Appendix: Damascus Steel and Rune Guns
Damascus Steel and Rune Guns.
This is in reply to a comment I got wondering/griping about Damascus steel being too advanced for Corbeau (see chapter 4: Journeyman), as well as some objections about the rune-guns I'm implementing. In general though, the replies may or may not be interesting depending on how much you're interested in the thought process behind all this. Also contains Appendix Note 1, previously posted on Moonlight Sculptor Jcafe forum.
Update: Due to subsequent comments from Anonymous, aka "Mr. Pesky" (his words not mine), now contains some information on how I envision spells working. And other things. See bellow Appendix Note 2.
On the topic of Damascus Blades:
One: Making Damascus Blades and Skill level:
Corbeau does not actually make the blade. He makes the bars, which Sindri, greatest NPC master of rune-smithing, finishes. So, the precision of the hammering is lower. Also, he is using good stock; one of the biggest problems with making Damascus steel is precursor bars of sufficient purity and carbon content control. Corbeau is given the initial bars and is primarily responsible for hammering them together, a bit of work with a grinding wheel, and scribing runes. These are all much easier. Furthermore, these are all shortswords, which are easier to make than regular swords or long-swords. If Corbeau had shaped the blades as well, the edges would have been worse and degraded faster than the ones Sindri made. Some, if not many, of the swords might have needed re-forging.
Two: Corbeau is too shitty a smith to make anything useful
Corbeau is only an amateur level smith in the game. IRL (for the book) he has degrees in electrical, chemical, and most applicably mechanical engineering, as well as prior experience with smithing as part of his training to comprehensively understand manufacturing for his businesses. Thus he is only minimally helped by and completely not needing the system assist. RR allows skills beyond real world competency, but you always have at least real world competency. This applies to making the gun too.
Three: Damascus steel being too “cheap” or common:
It isn’t. Other areas, beginners might get copper, bronze, or at most iron swords. City guard might get iron or common steel. But, we’re on Ivaldi, most famous and insular dwarven island-nation with the best rune-smiths and general rune/smithing technology level (in my worldbuilding, at least). And, it’s for swords which, even though they’re relatively cheap, are being made by Sindri, the greatest rune-smith NPC on the island, and thus the world.
Three: Sindri would never teach Corbeau an advanced technique like Damascus metal-making!
Sindri taught Corbeau the technique to make Damascus steel for many reasons: 1) Sindri likes Corbeau because Corbeau (unnecessarily) saved him from muggers. 2) Sindri likes that Corbeau doesn’t whine despite being made to do ridiculous feats of endurance. 3) Sindri likes Corbeau because of the Eagle incident. 4) Related to 3, Sindri is promoting Corbeau to journeyman after four weeks of work. 5) While steel is a good material, there are many better ones in the game/a fantasy environment. Apart from unique creature carapaces, etc, there is also mythril, adamantine, orichalcum, etc depending on the game’s hierarchy. Although, the Damascus technique can be used by Corbeau on other materials too.
Four: Random Comment on Damascus Steel:
The technique I described in Chapter four is the actual method one uses to make Damascus steel, or at least one of the techniques used to make something we nowadays call Damascus steel. Ancient Damascus requires some very specific (and unknown) impurities to form certain beneficial microstructures. For the purposes of this fanfic, it is assumed that by the time RR was created, people had figured out what those impurities were, that Sindri’s bar stock contains the impurities in the optimal amounts, and that the manufacturing route described is acceptable for creating the desired microstructures.
Five: Random comment on Colada (Corbeaus Bound Sword):
You may be thinking: 21 attack only for Colada, this awesome weapon? And you’d be right. That’s not much attack. But, remember it’s a bound weapon, and has some of the attributes of the user. So, as the user gets stronger, so might the sword. And who knows what unknown and unexpected interactions the runes that are currently attached to the sword might give? That’ll develop more in chapter 5 and beyond.
On the subject of Guns:
One: Regarding accuracy with firearms:
Corbeau has soldierly/mercenary experience as he went along occasionally with his PACs Corvi. This is part of the backstory readers already have access to. Corvus also has significant weapons, survival and combat training. This is part of the backstory I have access to :) He can be assumed to be reasonably proficient with any weapon he designs and uses. Merlin can also help in visor/heads up mode by projecting expected bullet trajectory. Guns are not useable by anyone and everyone. That said, after a couple hours of training you can hit the target at 20 yards pretty easily.
Two: Making the gun physically:
Corbeau, again, has some smithing experience IRL (See Damascus Blades Two). He has more experience in mechanical engineering, and access to Sindri’s workshop complex which has any tool and stock supplies you need and many you don’t. Merlin helps by projecting blueprints and such from real world. The system assist does not drive the actions.
Three: Why make/use the bullets?
Because they store energy/damage. A bullet is effectively a semi-mechanical version of a charge in a spell wand. Also, a bullet can have runes engraved on it; remember, Corbeau’s primary magic (at least for now) is significantly less effective unless carefully drawn ahead of time. Bullets have a long, long range and move quickly, so they can deliver punishing rune-loads at a distance. Bullets also deal significant direct physical damage, so magic resistance or shields are less effective. Meanwhile, magical payload can help cut through magically powered anti-physical shields. Bullets are good at penetrating physical armor, and many can be fired rapidly. Lastly, guns and bullets are very very efficient at power-use.
Four: Analysis of “realism” of the bullet technology/mechanism:
I’m an engineering student from MIT, and so when I was deciding on a technology to fire the bullets, I first did a simple feasibility energy estimation. Throughout this estimation, I used the assumptions that would result in a higher cost of energy for accelerating the bullet or a lower cost of energy for using a firebolt, so the comparison is actually a little unfair for the firebolt.
First, figure out the power of a firebolt (Entry level attack spell cast by mages): Let’s assume each mage can cast 5-10 firebolts, and that each firebolt consumes 20 MP (mana). Let’s further assume 5 mages about level 5-10 working in concert can take down 2 wolves. That means 50 firebolts kills 2 wolves, or 25 firebolts kills one wolf.
Next, how much heat is needed to kill a wolf? Assume a wolf is 50 kg, and is 80% water, so is 40L water. To kill a wolf, core temperature must raise 10 degrees C. So, the energy in a firebolt is:
(1 Kcal/L degreeC)*(10 degreeC)*(40 L) / (25 firebolts) = 8 kcal per firebolt = 33.5 kJ per firebolt. This assumes that a firebolt does not lose energy in flight.
Next question: How much water is needed to evaporate? The amount of water needed is enough to produce the same quantity of gas as is produced by 18.2 grams of gunpowder (charge in a 7.62x39mm round). Primary gas evolved by gunpowder is CO2, molecular weight 44. Water, H2O, is molecular weight 18. So, 18.2*18/44 = 7.45 grams of water are needed. Call it 7.5 grams of water.
How much heat to evaporate 7.5 grams of water? Well, assume raising the temperature 80 degrees C, then boiling the water. To do this, you need (7.5*80 calories) to raise temperature of water + (7.5 *2.26 kJ) to boil the water = 19.5 kJ, or 4.65 kcal.
How much energy is required to accelerate the bullet? Highest muzzle velocity for a 7.62x39mm round is 2.5 kJ.
Total energy is therefore = 22kJ for a boiling-water-rune-powered AK-47 round, versus 33.5 kJ for a firebolt. To compare mana cost, a bullet costs Corbeau 80 mana/MP to charge, versus the 20 for a firebolt. Part of this is due to the use of runes to further accelerate the bullet, increasing damage and range while decreasing flight time. Still, there is sufficient margin to overcome runic storage and transfer inefficiency. Note, by the way, that the primary energy cost of firing a rune-round is in boiling the water; for this reason, Corbeau will eventually switch to more of a railgun design rather than the AK47 clone; however, this would have required designing a new gun rather than duplicating an old one and he did not have time. Furthermore, the AK’s high mechanical tolerances were advantageous given his skill level.
Five: Are bullets overpowered?
Hell Yes! If you can use them. Since the “primer” is really using the hammer to connect two rune diagrams, you really need at least a little rune-smithing skill to activate that connection, otherwise it’s nothing more than a scratch on the back of the bullet. But, it really isn’t unreasonable for bullets to be overpowered. In sheer energy quantity, a bullet from a rifle or handgun will generally have less impact energy than a properly delivered punch by a martial-artist. Why are guns so deadly then? It’s all efficiency! Guns are very, very efficient at killing people.
Interestingly, statistics show (or at least so I’ve been told by every martial arts/ self defense instructor I’ve had, some of them cops) that at arm’s reach, eg the normal distance for a mugging, a knife is actually more deadly than a gun. There are a couple reasons: one, most people get shot once, twice, maybe three times (pistol, generally semi-auto, often revolver). Most people get stabbed bunches of times, partially because knives are quiet so the attacker doesn’t feel a need to run. Two, knives are very efficient at cutting things close to you, and do lots of damage pretty fast. Three, people tend to bury and then re-bury or slash around other people’s torsos, which is pretty much fatal without rapid assistance.
Comparatively, swords extend the range over knives, and are better at damage/strike, but much less strikes/time. Guns can increase the strikes/time, especially automatics, and have very good range. Plus, they are effective against armored or shielded opponents. For example, 1880 (ish, I can’t remember my history well enough), using guns far less advanced than an AK47, 150 British troops defeated thousands of Zulu at Rorke’s Drift, taking something like 20 dead in return for routing the entire army.
Six: It all depends on how you think about RR:
If you think about it like a traditional fantasy game where everything is designed to be balanced, then yes, guns are not really good. But, if you think of it as an alternate reality, granted, one using different rules than those in our reality, but with its own reality-approximating physics engine, then it isn’t unreasonable for “unfair” or “unbalanced” skills, talents and techniques to evolve over time. Still, guns are not as all-powerful as they are in reality; over-strengthed archers can use bows as strong as ballista, mages can cast spells of mass destruction and personal protection, and warriors can become so tough that any bullet Corbeau could currently make would cause little more than a welt. At the end of the day, this is my fanfic and I choose to think of RR as an alternate reality with basic physical and magical laws, but without some obnoxious fairness engine.
So, could Corbeau face off against some low to mid level enemies and win (maybe up to level 50 or 60) in a “fair” fight? Sure. Could he take on a level 200 or 300 boss in a fair fight? Hell no.
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I posted this on the Moonlight Sculptor Forum on JCafe earlier, but am copying it below if you’re interested. It contains some more general thoughts and motivations about guns in fantasy settings and the powered armor everyone saw in the flash-forward prologue.
Appendix Note 1:
Basic gun/weapon mechanics: (a lot of this will be included within the text of the story as it progresses, this is in case you are interested in thought as to how it works. Don't read this then complain that I repeat myself).
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I've always been really annoyed when I read books, and think- "dude, with a bit of engineering added to your magic, you could totally be a walking, smiting, tank, or at least have some much better weapons", cause to me that means the magic system isn't robust enough (so long as it's reasonable that any characters have been exposed to Saturday morning cartoons growing up). Someone who does a really good job of technologically modified myth/magic is Charles Stross in the Atrocity Archives, while Modesitt always sets up characters who can godmode as soon as they figure out the twist to the magic system he's set up. Ignoring the potential to take advantage of the twist, or hole, or whatever you want to call it seems a bit lame to me. And so, I can play around with this, which is normally a pet peeve of mine.
Guns, and more importantly gunpowder, are really really difficult to do right (in real life); for example, it's taken about 600 years to go from the first popularization of gunpowder which might kill you instead of your enemy till now. As such, if RR designers/AI want to avoid guns, all they would pratically need to do is shift the chemistry for the existing formulations to slow the burn. EG, then gunpowder you could practically make from scratch wouldn't be able to explode; modern "gunpowder" might be as efficient as very early gunpowder (almost useless for practical, rapid firing, high penetration weapons). This means that anyone wanting to recreate gunpowder and firearms within the game would need to develop the industry from scratch, probably with a high Alchemy skill, but more important would first require a very very high level of classical (real world) scientific education, training, experience, base inspiration/genius to apply to the problem, and will to create weapons. I study at MIT, in a chemistry/engineering field, and can say that there are very very few people capable of that (seriously, a handful). And almost all of them get high paying jobs in chemistry related jobs, and would probably not want to basically continue their job in a game when they could do the same in the real world and get paid. And when doing this in the game would take months of dedicated, boring, repetitive work before they get to do anything interesting (unless there's a secret manual with a base recipe floating around).
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So, to develop guns believably in RR, using a gunpowder route, main character (whose username will be Corbeau) would have to meet those requirements. And eventually, maybe, he will. I'm still debating that. And implementing it would include some "bwahahaha- science+alchemy=godmode" moments, especially if the AI/game environment are designed a certain way (which, since I'd be writing it, it would be). Which would make the corner of my head devoted to science very happy.
But, there are much simpler solutions in a magical environment, ie, in RR. As long as there are runes, it is a simple matter to create a stockpile of devices that either accelerate (think railgun without a need for electromagnets, eg if two geometric rune-pieces come together to make an acceleration glyph, and there is a little rune-battery for power), explode (acting as gunpowder, eg if rune contains energy and the pattern is broken), etc to act as ammunition.
Gunsmithing, while difficult, is less difficult than developing the chemistry and industry required to make gunpowder, and can be directly copied by a sufficiently skilled technician.
Similarly to rune-rounds, imagine a purely magical device: wands can cast a set number of pre-charged spells. Eg, a wand might be able to cast 50 fire darts. Which is useless, unless against a rabbit (say, 10 fire darts cooks 1 rabbit). But, imagine 100 of these wands (10x10 grid). That's 5000 fire darts, firing rapidly, as a very very cheap flamethrower (level requirement is the same as for 1 wand, mana to charge a single spell is low, although charging time and preparation is high). This could take down a swarm of 500 rabbits. Or, a handful of, say, lvl 40 brigands. Similarly, a powerful light spell (equal to 5 x 60 watt bulb) might give you a sunburn, or hurt your eyes. 50 of these might blind, or focused, be a laser (auto industry, for example, uses 2,500 to 5,000 watt lasers that can cut inches of steel a second. 50 spells x 300 watt/spell --> 15,000 watts). Note: I hadn't thought of lasers until Grisia brought it up, but thank you! And this serves as a good way of creating these devices.
In general, some combination of mechanics, magic and alchemy can achieve, within the framework of an open, physics based gaming system (as opposed to highly constrained environment) pretty much whatever is possible within that system. If that system allows more than our own reality (ie, it allows magic, super strength, uber-materials like mythril, etc), then it's only logical you could achieve things you can't achieve in our own reality, or can achieve the same things but easier and faster.
Appendix Note 2:
Basic Armor concepts:
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Currently, I'm envisioning powered armor (probably a few different models over time), similar to a cross between Iron Man, MechWarrior Elementals, Warhammer 40K Space Marines, Gantz and smaller Japanese Mecha.
The armor will mostly consist of: power storage (chemical/magical), weapons (built in, carried. physical, magical. close and ranged), storage (using weight/space reduction), protection (material armor, permanent enchantments, temporary activated spells), control/movement (spells to enhance movement, detection and reaction circuits, and spirit-assisted devices), rapid movement (wheels similar to Heavy Gear, short range jetpack, maybe longer range jetpack and wings for some models). Pieces will be everything from straight up metals, to enchanted and possessed materials, to organics modified from monsters (inspired by Medusa's head in Perseus myth). I'll gradually build more appendix notes on individual armor designs as they develop within my head/the story.
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Continued replies to Mr. Pesky:
Mr Pesky has continued to post complaints/requests for clarification/debate in the comments (see below in comments section), so here are the replies (each begins with my interpretation of the core question, then with a quote from Mr. Pesky, then contains the reply beneath). Generally, I try and come up with a practical solution to implementing traditional fantasy elements through a basic physics/chemistry emulation engine.
1: On fireballs vs. firebolts:
"no wright in the head beginner wizard (tho which of them is) would try to boil a whole living walking wolf to kill it and especially with a fire ball- most of the destructive power of said fire ball doesn’t come from the heat and the flames"
True, with a fireball (explosive, fire, attack spell) a fair amount of the force is delivered via concussive explosion. But, then, what would a fireball be? If you think of a fireball as poorly contained/leaking plasma core (which creates the larger, highly visible fireball), then when containment is broken (ie, fireball impact) there will be an explosion. But this doesn't really matter; I specified a "firebolt" (fire, attack spell, NOT explosive), ie a non-explosive, lower level, single enemy damaging spell rather than a fireball. Firebolts damage with pure heat, and my calculation is good.
2: Why are fireballs and firebolts limited? More generally, how do spells work?
"why is it radiating all that heat everywhere and from the start of its creation nonetheless when it could make it to good use by, for example, gaining velocity??
heck why is it even visible?!?"
I think of many spells in general as possibly consisting of the following elements:
Mana-channel going back to the caster to maintain spell (optional),
mana-core which rapidly loses power to maintain/effect spell (optional),
magical circuit/spell components to determine how and when that mana is used (required),
and lastly the physical manifestation/ interaction of that spell (required).
Apply this to a fireball, and what do you get? Well, first assume that a fireball is a semi-contained plasma. It leaks energy, thus causing the flame around it, but is maintained over some distance by the mana core. The containment has a partial field quality rather than a pure shell, which further delimits the spreading of the fireball's corona. However, this containment is fragile and sensitive to deformation and impact. This limits the speed at which the fireball can travel. Size and speed of the fireball are defined by how powerful it is (more powerful-> bigger containment requirement -> slower) as well as by how good the mage is, especially how efficiently he can create the field. Range is limited by speed of travel, as well as by how much mana the containment requires and how efficient the initial mana pool is at feeding the containment spell. Some heat is still lost.
Firebolts are similar, except they lack the plasma core. This reduces penetration and results in little/zero explosive impact. However, they are "bolts", and consist of a column rather than a sphere. This allows a stronger front-containment, and faster travel.
It's important to think of RR, too. Most/all mages, and definitely all low level ones, cast by auto-casting rather than manual-casting. Furthermore, while manual-aiming for bows, for example, is quite easy, manual-casting requires envisioning an incredibly complicated spell (think of a medium complexity eletrical diagram or computer program) in it's entirety, powering it at the proper rate, while saying any required words and focus motions. This means mages are highly dependent on the game system, and thus their level and stats, to assist them.
Runes are a good way to make your own spells. Each one is effectively a functional circuit element, and they can be prepared significantly in advance. This is the basis of magic in my fanfic (ie, not really up for too much discussion :) ).
Ok, so I think that answers the "why are spells limited"/"how do spells work?".
3: Further explaining rune-powered bullets:
"so when you want to boil your drop of water (by the way if my memory serves me right boiling distilled water would be harder because even if it has a harder time corroding things it also doesn't have how to start the reaction, or what it is doing when boiling, because it lacks said impurities as a form of a catalyst) you have to give it a tremendous amount of energy because you are not trying to just boil it throughout time but rather explode it in an instant (that is why I wrote “to evaporate” rather than just “to boil”)"
So, this has a few points to address: First, there's the "pure water doesn't boil", and you'd be totally right. If, that is, the cartridges were made of glass. They aren't, they're made of metal. The surface of metal provides sufficient reaction surface, especially since evaporation/boiling is an agitation process.
Second, there's the "needs a lot of energy to evaporate, not just boil", and again you're right. If you go over the calculation, the 2.26kJ/g is the vaporization heat, ie the heat to completely evaporate the water. This is included in the rune-batteries. There is sufficient extra for overheating to flash boil (approximate temperature 120 C) as well as to power the magnification rune to raise heating rate.
4: About rune-efficiency versus normal spell efficiency:
"he doesn't have the skill for such efficient use of mana at beginner lvl magics"
First off, rune-efficiency is higher than regular spell efficiency, even for the same level, so long as the rune-spell is carefully prepared and scribed in advance. Go up to the "how spells work" for more info. Second, because they are being prepared in advance, runes can also be manual-cast with cast-assist as opposed to auto-cast after a trigger word. Big difference. Third, mages are shooting off firebolts at a similar level. Corbeau's spell boils 7.5 grams of water. That's about 150 drops, or about one and a half teaspoons. If anything, I've made Corbeau's rune-round too expensive to charge; as his efficiency improves however, it will become cheaper, allowing at least some base effect from leveling up. Plus, the payload on the bullets will improve over time.
5: About Damascus process:
"you said making layered metal wasn't just specific to “damascened metal” not to mention it probably wasn't the most important (and shouldn't the knowledge of making “damascened metal” be part of metallurgy skill as a matter of fact?)"
Damascus process is well known; if you're really interested, you should look it up. Briefly, it is essentially the process of taking two or more different metals and drawing them out then folding them over to produce a many-layered composite. Metallurgy is literally the study of metals. Smithing forms the basis of metallurgical science. If you meant, isn't this more smelting or refining? No: to get damascus you need to beat and fold the metals. You can produce many different types of layered composite in metals, but Damascus steel is the most famous, and currently the thing which Corbeau is focused on.
6: About RR:
"once again the question arises does the best marksman in real life make the best in “Royal Road”"
In RR the best RW (real world) marksman is not the best marksman. However, they are as good as they are in real life. So, if I can nail a target at 60 yards with a bow right now, if I went into RR I would still be able to do so with a similar quality bow and arrows. That's not really up for debate. It's specifically laid out in the original Moonlight Sculptor.
7: Guns are overpowered part 2:
Guns are overpowered. I can't state that enough. Even Corbeau's gun, inefficient as his earliest model is, is overpowered. He carries around (at end of ch. 4) enough ammo to single-handed slaughter dozens to hundreds of enemies (depending on critical hits, power of enemies). However, he knows this too, and is taking steps to prevent the transfer of gun-tech. Currently, the only person/NPC allowed to know about it is Sindri. Furthermore, this model requires rune-skill, and all models based on runes would need to be charged by rune smiths, who are rare in Ivaldi and incredibly rare elsewhere.
8: In general, to Mr. Pesky:
Lots of information about stuff is out there already. For example, you could look at an exploded diagram of an AK47 on google images, then try and think how and what you'd need to make it (eg, mill, lathe, some stock pieces like springs would make it very much faster). Guns are actually remarkably unsophisticated with regard to parts. If you read a book about guns, you'll see we were close to having repeating rifles in the 16th century, but the explosion of conflict drove a demand for standardized, cheaper, less complicated weapons with marginal improvements; this trend continued for centuries. Technology wise, the tools needed to make something like an AK-47 existed by the end of the 19th century, and were not beyond the standards of early 19th century had a need for them been envisioned.
I understand that you may have a different background than I do, and so some things I take for granted (knowing how to build something, for example), you may not know. You seem to be pretty worked up though, and driving yourself into a frenzy of irritation by the end of your comment posts. Calm down. At the end of the day, I'm not writing a fanfic about something super-balanced and average. That really doesn't float my boat. I'm writing a fanfic about a character with the potential to do something out of the ordinary, something interesting. I understand this isn't the fanfic you would write, and isn't the way you might implement certain plot elements; if that bothers you too much though, the only thing I can say is go off and write your own, I'd look forward to reading it :) In the future, if you could try and distill your issues into a dozen or so questions which I could then answer, it would be appreciated.