I ended up writing 5 chapters last night! whew that’s a load off. Its all from later in book 2 and 3 though so I’m not ready to share any of that as its both spoilers and unpolished.
Back to modelling for awhile.
I’m working on populating the open air areas next starting with the large/siege weapon construction area. This area will be to assemble siege weapons to test fire before disassembling them and either selling them or using them themselves as well as assemble any weapon you don’t want to have to bring through the doorways of the buildings.
This actually brings me to some new territory regarding the Citadel. I’m reworking my ideas of exactly what they will be doing in the interim before the invasion. This part I find very funny.
So basically Litheria becomes COBRA, and the council could be viewed as Destro.
Litheria intends to manufacture a wide range of weaponry (juiced up versions of native tech levels, not advancing tech levels by selling cannons) and sell to the armies of the world for profit to fund purchasing the rare metals and ores they will need as well as “steal” the best warriors and generals from the armies of the world with better pay packages. This serves a multitude of functions.
First and foremost it establishes Litheria as the undisputed trade capital of the planet. The Citadel, for the most part, doesn’t ship weaponry and goods to other nations as that places the burden of shipment on the Council, so nations must travel to Litheria to secure their shipments. The council establishes a large neutral zone around its borders which it deems demilitarized and will tolerate no fighting within said area or risk banishment and no longer be able to purchase the advanced Litherian weapons. This forces nations to send professional representatives who are likely to follow the rules, forcing rival nations to play nice in a neutral area is a big step towards unity even if it is to buy weapons. The council will of course attempt to sell in such a way to keep any one faction from gaining the upper hand and slaughtering its opponents, casualties would naturally decrease compared to mass face to face sword battles as soldier and generals alike become less keen to send large swaths of soldiers carelessly into battle. Lastly it beefs up the overall lethality of the entire planets armies, slowly preparing them for the onslaught to come.
I’m starting with some trebuchets since those are my favorite medieval weapon. I’m modelling them after Warwolf. “Even before construction could be completed, the sight of the giant engine so intimidated the Scots that they tried to surrender.” I LOLed at this part, of course he isn’t going to stop building it, now he wants to see it fire!
I’m going to name the larger of the two “Bad Wolf”, a Dr. Who reference.
Litherian modifications include larger single cuts of wood used in construction, stronger metals with precision manufacturing for pins and joints, and guide rails for the projectile. I’m considering curving the bottom rail up some to start the arch off.
The larger model includes two precision made stone flywheels and several gearboxes. The idea here is 4 walk wheels run constantly, spinning the flywheels faster. When the trebuchet needs to be reset it can draw power from the flywheels and reset itself nearly instantly. Instead of stopping and waiting in between loadings the power crew can continue to add power to the flywheels even as the shot is being loaded and fired. I imagine it will be hard to keep up with the ammo concerns of this particular model.
Here’s a 6k with a little more detail and texture work. The partially obscured box at the bottom would house the complex mechanics required to allow the walk-wheels to add power to the flywheels but not themselves be turned by the flywheels, as well as a clutch to activate and deactivate power transfer to the loader. Im considering adding an option to have the flywheels add power in reverse during the first half of the firing process, so as the load accelerates down the tracks its being pulled by the weight of the dropping load plus the torque generated by the flywheels. I’m thinking maybe up to 50 miles range with large models and dense metallic projectiles.
I’m also considering how the thing will be transported. I think ill make it “transformeresque” and have it be assembled differently so that its more like a giant cart with the flywheels for actual wheels when its being transported.
The idea here is when the crew sets the weapon to fire they pull a lever or a rope etc and it raises the plate under the springs at the top releasing the tension from the axles. There’s a bottom plate as well, the arms have a slight bevel near the end of the swing that will contact a rod and raise the arms up an inch or two at the end of each shot, pulling the gear assembly off of the power plates. So to fire one pulls said rope and the top plate slams down engaging the clutch and wham instant Titan killer. All the mechanics below the teeth would rotate at all times when the flywheel is engaged, their added rotational momentum will supplement the flywheel when its engaged.
