Bay 12 Games Forum

... yeah, towns get a lot smaller than that here in the states. Place I grew up in had a population of like five t'six hundred, nearest other town a good 12-15 miles away. No public transportation between 'em, of course, unless you count school buses.

E: Also, there were at least three churches within walking distance. Two that I can recall inside city limits, one just outside of it. Probably more I'm forgetting, the area was lousy with the things.

... though those would probably cost notably more per trip than the normal church donation. To boot, it wouldn't have that delicious tang of denying the government tax money that comes from donations to a church. And you'd have to deal with the other patrons of the family restaurant.

Sounds like a loss all around.

Yeah... yeah. Sometimes you just want to steal every lantern, torch, and candle from three different towns and drape a building in light.

... I did that a few times, actually. Habitually stealing light sources is something I have to actively prevent myself from doing in Elder Scrolls games. There's just... something about being THE THIEF OF LIGHT,* heeheehee.

*... no relation to Homestuck. I was stripping balmora of illumination and cackling about being the thief of light before I ever encountered that particular work.

It probably doesn't seem like much, but I'm a BIG fan of Shotguns in both GH games.  Doesn't matter what skills or stats you have, they always hit.

Not quite! SCATTER weapons are more or less just single tile AoE weapons. They can be dodged, they just impart a pretty massive to-hit bonus, in exchange for spreading their damage all around. You don't see it very often when firing at enemies, but it's more of a thing if you've gamed renown down with a high-end character and come up against something with a scatter or blast weapon.

... bit about being a go-to weapon vs. dodgy crap is definitely accurate, though. Plasma pistols/rifles are pretty good things to upgrade to ASAP in GH1 if you're running a low combat-skill character, as is anything with NAPALM-X ammo... if you can get it. Can also get SCATTER ammo for some longer ranged weapons as well, iirc.

GH2, starting off with glitter pistols is often a really good idea to help ease early SF:0 combat. SCATTER's good stuff. Low (or unfocused, to be more accurate) damage, but very accurate. Particularly nice if you can get it on something that has a status effect riding on it, since it's a lot easier to hit with.

According to find-in-file, the only GAS weapons in the game are the AGL toxin clip and toxin grenades. Strictly SF:0, which is to say, nothing on the mecha scale.

Which kinda' makes sense, because they'd do nothing to a SF:2 critter. 'Cept maybe the bio-things, but I think even those are immune. Sealed and whatnot.

@ Auto vs Combat, the difference appears to be that auto-shotguns have a burst value. Puts out more than one shot per attack, which changes up some combat calculations. Not really anything major, though. Otherwise identical -- same ammo, same DC, same weight, etc. Combat's got a defined speed value, but I don't recall what the default speed value when it's not defined is so I dunno if it's faster or not. If it is, combat may come off cooldown a bit quicker than auto.

A question, of course, it what happens to the first person that's hooked up to one from birth, as an experiment.

... and yeah, I'd probably end up addicted to a sufficiently immersive "full dive" type thing. If I could dream for literally days straight, I would, without hesitation, staying in the waking world strictly insomuch as necessary to spend time in the dreaming one.

It's almost at odds with my fairly vehement hatred of psychoactives and hallucinogens, but, well. Spending all or most my time indulging in a structured fantasy world (or my normal dreamscapes, which frankly tend toward just that) actually sounds fun and enjoyable, as opposed to anything I've heard described as a drug-induced experience. Addiction would come because actual reality is frankly kinda' bloody boring,* on a comparative level. Science is awesome and all, but those of us not terribly geared for the work of it don't really get to interact with it much, and a simulated magic system would probably be a lot more... visceral. World of difference between a flamethrower and burning things to ashes with strictly the power of your mind (as interpreted by a hyperadvanced program, but whatev').

*And anyway, by that point we'd likely be able to manage assistant AI-type stuff anyway, so there'd be no real need to come out. Let the bots or digital mind-clones do the work necessary in reality. I'll stay where it's actually interesting.

The blood we can wash off later.

Has that... ever actually worked? Last I checked, we're (humans as a whole) still doing stupid shit largely because of crap that happened back in WWI (just as an example). Blood takes a long time to wash off. Usually a lot longer than those that want to spill it realize

The short answer is, "No."

The long answer is, "Do it, you damned coward. Shake the walls with the power of HOLST."