Bay 12 Games Forum

The magical signatures aren't the light sources themselves. Continuing the analogy, when the light in the double-slit experiment overlapped and destructively interfered, were the light sources affected?

Ah, but I also have OOC reasons for having chosen the Doc: He's experienced with body-modding and helped designing the Ghost Ships, meaning that he probably understands the inner workings of space magic better than anyone else on the ship.

And if you point out that Grate couldn't know that one more time I will freak.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on April 09, 2014, 08:23:10 am

Quote from: Empiricist on April 09, 2014, 08:15:57 am

How would Grate know all of that about the Doctor? I thought all he knew was that the Doctor runs the infirmary.

Aside from Harry's point, it's not exactly unknown that the Doc creates a bunch of abominations. He could have easily asked some older member how X monster became such and gotten an answer.
Besides, who would you pick? The AM? Using your own logic, how would Grate know about her experience with space magic? I'm having trouble imagining a situation where her skill with amps could come up without Grate specifically asking.

My point is, he shouldn't have thought the Doctor was a qualified source in the first place, plus he may not be one, considering none of his current works have any relation to pillmachine-like units or the internal workings of a manipulators.

He was the most qualified source available, and he didn't see any problem with it.
Let me put it this way. You ask a botanist about what would happen if you changed x gene in y bacteria. The botanist might not know, but s/he would be familiar enough with how disease works to know it could end very, very badly. So what does the botanist do? Does s/he imply everything will probably be fine*, or does s/he recommend a geneticist/microbiologist/whatever to ask?
*"Might" pretty much always means "less than 50% chance," and often means "much less than 50% chance".

More often than not, I'd say, because nobody typically uses manipulators if they haven't got at least a +1, which means a 1/3 chance of it overshooting, 1/3 of a chance of it doing diddly squat and 1/3 chance of it doing roughly what you want it to. And the dice hate manipulator use. 6+1s abound, to say nothing of the 6+2s. So no. Manipulators are not safe more often than not. How could you even make that mistake? Did you even read Mission 10?

I was on Mission 10.
And...
1. You're ignoring people who use it without the +1, and only a fractional bonus or a lack of a penalty.
2. You're ignoring decompensators, which are used by the people with higher bonuses.
3. You're ignoring that overshots do not correspond to overloads with a 1:1 ratio.

Irresponsible parenting is the real villain here.

A sentence I imagine piecewise never imagined being said in relation to this game when he made it.

We, the players have proof. Grate, the character does not. My point is based on the latter.

Well, go back to Baldman's point then. He looks sciencey, he is associated with the abominations (should Grate care to ask), and he's well-known around the Sword.

Also, that had to do with their use, not their internals.

Designing advanced space magic like that...well, he probably knew more about the internals than most amp users.

-big boss scientist tells you that he has no goddamn clue how that machine works and tells you that putting volatile space magic in it could potentially be extremely fucking dangerous.

He didn't say that. All he said was that something "bad" might happen.

-you immediately ignore his advice and put in a battery containing pure space magic capable of fueling the creation of miniature stars and eat the resultant pill.

We go back to my analogy with the spoon pill. How was I supposed to know that the result would be the absolute worst thing that can happen with manipulators, turned up to 11? Or that the batteries contained, quote, "pure space magic"?
And he didn't turn into a living spoon, he got metal patches on his...head, I think. Or was it hands?

-we call you an idiot and you try shifting the blame.

...because the blame really isn't mine.

If you wanted to be a living manipulator logic dictates you put the device in, not the battery.

...That's like saying that the keyboard is the important part of the computer.

"Thank you. I'll make good use of these."

How would Grate know all of that about the Doctor? I thought all he knew was that the Doctor runs the infirmary.

Aside from Harry's point, it's not exactly unknown that the Doc creates a bunch of abominations. He could have easily asked some older member how X monster became such and gotten an answer.
Besides, who would you pick? The AM? Using your own logic, how would Grate know about her experience with space magic? I'm having trouble imagining a situation where her skill with amps could come up without Grate specifically asking.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on April 09, 2014, 07:46:19 am

Manipulators are safe more often than not; [...]

I think I see where the problem sprang from.

Look at usage statistics. How often do overloads spring up?
It's like if the spoon pill turned you into an incarnation of poking your eye out with a spoon, turned up to 11. How was I supposed to know that would happen?

Know which?

He's an expert on all sorts of strange technology. Aside from the stuff he uses, there's the synthflesh and cyborgs and basically everything related to body-modding, which is a category the pills fall into neatly. Given that he's made everything from human bio-spaceships to synthabominations to Xan to that electric fish-guy, I'd say that he's the expert on changing body stuff.
Besides, if he honestly didn't know anything, he should have recommended that I check with someone who did.

<*yawn* How trite, a threat normal people cannot fight against at all. Even though I can clearly see a visual feed of an ally using a firearm. Are you sure your data applies to all of them? Or only the skilled units, who, knowing the usual cliches, are going to be the people further up the hierarchy.>

<I'm not sure what you're fighting, but logic would dictate that criminals committing high-profile violent crimes repeatedly would get whittled down to only those who could defeat or evade the police--and these don't seem to be the type to evade.>