>>28530916

>[A] Find Admiral Flit, get that pill and Uther looked at, hand over the data you got from your Nano-machine experiments and the frame of the New AGE Builder you were working. Maybe…maybe you can save her…

>[B] Go find your friends…they are still your friends right? You should probably talk to Asemu about what happened.

>[C] No. You don’t want to talk to anyone. You need to build. Need to work. Need to create. Create so you can destroy. Create so you can take revenge!

>[D] Other

>>28530930
Fuck yes, we're back.

> [A] Find Flit and get shit done.
It's probably for the best that we keep low for a while.

>>28530930
>[A] Find Admiral Flit, get that pill and Uther looked at, hand over the data you got from your Nano-machine experiments and the frame of the New AGE Builder you were working.

If nothing else, we can at least try to improve our nanotech to save other people.

>>28530930
>>[D] Other
Time Travel!

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>>28530916
I think this pic is more appropriate, at the moment.

>>28531337
Too soon, man. Too soon.

>>28530930
>[D] Other
Secure Uther, then go build shit. We need to make sure he wasn't snatched during our freakout. There won't be time during the preparations to actually get him analyzed, though. So instead we'll go make our overly-angsty end of season upgrade for the Merlin. Plus, that will let us get in some experimenting with the nanites. We have to start with the mechanical before we can work on the biological.

>>28531435
We currently do have all the AGE-1 wears available, some AGE-2 wears, some stuff Jake was working on, as well as CDACE's old tech (if Jake saved that or the King Arthur MA blueprints), On the other hand, the Vagans have advanced nanotech, AIs, EM and kinetic shielding, heat blades, and possibly a proto-AGE system based on what their spies (and probably Max) managed to slip them through.

>>28531554
Exactly. And the Vagans have at least one Third Generation suit, which narrative convention demands we fight at some point. We need to upgrade like fucking crazy.

>>28531007
>>28531043
>>28531108
>[A] Find Admiral Flit
You decide to keep your head down and try to find Admiral Flit. After your little episode you're not sure if you can face the others just yet.

Going to your room you get the data on the New AGE Builder and your Nano-Machine experiments before heading out. You leave the ship and board the station, heading to Admiral Flit's office where you find him working.

Papers and reports are stacked and scattered across his desk, his entire office is a mess and the Vice-Admiral himself appears to mirror this, with blood shot eyes, unkempt hair, and a uniform that's starting to smell a bit.

He doesn't notice you as you enter and it's only after speaking does he look up from his computer.

"Oh, Dirk it's you. I'm glad to see you're feeling better. I'm sorry to hear what happened. You did your best."

You immediately hand Flit the data, and change the subject away from your failure. "There's all my nano-machine experiments and the data I have on the frame for the New-AGE Builder. All the data is there and the frame is sitting in the hanger of the Diva"

Flit seems very pleased to hear this and nods. "I'll have this sent down to Liz immediately. She's been pretty busy herself. Now wasn't something else you wanted?"

You remind him of Uther and the pill.

"Oh yes. I'll have him transferred immediately to a safe location for analysis. I don't know when it'll get done considering all the preparations being made for the attack. Once it's finished I'll let you know, but I don't think it'll be done until after the battle." Flit fights back and yawn and turns back to his computer.

Was there anything you wanted to ask the Vice-Admiral or do you wish to move on to something else.

>>28531713
I'm tempted to bring up Emily just out of spite, but that would be stupid. Let's go get to building.

>>28531713
See if he needs us to do anything else. Ask what the situation is like, how fucked are we and all that.

If there's nothing, let's make the Turn Merlin.

>>28531603
If we're going by the narrative convention, the end fight for Gen-2 will have to include all the protagonists joined together for the final battle after all the minor plots have been completed. And we're about halfway done with some of them, I think.

Anyway, speaking of the Vagans and their suits, they have the Vagan Gear operational, which is actually old Federation tech like SID and the Crusader, and the basis for their army. We're going to see that thing mass-produced during Gen-3, aren't we.

>>28531845
Probably not an MP Vagan Gear, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Gen 3 dinosaur mobile suits are a lot nastier than in canon. At least they should move the Danazine's pilot out of the head. That's where its beam saber is. Any time the pilot wants to engage in melee he has to slam his cockpit right into the enemy at fifty miles per hour. That is not a safe piece of engineering, no matter how good your acceleration compensators are.

>>28531995
Not a problem if it's a drone. They already deployed the Anansi on the moon and back on Zarth, as well as those unmanned MS. I'm guessing that the only manned suits will be the X-Rounder ones, which is all sorts of bad.

>>28531747
>>28531758
>>28531845
"Uh, sir? Do you need me to do anything else?" You ask shifting around nervously.

"No, no, not now. If I think of anything I'll let you know." Flit says.

You turn to leave but turn around and ask. "What are our chances of victory?"

Flit sighs and turns towards you. "I don't know the hard math off the top of my head, but I'd say not good. We have reports of the Vagans bolstering their forces with automated weapons, that means we may very well be at a numerical disadvantage. However with the Photon Blaster Cannon still intact I think we may very well be able to win this. Still, I think it's odd their strategy has been so unrefined. They've just been hammering away like usual and while I know they tend to favor brute force over tactics, I don't know why they'd go through the trouble of gassing Solon when they already have a foothold on Luna. If they wanted to deprive us of Solon they could have easily destroyed it..."

Flit pauses, frowning deeply for a moment before shaking his head. "I suggest you get to work on whatever you have in mind, we'll need trick and trap on the field if we want to win this."

With that you decide to leave for now and head back into the hall, which is busy and bustling with various military personal, high ranking officers, engineers, workers, and even regular pilots like yourself.

You have 24 hours before the Vagan Attack is supposed to begin, what would you like to do Dirk?

>>28532120
>I don't know why they'd go through the trouble of gassing Solon when they already have a foothold on Luna. If they wanted to deprive us of Solon they could have easily destroyed it..."
Oh god, the Vagans have found Ghiren's Memoirs.

>>28532120
To the Diva. Time to work our ass off.

>>28532169
It's either a colony laser, or they needed a docking station / factory for the Downes.

>>28532120
Overhaul the Merlin. Discussion on the details of the modifications can wait until we're down in engineering, but I'd like to propose two upgrades right now that I think no one would object to. The idea with them is to make space in the Merlin for whatever new toys we want, using nanoassembly to free up some room. First, replace the armor. We can synthesize super-tough crystalline materials. Much stronger and lighter than our current armor, so we can strip most of it off and still get an overall increase in protection. Second is to finally do what we planned on way back in Gen 1 and implement the Black Raven's fuel cell scales. Build the reaction mass storage directly into the Merlin's frame and we can get rid of the bulky fuel tanks. Safer, too, since we won't have volatiles lying around to superheat and burst. So we'd get a lighter, more durable mobile suit with plenty of room to add new equipment. Anyone have any objections?

>>28532223
Sure, that sounds great.

I was thinking we could move the shield bits to a new custom shield designed just for them - it'd free the Merlin's back for who knows what. As for the shield / shield bits, I was thinking having them covered in the golden reflective coating, installing a small flash system into them, and maybe adding the XCOM to help us with better controlling those things. Maybe we can modify them to either link with each other and create stronger beam shields?

As for weapons, modifying the HDODS into an Excalibuster II variant. Installing a variable output controller so that we can modify the strength of the output beam and having it range from the usual DODS shot to the HDODS Buster. Maybe link it directly with the Merlin itself so that it doesn't require clips anymore?

>>28532405
>>28532223
>>28532187
Worried about Zeheart and the state of the Merlin, you return to the Diva and enter the hanger. You find you're mostly by yourself, with most of the other engineers working on repairs to the bridge or doing work elsewhere. You're alone and able to work without any distractions.

With the AGE Builder at your disposal you can begin to upgrade the Merlin, but how will you upgrade it? You only have so much time, and even then you might have less then you think.

Burying your worries, you prepare to dig into your work to try and forget about it all.

So, what do you wish to build/modify first?
[A] Armor
[B] Weapons
[C] Your Funnels
[D] Onboard Systems
[E] Other

>>28532405
I think the shield funnels are on the shoulders, not the back, actually. Moving them to a separate shield could work, but since they couldn't hook into the Merlin's power and cooling systems they'd take longer to cooldown. And since we're covering them in an extremely reflective material, they'll have some cooling issues anyway. We could add some new dedicated heat sinks for that purpose, but that would make the funnels bigger. That would be good for using them as reflecting, though. Maybe we could place them on wing binders, instead. Plenty of room for mounting larger funnels, and while docked they could contribute their thrusters to make up for their weight. Plus it means we could fold our wings around us to get some limited benefit from beam shields and reflective coating without having to actually deploy them.

>>28532553
Armor. It should be the simplest. Synthesize some corundum plates, strip off the old ones, put the new ones on. They even match our color scheme already, no need to waste time painting.

>>28532557
(Also, yes, the funnels are stored on the shoulders)

>>28532553
Let's get cracking on the new armor. Extra hardpoints would be nice too.

What would improving our onboard systems actually do?

>>28532557
That'd work. Bigger funnels that can connect to the Merlin to refuel and cool off, covered with that golden reflective stuff. All the other systems are optional for now. I was thinking of maybe a purge system that violently releases the beam shields to damage nearby enemies, but that'd probably fry the bits as well.

We could design a new shield then. Improve on Jack's old shield which was covered in nasty tricks and surprises - installed flash system to confuse the enemy, grenade and ammo storage, and a grenade launcher / beam gun installed. Optional beam shield.

>>28532702
We could modify the funnels to be able to project a more focused beam field. Turns them from shields to broad beam blades, lets them ram through opponents. Could make a nice combo of nasty tricks where we launch the funnels in blade mode to attack, and if the opponent dodges we bounce beam fire off their reflective coating to hit them from behind.

>>28532786
Yeah, like the Nu has. And we could add that XCOM so that they can link better together and combine to create a stronger shield.

Also, while we're at the armor upgrade, we could install a flash system and some integrated weapons in the Merlin. Maybe heavy beam vulcans in the chest? And having those two mini helper arms never hurt, especially when we're carrying all that stuff around. Or using that Mirror shield tech from the Warzes.

I was also thinking of replacing the beam sabers in the knees. Use the EM barrier generators from the Goliath instead - have two on the knees and elbows of the machine, kinda like the Legilis R's bit generators.

>>28532702
There are various improvements you could make to the on board systems to your suit, like adding a Neural Link system so you can connect directly to your suit through your cybernetics, or you could modify the OS to try and give you an advantage in a specific type of combat, like ranged, melee, est.

>>28532702
>>28532626
You decide to focus on the armor of the suit first. Overall your current armor is pretty protective, however it's also pretty heavy and somewhat restrictive.

You could strip out the Merlin's existing armor and replace it with more advanced crystalline materials like corundum. This would take a while due to the advanced processes needed to create the plates, however it would enhanced the Merlin's defense against beam weapons and lighten it up. However it would make it very difficult to repair if it ever got damage, since the materials you'd be using wouldn't be the standard for most suits.

You could also just add more of what's already there, loading the Merlin up with reinforced plates and additional armor sections, doubling it's defenses and it's weight. You'd gain more defense against most weapons and attacks and you'd be able to get repairs done in regular time, but you'd probably have to add a lot of thrusters and vierners to offset the additional weight.

Or you could just strip all the armor off and replace it with lighter armor, giving you more room for weapons, greater speed, and more maneuverability at the cost of most of your defenses.

What do you wish to do Dirk? All three options will allow you to add additional hard points, but you'll have to specify where you want them.

>>28532885
We never got the EM Barrier tech working right on the miniature scale. It would always lock up the weapons systems, causes way too much interference. I agree with removing the knee beam emitters, though. They haven't been very useful to us. Something I was considering was taking the Artimes's beam gun design and mounting one in each limb. They're pretty compact, but strong enough to defeat 2nd Gen Vagan armor. I guess they're like HY-DODS pistols, or something. Plus they can project beam sabers, so we could Aegis it up. Backup melee weapons for if the opponent gets within the reach of our sword, unpredictable attacking angles, and the ability to shoot people with our feet, which is great in the 3D battlefield of space. It could work. Might be too heavy and/or power draining, though.

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>>28532942
The original idea behind the Merlin was the S Gundam, so I guess we could go for the option 2. Easy to repair, and gives us the same benefits. Maybe add an explosive purge system, so that if we need to get rid of that armor, we can easily just detach it.

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>>28533036
That'd work. If we go with the extra armor option, we can easily mount those in the heavy armor on the arms. And if we do remove the beam knees, we can install the grenade launchers in there, kinda like the Double Bullet has.

And speaking of the Artimes, steal that thing's anti-cloak system.

>>28532942
We could get a neural link? Sweet. Oh, why does this fight have to take place in 24 hours? We don't have time to put on all the cool toys I want. At least the Merlin's Dark Hound equivalent will be awesome, since we won't have to ration our time when we've got 24 years between now and Gen 3.

Okay, let's go for stronger and lighter armor. Set the nanotech AGE Builder on synthesizing that while we work with the conventional Builder for the other modifications. Add hard points to the legs and back. Back for mounting the funnel wings, legs so that with the hip, forearm and freed-up shoulder points (now that they're no longer being occupied by the funnels) we'll be able to equip on any part of the body.

>>28533046
>>28533135
You decide to go for the easier to maintain option of adding more of the same armor. The process itself shouldn't take too long since the materials are already on hand and it's merely a matter of applying them in the best amounts and in the best places. However you should decide on how many new hard points you want.

You could strip out all your existing fixed weapons and free those areas up for hard points for weapons. Giving you two new hard-points on the head, one on each knee, and one one each shoulder.

That would give you a total of 10 hard points for various weapon mounts and equipment.

How do you wish to proceed?

>>28533283
To clarify, you already have one hard point on each forearm, and one on each hip. So adding you existing hardpoints and your new ones will give you a total of ten.

>Forearm Hardpoints x2
>Hip Hardpoints x2
>Shoulder Hardpoints x2
>Head Hardpoints x2
>Knee Hardpoints x2

>>28533283
Yeah, stripping those out sounds good to me. How are the knee hard points attached? At the joint itself, or to the frame just below the joint? If it's the first, put a grenade launcher there, use it like a mortar. If it's the second, add a second hard point on the shin to let us expand the mount to include "boots" that envelope the lower leg for boosters or larger weaponry.

>>28533148
Strip them. Don't forget the armor purge option on the new layers of armor, though.

>>28533148
We'll probably have some time after the battle. I kinda want Gen-2 to continue for a bit, especially considering all the cool stuff we haven't done, all the mysteries we haven't uncovered, and all the messes that're going to happen.

>>28533366
Okay. Idea. We have six shield funnels. Put a recharge rack for one each on the forearms, shoulders and knees. That way we can make them larger for incorporating the cooling devices the mirror coating will require. Also, it will let us just have more standard beam shield equipped to our arms for blocking before we can deploy the funnels. We'll prioritize deploying shoulder and knee funnels first, so we can keep the arm ones for last. Modify them to focus their beam fields for broad beam blades, too, giving us close-combat beam katars, too.

Use the hip hard points for mounted rifles. Base them on Vagan tail-guns, let them swing around to our back for storage, kind of like an upside-down version of the F91's VSBRs. Use the Bry-Raiser guns off the Amateras, we want penetrating power. We might have to fight the Ghirarga, it's got EM Armor strong enough to handle HY-DODS. We want to make sure we damage them. And their cutting power means that if we use them with sweeping shots we can still do damage to large groups of enemies.

Head hard-points: Set one aside for an enhanced sensor unit, based off the Artimes' radar binders (the actual sensors are pretty small, it's the huge rifles attached to them that takes up space). Use the other hard point to equip an ECM unit like the Gawain has, to make up for the loss of the head vulcans. We'll have a wizard's hat full of electronic warfare equipment, seems pretty appropriate to me.

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>>28533595
That sounds great.

I was thinking that maybe we could develop a booster pack for the Merlin? It could be detached, hold some guns, maybe a couple more funnels, and for extra points, we could make it look like a cape.

>>28533374
>>28533443
>>28533595
You decide to strip all the fixed weapons out and leave hard points, allowing you to put whatever you need on them as the mission or sortie requires it. After planning out the armor density, placement, and the purge system you get to work on reinforcing the Merlin.

(Roll 1d20+20 vs DC 32)

Rolled 12 + 20

>>28533753
Rolling.

Rolled 8 + 20

>>28533753

>>28533785
(Damn, right on the money the first roll)
2 hours pass and you sit down after finishing the grueling task in very good time. The Merlin now has double the armor and hard points it did before, but also double the weight. In it's current state it'll be a sluggish bastard, but it'll be able to take a lot more of a beating then it could before hand.

Now that that's out of the way, what do you wish to focus on next?

[A] Thrusters, Fuel, and Vierners
[B] Weapons
[C] Your Funnels
[D] Onboard Systems
[E] Other

>>28533887
> [A] Thrusters, Fuel, and Vierners
Gotta go fast.

>>28533887
>[A] Thrusters, Fuel, and Vierners

>>28533887
>[D] Onboard Systems
I want a neural link, damn it. That should help compensate for the extra weight by giving us better reactions. Then we can get to modifying the funnels, which will benefit from the hybrid X-Wave/cybernetic control, too. With the funnels mounted all over the suit, we could use their thrusters for verniers, as well, so that should further compensate for the slowdown.

>>28534001
Let's finish the critical stuff first, like the thrusters and the funnels. The neural link would be cool as fuck, but it won't help us if we can't move around the battlefield at all.

Are we adding the new thrusters on the new armor, or on the Merlin itself? Because if it's the latter, the Merlin without the heavy armor is going to be ridiculously fast.

>>28534073
That would be appropriate. There's a fast purge system, casting off the heavy armor to assume a speedy alternate mode is a classic move.

>>28534098
Now that your suit weighs so much more, you need to weigh your options in regards to speed and maneuverability. By adding more vierners you’ll be able to possibly dodge shots more easily, but with more or better thrusters you’ll be able to stay away, escape from, or catch up too enemies more easily.

If you go the speed/thruster route you’ll have two options. The first is adding more thrusters, that will allow you to converse fuel and maintain good speed, but will leave you more vulnerable to damage due to how numerous and exposed they are.

Your second option is to replace your current thrusters with much stronger ones. These will give you much greater overall speed, especially if you purge your armor. However they’re fuel hogs and will require you to equip fuel tanks of some kind to properly utilize the stronger thrusters, or risk running out of fuel in the middle of a fight.

So what will it be Dirk? How will you tackle this?

>>28534142
How long would it take to make Raven-style fuel cells? If we could do it in time we should totally go for it. We'd still have to haul the mass but they'd be much more compactly stored. And damn it, we need to put at least one nanotech device in our suit.

>>28534182
It would take a while to make them, but you could do it in a reasonable amount of time. Problem is the "RAVEN" Type fuel cell plates aren't easy to refill and due to them not being in wide spread use, it'll be difficult to get a hold of replacement tanks of the same type. On the plus side they're lightweight and you won't have to worry about them blowing up if they get hit, they act like additional armor segments rather then fuel tanks.

>>28534142
How about a balance between the two? We can use the AGE-2 type thrusters and verniers instead of the old ones we've been using. Maybe replace the engine with a stronger one, again from the AGE-2. The Merlin is closer to the old AGE-1 than the Gawain is, so I'm guessing it's using a bit older tech as well.

You know, we probably should've called Yurika to help us out a bit. She's an expert in getting the maximal performances from her stuff, and she'd probably help us cut down on unnecessary stuff that's just clogging this thing.

>>28534331
The amount of vierners you'd need to add to regain the maneuverability you lose while wearing the additional armor would require you to focus on mobility over speed. You can't really find a balance, because if you do you won't really gain anything in ether area. You'll be a little bit faster and a little more maneuverable then the Merlin currently is with it's armor, but that's not saying much.

As for using thrusters and engines from the AGE-2, that would be ill suited for the Merlin. The AGE-2 is a very lightweight suit, and while powerful they wouldn't do much for your suit. You're better off using thrusters of your own design that are better suited to compensating for the extra weight of the Merlin. They'll be harder to replace if they get damaged, but if your thrusters get totaled it's going to take a while to replace them period.

>>28534278
Darn. Okay, how about building fuel tanks into the armor plates on their underside? Not much riskier than normal, and drawing on them first means that we can jettison them with the armor. Also that they'll be much less likely to be full if they're hit.

>>28534472
See, this is why we should have gone with lighter, stronger armor. No need to balance weight versus thruster output, we could just stick with the ones we have.

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>>28534472
Okay, how's this. Improved thrusters and verniers on the core Merlin only. We can add the Sinanju-like backpack for extra fuel and speed.

i become char and fuck you all in the ass

>>28534481
I don't understand what you want to do. You want to make the "RAVEN" Type Fuel Cell plates, and then attach regular fuel tanks to their underside?

>>28534557
Without the additional armor the Merlin has fairly good speed and maneuverability. With the additional armor it suffers in both categories, but gains tremendous defense while maintaining easy repair-ability and even has the option to purge the extra armor if necessary.

Improving the core unit is necessary if you want to improve how the Merlin handles it's new amount of armor, however you can't have both improved thrusters and improved vierners. You ether have to pick one or the other, trying to find a compromise will leave you with balanced but disappointing results. The whole purpose of having additional armor is being able to shrug off more damage, adding things into the armor itself would make it that much more complicated to repair and replace. You'll have a harder time dodging but in the end you'll be able to ditch your armor if it becomes to damaged or too much of a burden, leaving you with a regular Merlind with it's usual mobility and insane speed provided you invest in better thrusters.

Sometimes you can't find a balance, and all these upgrades have upsides and downsides. So you'll have to make a decision between being balanced and mediocre, or specializing and walking away with strengths and weaknesses.

>>28534806
No, I just want to build regular fuel tanks into our detachable armor plates. They'd be protected from glancing hits, and would drain first so they could be discarded without much worry. But you just said in this post that we couldn't build too much into the armor without making it too complex. So I say we just go with increased verniers. Our foes will come to us, and we've got pretty good ranged weaponry. I'd rather worry about dodging. And then if we discard the armor we'll go back to normal speed and have ridiculous levels of mobility, so that still gives us cast-off mode. Just one that's less fast than it is zippy.

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>>28534806
Get the thrusters, then. The verniers probably won't help the Merlin move any better with the armor on.

>>28534806
Just to clarify something.

If we go with extra verniers, the Merlin will be more agile and mobile. Does this affect it even when it's carrying that armor?

>>28534967
To be honest, no.You'll gain some mobility, but not much. Your top speed and overall speed will still be piss poor, and you'll have a bit more maneuverability, but with your low speed you'll still be pretty easy to hit.

To be perfectly blunt, thrusters are really the way to go. I don't want to mislead or confuse you. If you choose extra vierners, you'll be more maneuverable without the armor, but with it on it won't make much of a difference. With the enhanced thrusters you'll be pretty fast with the armor on, and even faster with out.

Like I said, both have advantages and disadvantages. I apologize if I didn't make them clear at the start.

>>28535118
Okay then, thrusters it is.

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>>28535132
How complicated would it be to install the thrusters in the extra armor, just curious?
It'd increase their maintenance, but it'd allow us to install the verniers on the core unit.

>>28535261
Not too hard. You could easily add the thrusters into the extra armor, but the armor itself would be more volatile and easy to damage due to how exposed thrusters need to be to function.

So you could install verniers onto the core unit, and thrusters into the armor at the cost of it being more difficult to repair/replace as well as more vulnerable.

>>28535361
Wow you guys have nearly spent the whole thread working and discussing what to do with this suit.

Let's try to get this moving, who wants to install the thrusters in the armor and install the vierners onto the Merlin itself?

>>28535361
Go with just the thrusters on the core unit for now. The Merlin will have ample protection due to the armor and the bits, and in case shit really hits the fan we'll have the extreme speed allowing us to retreat.

If we do both, we probably won't have time for improving something else on the Merlin.

>>28535567
Sounds good, lets get back on the roll.

>>28535567
Yeah, lets do that.

>>28535606
>>28535570
Gah, screw it i'm going with the thrusters since that showed up first.

Roll 1d20+20 vs DC 35 to install enhanced thrusters on the core unit itself.

Rolled 13 + 20

>>28535624
Rolling.

Rolled 7 + 20

>>28535624
Ha, no problem.

Rolled 17 + 20

>>28535624

Since we're going with speed, we could improve our beam javelin into a beam lance like the one the Dark Hound uses.

>>28535658
>37 vs DC 35 SUCESS
After another 2 hours, you remove the thrusters of the Merlin and replace them with enhanced ones. They're fuel guzzlers, but they'll allow you to maintain proper speed while the Merlin is in armor, and achieve high speeds out of it.

All this work and thought you've been putting into your suit has helped you regain some of your emotional stability. You feel more in control and a little less bothered about your freak out.

>+5 Mental Health Points
Metal Health 35/25

Now the Merlin is decked out in heavy duty armor and equipped with powerful thrusters that will help compensate for the additional weight.

Now what else do you want to delve into?
[A] Weapons
[B] Funnel System
[C] Onboard Systems
[D] Other

>>28535779
Funnels.

>>28535779
>[B] Funnel System
Funnels. We've discussed pretty thoroughly in this thread already all the nasty tricks we could pull with them, let's implement our ideas.

>>28535779
>[B] Funnel System

>>28535779
FIN FUNNEL!

>>28535822
You decide to look into modifying your funnel system. The range of your funnels is limited to within close proximity of your suit due to your X-Limiter, but so far you've had a pretty good run with your beam shield funnels.

So, what do you wish to do Dirk?

>>28535999
Increase their size by a bit. That should allow us to insert a cooling system and some stronger beam shields into them. Cover the entire thing with that reflective beam plating, so that even in case one gets shot, the beam would reflect back to the attacker.

Optionally, insert a a flash system so that they can be used to confuse the enemy suits. Allow the beam shields to be focused so that they can narrow their output, allowing them to either function as stronger shields when working together or as beam blades.

>>28536111
Yeah, that. Reflectors and focused beam fields. Some sort of upgrade to their propulsion system, too, if we want them to keep up with us when we're purged the armor. Maybe, since they have a limited range anyway, we could replace the thrusters with electromagnetic grapnels so they can move freely as long as they're within a certain radius of us. And that way they'd just be dragged along when we hyper-accelerate.

>>28536381
That'd work. We're also going to have them attach to different hardpoints (shoulders, arms, knees) so that we can use them as regular beam shields in battle.

So, weapon ideas?

>>28536704
We've been throwing around ideas for an Exaclibuster Mk. 2. Either using a HY-DODS Rifle or a Bry-Raiser, for beamy goodness. I'd rather have the beam weapons be hip-mounted rifles, sort of a VSBR thing. The hand-carried weapon would instead be a combination railgun/lance. I want to get some kinetic weaponry on this design.

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>>28536821
Hip-mounted rifles would be cool. We could use some DODS rifles on there to take care of enemies in close and medium range.

As for the hand-carried weapons, I guess we could have something like that. Take the DODS Lancer, replace the bottom two guns with EM bullpups that fire trick ammo. Or a converted 180 / heat javelin combo. Alternatively, we could have both the Excalibuster Mk II and a handheld shield with some EM weapons thrown inside it.

>>28537029
I mentioned it upthread, but I'd like to put Bry-Raiser rifles on articulated arms on the hip hard points. High penetration power, able to shoot a sustained beam for sweeping cuts, they'd complement our fighting style well. Add in deflecting them off the shield funnels to get some weird firing patterns and it should do well.

As for the gun, I think I'd like to amend the railgun lance idea. I have a new idea. The arm-mounted funnels serve as beam shields, so we can do without those. But how about a combined tonfa/railgun thing? It goes on the outside edge of the arm so it doesn't get in the way of the funnel docking point. It would have an EM Bullpup loaded with high-explosive ammo, and a folding vibroblade like the G-Bouncer has on its shield. Carry two of them, holding them one per arm.. We'd have solid weaponry on the arms, beam guns on the hips, and beam blades that could deploy from the forearms, shoulder or knees like a variant Titus wear.

>>28537293
That sounds great, though I'd carry a big gun in case we encounter something we can't deal with.

How's this.
Primary weapon - one Excalibuster Mk II made from the Hy-DODS, modified with the variable-strength cannon. Secondary weapon - variable-length (think a sliding mechanism) vibrosword / EM bullpup customized to fire trick and explosive ammunition. One gun for clearing groups of enemies or damaging ships, the other that can be used either for punching or slicing.

>>28537524
Sounds good. Really, what we need is a bigger mobile suit. All our designs would work so much better if we had a Psycho Gundam-sized frame to mount stuff on. Maybe we should drag out Flit's old Gigantic Wear designs and see if we can improve on them with new technology. Or just resolve to make our Gen 3 Gundam double the size of normal mobile suits. It's already going to be such a bleeding-edge hyper prototype that it'll be impossible to repair with regular mobile suit components, might as well go all out with it. And given that it's going to have biomechanical construction and a constant aura of psychic screaming, making it loom over enemy units can't exactly hurt. It's going to be fucking terrifying.

>>28537597
Sure why not?

>>28537597
Also, a 40 meter mecha would stack up against the Vagan units of Gen 3 pretty nicely, from an aesthetic stance. Danazines would reach up to its chest, and given their saurian appearance would evoke images of a pack of raptors circling a human. The Reganner is huge and still towers over it, though their sizes are comparable enough that it could grapple the Reganner and toss it down in melee combat. Gomels and Wrozzos would only reach to its thighs, but since they have a somewhat shark-like fighting style having to leap out of the sea/sand to strike would be very fitting. And the Xamdrag and Vagan Gear would be the same height, letting them face off as equals. I think that could look pretty cool, all considered.

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>>28537597
I just realized that the Full Armor Merlin is going to look a lot like the Exia Avalanche. Anyway, we don't have to do the Excalibuster II like the old one Jake did. Maybe two of those variable length vibrosword / BR guns would be cool, with one just being bigger than the other. We could even mount them alongside the arm and have the casing for the vibroblade serve as a minor shield.

As for the AGE-X3, no idea. We can go insane with that thing, especially if we get access to some old tech. Considering all the things that's probably going to happen, we'll need all the help we can get.

>>28537771
I don't think we need to find any more old tech. We've already got nanotechnology, biomimetic construction, and psy-crystals. If we include things we possess but haven't gotten around to reverse-engineering yet, we've also got nuclear force disruption and space-warping tech. And there are the canon things we can play with that would show up in Gen 3, most notably SigMaxxis tech. Actually, a thought occurs. The tech profile says the reason the laser shots from the AGE-3O's SigMaxxis rifles can curve is because they're manipulated by interference from the reverse-engineered Vagan lightwave thrusters it has. We've already reverse-engineered those, and we're starting to work on Invisible Umbrella technology. We're going to be able to do some crazy shit with SigMaxxis tech, once we get it. By the time we get to an AGE-FX equivalent we'll be utterly horrifyingly powerful.

>>28537889
That'd probably explain SID's tracking lasers.

As for the old tech, it probably wouldn't hurt to have it around. I mean, look at the stuff they had - AIs, unique armor (like the Black Raven), self-repairing and replicating machines, the light propulsion system, probably advanced cloaking and shielding that's capable of neutralizing railgun projectiles. And that's only a part of the old military technology.

Better us than Vagans or Leviathan.

>>28538014
Well, I'm not going to object if we get a hold of the EXA-DB. I'm just saying, as nice as it would be, it's not necessary. We've got more than enough Clarke's Law level tech by this point. If we managed to implement every piece of overtechnology we have into one Gundam it would be able to give an Evangelion a run for its money in the category of "dear God, why would you make such a thing?". Nanotech and biomimesis means it's a juggernaut of living metal, healing around any wound and shapeshifting to optimize its performance in combat. Our various optical technology lets it warp and bend light with impunity, turning invisible, casting illusions and firing homing lasers. Neutron-collapser tech could make it powered by matter-energy conversion and enable it to disintegrate matter with a wave of its hands. Reverse-engineered Grand Wing schematics could be expanded into teleportation, gravity manipulation, or time warping weponry. And the Grail crystals let us assault our enemy on the psychic plane, blasting horrible mental assaults directed by a predatory pseudo-consciousness. It's going to be terrifying. If we get just a tenth, even a hundredth, of the potential uses of our tech base, we'll still make something comparable to the Turn A or 00 Qan[T].

Okay, let's see, remaining upgrades:
> Reflector shield bits.
> Vibrosword / BR gun weapons (name needed).
> Improved sensors and cloaking detection systems.
> CIWS system.

>>28538204
Man, that thing's going to be a beast. Though that's assuming we get clearing to research something like that. I mean, look at what happened to Jake and Flit - bureaucracy and old grudges have prevented them from helping as much as they could.

Well, apparently Crosswire's internet broke down.

This thread has been archived over at:
> http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/28530916/

>>28538294
We're kinda running out of time, so let's just focus on improving the bits and making the Excalibuster Mk II.
We still need to see Asemu and the rest of the team, and get some rest before the battle for Big Ring.

>>28539174
Sorry, my internet died on me guys. Do you want to continue this part today? Because this has been pretty short so far. I'd be happy to pick this up at 2:30 if you guys want.

>>28542596
If you can, sure, that'd be great. If not, no problem.

Either way, thanks for running this.

>>28542624
No problem. I really enjoy running this quest. It has issues and I'm not the best of Quest Masters, but this is my first quest so of course it has issues. Still it's been a blast to run and I'm glad so many of you enjoy it, it's really neat to see the discussions and some of the funny reactions you have to things that happen in the Quest.

At the moment I'm watching the house and can't really go anywhere, so running a quest would be a perfect way to past the time.

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>>28542659
Glad you're having great fun as well.

We'll keep the thread around then, no need to worry about it dropping off the board.

>>28542849
Thanks.

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>>28542862
By the way guys, I've worked out a way to visually show you what equipment you guys have and the status of your suit in a fight. I'll need to move things around, add things, est, but I think it'll look nice.

>>28544350
That looks pretty damn cool.

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>>28544475
Alright, finished most of the changes. How does it look now?

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>>28544727
OOPS, added one too many hard points. Edited.

>>28544763
So, our current number hardpoints are:
> 2 on the head.
> 2 on the shoulders.
> 2 on the arms.
> 2 on the hips.
> 2 on the legs.
> 10 on the back.
Awesome.

The plan so far was to use the 6 improved shield bits as on the arms, legs and shoulders as both physical shields and beam reflective shields. That leaves us with the ones on the head (for a CIWS and the new detection system), ones on the legs and ones on the back.

>>28544864
Keep in mind that the back/rear hard points are where you've been keeping your extra ammo and holstering your weapons. You can place equipment and weapon systems on the back/rear hard points, but it'll take up hard points you could use for other stuff.

So yeah, if you improve your shield funnels, they'll probably be bigger considering you want to improve their cooling systems, add better propulsion or a magnetic grapple system so they can keep up with you, and add reflective plating so you can use them as reflector bits too.

The 6 bits will be pretty big and each will take up a hard point, so yeah you'll have hip mounted hard points, the head mounts hard points, and the back hard points to work with if you install the bits on the shoulders, forearms,and knees.

Hmmm, I should probably make a bit equipment for the equipment sheet, don't know what it'd look like though.

>>28544953
Would it be possible to make the funnels capable of a more focused beam field, as suggested before?
Basically have them switch between beam saber and beam shield mode.

In hindsight, considering how we're going to use the bits as additional armor, we could've gone with the corundum armor, but I guess that thing would've taken too much time to manufacture or repair without an advanced Nano AGE builder.

Maybe after the battle.

>>28545189
That would be pretty complicated. You'd have to sacrifice the cooling systems for a variable emitter and stronger energy capacitors due to the extra energy needed to shift the field.

The beam shields themselves are perfectly capable weapons, they're essentially just shield shaped beam fields, they can cut just like a beam saber could. Maybe not as effectively, but you guys chopped off the tail of that Vagan-Monkey MS back on Solon without too much trouble.

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>>28545272
True enough, those things are deadly. And having a group of them swarm an enemy is nasty enough.

These new upgrades we did are kinda similar to the AGE-3 Fortress and Orbital, just with the extra bits thrown in, so I can't really complain.
This thing is made of kickass.

>>28544763
Hi, mind if I crib this status screen style for my quest?

>>28545637
Yes it is.

>>28545686
Sure go right ahead.