This area is for the roleplay of research. Idea by Count_Vikernes

<< First of all, I'd like to thank my parents, who have support me all the way, the Commander for letting post here, Jacko for saving our ass about 10 times everysim because he is the magnet to the lobsters that are the enemy shots... and this is all bullcrap so let's get one with it! >>

Lying on the table before McBannok was an Ascadian Sniper Rifle. Next to the gun, on the same table, was a computer system. McBannok could see one picture of the weapon, with lots of colours and legends. The scrolling bar was near the end, so was the text he was reading.

A couple of minutes later, McBannok lifted himself from the chair, and he hear a bone-crack from his leg. The kind of crack made because of movement inactivity. He moved a bit arround, scratched his eyes, and drank a glass of water.
The Lab was well equiped, the computers were top-notch state of the art R&D weaponry. From the testing room next door, he could hear Derrick Ko shouting "GRENADE" from time to time, and a loud bang was heard. They were testing grenade efficiency.
As he walked back, he tryed to remember the whole report, which he had read three times now. The Ascadians had a very simple way of explaining things. They went right to the point, using basic language whenever they could. Instead of the hundreds of pages he was used to, the Ascadians had a twenty page report on the whole fun, and explained it perfectly well. Some parts did need a bit more thought, but, in general, it was much, much easier.

Pulling the chair forward, fitting it below the table, McBannok removed the Rifle from the computer table and moved it to the TechTable, left of the computer table. Once there, he turned on the lights above the table, and focused them on the gun.

Using two different gizmos, one for removing screws, and one LaserCutter 0,1mm he removed the plate covering the security sytem, the last remaining part to R&D before completion of the project. The Ascadians were nice enough to give us a little challenge for free...
Walking back to the computer system, McBannok grabbed a cable, which he plugged in the monitor, then, back at the weapon's security system. A bright green light went on at the end of the cable.
As he sat down in the chair, he opened an alien program emulator and translator (the translation part being done by the Commander himself):

"Haved access the ASR-110 program secure"

McBannok grinned as he saw the rest of the translations. Funny, and understandable, not quite gramaticaly correct though!

He plunged into programming and in-built "help manuals", which never actually helped much, since they were in graphical format, and the translation didn't work.


<< Sorry for the long post. The first ones usualy are! >>

Captain Derrick Ko frowned as the computer showed yet another bank of results. Not quite yet... The explosion's characteristics were not quite the way he wanted. The energy being generated just wasn't enough... to suit him. It was good enough, but Ko was interested in getting the greatest bang he could get out of the material.

Sighing, Ko closed the file and moved onto a different project. Sitting down an his terminal, he brought up the data gathered from the activation of Ascidian fusion weaponry. The Ascidians were, understandably, somewhat hesitant to hand over their technology to X-Com. However, the Commander believed that if the technology could be made usable, if not perfect, then it would benefit the X-Com soldiers more than the pursuit plasma weapons.

Glancing over at the table with the sniper rifle, Ko called out, "McBannok, how are things going over there? Progress?"

*With this, I flee to Toronto for the weekend. Good weekends to you all!*

McBannok heard Ko, he turned and nodded, then, moved in to the firing range, sniper in hand, where he looked at McBenneth. McBenneth was gearing up... as soon as he was ready, McBannok gave him the weapon. Showing McBenneth 2 fingers, McBannok warned him that he should be firing in about two minutes, then he headed to the safe grounds. The Commander was already there, standing up, looking outside.

McBenneth had all the information he had on removing the security system and reseting it so that he could use it. First miss, one little electrical shot, second miss, a bigger one, third miss, unconscious for a couple of hours...

McBannok was ready, McBenneth was ready, and the Commander was ready. He pressed the big bright red button, and several red lights throughout the firing range went on. McBenneth looked at the gun, and started the procedure immediatly. Suddenly, he jumped. First miss...
After glancing to the safe grounds, he tried again... After a couple of minutes, he picked his ammo magazine, and plugged it hard into the Rifle. He proned, and started aiming. The target was as far away as they could manage, which still wasn't much for a sniper. It was a solid rock, of somewhat diminute size, to make it harder. Ten seconds aiming, and McBenneth pressed the trigger. The rock, suposedly very hard (a normal sniper would only rip a few miligrams of it), exploded.

The Commander let out a "Yes" and McBannok smiled. McBenneth couldn't handle himself and shot a couple more times at other targets, which practicaly desintegrated, but that was no problem, they would be taken from his salary.

Ko stood by the Commander, watching the testing. A couple of observations needed to be made at this point...

First, too much time had been spent installing a security system that was unnecessary for a test piece. Still, the principle under which it worked was worth investigating... The briefing papers issued for the test mentioned a "miss" and a "hit" but made no reference as to whether this referred to the accuracy of the bullet or some form of jargon for the security identification. Ko made a mental note to ask McBannok later.

Second, the rock that was the target was not particularly uniform... The testing was not done properly, as far as Ko was concerned. Essentially what they did was to shoot an object off a post. The range was not particularly long, nor did they have any means of determining the variation caused by wind and environmental factors. The test hadn't really showed that much, other than that the rifle actually worked for three shots. Nothing about accuracy and (arguably) power had been determined. Kitat might be a good person to ask about such testing procedures.

Third, Ko made a note to talk to Ghost and Ong about the absurd lack of discipline displayed by Private McBenneth. His fire discipline was extremely poor... It would have to be remedied quickly.

Ko turned to McBannok. "McBannok, could you explain how the security system works?"

Weindhoven looked upon the testing with some displeasure. He could sense that Ko wasn't all too happy either. He then walked off towards the door to NAO and entered.

A few minutes later, he was reading the breifings of progress so far by the research squad. He looked through the progress of the Inproved Grenades, in which his team so dearly wanted. Weindhoven sympathized. They'd been using Jury Rigged grenades from day one, and it was time that they had some Hi-Ex grenades on them. He then walked off to the initial stage project cabinet, and looked inside. Noting that Mobile Tracks was still in there, he took it out and moved it to the Current Project cabinet. After smiling to himself about some unknown topic, he left the lab.

McBannok was about to jump in happiness when he saw the looks on the Commander and Ko's face. He wondered what was wrong, but after a bit of thought, he assumed it was indeed the testing "hardness".
He wanted this test just to show if it actually worked, the problem was really the security system, the rest was Ascadian tech, what could go wrong?

Several weeks later, more tests had been made, outside, in storms, in space, and most possible conditions. Results were most satisfying, and the project was considered successful.

In the meantime, tests had been made on grenades. Physical perfection had already been handled by Ko, but it still needed a bigger blast. McBannok was sleeping one night, when he dreamed. He saw two golden masses, one glittering much more than the other. They slowly came closer and closer to each other. Then, something like lightning struck down, both the objects touched, there was the brightest light McBannok had ever seen, and he woke up, lying on the floor of the Sleeping Quarters, with a couple of other guys looking at him and laughing. He immediatly ran off to the lab. Currently, the grenade's explosion was done with Elerium... McBannok opened up a grenade, carefuly, left it on the table, got safety equipment on, grabbed a bit of Zrbite and prodded it inside the grenade, he looked arround... a lighter...he needed a lighter...
Miracle of miracles, there was one on the table. He picked it up, threw it on the ground, and jumped on it for a couple of times. He looked at it, grabbed the electrical shock maker, and put it inside the grenade too, linking it with a wire to the detonator so it would work. Good ol' lighters! I don't think Ko'll be very happy he left his here...

He rushed to the testing lab, turned on all scanners, whispered "fire in the hole", primed the grenade and threw it in... *tick tack... tick tack... tick tack... BOOM*. Red alert went off...

McBannok looked at the sensors... they went 20% over the normal Elerium Grenade... not bad for a carelessly handmade improvement.

Suddenly, the troopers blew to the door, and screamed... McBannok looked at them and: "Whoops..."...

<<Please don't accelerate the timeline that much - it will make for a bit of strange synchronization later on.

Also, marvel at the uselessness of X-Com engineering. It looks like Ko died at the appropriate time. McBannok is going to solve all the team's problems.

I need a person to roleplay... Think of this more as a short narrative, than a roleplay post. >>

Prior to the grenade testing and this wonderful time acceleration...

Anne Rallwell studied the test results of the sniper rifle test. The results looked very promising. Accuracy looked very good, as did power, although the tests were far from conclusive. More testing was in order, for sure. McBannok was certainly brilliant in terms of new inventions, but his analytical ability was a bit poor. Well, the good with the bad thought Rallwell. McBannok was a genius in his own right... very stereotypical of the mad genius - silent, brooding, and wild. At least he's working with X-Com instead of against.

Rubbing her eyes, Rallwell sighed and leaned back. The last mission had been a disaster, as far as she had heard. A number of the Kabron prisoners had been given a chance to prove themselves, but that particular experiment had proven to be unsuccessful. The idea of executing the prisoners was distasteful, but Rallwell couldn't think of anything else.

Rallwell regreted missing the last mission. X-Com had gotten lucky... with the amount of crap that hit the proverbial fan, the injuries sustained were nothing short of miraculous. Well, Jacko... But that was exceptional.

What had kept Rallwell in the base was something that had happened prior to the last mission. The Patton had been escorting a transport convoy en route to another Ascidian star system, but had fallen under attack by some Kabron Pirates. How they had gotten there was unknown, but they attacked quickly and managed to send the Patton down to Arkunis IX.

There, the X-Com team had succeeded in capturing many of the Kabron raiders, but not without cost. In the blinding white of Arkunis IX, Captain Derrick Ko had been killed.

No, Rallwell reminded herself, he's not really dead. But it was a bit of a technicality - he wasn't dead, but he couldn't be removed from stasis because of his rapidly deteriorating condition. Yorke had sent the body a secret location after his attempted surgery. Rallwell suspected that he had sent it to an Ascidian controlled medical facility somewhere else... For what reason, she did not know, but certainly the facilities did not exist at NAO to restore Captain Ko to life. Not a good trend, and in the back of her mind, Rallwell wondered if this was to be her fate as well. (Note: See the story where Elson Richmond is put into stasis)

With Ko's "death", Sergeant Ned Yorke had become the commander of the NAO's Department of Science. He himself took care of the administrative duties pertaining to the medical issues. Corporal Kitat Chung continued to take care of scientific research, delegating the appropriate duties to Yorke's medical personnel or to the engineering sub-department. Rallwell, herself the most senior engineer, was in charge of trouble shooting base issues as well as development projects within her team's realm of expertise.

The whole scientific division was a bit hazy. Really, there were only four people who were totally within the Department of Science. Yorke, Chung, Rallwell, and McBannok pretty much attempted to hold most of the research, because Silvermoon and Del Rodriguez were subject to more training with the rest of the troops. The loss of critical personnel such as Drake, Mordor, and Ryan were starting to take their toll as more and more demands were being placed on research and maintenance.

McBannok's research into the rifle technology was going reasonably well. His grenade project was just beginning. Kitat was focusing more on the complicated fusion weaponry that the Ascidians were using, as well as making a more in-depth study of the sniper rifle developed by McBannok. Yorke, as usual, continued to study the biologies of the aliens... Snakemen this week. Rallwell was currently attempting to merge her research duties with her new administrative tasks, but it was slow going. While they had tried to prepare for it, Ko's plan for seamless integration of Rallwell into the command structure left a bit much to be desired... And there was no way of doing anything about it now, other than to work as hard as possible.

"Hellllooooo?" The intercom buzzed to life.

"Yes, Daniel? What do you want?" Knowing him, he probably managed to break something...

"Yeah, the water cooler is clogged again... send someone down to fix it."

Rallwell sighed. The bloody water cooler... if they would just stop pouring their coffee there... "Again? Coffee?"

"Err... not this time. Actually, I think SFC has a hairball in there..." Jackson began.

"OK, enough. I'll send someone down." Rallwell cut the intercom and paged Kyle Silvermoon. It was his turn for to take the crappy job.

Private Martin Kacur went over to the NAO Laboratory to see how the research was progressing. The lab looked quite empty as only two people were operating in it on a daily basis: Ki-Tat Chung and Yorke. Although he was glad that the engineering department was relieved, since the recent Cryopod gamble was a success (see Role-Play, my last post for info) and Rallwell finally completed her tour of duty with the Ascidian High Council, the Laboratory still looked rather empty to him.

"But in a while that would change..." he thought to himself as the Commander was at that very moment reviewing Kacur's position for a possible switch from secondary Scout to secondary Scientist.

<<Just a little narrative to inform Mouse of DHs and my request >>

Private Anne Rallwell sat petting her friend, Chris Drake. "You know what I'm thinking, right?" The bunny nodded, wandered off towards the drinking bottle.

Drake was still a sentient, just in rabbit form. He was still of some use... Sometimes he delivered messages, or tried to point things out to scientists, but most of the time (when he wasn't around Rallwell), he tended to sulk a bit. Not that anyone could blame him.

Giving Drake a final pat on the head, Rallwell stood and walked back towards her office. Paperwork was eternal... How that could be, with so few engineers... Still, everything had to be organized, and Rallwell now had to handle all of it, including Medical and Research departments.

As she sauntered across the engineering bay, she saw Private Kacur passing by on his way to the laboratory.

I wonder where he's going...?

<<Well, now that I'm a secondary Scientist.................hehe >>

Kacur entered the laboratory so that Ki-tat Chung could familiarize him with the entire resources at their disposal. It was now official! Seeing as how the X-Com team desperately needed scientific personnel, Kacur's request for a position change went almost without any complaints by Richter and so he was quickly placed into secondary Scientist position. "At least now following all of those school lessons and reading all of those books is going to pay off." he contemplated. Although he was obviously not a fully trained Scientist he would nevertheless prove invaluable as Ki-tat's assistant.

"Okay. For now the best solution would be that you just learn from what I do. I have already managed to fully research Fusion Weaponry and a large part of the Psionic Probe, so lets just finish on that one, shall we?"

"Sure, have we gone to the stage of beta testing it yet?"

"Actually we have even managed to reach alpha, but we still need confirmed readings from a Psionisist, so that you really could help out quite a bit more.

-----------------

A few hours later Kacur was sitting in a dark room. Seated in a room besides him was Jackson, who was chosen specifically because of his low Psi defence. As Kacur activated a button on the device in his hands, he felt as if his consciousness was moving through space with perfect ease. He quickly looked inside Jacko's head and examined his feelings, his memories,... He suddenly heard Ki-tat's voice calling "disengage" and he released the button on the device.

Chung went to one of the monitors and looked: "All mental signs look good, your brainwaves were fluctuating at the predicted level. Are you feeling a bit nauseous in any way?"

"No I feel just fine, although I think I could have gone deeper, but the probe didn't allow it somehow. I still think it can be perfected, but otherwise it's looking pretty solid."

Kacur felt quite proud of himself at that moment. Now he wouldn't just help X-Com in battle but in the hard support work as well.

<<This event takes place just before we left NAO>>

Kacur entered the interrogation room - a small room located in the alien containment section, where the Kabron Pirate Commander was seated.

"Oh blimey! Look who they've sent to scare me! So what are you sonny, a bell boy? You certainly have the build of one, HAH"

Kacur didn't say a word as he slowly seated himself in the chair opposite of the pirate. He gazed very deeply into the Commander's eyes, trying to sense his most primal fears, even though his anti-psionic implants were not making it easy.

"Quiet type eh? Well your high minded tricks won't do a damn good against my implants, matey."

Suddenly the Psionisist smiled as he had gotten his information. If the pirate closed his eyes and concentrated on not showing his fears, Kacur doubted that he would have achieved much. But such an over-confident person always falls prey to a simple psionic probe. He remembered the recent Psionic Probe project as being complete, however several units were still to be manufactured. But it did not matter at the moment as Kacur got up from the table and pointed a Psi-Amp at the Commander.

"Shall we begin?" he asked with a wicked smile on his face. The pirate fearfully looked at his scar, which suddenly began glowing brightly. He was not in for a pleasant experience.

--------------

"So what did you retrieve from the Commander's interrogation?" asked Ki-tat

"Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that the psionic implants didn't fool me. He honestly believes that the current date is January 8th 2067. I managed to break him enough to even get the precise time: 15:52 at the time when I questioned him, which is 3 hours and 2 seconds ahead of our time. I also sensed no special anomalies in his brain, meaning that he couldn't have been made to believe this information, either by entering a coma or being brainwashed in any way. I think that it is pretty safe to say that the date truly is three years ahead of what we thought it was."

"I couldn't argue with that, since their Avenger logs indicate the same date. There is also a strange anomaly that is logged in the Avenger's computer that seems to coincide with your story. I've already calculated the time difference and there is something very peciluar. At the Kabron's date, which would translate into our date of 23rd of November, the computer logged the time perfectly normally. However at exactly the time difference of 3 hours and 2 seconds ahead of our time, the computer seriously slowed down the time counting for a moment, but after a second or so continued to record the time normally. The difference was EXACTLY 3 hours and 2 seconds, just what you've told me."

Ki-tat raised an eyebrow at Kacur, who began to realise what this meant.

"Time compression?"

"Exactly."

"But how? I thought it was only possible in parallel universes and even that was unconfirmed."

"To be perfectly honest I don't know exactly how either, although it could have a relation to Sol's distance to the galactic core and our distance to the core. Anyway we'll continue onwards regardless."

Kacur felt very intrigued at this phenomenon, as various thoughts began to spark inside his head. Although intense research of this anomaly would certainly bring new laws in astrophysics and cosmology, he knew that him and Ki-tat would have to restrain themselves from going too far, as the team needed their research expertise in other areas at the moment.

Privates Anne Rallwell, Gael McBannok, and Duke McCarthy stood in the middle of the engineering bay, gazing silently at the three piles of metal heaped on the floor. Two looked like hi-tech scrap, but the third "pile" was easily identifiable - an Alien Sectopod.

Rallwell sighed. "At least we have one good sample - the other two are not particularly useful..."

McCarthy nodded vigorously, but McBannok shook his head. "Not true, there's still a great deal we can get from those parts. An in-depth study of materials, function... It might aid the remote tank chassis project, and get it off of that dusty storeroom shelf..."

"Good point Gael. Duke, you think these are reconstructable?"

McCarthy shrugged. "I don't know, but I would hazard to guess that it's not very likely, considering the condition that Necro and Howardson left these in..." He gestured to various fragmented parts.

"We might be able to reconstruct certain pieces. For example, the legs on both Sectopods seem to be in reasonable condition... or we can at least use parts from one to patch the other. We might even be able to reactivate and reprogram the more intact unit. But that would be a project in itself," stated McBannok confindently.

Rallwell sighed. These projects were so involved. How am I expected to accomplish this stuff when I've got other things to do? Granted though, this work would be far more interesting. However, matters of survival were starting to make themselves known. Someone (Rallwell suspected it was Necro) had clogged the toilet again. One of the engineers would have to supervise that. Then, the ammunition line in the engineering bay was starting to act finicky... As far as Rallwell could tell, one of the parts that was acquired from the Ascidian supplier was not as tough as was thought previously... the hydraulic fluids for the system were also not really sufficient to do the job. The reactor needed more material. The third reactor was starting to get a bit inefficient. The armoury stock was unknown, someone needed to count that. Lots of jobs, little time.

Sighing again, Rallwell walked up to the intact Sectopod, studying it carefully. Analysis for this machine was going to be tough. Lots of parts... Surprisingly, not much in the way of electronics, at least, not as much as she thought there should be. Housed in a single location probably.

"It would be nice if we could get some help," said McCarthy. "Jackson maybe? The Captain could help, if he was around."

Rallwell and McBannok both grinned. "Absolutely not Jackson," McBannok said. "We want to keep this one intact. And forget Ko, he's pretty fargone, even if the rumours of him being alive are technically true. Besides, his computer skills and mechanical skills were proficient, but probably not as good as any of ours."

McCarthy gaped. "How could you say that about a superior?"

Rallwell laughed lightly. "It's true. He took care of the chemical systems. By their nature, yes, a great deal of mechanical knowledge was required, but there are some specialized things that he doesn't know. Look, in X-Com, we don't BS each other. Respect is first and foremost, but each person has to know their strengths and weaknesses. The Captain encouraged this free expression."

McCarthy just shook his head in wonder.

McBannok walked to the first pile of 'scrap'. "Cataloging first... shall we start?"

<<for more info on this, check my recent RP post>>


Howardson walked into the engineering department. He couldn't get very far into it, with his lack of security clearance. Therefore, he just dropped a little note onto Anne Rallwell's desk, thinking she was most likely to read his message.

<<no, its not a love note . More info in the RP thread >>

Walking towards the laboratory, Kacur was thinking through the problem at hand that was recently assigned to him: How to effectively improve the Patton's shielding? The ship was otherwise pretty resilient, but times were changing quite rapidly. When the Commander went through the recent missions, he noticed how often the Patton had crashed or had been disabled. First the mission when the X-Com team encountered the Kabrons, then when it was almost destroyed by a UFO headed by Floaters. Apart from that there were other incidents in the past and he must've felt that it was about time to give the team better protection whilst they were transported to the target area.

As Kacur went to the lab access door he noticed a note from Howardson being on Rallwell's desk. Being an honorable person he decided not to poke his nose in things that weren't his bussiness, although he still did wonder what it was about. He noted that Rallwell recently started hitting on Howardson with names like "Howie", but it didn't necceserally mean that Howardson is sharing her feelings.

As he accessed the lab door with his card, he stepped inside to meet the somewhat bruised Chung. Apparently the recent throw from Cu'rag'us was still apparent to the naked eye.

"Hiya, Chung. C'mon lets get to work, I've already finished several likely approaches to our work and I would like your opinion on them, okay?"

Ki-tat slowly sat down on a chair. "Sure, go ahead."

"The first is the simplest of all. In order to improve our shield we would require a larger generator using the same principles as we already have. So we would simply enlarge the shield generator room and add the new thing. This is the simplest method and won't take us much time..."

"Well it might not take us long, but it would definately take the engineering team a hefty amount of time to re-adapt the Patton. And since we're already over-worked that one can therefore be scratched. Next?"

"The second possibility is to request permission from the Blue Skulls to view their latest shield designs. Based on them I am certain that we will be able to develop a similar design to fit it on the Patton."

"That would be possible, though I think that it should be used as a last resort. We are currently quite indebted to them as it is as far as tech is considered."

"Well then the last option is my favourite and also quite possible. It is to try and base it on alien technology. During the mission Hazardous Recon we have managed to recover from those data disks a hefty amount of info, not just about the alien's biological experiments there, but also about their latest Electro-Plasmic shields. The info is quite complete, in fact so much, that the research difficulty would be only medium. If we preformed several experiments to test those conclusions and completed the missing gaps, we would have a very useful peice of technology indeed."

"That sounds the most agreeable option. Well then let's get to work"

<<I'm starting to question what Loonie's RL relationship with females is... Man, you've got weird ideas and assumptions. >>

Private Rallwell yawned as she walked into the engineering bay. The previous night had been a bit hectic. The third reactor had started to act up, so the engineers had spent a good six hours troubleshooting, and hopefully, trouble-solving as well. Their fix had worked, but there were always more problems.

Frowning, Rallwell walked to her desk, and picked up the sheet of paper on it. Howardson's neat handwriting was on it. Scanning it, Rallwell sighed. Another equipment modification request. This one was interesting though. Howardson had requested that the autocannons be made more powerful. He suggested the use of an explosive shell.

Rallwell massaged her temples. It was only 11:00, but she could already feel a headache in the works. More tasks, always coming, never stopping. Rallwell thought, It's all well and good that those lazy buggers in the Research division have loads of free time, but what about us poor souls in Engineering? She grinned, remembering that line to use on the next scientist she saw. The rivalry continued. Poor McBannok, he was pretty much caught in the middle. Rallwell laughed quietly to herself and then sat down.

More power... What was the request actually asking? Overtly, yes, more power, but what drove that request? Something was in Howardson's mind. Something he thought was not right. He didn't make requests without thinking about them.

His request for explosive tipped ammunition was an interesting one. Could it be done? Yes, it could be, but maybe not with a useful amount of force. That could be investigated. Could the existing shell be thrown out with more force? Possible.

Rallwell grinned as some of the Captain's advice came back to her. It was not actually advice, but it had been from one of his peptalks (Rallwell and Silvermoon had thought of them as rants). "Why the f*** does everyone want more power these days?" Ko had said, giving his engineers a fishy stare. "Power, power. We want more umph. We want to go faster. Farther. Everyone wants more umph."

"Who says this is the best solution? The problem: More power. The solution: more force? Nonsense. Utter bulls***. Any punk with a skunk can utter that, but we aren't around to give them more explosives to play with. Remember, we are here because resources are LIMITED. Anyone can buy a new part, but we as engineers are required to find EFFICIENT solutions. We do NOT use some 'brute force' method for solving problems. We are engineers, scientists. There has to be eloquence in our solutions. Investigate everything INTERNAL to the system, not just the outside factors. You want your car to go farther? The solution is not to give it more gas. You look at streamlining, you look at weight, you look at efficiency, but by no means, do you only look at the fuel it can carry. We must do the same here."

So, what was the solution here, other than to put more powder into the shell? Certainly, that could be done. Indeed, it may be possible to move to a caseless ammunition, thus saving other material costs. Alternatively, they could use a harder material, reshape the shell to resist more impact before crumpling, and spin the shell on entry to increase the lethality. Odd that it wasn't done now... As Ko had said, humanity was relying on brute force methods as technology advanced.

Other solutions... Rallwell sat down to do some hard brainstorming.