I thought it would only take about a month to build out a prototype, but it ended up taking 44 days. That rgely came down to stress testing failures that resulted in redesigns of smaller parts to be more robust. I shouldn't have been that surprised, these artillery pieces really do take a beating as they fire rounds. The downside to the new prototype compared to the older, manually operated artillery is that the overall weight and number of spare parts goes up by a decent amount. Between the three turrets on a ship, it'll probably end up eating an extra 50 tons from the total capacity once everything is accounted for.
Though I must say, the difference in the difficulty of operation is really night and day. We've gone from being able to fire about two rounds per minute to firing twenty. The unfortunate downside to that is that we can go through ammo really, really fast. That'd burn through days of production in minutes. Looking at it another way, however, is that it's capable of concentrating days of work into a destructive few minutes, rather than spread out over hours. I'll need to get on designing the production lines to make the new casings so that we can start stockpiling asap.
I've talked with Zeb a little bit after showing him the prototype to discuss a few matters reted to production. While I pn on having the army's construction corps build out the necessary facilities when the time comes, I do want a somewhat small building near the crystal baths for processing the casings. The idea will be that the basic pucks and brass casing walls will be made elsewhere and brought into the city for further processing close to the baths. Not only is the natural mana regen the highest there, but it also would allow for workers to take a short walk for a full refill on mana. Then, the completed but empty casings will be taken to the final processing facility to be filled with smokeless powder and topped with the lead shells.
He agreed to pick out a spot for the building, but said that I'd have to pull from the construction corps to man the processing facility for the time being. The salt production facility is coming along quite well with a rge amount of dedicated work going to it. That comes at the cost of building more housing though, so despite everything, Zeb feels like he's falling behind and wants more workers. It's unfortunate that needing more skilled workers is a problem we're constantly dealing with.
In the st 20 days, I've realized just how much of a headache processing stone mechanically is going to be. After trying various tools to try to process it, I've realized that I need to be selective with the stone we use for making the casing bottoms. Rocks that look simir, but were pulled from two different parts of the isnd have different wear effects on our steel tools. Thus, I'll need to have someone go about sampling rocks from around the isnd to try to find the best type to use.
I would go do it myself, but I actually have a few things pnned over the next few weeks. We've reached the point where we are ready to go bst out the fluorite mine, so I'll be going to do that tomorrow. After that, I'm going to help with some of the startup and testing for the desalination facility. Then I'll be joining in on a salt delivery trip. It's only about a half of a ship's worth of salt, but it'll be redirected to wherever it's most useful for the war effort. As such, I want to be ready as a delegate to do negotiating if necessary.
When I return, we'll also be getting close to completing the second ship. That will require it's own crew, which is part of why I want to go along on this next trip. We'll be recruiting new individuals to crew the ship, and we'll be taking a few members of the military construction corps as crewmates for the next ship. Since each ship needs a few crew members who can stoneshape to fill holes, the construction corps is going to really start to dwindle over time.
Since we've installed the rge mana crystal again, we're making about 40 new stoneshaping demons a year. While that sounds like a lot, the fact that we don't have mobile mana crystals avaible for them means that they're still limited in where they are most productive. A fresh stoneshaping goblin has such a small mana pool that their construction value is very minimal. After a few years though, they'll prestige a few times, or evolve, and they'll become far more useful. A goblin with mana affinity, a few prestiges, and improved stoneshaping is worth six goblins with only stoneshaping. Add in an evolution, and that more than doubles. So, while our recent recruitment rate as been high, we're actually waiting on the real dividends to start to be paid out from them.
Bsting the fluorite tunnel was really quite the exhirating process. Getting everything ready to bst took just over 3 days, with temporary stockpiles having been made just outside of the tunnel. The first step was to ensure that I could even make it deep enough in to do anything. The tunnel entrance was even pouring out heat, and was easily above 100 degrees. By the time I made it to the fluorite deposit, I had used almost half of my mana on thermal regution, and spending any time near the deposit burned mana fast.
The way we decided we should do things was pretty straightforward. I'd go in first carrying a rge container of pre-mixed oxygen and nitrogen to start cooling the area. I'd make a second trip to empty a second load, then after that the others would start helping me to carry all the cryogenic fluid in.
Two people would then be on duty to refill the cooling pool while the rest of us frantically bring in explosives. After that, we'd seal off the area behind the explosives with stoneshaping to direct the bst towards the fluorite deposit, and we'd run an oil soaked rope through a small opening back a ways to light on fire before we leave.
In practice, most of that worked as intended, but we found ourselves working at a ridiculously breakneck pace to get everything brought in. The fluorite was hot, and not only was it hot, but the whole area was hot. Our feet were burning and everyone was taking small amounts of damage the whole time we worked, despite the air having cooled considerably thanks to the cryogenic fluids. We had to improvise and dump a bucket of cryogenic fluid where we were pcing the explosives just to cool it down enough that there wasn't a risk of premature explosion.
Somehow, it managed to work out. After giving it a day to settle down, I went in to inspect along with a long steel pole to smack the surfaces to make sure there wasn't any loose rock waiting to kill me. It took me a whole day just to get into the deep portion of the mine because the slow pace for safety mixed with the heat meant I had to occasionally go out and wait for my mana to recharge. It was still hot in the mine, but the deeper portions weren't quite as hot as before.
The inspection of the deep portions was really something. There was rubble everywhere with fluorite mixed in among it. The fluorite embedded in the still standing walls occasionally had cracks in it, so I'm hoping that it possibly cracked deeper in as well, which is contributing to the lower heat amount. That said, emptying this mine is definitely still going to require my thermal regution skill, because it's probably close to the boiling point of water down there.
I've requested that a minecart be installed near the entrance, and I'll install the track myself ter. I think I can probably shovel a cartload at a time before I need to leave to refill my mana. I'd say the rubble is about 15% fluorite, maybe 10%, so there is a lot of waste rock. Considering that the ships, the mana engines, and Tiberius's research all require fluorite, I might be self-relegated to mine duty in the near future. I should probably try to come up with a project to work on that won't require mana that I can work on near the mine to fill my time waiting for my mana to refill. I could just sort the fluorite myself, but that seems like a bit of a waste of my time compared to things I could potentially work on instead.
