Print

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

[m1895]

With Aria at our side, it is important that we now actually have artillery and long distance battle chips to wield.

For this purpose, we have chosen to borrow some code from a modded minigame in Pipe Software's hit class based shooter Squad Bastion 3, dodgeball.

The Missile is a battle chip that launches a missile shaped projectile. As for what the borrowed code was used for? Two things, first is target tracking, and second is making it not explode. Or rather, not explode on the wrong things.
When The Missile collides with anything that is not an actively running program(so anything that is not an 'inanimate object' in digital space), it will merely bounce off harmlessly and continue flying. When colliding with a large enough active program such as a viri, ADI, or even sufficiently potent projectile however, it will create a small but powerful explosion, strong enough to destroy a group of several Defenders.

As for how it tracks the enemy and  guides itself, well you see;
The Missile knows where it is at all times, it knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is, it obtains a difference or deviation. The guidance programming uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive The Missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't(and where its locked target is), and arriving at a position where it wasn't it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event that the position that it is now in is not the position that its target is the program has acquired a variation, a variation being the difference between where The Missile now is and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the program, however; the missile must also know where it was. The Missile guidance program scenario works as follows: Because a variation has modified some of the information The Missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.

Though we aren't certain why, those we have shown this presentation to have advised us to allow The Missile to optionally play the previous part of the document on repeat while they are flying, as a form of 'psychological warfare', and have provided an on-time backing track to play under it.

We have noticed a slight problem caused by the source code though. If The Missile is reflected by a dedicated attack or projectile reflecting Battle chip, it will proceed to re-lock onto one of our units instead, though we would be capable of reflecting it back with our own.

The Missile: (1) Failbird

+1

[Failbird105]

Battlechip: Codespace Hyperclock
This tactical chip of the Celerity line briefly forced priority hyper-streaming to the L1 and L2 buffers of the local digital space - effectively creating a bubble of distortion in which clock cycles (the relative passage of time) happens much more quickly. Anything within the sphere of influence feels normal, but observes those outside appearing heavily distorted and moving much more slowly - while those outside the sphere see those inside as rapidly moving blurs. Projectiles impacting the bubble experience extreme deflection based on the principles of Lewis-Stanli cycle decoherence making it essentially impossible to shoot in or out of a sphere.

While one might think that their symmetric effect on enemy and ally as well as their relative isolation makes the spheres pointless, in the hands of a skilled commander they can allow a group breathing space to meet unexpected odds, provide a critical moment to plan, or to isolate trap a group of foes in with your forces while their companions are temporally cut off. While one could also use the Hyperclock spheres to generate cover, they're generally considered to be much too costly and difficult to set up to be used for such a trivial purpose.


Battlechip: Haze
This strategic battlechip is a cryptic design, creating a nebulous pulse of meta-stable code fragments that propagate to loosely fill a space based on a cellular automata powered growth algorithm. The effect is that, once used, the Haze chip fills a large area with a fine mist of data-fragments which alternate in glimmering and darkening portions in accordance with the rules of Conway's Game of Life. In a glimmering section of Haze, allied units are slightly buffed with increased senses while enemies are slightly distracted with the glimmery data-frags. Darkening portions of haze slightly drain the energy from enemy units, making them move and react more slowly, while allied units are inversely slightly buffed.


Whistler.exe
A nonhumanoid program, each whistler is a disc about the size and shape of a manhole cover. Relatively robust in form, the Whistler carries no weapons and relies on an erratic flightpath and evasion to stay alive. On contact with the enemy, the Whistler immediately spins up to full speed, emitting a characteristic wail of sound, and begins projecting an array of images across the virtu-scape. Advertisements, newsreel section, holograms of friendly viri, spoilers from tv shows, memes (so many memes) all blasted in full color and chaos.

In this, the Whistler serves two roles. One, it is a scout, immediately alerting friendlies to the presence of enemies. Two, it is incredibly distracting to the enemy, both by drawing their gaze with distractions (more effective against the intelligent) and in the form of creating crude projections of friendly viri for them to shoot at (more effective against the stupid).

Longshadow.exe
A cryptic variant of the minion.exe, the Longshadow is a supporting cast member with a unique ability: it can merge with the digital shadow of another viri. Doing so reduces the dimensionality of the Longshadow program significantly, making it extremely difficult to detect or directly target with weapon attacks. When the host is engaged, the longshadow functions as an interceptor. Armed with a single null-pointer edged saber, the Longshadow.exe can emerge from the host's digital shadow to make lightning-fast slashes at incoming projectiles or targets within melee range. The null-pointer saber is capable of completely deleting light projectiles and inflicting severe damage to viri, but can be overwhelmed by fire from multiple sources. Like the minion.exe it was developed from, the Longshadow.exe is also very stupid, and (unless attached to a commander) will show little sense of target prioritization, lashing out at whatever projectile or viri happens to enter range first.

If the host is killed or damaged, the Longshadow is destroyed or damaged in mirror fashion. Once the Longshadow has bonded to another Viri, it's locked there until the end.

Striker.exe
An advanced melee combat unit, the Striker resembles a very skeletal robot, with bright jets of data behind it for propulsion. Its main thing is speed, and its tick speed siphoning ability. On its own the thing is still rather fast, but it has the ability to divert processing power from the area around it onto itself, effectively increasing the amount of time it experiences by raising its clock cycle speed, and slowing everything around it as their cycle speed is lowered. Little is ever seen of it in this state, though it can only maintain it in short bursts. Thanks to slowing down incoming attacks it is incredibly hard to hit in this state, especially since its so fast and will try to dodge the incoming attacks. For armaments it possesses advanced melee code in the form of deadly claws that can rip apart low level viri with little issue.
Behavior wise they are designed to be smarter and more independent than the basic minions, but they pay for this in finesse in most cases, they are good for hunting down and killing things on their own, but it's hard to order around in formations or to make them hit a target more specific than "Everything hostile in this general area". They are attack dogs, pure and simple.

Bringing these ideas back so that we have other things we could theoretically vote for.

The Missile: (1) Failbird
Codespace Hyperclock: ()
Haze: ()
Whistler.exe: ()
Longshadow.exe: ()
Striker.exe: ()

[Draignean]

The Missile: (2) Failbird, Draignean
Codespace Hyperclock: ()
Haze: ()
Whistler.exe: ()
Longshadow.exe: ()
Striker.exe: ()

[Emral282]

The Missile: (3) Failbird, m1895, Draignean
Codespace Hyperclock: ()
Haze: (1) Emral282
Whistler.exe: ()
Longshadow.exe: ()
Striker.exe: ()

[Draignean]

The Missile: (2) Failbird, m1895
Codespace Hyperclock: ()
Haze: (2) Emral282, Draignean
Whistler.exe: ()
Longshadow.exe: ()
Striker.exe: ()

Actually, if this has support, I'll swap over to Haze to get some territory control in play.

[Failbird105]

I mean, here's the thing though: We have nothing for Aria to use. At all. Like, sure she can technically use all the stuff we already have, but none of it is things she's good at using. Haze is another thing for Jorg, we already have things for Jorg, we've got the defenders and swordy bois.

The Missile is something for Aria, the Hacker we literally just made last turn, to use, and if it goes well enough that we can afford to spend a revision somewhere else, I'd likely put it into making a sniper variant of our minion/officer.

[Draignean]

I mean, here's the thing though: We have nothing for Aria to use. At all. Like, sure she can technically use all the stuff we already have, but none of it is things she's good at using. Haze is another thing for Jorg, we already have things for Jorg, we've got the defenders and swordy bois.

The Missile is something for Aria, the Hacker we literally just made last turn, to use, and if it goes well enough that we can afford to spend a revision somewhere else, I'd likely put it into making a sniper variant of our minion/officer.

You are right, I forgot about the dudes with swords. I would like to break into some area control, as area control is useful for both Haze and Aria. She does, however, need the artillery first to capitalize on it.

The Missile: (3) Failbird, m1895, Draignean
Codespace Hyperclock: ()
Haze: (1) Emral282
Whistler.exe: ()
Longshadow.exe: ()
Striker.exe: ()

[Happerry]

Turn 1 : Design Phase

The Missile

With Aria at our side, it is important that we now actually have artillery and long distance battle chips to wield.

For this purpose, we have chosen to borrow some code from a modded minigame in Pipe Software's hit class based shooter Squad Bastion 3, dodgeball.

The Missile is a battle chip that launches a missile shaped projectile. As for what the borrowed code was used for? Two things, first is target tracking, and second is making it not explode. Or rather, not explode on the wrong things.

When The Missile collides with anything that is not an actively running program(so anything that is not an 'inanimate object' in digital space), it will merely bounce off harmlessly and continue flying. When colliding with a large enough active program such as a viri, ADI, or even sufficiently potent projectile however, it will create a small but powerful explosion, strong enough to destroy a group of several Defenders.

As for how it tracks the enemy and  guides itself, well you see;
The Missile knows where it is at all times, it knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is, it obtains a difference or deviation. The guidance programming uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive The Missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't(and where its locked target is), and arriving at a position where it wasn't it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event that the position that it is now in is not the position that its target is the program has acquired a variation, a variation being the difference between where The Missile now is and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the program, however; the missile must also know where it was. The Missile guidance program scenario works as follows: Because a variation has modified some of the information The Missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.

Though we aren't certain why, those we have shown this presentation to have advised us to allow The Missile to optionally play the previous part of the document on repeat while they are flying, as a form of 'psychological warfare', and have provided an on-time backing track to play under it.

We have noticed a slight problem caused by the source code though. If The Missile is reflected by a dedicated attack or projectile reflecting Battle chip, it will proceed to re-lock onto one of our units instead, though we would be capable of reflecting it back with our own.

2 + 4 + -1 = 5 : Average (Normal)

The missile knows where it isn't, and therefor knows where it must go to kill someone. That's the simple form. No one really cares about the long form. It repeats a Metube speech clip over and over as it flies, but viruses mostly don't care except for that features tendency to reveal when a missile's been launched. As well, while reliable in ensuring that the missile eventually strikes something, the refusal of the missile to explode until it has struck an active virus has meant that there's been a few notable times where a target dodges at the last moment and then, instead of exploding when it strikes the ground, the missile bounces end over end onwards until it either re-stabilizes itself or, more commonly, either strikes a different target or goes flying sufficiently far out into the void there is no return.

Despite this, the Missile chip is generally accurate enough to hit whatever you want hit and powerful enough to explode or at least devastate a squad of minions when it explodes. As long as it's not reflected, in which case it'll be your own minions that will be exploded. With the Stagehand's current force list the primary range limit for the Missile Chip is the user's ability to identify targets, as it can be launched from an area one controls towards an area one doesn't control if a target is in said area one doesn't control.

The last relevant note is that, though only once, when testing it on the SwordyMinion at one time one successfully cut the missile out of the air, preventing it from either exploding or being reflected back towards another target.

The Missile is a Complicated tactical Battle Chip, and has a memory size of 1.

It is Turn 1, in the Revision Phase. During this phase you must vote on what revision to do to your current assets.

[m1895]

Marksman.exe
The Marksman is a another modification of the humble Minion, this time rebuilt closer to Aria's specialty.
Equipped with the large and relatively slow-firing Pulse Longrifle, Marksmen also have a modestly increased ballistic calculator to adequately use said weapon, and a simple target value calculator so it doesn't just plink away at minions. said weapon also has the stopping power to reliably take out a Defender assuming it can get a headshot from the side. This all comes at a cost though, the Marksman is even more fragile than the Minion, and the added ballistics calculation mean that at short range a basic minion will likely get it's shots off first and kill the marksman, assuming all else is equal. They also have an unfortunate lack of initiative, preferring to take orders to shoot from Officers or hackers, even when those orders are just "fire at will", though this does allow for devastating volleys taking out a large chunk of the enemies high value units at once.
Operator.exe
to worm our way into the Milsec, we'll need access to operators who can operate operationally.
Tougher than a swordy, though not as tough as a defender, and equipped with a rapid pulse rifle, stronger and faster firing than the pistol, and combat knife plus the know how to use them remarkably effectively; this minion variant represents the top of the line in capability. The mainstay of it's capabilities is however, the polymorphic coding that camouflages them. this polymorphic camouflage allows them to infiltrate deep past enemy lines and remain undetected and unnaffected by antiviral softwares (it also gives them a bit more personality than is typical for a .exe, but that's not important for their combat capabilities.) naturally, the Operator must be remarkably intelligent for a viri to do this effectively, and it is in fact smarter than your average officer, though more focused on small unit tactics. with all that combined a squad of operators can take down several time their number in a fight. This all comes at a cost though, an operator is exceedingly complex, or at least complex. We expect it to be rarely deployed by those who don't specialize in the use of stealth and subterfuge, and even then they shouldn't be too common.

[Failbird105]

Marksman.exe: (1) Failbird

[m1895]

Marksman.exe: (2) Failbird, m1895

[dgr11897]

Marksman.exe: (3) Failbird, m1895, DGR

[Draignean]

Two revisions that will allow us to take some advantage of the unexpected boon from the last design.

Heavy Bullets
Normally the pulse rounds fired by our weapon systems ignore gravity because nobody gave them a gravity parameter for the simulation. By modifying the pulse blaster pistol to have a dial, we can allow our shots to be affected by gravity to a degree multiplied by a controlled variable. With this change, our Minions will be able to shoot waves of bullets in arcs, targeting over obstacles and making platforming a nightmare artillery battery fire possible. Note: This does not provide any damage bonus from the bullet being heavy, and it relies heavily on accuracy through volume. In the absence of other orders from officers or hackers, minions will keep their weapons in 0-gravity mode.

Pulse-Overcharger [Sniper]
Perhaps inspired by some source close to home, this modification to the Pulse pistol enables the user to 'charge' a shot. Currently we're experimenting with a single version, a sniper variant which charges up to fire a single shot with modestly improved damage, increased range, and hitscan capability. The issue is that it takes a fair bit to charge up and still relies entirely on the abilities of the minion using it to actually land the shot. Still, it's included as a toggleable option on the weapon, enabling minions to reach out and fire wildly at never-before-seen ranges! It makes a very attractive 'wobbly' noise while charging.

[Doomblade187]

Turret Mode

The Defender.exe is a loud fighter that shows promise. By redirecting the bandwidth from it's movement subroutines, we have found that we can double or even triple the rate of fire from the Defender's pulse pistol. This is an optional mode that can be toggled on or off.

Sensitivity Testing

By modifying the detonation command for Missile, we found that we could set the missile to explode on either the first object contacted (unfortunately including enemy projectiles) or the default active virus detonation target. This targeting switch should allow greater tactical flexibility in field usage.

[m1895]

Marksman.exe: (3) Failbird, m1895, DGR
Heavy Bullets: ()
Pulse-Overcharger: ()
Turret Mode: ()
Sensitivity testing: ()

There, now vote.