Bay 12 Games Forum

If the danger wasn't a danger to him, then why'd he get a warning?

...I never said it wasn't a danger to him, I said it wasn't necessarily on the same floor. And earlier, you said that he should have sensed anything on other floors. You can't have it both ways, syv! You're really becoming a pain to debate with.

Oh, yeah, sure, they're unaware of us, and we could get the drop on them, at their ambush location.  That makes total sense.

They're not expecting us to know about their ambush; we'd get a volley or two in before they started shooting. Besides, your alternative has us waiting for them to attack us.

I also wonder why you think that they would have an advantage if they're trying to beat down the wall?  I mean, if they started we would have plenty of time to stop cutting out and get ready for them.  And then we can shoot through whatever holes they make, as they make them, and we'd have the initiative; they can't aim gun through holes as they smash the holes open, anyways.

You say that like they can only do one at a time. They have lots of soldiers. And, really, taking advantage of our inaction can be done without shooting us.

Also, it's going to take time tp break the door down in any case.  And while they try, they are guaranteed to be within a few feet of the door; easy targets for any amper.

Assuming that your assumptions are right. And that they don't just pipe gas into us or get a grenade in. Or, heck, spread out so they'll shoot us the moment we make a hole. Right now, we know more or less exactly where they are and what they're almost certainly going to do. If we dawdle, they'll do something, and we don't know what that is.

But you were wrong, and stated the incorrect information- that is misinformation; you lied.

You cannot lie if you are deceived.
More precisely, it's not a lie if you were misinformed. It's merely false.

They are not going to 'heavily watch' every corridor and room aboard the ship as heavily as the bridge.  They wouldn't even be able to keep track of us for long, because if we sprinted out of the elevator we'd quickly pass enough interesctions that we could be anywhere.

They don't need to heavily watch every corridor. Firstly, the number of corridors they would need to watch to catch us is pretty small, given how few areas we can access. Secondly, all those corridors would be pretty close to the bridge, so they'd be watched anyways. Thirdly, this isn't D&D. They probably have security cameras. If the UWM's military ships have less security than my elementary school, I'll eat my hat. Hell, they probably have one in the elevator we're in.

Also, why would we have to cut a hole in the elevator to run away?  We could simply tell it to go to the floor we want to be at.

Why? Because that's what you've been suggesting this whole time!

You know physics law zero?  It states that everything behaves just as it should according to natural laws, unless the GM says otherwise.
We've cut threw plenty of walls with heat, quite quickly.  Anyways, we could just cut a circle of heat and push it out of the way if it's really a problem.

How much heat was that? And what do you mean, "circle of heat"?

Rooms that probably don't have an armed sod squad aiming at the door?

On the other hand, it wouldn't take long for the squads to get there. And that's if the sods or whatever don't react. Are you willing to bet that they'll stand around while we melt a hole in the wall, wait for it to cool enough that we can go through without burning ourselves, and such? I'm not.

They'll have no idea what we're doing.  They might not even know we have space magic.  And if they're sods, what are they gonna do?  Call command and tell them that nobody came out of the elevator?

If they're sods. And if they don't have a commander with them. And if the commander didn't give them a command for if things didn't go how they should. And if the commander is AWOL and hence doesn't notice that things are not right.
And yes, they'll have no idea what we're doing. They don't really need that, because they'll know where we're doing it.

Why would all the heat matter?  Do they have a bunch of thermal sensors everywhere for some reason?

The heat matters because heat is pretty easy to feel. Sure, it takes time to go through the walls and whatnot, but it's there.
And since this is a military ship, with military people and hardware on the other side...IR-sensing things aren't out of the question. You're making yet another assumption--that they don't have IR-sensing equipment--and each assumption is making me have less and less faith in your analysis.

The UWM hasn't necessarily adhered to good ship design.  For all we know they might just let those rooms drain of atmosphere, and just put pressure sensors on all standard doors so that they can't open.

I love how you just keep assuming things that make your argument better. "In these circumstances I'm outlining, my plan will work perfectly!" Sorry, syvaris, the UWM probably didn't and won't continue to do things for your benefit. My plan doesn't have all those little flaws that would bring the whole thing crashing down when the UWM reacts.

Okay... Think about this.  If we open the door, how many possible situations will just get us killed?  How many will we have a chance, but might live?  Now, how many of those named situations will still get us killed if we go up a floor and take a different path?

Honestly? I see more winning situations where we take the initiative than when we loiter.

So... when they ended up not using it?  And overshots are only bad for the person when they're doing something dangerous to begin with, like melting an arm that was welded to your head off.  Or melting the floor of the elevator you're standing in.  Accidentally overshooting when you're trying to kill someone just makes you overkill them.

No, it's endangered them other times. And overshots are always possible dangers. Exhibit A: Opening a door.

...You're a biologist?  As in, proffessional?  What does that even entail?

I'm still in college, actually. Point is, I'm not a tactician, so you shouldn't ask me to think like someone who's been trained for years in this kind of crap any more than yuo should use me as a substitute for someone with a PhD in physics.

If he's cutting out Moai that have inexplicably began growing from my spleen, then yes I do.

...I'm completely confused as to both how this fits in with the metaphor, and why that would matter at all when he's just removing a foreign body.

Except that he might have better things to do than sit around guarding an elevator with some sods.

...Seriously? "I could be here, doing my job, or I could be somewhere else! Given that my job is protecting the ship (by commanding these sods) and that the ship is being invaded...I have better things to do than sit around at the site of an ambush!" How stupid do you think they are?

Oh, come on, it should be easy enough to come up with something.  You've already said I'm a terrible tactician.  Plus, you get lots of chances and see where your mistakes are.  You're in a far better position than a UWM commander.

No, I'm really not. The UWM commander doesn't have to deal with enemies who know exactly what his orders are.

Also, I like how you didn't call out the bit where I said "In the next few days".  Already resigned to this, I see.

It's a minor issue compared to the others.

What if they cut an eyehole in the door and stick a helmetcam in front of it?  Too small for the grenade to go through, and nobody is actually coming closer or out of the elevator. Sods suddenly die of melted brain syndrome.

Ah, but you damaged the ship, so they're going to be shooting at you.

Except, those "anti-rogue-agent tactics" are designed for individuals blending into crowds.  Not an actual organized force to fight.  Plus, these people have pretty much expected to never ever ever have to fight boarders- they're a planetary defense force.

You're making assumptions again. Why wouldn't the UWM have any tactics for dealing with combat use of amps? Are you honestly saying that no rogue agents would ever deign to use their amps for combat?
As demonstrated by their on-ship defense systems and maneuvers and such.

Oh.  Well yes, if the commander didn't put much thought into it, we could drop down and play monopoly among the sods. They wouldn't see anythig wrong with that.
Are you saying a sod commander should tell the sods to shoot anyone who tries to play monopoly?  You really hate that game, don't you?

No, I'm saying that if under a set of assumptions we could hypothetically play Monopoly in the middle of the enemy forces, we should reconsider those assumptions.

They can only charge a +1 at best, a mechanic which I dislike.  Except sods, who just always get fives in combat.
Anyways, they should have had plenty of time to charge a dynamic bonus for shooting whoever came out of the elevator.  Do you think they were only dispatched once we got into it?

It's a possibility. Alternatively, they could have been keeping an eye out for attacks from other directions and only focused on the elevator when it showed up. Or keeping a constant dynamic bonus for minutes on end is exhausting so they dont do it.

So you were using incorrect arguments to win?  Cheater!

No, I was using poetically-phrased arguments to win. I often lapse into violet verse.

Then why did you suggest the worst thing that had happened was Lars keeping the door closed?

Because of the plans that were following it.

Except you wouldn't get the first shit.  You'd die, because they are almost certainly spread out more than you people who're tightly packed in an elevator.

One, elevators have plenty of room for three people, especially if one is a child. Two, we are aware of exactly when we're opening the doors; they aren't, and hence lose a fraction of a second as they process the information their eyes are sending them and decide that they need to shoot those people. If the door was opened for us, the fraction of a second would be on the other foot.

I don't want gamble on my chances of getting the initiative.

And I don't want to gamble mine on all the assumptions you're making.

Uh-huh.  They'll throw the grenades so hard, that they go right through the elevator door.  And they won't throw them at usf we open the door, because they would be breaking their vows of mook chivalry.

In the first case: No, but they have ways to get them open.
In the second: Again, we'd be buying a couple fractions of a second more than we'd have otherwise before they started shooting and grenading.

I take it you haven't had much practice.  I mean, my point was that it's hard, but every time?

When I'm not aiming? Yeah.
...I may have misread your statement.

I'm talking about raising the rifle to your shoulders, aiming, and firing, as quickly as you can.

That falls into the category of "not aiming" again. And yeah, when I don't aim between shots, I don't have good accuracy.

Incorrect.  You'll need to adjust your aim.  By moving the gun a few millimeters.  Which is done a lot faster than the whole shouldering-aiming-firing process.

Assuming that my gun's aim is actually that close to the parts of the person I want to hit. Given that the people in the elevator aren't of standard height or anything...

And you're doing it against people who have to sweep a whole room to find their target.  Moving their gun across whole feet.  And who then have to aquire a prone target, and shoot before he shoots.

I'm pretty sure I have no idea what you're talking about now.

You're not prone; your gun is less stable than their guns, and you're a larger target than them.

Assuming the sods are prone. Assuming that the sods are not that much larger than people. Assuming, above all, that the sods are prone, which is the only way your  argument works.

In short:  You're screwed either way.  This is an impossible situation.  An impossible situation which you might be able to circumvent.

It's not impossible, and the "circumventions" aren't any better.

If they had a central computer, they wouldn't have had to set the ambush up at the only obvious location.  They would have been able to lock down your path and ambush you along the way, at a place you wouldn't have expected.

Assuming we weren't hacking the system locally at each door. Which is what we did.

Exactly.  So the overshoot would have had to be something else.
It wasn't, therefore there's no AI.

What else could the overshoot be, hm? And logic is powerless before overshots, meaning that unless you come up with a better overshot, your entire argument (or sub-argument, or whatever) is invalid.

Well, the enemy feels like shooting us the moment they see us.  They'll see us before we see them if we open the elevator.
If we open the elevator they'll shoot us.

If we don't open the elevator, they'll get us anyways, but at a time and in a way of their choosing. It's not worth the risk.

Why would it go in an infinite loop?  We'll die of old age before that happens.  Or did you write a program that automatically argues with me?  It'll still end when the universe ends/crunches, but could I have the source please?

Are you trying to be so annoying that I give up the argument?

"I don't know how my argument could make any sense, but it doesn't matter; you're wrong"

It's your argument, not mine, and that particular point is really irrelevant to the current scenario.

And how did they know that?  Is this the only entrance to the bridge?  Did they only just move it when we got in the elevator?

It could be the only entrance to the bridge. Aside from that, the security cameras and the lovely markers above each elevator door which tells you what floor the elevator is on would help. Especially the security cameras.

I would think they found out about when Lars shot the turret.  That would give them plenty of time to lock the place down.

Would they know exactly where we would be, though? No. At that point, we're looking more like general sabotage people.

They're poking holes in the opposing argument, that's why.

To remind you, this is me explaining how your idea of what's going on would work and why it still works. You're poking holes in the points you brought up more than in my explanations for them.

An apt description of one side of this argument.

Then let's have the other side.

Stop right there!  Submachine gun would be more effective.

All the more effective for us to run through. You don't want to fire automatic weapons when your target is in the same direction as your teammates.

Let's count situations, and their possible solutions. A=open door, B=melt wall & run
1.Sod commander & Sods
1A.You get shot, some of you die.  Only really stand a chance because PW doesn't like putting you in hopeless situations
1B.You start cutting; commander gets nervous.  After a minute he sends some sods break the door.
1B1.You were slow, and are still inside.  As the sod starts banging you ready your weapons.  He breaks a hole; you shoot blindly through it, killing him.  You open the door before they toss a grenade in, and are slightly better off than 1A.
1B2.You're already gone.  The sods break in, only to see a hole in the back.  The commander can either give chase (abandoning his post) or sit tight(letting you go free).
2.Just sods
2A.same as 1A
2B.Sods ignore noise, you escape easily.
3.Hell-death cannon 9000, not set up yet, but defended by sods
3A.A little bit better than 1A, but not much.
3B.You escape.  Cannon's set up... facing an empty elevator.
4.Hell-death cannon 9000, set up.
4A.You die.
4B.You escape.

I like how you're assuming minimal initiative, intuition, and tactical skill on the part of the UWM. And how you're assuming escape is assured.

If you were a commander, would you post sods in every room that both had a floor and shared a wall with the elevator?  Are you seriously that worried about people coming down to the floor that likely has an ambush, and then cutting through the wall?

There aren't that many other rooms, and they're all pretty close to the bridge, so having at least some guard isn't exactly a waste of resources.

Oh, they have lota of information.  They know if it's a meth lab, probably know about a few of the criminals, have a rough idea how many people are probably there, maybe a floorplan(which they use as a rough guideline- criminals change the floorplan too often to rely on it), but as far as actual tactical data on opposition?  Not much.  They don't know if the people have SMGs, rifles, pistols, shotguns, whatever.  They don't know if there's a guy watching the door with a rifle drawn.

It's still a lot more than we have in this situation. Knowing "something dangerous is on the other side"--which is, recall, all we know--is a hell of a lot less than all that information you have.

Y'know, you've reminded me: they don't really want to use lethal force.  We're fine with slaughtering everyone.  So we've got an advantage there.

Being allowed to apply lethal force only helps if you have enough lethal force to apply.

Oh, okay then, that reinforces my point.

...No, because it means we have less people.

Fine then, define preperation.  I'm defining it as 'stuff you can do in the few minutes you have before actually breaching the room'.

Defining it pretty narrowly then, ain'cha? Preparation done more than in those last few minutes is pretty vital. We don't have it, the SWAT team would.

...And it's even simpler to just say there's a universal amp that does it all.

Even without any evidence that something like that exists? And needing to explain why amp specialists need to have life-support equipment?

The argument I joined on April Fool's about immortality.  Basically, ir was the exact same as this argument, just with a completely different topic.

...Not all that similar.

There's others.  One'll pop up eventually, and I'll point it out then.

Right. Pretty damn sure I'll be able to explain it as simply as the previous one.

Yes, but you were still talking about something that can be very important as if it were irrelevant.

That's because it was an analogy. Things important in reality diminish in important when reality is used as an analogy.

But not caring about it makes your analogy weird, which is really bad.  Technically, gravity doesn't affect the taste of bananas.  But if I make an analogy involving the taste of bananas in zero-g, is that really a good analogy?

...What? How the hell does gravity affect taste?
The thing about the analogy I was using is, the exact numbers don't matter. Nor do the circumstances. What matters is, you train, you're better, and it takes less time than learning to command a squad of people.

No, they've done well when they still needed to be given guns.  Anyways, this is irrelevant to my point that there ARE militaries that do that.  They exist!

And my point was that they aren't terribly good militaries. Which you misinterpreted as...actually, I have no idea what you're trying to refute.

Here's a strawman!  You completely changed my statement by removing the word "when".  Being trained when to say "kill that guy" is the equivalent of being told where to shoot, what position to shoot from, whether to shoot, ect.  And the Officer equivalent of being trained when to give orders, when to accept advice, when to say "shut up and do as I say".  Not the full course by a long shot, but a pretty important component.

My mistake. Still, the general point remains, except that instead of being told which end the bullets come out of, you're told...um...one specific bit of information that's useful for aiming rifles but which still leaves a hell of a lot to learn. Or, if we apply it to war in general, it's like learning which enemy trenches matter enough to be captured, but not the tactics needed to capture them.

The point is that they can, without any loss in effectiveness.

Not true, for some of the same reasons that it isn't true for normal officers, but magnified because sods don't adapt.

...You don't even know what a sod commander is.  Seriously.  At least be familiar with the topic before you argue it.

It's someone who tells the sods what to do. Your point?

...and it's done.  They're all gone.    It's always sad when they're gone.

Makes one of us. I'm always relieved that I'm done and can move onto something productive.