fill many roles until we can design more specialized munitions; optimized for flexibility, capacity for future upgrades, and low cost.
    Long Description said:
    Due to the very limited set of designs already available to the Joro Wan colony, one of the biggest bottlenecks on militarization will be the rate at which new systems can be designed and brought into use. There is a pressing need, therefore, for a weapons system which can fill many niches until more specialized ones can be designed.

    Faced with a requirement for a missile system which can be deployed from land or space against land, space, or larger airborne targets, what the engineering minds came up withwas the M-2 Missile System. The system is composed of three parts: a barebones launch module, a fire control system, and the missile itself which can be be composed of one terminal stage and one or two propulsion stages.

    The launch module is the simplest of those. It's a standardized frame containing six steel launch tubes - coming in two lengths, one longer for surface-to-orbit use since the missiles will then need two propulsion stages - with its only operating components being the data and electrical linkages to loaded missiles and a compressed air system used to blow open the vacuum-sealed main and exhaust hatches when one is fired. The idea is to make the design rugged and modular enough to be able to be able to just set down on an asteroid and use, or to be emplaced in a ship or ground position.

    The fire control module is the brain of the system, correlating sensor data from other sources and inertial navigation data from the missiles to guide them until their terminal approach. While the missiles have some sensors of their own, they are currently very limited ones. While its communications with the missiles could theoretically be interfered with, the ability to transmit along a direct beam to missiles in flight means that such jammers would basically have to be between the missiles and the fire control system.

    The terminal stage of the missile consists of a small sensor suite designed for terminal guidance and proximity detonation; the equipment for communicating with the fire control system; small control surfaces for course corrections when used against ground targets; and a warhead. The warhead consists of several Earthmover Charges wrapped in a prefragmented metal case which both produces shrapnel, and provides some protection to the front of the missile. Software is included for the use of this stage either in proximity detonation, delayed fusing, or as a kinetic impactor.

    There are two types of engine stage: a solid-fuel rocket and a Z-Pinch fusion engine. Both types also include a set of manuvering thrusters at each end, as well as decouplers. Obviously the fusion drive is more powerful and efficient, but to avoid radiation and overheating problems the chemical rockets will be used when the M-2 is launched within atmosphere - alone if used against atmospheric targets, or as a booster before a fusion engine for launch into space.

    Throughout the design, extra space is included and general interfaces employed for the sake of upgradibility, even if they reduce its performance a small amount.
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    The Missile system works.

    One thing that mgiht help is what sort of tech-era are we in, and if there are any physics-defying rules we ought to know about?
     
    Shard said:
    The Missile system works.

    One thing that mgiht help is what sort of tech-era are we in, and if there are any physics-defying rules we ought to know about?
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    Think vaguely Children Of A Dead Earth + Fusion + Advanced Materials + Strong AI + (maybe) some biotech.

    This game will obey physics (to the best of my knowledge) 100% of the time.
     
    So, the switch to decks of cards for even probability has been completed. Everyone agreed on what to do?
     
    Design "Dagger" missiles | Start of Infrastructure Phase 2
  • Threadmarks
    • M-2 "Dagger" missiles
    Below Average

    The first thing that needs to be said is that the Dagger missiles, in the strictest sense, work quite well. They are quite capable of accelerating at dozens of gees with around 30 kilometers per second of Delta V, and their shrapnel warheads should be quite effective against any target they can score a hit on. It's just that cramming all that performance into such a small platform has damn near stretched your mastery of nuclear fusion to the breaking point.

    The first problem, of course, is power consumption. A Z-pinch engine requires a fairly substantial amount of power to function, several megawatts at the very least. While larger versions can include systems to recover some of the energy nuclear fusion unleashes, the miniaturized version you stuffed in the Dagger can't do that with the space available to it, and batteries or capacitors didn't have anywhere near the required energy density to jump-start the drive. This means that you needed to somehow cram a fully-functioning nuclear reactor into the missile's frame, and it had to be fission to avoid making the 'jump-start' problem even worse. This necessitated large retractable radiators to be included in the design, in order to diffuse the waste heat that the reactor would produce.

    All this extra mass left relatively little room available for propellant, resulting in the relatively low amount of Delta-V the Dagger has available to it. Adding insult to injury, deploying this missile en-masse also looks to be a challenge, as it is highly demanding of rare fissile materials and scarce artificial Tritium.

    In the end, you're left with an over engineered radiation-spewing missile guaranteed to light up every infra-red sensor in the system. But more importantly, it is a functional over engineered radiation-spewing missile guaranteed to light up every infra-red sensor in the system.

    Transport Capacity: 1
    Mobilization: 2
    Ore: 2
    He3: 1
    Munitions

    Earthmover Charges: Repurposed industrial explosives used for mining, the composition forgoes complex hydrocarbons in favor of highly reactive metals and metal oxides.
    1 Ore (Cheap)

    Dagger Missiles: Propelled by a miniaturized fusion torch, these missiles have ludicrous acceleration, somewhat hampered by their limited delta V and complete inability to evade target locks.
    1 Ore 2 He3 [Complex] (Somewhat Expensive)
    Infantry

    'Liza' Construction Droid: These multipurpose robots are built a lot like an orangutan, with four limbs, each of which has a fully functional gripper capable of both dexterity and strength. Each unit is powered by a twenty kilogram rechargeable Potassium-Ion battery pack, meaning they have great endurance, but need a lot of downtime to recharge. The limitations of these droid's peak power output, coupled with the fact that their frames really aren't built to handle heavy recoil forces, means that they cannot wield any category of direct-fire weapon aside from chemical firearms.
    1 Ore (Cheap)
    Ground Vehicles
    Strike Craft

    'pancake' re-entry pod: These armored pods are designed to deploy ground forces from an orbiting spaceship. Each is equipped with both equipment for aerobraking and a full set of thrusters for landing on airless bodies. Notably, these pods can be used as short range VTOL transports on planetary surfaces. Each pod can move 120 tons of materiel.
    1 Ore (Cheap)

    Capitol Ships

    "Elitist" HOTV: A heavily armored transport craft designed for fast hauls between planets, the Elitist can credit most of its performance to its downgraded (but still rather high-performance) fusion engine. It is able to easily manage 700 kilometers per second of delta v, and can carry 30,000 tons of war materiel, providing one Transport Capacity. The HOTV is designed to carry the 'pancake' re-entry pods, suitable for planetary landings on most bodies. Recent upgrades to manufacturing infrastructure have allowed the engines for these ships to be more easily acquired than previously, and greatly improved performance.
    3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)

    Static Installations

    'Bludgeon' Anti-Orbital Coilguns: Hastily constructed based on the Z-pinch technology in the colony ship's fusion engine, these massive surface-to-orbit coilguns are, not to put too fine a point on it, rather low quality. While their muzzle velocity of 500 kilometers per second may seem impressive at first, it is significantly less so when you realize that their slugs are only 0.2 kilograms in mass, and each gun needs twenty seconds to recharge its massive capacitor banks after a full-power shot. If necessary, they can fire much slower shots at machine gun rates, for close-range interception of munitions or strike craft. The absolute maximum effective range is somewhere around 25,000 km. Beyond that, dodging becomes distressingly easy, even for very large ships.
    3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)
    Logistics
    Infrastructure

    Prefab Factories: Your colony ship came with a bunch of 3D printers and other such devices needed to establish manufacturing infrastructure. They do not have the precision needed to manufacture fusion-based devices reliably, but you have other things to do that now.
    Improved Prefab Factories: Several efficiency improvements have recently been made involving assembly lines and specialized machinery, greatly improving industrial output. Further, Ros's manufacturing infrastructure has been significantly hardened against bombardment.​

    ID-1 Processing Block: A modular industrial installation intended to produce high grade materials and form them into simple components. This effectively ends the superconductor shortage that led to difficulties producing fusion-based equipment previously.
    Loose Components

    Open-Cycle Z-pinch Fusion Engine: This propulsion system makes use of intense magnetic fields to crush a plasma of fusion fuels to the point of ignition, with the resulting plume of C-fractional plasma propelling the ship forwards. This engine design has immense performance both in terms of exhaust velocity and thrust. Recent developments now mean they can be manufactured reliably and affordably.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • So I'm thinking a Mining Droid for our next design. Want more resources to be able to fuel our warmachine.
     
    Sounds good, we could use the resources. A possible alternative would be asteroid mining, but I don't see one of those as better in particular.
    Actually the mining droid idea is definitely the right choice, as it will not only get us some resources, it also won't take TC to use them on Ros and may be usable in future mining elsewhere in the system.

    It seems that the Dagger came out the opposite of how it was intended - high-performance but flaky - but I guess I should have considered the implications of shrinking down the fusion drives more.
     
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    Usually what would happen now is we'd wait a few days, the GM would poke us, and then I'd make a design that wins by default. But we have six registered Joro Wan players and when an update is posted plenty of people pop into the thread - is there anything we can do to increase involvement? I'm not a fan of outsourcing forum games to Discord, but if we made a server would lurkers be more inclined to discuss things?

    Anyway, unless Ros is extremely rich in He3, I don't know if tunnel boring machines would be useful for gaining it because of the sheer amount of rock that has to be processed to extract it. They'd be helpful for mining Ore, though.

    Looking up some information on He3 to see how we could mine it, I saw that it can be synthesized by irradiating lithium to make tritium, and then letting that decay. I suspect that our industry already does that, because the last update mentioned 'artificial tritium'. That's something to keep in mind, maybe we could develop a facility that does that in the future, though for now it's probably better to stick with mining because that gets us ore as well.
     
    He3 is a generic catch all label for all types of fuels. The Tunnel Boring Machine would still help.
     
    ConfusedPotato said:
    He3 is a generic catch all label for all types of fuels. The Tunnel Boring Machine would still help.
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    You're right. Unless you want to give the nuclear ones a shot - which may not be the best at this point given that we're already short on nuclear fuels - I'd just suggest adding a bit more about how the machines are useful for mining. Probably more important than doing the digging themselves, effective TBMs could speed up exploratory mining and digging access tunnels for droids and ore transport by a lot.
     
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