Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Empiricist]

I know. It's just that it's been a rather long time.

Not really, it hasn't been very long for a game like this. Missions tend to last for months of real time after all.

[piecewise]

I know. It's just that it's been a rather long time.

Thats fair.

Lets think of some thing for people who are dead on mission and therefore have nothing to do, to do, shall we?


Hmmm. I can think of a few things, do you have any Ideas before I talk about mine?

[Radio Controlled]

I know. It's just that it's been a rather long time.

Thats fair.

Lets think of some thing for people who are dead on mission and therefore have nothing to do, to do, shall we?


Hmmm. I can think of a few things, do you have any Ideas before I talk about mine?

You know how sometimes in movies, people who are dying suddenly have a lot of thoughts and such going on (e.g. "my entire life flashed before my eyes int he span of a few seconds") because their brain goes into overdrive? Something like that, but instead of viewing their life movie, they go into a 'vision quest' where they see all sorts of strange and confusing imagery, which hey can interact with (kinda like that time someone took xenospit and started having vivid hallucinations) but don't remember IC afterwards.

Alternatively, let them take over for an (enemy or friendly) npc (only viable at certain times).

[Toaster]

I think letting them become NPCs in other missions is an interesting thought; it's just too bad that opportunities for that are going to be rather few.  Mission 15 dead could play hostages in 14, but 13 and 15's NPCs are pretty much off limits at this point.

It's still extremely boring.

To be fair, in most other RTDs you'd simply be out of the game and back on the waitlist at best.

[Radio Controlled]

If you cut down the number of armaments and the size, yes. A high speed exoskeleton designed to wield heavy weapons yet stay agile is good, but as it is, it's too big and too expensive, especially considering it relies on pilot skill, always a questionable prospect.

Hard evidence for past claims, hooray! 

In all seriousness, good job on the design, you're almost there.

I think letting them become NPCs in other missions is an interesting thought; it's just too bad that opportunities for that are going to be rather few.  Mission 15 dead could play hostages in 14, but 13 and 15's NPCs are pretty much off limits at this point.

Hmm. Maybe let them be an npc somwhere else? E.g. you now are a rebel on some small dirtball somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Go rebel a bit until you are revived.

Whatever plan we have will fail, Lerman will shoot cops with the machine gun, and fun will be had by all.

Just for the record, but if Lerman keeps screwing over the mission, you know there might be repercussions, right? We can blame the first time on mindfuckery, but if it keeps happening...

I think we should add a character's notable quotes to the beginning or end of their wiki entry.

Cool idea. Might be a bit hard for characters with a lot of history though, unless there are certain things that immediately spring to mind.

[piecewise]

If you cut down the number of armaments and the size, yes. A high speed exoskeleton designed to wield heavy weapons yet stay agile is good, but as it is, it's too big and too expensive, especially considering it relies on pilot skill, always a questionable prospect.

Hard evidence for past claims, hooray! 

In all seriousness, good job on the design, you're almost there.

I think letting them become NPCs in other missions is an interesting thought; it's just too bad that opportunities for that are going to be rather few.  Mission 15 dead could play hostages in 14, but 13 and 15's NPCs are pretty much off limits at this point.

Hmm. Maybe let them be an npc somwhere else? E.g. you now are a rebel on some small dirtball somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Go rebel a bit until you are revived.

Whatever plan we have will fail, Lerman will shoot cops with the machine gun, and fun will be had by all.

Just for the record, but if Lerman keeps screwing over the mission, you know there might be repercussions, right? We can blame the first time on mindfuckery, but if it keeps happening...

I think we should add a character's notable quotes to the beginning or end of their wiki entry.

Cool idea. Might be a bit hard for characters with a lot of history though, unless there are certain things that immediately spring to mind.

I WARNED YOU ABOUT TEAM KILLING BRO. I WARNED YOU. IT KEEPS HAPPENING!




Related note: My thoughts for what to do with dead people was to create a thread called "Limbo" and throw them in there. While in limbo I can play fun games with their souls, maybe run quick adventures, maybe use them as test subjects or as a think tank for ideas.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can just as well use the OOC thread for that though. You're already using it for a Xenonauts LP.

[piecewise]

You can just as well use the OOC thread for that though. You're already using it for a Xenonauts LP.

Nuh. Dead men go in dead man land and we play games together until their bodies are fixed again.


if only not to flood the ooc thread with stuff that isn't ooc

[swordsmith04]

You can just as well use the OOC thread for that though. You're already using it for a Xenonauts LP.

Shush you, my character's been temp-dead for a month or more.


I think I'm the only one who qualifies to participate in "Limbo", at the moment. Kyle isn't technically dead, and 15's deaths are permanent. That said, I'd be quite happy with something to do while my teammates fuck around.

Also wouldn't mind taking over an NPC. Anything except waiting around while everyone else has all the fun. I could be the Maintenance guy, even.

Except the guys who can do nothing but wait for you guys to stop dicking around and either retreat or accomplish the mission.

Actually, there is one thing you can do: decay. If it takes them too long, your brain may be a bit damaged, or unrecoverable if memory serves...

It's been half an hour. Unless they screw up monumentally - quite a possibility, with several amp users running low - I'm not worried about Hasala being too far gone when they get back. Yet, anyway. If they spend three hours searching the sewers, I'll probably start prodding them to get moving in the OOC thread.

[Yoink]

It seems like a better idea to fix the APC if these soldiers are actually that far off still, but I have no way of knowing that IC.
As far as I can remember Steve never actually gave us an ETA on them... so I'll be a good kid and not use meta-knowledge.

[Grunhill]

Hey guys, I was checking some posts of the previous missions and look what I found

Elisaz shakes his head. Just twisted, corrupt media brainwashing the sheeple plebeians. He keeps surfing until he finds something intelligent or sexy.

"...Magistar Haloton considers proposal for the reinstatement of Arbiter of Peace troops..."

Maybe this proposal will pass now that the HRMC is revolting

[Unholy_Pariah]

I think its way past time you called for reinforcements and a medivac.

Also someone should probably excise those termites before they reach moruls braincase.
You guys are in a diner, find some spoons.

[Pancaek]

Round up hostages to the back of the building. Check barrier on windows/doors. Menacingly pump shotgun.

Que D'usse pumping the shotgun until it has no more shells in the tube.

[Radio Controlled]

Continuing the discussion about sods:

Spoiler: about robots and organics (click to show/hide)

I suppose I should probably clarify that I'm arguing against your original setup, with the fleshfodder, jumppack robosods, and synthetic spec ops.  I'm not averse to sprinkling fleshies in with the robots, if the robots outnumber them 3-to-1 or so.

Why yes, that is indeed very important! Cause it means you are arguing against a proposal I no longer fully support due to the emergence of new information (I try to update my opinions when new facts come to light). Proof:

There are several reasons for still using full organic sods (next to robosods, of course):

I know that robosods have superior capabilities one-on-one to organic ones, we agree on that, I'm saying we shouldn't only rely on them.

Doing what you do makes sense when trying to 'win' an argument, but otherwise, you're just making things confusing. We are on the same side here! It's just an optimization issue at this point. Your proposal, of having a 3-1 robot-flesh sod ratio is perfectly acceptable for me (though I think we should do some VR testing to determine the optimal ratio).

But as-is, fixing a broken flesh leg is both harder and slower than fixing a broken robot leg.

Yes, I did read them. And I still think we should consider it, which we are doing now basically.

-Full organic sods are easier to 'maintain' than robobody sods, which is a plus if you want to ship them to less-advanced/organized enemies of the UWM (it lessens the strain on the supply chain, a very important factor in real armed conflict, but perhaps too abstract for ER).

4. Depends. They're more expensive from the outset, but they're faster to make and don't need to be fed anything beyond the standard brain nutrients and raw chemicals to keep it in a simulated body environment. So higher initial price, but very low maintenance. Plus, they'll survive more damage, meaning you'll have to make less of them.

Sorry for the confusion.

But if you are shipping to backwater planets with rebel forces in they're infancy, using flesh sods means they can maintain them using real people food, and repair them using regular doctors. For robosods, you need special braincase liquid mix, and specific spare parts and the know-how to do it. Not a problem for well-supplied or well organized allies, but for others it could be. You were referring to the base cost of maintaining and repairing, I was talking about the complexity of it.

Umm.  That I'm right.  I'd figure anybody that reads my arguments would know that much.

No, go read it again. You are giving a list of advantages that robosods have. Thing is, I never disputed those things, and I'm well aware of them. So again, what are you even trying to prove here? Just stating the obvious to ensure we're on the same page? If so, you should say as much, cause now it's like you are trying to 'prove you're right' by repeating things all parties involved already know and that supposedly favor your side, just to reinforce the idea that your side is 'right' to the audience (a well known debating trick).


So, to reiterate, this is what I think:
-We should use robosods for the majority of our sod forces, due to their various advantages.
-We should use fleshsods as a safeguard, as well as potential other advantages they might have that haven't come up yet.
-The exact ratio is an optimization issue, we should use vr, cost/benefit and risk analysis and Steve to determine the best course.

Spoiler: about amount of complexity (click to show/hide)

I interpreted this to be your argument for not including normal robobodies in your standard roster.  I.E. 'We don't want to include robobodies in our forces, because they would overlap with fleshbodies and lead to unnecessary complexity bloat'.  The leading to bit being where the slippery slope comes in.

Nope. I may have not been entirely clear here, or maybe I should've given more examples there. Point is, I think we should make sure the different kinds of sods we use have clear, distinct uses, with some but not too much overlap.

Sure, I can do that, on one condition: PW says the exact amount of time a single batch of brains takes to produce.   Currently, it's just "two or three days" which is amazingly frustrating.

Here you say what I was hoping you would, and it proves that people like you or me have no problem with tracking details like these to make other's job easier and to get the most out of our assets. But consider this: during Hep defense, I used the wiki to exactly say what sods where deployed where. There were no sods in a certain bunker that got destroyed, even though pw's description said so. When I asked about this, he said 'I don't really know where all those sods are'. Even though it was perfectly visible on the wiki. Or how he didn't see the location of the airfield on the map I made, leading to confusion.

So you see, even if you did the work yourself, there might still be too much complexity. Which is why I'm saying we should try to keep things clear and not (unnecessarily perhaps?) complex.

((Note, none of this is a jab at pw. He already spends a lot of time and effort on ER, I don't expect him to do more).


A random example of how we could do things:
-three tiers of forces. Light (grunts, tier 1), medium (assault, tier 2) and heavy (elites, tier 3) in terms of resources. Each tier might have some different kinds (e.g. sniper team, mortar team, ...) but it should be obvious what is what.
-Tier 1 consists of robosods and flesh sods with comparable abilities, for example 50:50
-Tier 2 consists of 100% upgraded robosods
-Tier 3 consists of 100% synthflesh

Another possibility:
-Tier 1 consists of robosods and flesh sods with comparable abilities, for example 70:30
-Tier 2 consists of 100% upgraded robosods and flesh sods with upgraded suits (so they are comparable to the upgraded robosods) in a 70:30 ratio
-Tier 3 consists of 100% synthflesh

I think these are obvious and clear ways to organize our forces, without drowning in complexity.

Spoiler: about the debate itself (click to show/hide)

Syv, I've been enjoying this discussion with you, but not nearly as much as I should seeing as how this is about a subject I care about. For example, I enjoyed the debate about art with Baldman more, even though art interests me a bit less. Why? Because that discussion felt like two people navigating their way to a conclusion that was better, more complete than what either started out with. Arguing with you however often feels like a rope pulling contest, one side trying to dominate the other. You aren't trying to find the optimal solution, you are trying to prove:

Umm.  That I'm right.  I'd figure anybody that reads my arguments would know that much.

For example:

To be fair, I did point out that I was using a strawman there.

If you know you are using a logical fallacy, why bother using it? Unlike, say, GWG, you know what you are doing when using conversational tomfoolery like this and that you let yourself get dragged away with these debates. You know yourself enough to recognize it.

I apologize if this seems overly rude/aggressive.  I get like that when I argue.

Oh, sorry, I get a bit too into these things.  I act more like it's politics than a discussion.  Sorry.

But exactly like GWG you seem unable to rise above such things and just try to have a interesting discussion. I know you can do better, so why not try to? Unless you really just want some back-and-forth for the sport of it (which I admit I also find entertaining from time to time), in which case, you should really either start a thread in general discussion to satiate that need, or find a new GWG to play with.

For the record, I'm not angry or disappointed, I just think that saying this now might lead to more productive discussions in the future.

Another example

Arguments with the Radio, Volume one, chapter one

The way you word this (same thing you did with your endless GWG discussions) really seems to indicate that, rather than helping me decide the most optimal way to create our armies, you see all this as just another way to fill your need for verbal conflict. Thought that might just be me reading too much into this.

I'm... honestly not sure how to take that.  Thanks, I guess?

Also Sean's the brony; I, personally, dislike MLP.

I know I know, I'm just pulling your leg a bit. High five then?

[Hapah]

Round up hostages to the back of the building. Check barrier on windows/doors. Menacingly pump shotgun.

Que D'usse pumping the shotgun until it has no more shells in the tube.

The Rule of Cool will prevail.