MOSAIC - Modular Ordanance Standardization Artifact Intelligence Conflicts

[PicassoCT]

With the beginning of the cold war, the US and the sovjets both started to develop captured stealth technology, with the target to gain and keepthe ability to operate undetected in enemy airspace.
This ability was created, kept and developed on - with a stunning financial effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_aircraft

Then with ever cheapening computation power, passive radars turned this opaque empire into a naked emperor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_radar

Third world country where suddenly able to gun down stealth jets who costed millions of dollars.

Cheap knock-offs of tomahawks and other once-premium technology appeared in "unimportant" conflict zones, and spread ever larger danger zones around countrys and coasts - around which the worlds most powerfull navies could only be deployed - sneaking along like thiefes in the night.
This assymetry of effort led to a shift in strategic technology development, away from single monolithic technologies, towards a more connected, dynamic approach to once more gain the upper hand in conflict.
On the 4 August 2017 darpa unveiled a new strategy.
MOSAIC.

https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-08-04

Digging down beneath the layer of the usual communication craft - the promise they made, was simple - interfaces.
Everything, would be able to connect ad hoc with everything, following standards, enabling easy sharing of approaches and solutions, allowing for quick reconfiguration and adaptability in warzones and conflicts.

What could possibly go wrong?

Three major conflicts, with this approach later- the world of superpowers is gone. There are still economic centers- but centralized military might, has attracted so many "Launches" out of nowhere that nobody wants the third incarnation of Westpoint near a major civilian city anmore.

Because standardized hardware can be used - like a kalashnikov - by everyone, for everything. Explosives can be used as rocket fuel and energy-source.
Cheap - standardized additional hardware components ("Vitamins"), used in every day civilian applications can be attached.
And voila, state of the art weaponary can be assembled from components, that can be bought in every third world market.

This is the warzone you enter- a town, a civil, peacefull place.
And yet.
Something is boiling and festering beneath the surface.
Some first clue led you here, to hunt down a near invisible foe, who recruits civilians into cells interlinked.
Cells which assembles from unsuspicious parcells, somewhere in one of these houses something, that could take out a city as big as San Francisco once was.
Maybe they will launch some robot drone, to subvert the infrastructure, and force the citizen to abandon a whole city by economic warfare - like they did with shanghai.
They are dangerous enough- they have all the weapons you got- railguns to shoot satellites into orbits and take sattelites out.
Add hocdrones, perfected in war after war, cheap as toys, ready to stalk each other in a war of micro-agressions.

All you have is your operatives, and maybe time, maybe you still have time.
This is not a RTS-game, although it takes place on top of one.
This is a spy thriller.
A race against the clock, following the thin lines connecting radicalized people, seemingly having normal lifes, cold data trails - each side trying to hide from the others knowledge, because the machines - superior at striking, are there to take each and everyone of the civillians out of the game.
But the strike better be worth it, because for every wrong kill, the world has a bill to pay.

Welcome to a game of mirrors, smoke and shadows, welcome to the world of MOSAIC!

[PicassoCT]

So how will this go down?

At the beginning of the game, there is allready a city on the map- civilian neutral buildings - with civilians and civilian trucks going back and forth.

Both sides start with a single unit- a Operative.

A Operative can recruit - for money civilians, turning them into agents.

Agents can turn civilian buildings into safehouses.

Within safe houses- additional agents can be trained, and the safe houses can be used to - specialize the safe-house. Within it can be a "Assembly" which spews out drones and war machinery.

Economics

Money is generated diffrent for both factions.
The Antagon get money for broadcasting propaganda within civilian communication lines.
The Protagon gets money by keeping the economy of the area alive.
Both sides can transfer money to the other side, by accidentally attacking innocent civilians.

Safe Houses
If a safe-house is searched by a Operative of the enemy team, all the agents and operatives spawned by the safe house loose their stealth ability (to disguise as civilians).
The current location of these agents is revealed at the moment of discovery.
Searching a Safe-house takes time.
Once a safe-house is searched, it either becomes a civilian building again (giving the operatives team money and a double-agent) or becomes a default safe-house off the searching party.

SpyGames
Double Agents are normal agents, who seemingly work for the enemy side, but upon turning into a normal -non-stealth agent, remove the stealth ability from every enemy agent they where in contact with.

If a enemy agent or operative is interrogated, it reveals all safe-houses it has spawned, as well as its origin safe-house - and or recruiter. Agents or operatives killed by war-machinery reveal nothing.

Satellites
Observation Sattelites just show what can be plainly observed from above. And it most of the time, when not directly attacking the satellite is just normal civilian city life.

[PicassoCT]

Loadscreen, showing a S16.
The energetic component all the drones and ammonition is made of in the MOSAIC universe.

[PicassoCT]

The Nimrod Railgun B4_V257 (Branch 4 Version 257)

This railgun is buildable, by rugged automated systems and unskilled labour, from all the other standardized components, the great amerisino war left behind.
It is usually assembled inside of a Safehouses by a sleeper cell - requiring the large space inside the safehouse, making it nearly unusable for other purposes.

It could be constructed outside, but is very vurnerable to early discovery by local government and satellites.

Once online, its capable to gun down satellites, and fire satellites into orbit. It can also be trained upon other buildings and/or automated units. To shoot down a satellite very good reconnaissance and timing is needed.
Its rate of fire is rather low, and to build a satellite costs way more time and additional material.

The Nimrod was used by the Iran-Indian Coalition to sink various Air-Craft Carriers, but for this additional scouting is needed.
Once installed, no technical personal is needed on site.

The installation can self-destroy with a delay of 30 seconds, in case of the Safe-House being threatened by a Operative raid & search.

[PicassoCT]

This is the Launcher- its any National or Cooperate Securitys Nightmare.

Usually hidden in a Warehouse or any other seemingly busy private building, this assembly creates a massive body of s16s which are capable of lifting a payload and deliver it with a second stage hyper-sonic rocket within 8 Minutes to anywhere on the planet.
https://youtu.be/FyUTNRIuAqc
After the initial starting phase- launchers are usually undetectable until the impact occurs.

The Launch usually destroys the warehouse and any personal within/nearby.



What is usually on top of such a launcher?
This totally depends upon ideology, interest and believes of the ANTAGON-group.

We classify these threats by now into three distinctive groups:

<Exponential>
Damage is continuously growing at a enormous pace, permanently altering life on the planet or threatening to become a extinction level event. This category includes:

<Biologic>
Seeding biological organism that make large swaths of the planet permanently - often undetected - uninhabitable. (
>Ambrosia Rainforrest
>Mutterkorn-Holdomor
>Greenwar Atmospheric Spirodela).

Y.G.T.M. (You got to be mine-devices) - Diseases which subvert human rationality leading to mass-migrations trying to spread the disease, opening large populations up to (potential self-destructive) mind control.
(
>Enlightment-Howlers
)
First observed in the Rainbows End Incident.

<Physical>
Capturing Asteroids in the Kuiper-Belt and guiding them "home". (
> Tesla Dont-Panic-Cult
> Bezos-Skyjacking
)

<Intelligence>
Intelligent Software, which trys to permanently take control of major city states/ economies/networks.
(
>Ethereum-Mombasa-Take-Over
>Palo-Alto-Incident (resolved in >Pakistan Launches )
)

<Combined>
Usually attempts to trigger natural catastrophes, either by placing strategic nukes on earths weakspots.
(
> Paektu Projectile
> Dragon-Bay-Rolling-Blackouts
) or influencing subtle chain reactions.

The AI-Perversion created in the Palo-Alto-Incident is suspected of permanently altering the global climate with subtle geo-engineering with several unaffiliated launchers.

Other launches, that subverted non-distributed science associations are suspected to have altered history, by steering humanity away from research topics that where afterwards- wrongly- believed to be non-reproduce-able and/or not achievable due to the injected knowledge.

Such Operations are rare, due to the complexity of the chain reactions involved. Only AIs, State-Actors and Hiveminds are classified as capable of pulling these off.

<Linear>

A continuous amount of damage is applied, permanently altering -even just by the existence of the event-memory the behavior of the society.
Most of the laser collapsed fusion warheads hitting San Francisco and Bombay from the (
>Pakistan Launches
)
fall under this category.
Lots of localized Information Terrorism, like Robots digging to the stock-markets fiber falls under this category. (
> London Recursive Zero-Trade-Attack
)

The damage is repairable and containable, (explaining the presence of Protagon-Forces on the ground).
There is some debate about salted atom bombs and certain viral attacks (
> Shia-infection
>Jehova-Rapture-rabbies
) who permanently attack the exponential function that is humanity.

<Discrete>

Limited damage and acceptable losses on impact.
Most of conventional chemical weapons and biological agents such as Rinzin fall in this category.
The agents are not self-spreading, and there application to the human society leaves only a small scar so to speak- and triggers no domino effects. Discrete Launchers are usually no longer used, they do not make it to local news and usually have only limited worth for the effects of asymmetric ANTAGONists. Due to the higher danger classes above, even discrete Launches are treated like Non-Discrete Launches. Meaning, if you build fireworks, you get the full affection none the less.

Once the existence of a launcher is proven- the gloves are off.
PROTAGON is allowed to nuke parts of a city for allowing this to exist. Neutral Citizens will riot to destroy a Launcher, knowing what retaliation awaits.
Once the Launcher has fired and is out of launch hindering measures (Lasers, Drones, Local AA), the Game is over.
There is no debrief, if there is none left to debrief.

[PicassoCT]

Screenshots of the civil Building placement Algo

These are the buildings you should never ever shoot at - unless ... you got proof of terrorist activity.
Attacking innocent civilians - results in huge funds beeing available to the other site.

[PicassoCT]

Here we have a simple town, with simple citizens, spawned in buildings, moving from a to b, commuting in trucks.
It doesent look COD like yet, that is still WIP.

[raaar]

So the interior of each building is visible and the actual buildings are the walls?

i've thought about a garrisonable building mechanic for spring games with humans walking around where each building would consist of:
- raised terraform for the roof, so units can walk on the roof and have turrets and such there (grey)
- cliff-face features for walls (red)
- cliff-face neutral units that act as transports that shift ownership to whoever's inside or nearby and allow troops to move in if they're nearby (green)




such mechanic might fit games that feature urban environments and humanoids that can enter buildings (and possibly fight from within)

[PicassoCT]

I have garissons- but not in the classic meaning of mobile units within buildings.
There are buildings within buildings- and they are invisible to the enemy party, unless they get a Operative nearby who raids the place.


Civilian life running around in the city.
One of those is not your friend.
One of those trucks could be a car bomb.
One of those houses could be a safe house.
Or worse.
But if you blow them up.
Not only are the rebuilt quickly.
They give the enemy money.
Violence against civilians is the currency both sides trade.
From the low level body search by local armypolice, to the airstrike by automated drones. Nothing is forgotten.

[PicassoCT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yV0sBt ... e=youtu.be

[PicassoCT]

[PicassoCT]

One thing needed- is there a way to not only go invisible for a unit, but to be visible on a per team controllable basis?

Team A sees, can select the safehouse
Team B does not see, not select the safehouse- unless its explicitly set that way?


Proof of Lurk

[PicassoCT]

Example of the threat standardized modular weapons pose. In this case- cruise missiles assembled from the equivalent material worth a small car, floating in a lake, ready to strike.



By the very nature we are only afraid of past horrors.

[PicassoCT]

Eventually it leaks.
Somewhere in this, your city, there is a rocket ready to be launched. Ready to end another city.
It always does and it always does that too late.
Around 5 corners, everyone knows everyone.
So they tell theire relatives to leave the target, tell theire believe brothers to leave the origin-city. A city they doomed to have gods firy thumb come down upon.
Even the most hardened cells loose it near the end, the mad-idea trying to stay alive in other crazed heads.
Through all the delusional haze, they sense, that they will be hunted into extinction for this atrocity.
Sometimes, just some hireling realizing to late what he has assembled, for that ever absent employer.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Riots in the street, as the crowd searches for suspicious people- tearing them apart in front of
the world watching, to recive redemption and avoid retribution.
There is no law, no hope and no god in a city shortly before and forever after a launch.
Then it comes, a deafening roar, a noise to end all noises, out of those bells, the burning cars, already darkening the sun, a pillar of smoke rises higher then all those others.
Chaff and decoys rain down from above all around.
Like a final statement on the hubris of monkeys it jabs into the sky.
One moment of realization, of horror on whats to come.
Then the madness resumes, some running towards the launch-site, lots of others desperatly trying to leave the doomed city.
Then the hammer comes down- on good and evil alike.
A eye for a eye, a city for a city.
So it has been, so it shall always be.
Men is men a wulf.

[PicassoCT]

Slight problem..

I have houses- which will hold safehouses.
Like literally transport this other units- which can include turrets (firing) and factorys (producing agents/ spys) and battleunits().

I can deploy a safehouse, it will attach to a piece of the unit - and then vannish from the game. As in never to be seen again...

Any advice on that?

[PicassoCT]

So this is happening.. like it or nod. Sugar Cane lives

[PicassoCT]

I have a little problem. I have spys who can cloak. These spies have doppelgangers who are civilian Gaia units.. who are synced statwise. How do I prevent spies from shooting up theire own decoys, if the spies generell should be capable of targeting all Gaia units?

I never played around with unit targeting - and category won't cut it

[PicassoCT]

The Raid Kit:

Somewhere during the turbulent last twenty years- we standardized all the things. Even the raids.

A raid is a forced entry into a protected location, with the goal of discovering the maximum of intelligence (SIG_INT, HUMAN_INT) in the least amount of time.

Raids now can be conducted - by a single operative, with a raid Kit.

The operative first locates the suspected building. Small, non invavsive software probes are lowred into the buildings IOT-Landscape, sniffing out all inhabitants and theire rough location.

Small Stingerdrones are prepared, who track one human target each. Similar drones, worm there way towards the powersources, to thwart any self-destruction devices.

The operative him/herself attacks the main part of the safehouse, temporary stunning all inhabitants. The stingerdrones not only paralyse the suspects, but also record the precious "first reaction on oppossition" (FROP), which will become the corner stone in the following interrogation.

Suspects are un-paralyized outside, thoroughly scanned for hidden devices and body-encapsulated additions.
Interrogation usually happens via a VR- Satellite-Upload-Connection, mostly by Personas introduced to the person, through popular culture (Alexa, Deadpool, etc.) and off-site specialists. The VR-Googles usually contain a basic set of interrogation drugs and a magnetic pistol for direct brain stimulation.

At the search site itself, the Operative performs the following steps:
1. Take samples, which are usually catapulted within 10 mins to a UN-Inspection-labratory in reach.
2. Forensically copy all electric media and devices. Any encryption found is added as interrogation objective to the offsite-agents. Other locks are subverted by the usual backdoors.
3a. In a normal Safehouse: Plant cheap , high-speed, high-res 360°cameras that are deployed, with strong pressure fragmentation devices. The safehouse is literally blown up, the movement of the fragments, carefully cartographed, allowing the offsite team to reconstruct - equipment, books, letters and other similar nostalgic data sources.
3b. In a Launcher-site, after creating destructive basic capabilitys. A Thermobaric Warhead is then used to decomission the city-block.

Once this step concludes, the prisoners are either released, released handicapped, permanently incarerated (rare) or executed.
This usually concludes a raid.

Raids can be significantly faster to prepare, if a sattelite for communications is overhead.

[PicassoCT]

I have trucks, civilian trucks.. they can load a payload. Which include trucks.


In summary: What the truck.. all i wanted was a car-bomb..


Also made some additional loading screens for atmo-preview and theme finding.

This future already has that grim, lived-and-died-in feel i strife towards. Nothing "War is hell"-gracefull like a call of duty.
More like a "War was hell"-and he shat his pants every day after.





Also thanks too abma for adding it to rapid

[PicassoCT]

Automated Trucks having loaded automated guns, fabricated from standardized parts by automated factorys in a safehouse- somewhere in the city. Normal life in the second part of this century.


Propagandaserverfarms hidden in houses, in the evening.