IC: New Weapons Systems

[sythyry]

And here are some more specific choices for new armaments.

I note that Locador effects are popular. Very well; they are effective too, and exotic, and I can probably do well with them. But the more Locador one uses in one place, the greater chance there is of troublesome other problems, so I don't want to do everything with Locador.

And I am inclined to have at least one of the Durudor effects, because those are quite rare -- even more rare than Locador effects -- and difficult to resist or counter them with magic. Also in many places there are legal obstacles to making them, but, as a master-smith, I have the guild-right. And as a long-time nendrai toy, I have the skill, too.

Forgive me if I don't want to use Mentador, no matter how sensible it might be.

While a cannon capable of throwing three thousand heavy iron spikes a minute would be exceedingly intimidating, the practical considerations (both magicotechnical and sociopolitical) are nearly as intimidating.

[Poll #1591500]

Comments

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

The essence of my suggestion is not to exactly try to replicate the weapon I mentioned. The essence is to consider 'how to make an effective deterrent through intimidation'. Thus, I would say something that is based on the basic Ballista concept, as it is easily recognizable by those of your world, AND it is something that we can help with (we have many cultures that came up with various odd and advanced ballista designs, especially for repeating ballistae, which is most definitely possible), AND it is something that you can enchant quite well, AND the missiles can combine your durudor capabilities. Plus, with a ballista, you can simply make different types of bolts for different needs -- some metal tipped, some normal, some enchanted with flames, some with locador enchantments, whatever. Or, presumably, rather than enchanting *each individual bolt*, you simply create a device that casts an appropriate spell (or a few spells from a selection of appropriate spells) on whatever bolts are put into it, or build that into the ballista itself. I'm not an expert on magic, so I'm not sure. I do think about mechanical things, which is why I mentioned what I did.

For example, here is something that is conceptually similar to that chain cannon I mentioned, and SHOULD be not insanely difficult and shouldn't have massive ramifications given your technological level and sociopolitical situation:

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/RepCatapult.htm

It's a design for a ballista that doesn't need to be reloaded individually to fire the next shot. In turning the crank at the side of the ballista, a new bolt automatically drops in and is fired simply by turning the crank, and as long as there are bolts in the feed and the crank keeps turning, it will continue to fire.

I presume you can actually go look at links I send, as Delight's journal can. I would show the pictures shown at that link, but they are quite quite large and quite detailed and there are many of them and I don't want to annoy you or annoy the other folk reading the journal. If you would like, or you can't get to that link, I can post the pictures directly like I did the others.

Of course you could presumably get the same benefit of the improved rate of fire and the quick reloading and such through magic, or you could simply mix some aspects of mechanical improvements of rate of fire with some magical, whatever suits you. Personally, I think some tempedor things mixed with some mechanical benefits so that, should either fail for whatever reason, the ballista will still be able to fire more accurately and faster than equivalent ones, would definitely be worth it. Of course that particular design wasn't made to destroy skyships, but it can easily be scaled to be larger and be able to do so!