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Post by Abyssal Squid on Jan 29, 2017 10:04:08 GMT -8
Yeah, as I said the issues might disappear as the missions evolve, too. Mostly I'm nervous because we have all of one AT weapon on the field, and if its wielder gets hit we're screwed. The Battle Rifle is the only thing that comes close to substituting for it, since MMGs are better suited for crowd control but eat up ammo like there's no tomorrow. The Grenade Launcher is a lot like the MMG in that it's a great multi-purpose weapon that goes through ammo really quickly, so I guess we're not really hurting for multi-purpose weapons. I've been thinking a bit about something like a panzerfaust LAW, a lightweight, single-use specialty weapon. Instead of treating it as a "free" equip (like I think pistols should be >:V ), something like this: [ LAW Pack [][][] ]; spending an action to unpack converts []s into [ LAW [] ]s in adjacent soldiers' (or own) empty equip slots. Then they can attack with them next turn. If only one adjacent soldier has a free slot, you'll have to unpack one and wait for them to fire it before you can unpack the other two (one into their slot, and one into the slot that contained the pack). [e: there's a non-Nazi implementation of the weapon so I'm going with that ] That's not exactly how they were used IRL and it can result in some mechanical weirdness if you're trying to break the game rather than play it, but I think it's a reasonable compromise design. It's lightweight, taking up only one slot for three shots compared to two slot for RPG Launcher and 1 ammo, and once deployed the system has a much higher rate of fire, as much as three shots in one turn compared to one shot every other turn. This is balanced by being slow to deploy (1 turn delay versus no delay) and requiring adjacent squadmates with empty slots. Abstractly, it's like the equipment slots are already occupied, but not so much that soldiers take the encumbrance penalties. And of course disposable weapons are more expensive to manufacture than ammunition for reusable weapons, so availability would be lower. Anyway I like the logistics problems, it's just kinda hard to plan for them when your briefing is HOLY SHIT WAKE UP *slap slap*. I hope our next mission is reconnaissance so we know what we're up against in the mission after that. :{} e2: Doesn't deserve a whole new post but I don't want to forget it, what about making the Battle Rifle attack versus a fixed Difficulty+Evasion? Abstractly simulates the gun's high accuracy combined with its low rate of fire making it harder to track targets as they get closer. 11 seems like a good value to start with, it's 50% for 1 die and no evasion, but also 50% for 3 dice and 6 evasion (Firearms 2 soldier taking an aimed shot against a slinger, the most evasive geist we've seen so far). 50% for two dice and a scarab! Is there anything a target value of 11 can't do?!
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Feb 25, 2017 18:34:51 GMT -8
[From the game thread] Gravedust , is there any benefit for having the transports across the bridge and not destroyed at the end of the mission? Or should we consider them expendable? I'd assume that resources saved at the end of a mission will be available in the future, with some being easier to replace than others. Surviving soldiers gain skills while killed soldiers have to be replaced by green recruits; intact vehicles available for the next mission while damaged vehicles are out of commission for repairs or salvage (speeding up acquisition of a replacement); weapons and other durable equipment stick around; consumables like ammo and medkits are generally cheap enough that conserving them doesn't really matter between missions. Even if that's not the case I'm going to continue playing as if it were. :{} e: I was thinking about rules for turreted and tracked vehicles and thought of something relevant. Some weapons might have expensive variants that are strictly better than the standard version, but being expensive they're rare and hard to replace. If it survives a mission, it's available in the next; if you lose it it's gone. Something like gyro-stabilized assault rifles, mechanically identical to the ARC or Heavy Assault Rifle except that a soldier firing them never loses the "no movement" bonus die, even if they're running full tilt. Flavorwise I imagine they're somewhat heavier and the gyro system requires additional, boring maintenance, but those are worthwhile tradeoffs when you're facing a pack of scarabs. A switch in the trigger guard spins up gyroscopes in the rifle's butt, dampening movement from side to side and the effect of "kick."
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Post by Gravedust on Feb 26, 2017 10:21:51 GMT -8
[From the game thread] Gravedust , is there any benefit for having the transports across the bridge and not destroyed at the end of the mission? Or should we consider them expendable? I'd assume that resources saved at the end of a mission will be available in the future, with some being easier to replace than others. Surviving soldiers gain skills while killed soldiers have to be replaced by green recruits; intact vehicles available for the next mission while damaged vehicles are out of commission for repairs or salvage (speeding up acquisition of a replacement); weapons and other durable equipment stick around; consumables like ammo and medkits are generally cheap enough that conserving them doesn't really matter between missions. Even if that's not the case I'm going to continue playing as if it were. :{} e: I was thinking about rules for turreted and tracked vehicles and thought of something relevant. Some weapons might have expensive variants that are strictly better than the standard version, but being expensive they're rare and hard to replace. If it survives a mission, it's available in the next; if you lose it it's gone. Something like gyro-stabilized assault rifles, mechanically identical to the ARC or Heavy Assault Rifle except that a soldier firing them never loses the "no movement" bonus die, even if they're running full tilt. Flavorwise I imagine they're somewhat heavier and the gyro system requires additional, boring maintenance, but those are worthwhile tradeoffs when you're facing a pack of scarabs. A switch in the trigger guard spins up gyroscopes in the rifle's butt, dampening movement from side to side and the effect of "kick." Yep. Rarity stands in for cost in this game, pretty much. And there will be some really nice guns that are only available once in a while, some with special effects and such like the above. Ammo for most Firearms weapons is usually plentiful (you will be swimming in ARC rounds forever) Gunnery weapon ammo a little less so, Hand Grenades are usually pretty easy to find, as are Medkits. Weapons and ammo for things like MMGs, RPG and heavy rocket rounds will be available, but somewhat rare. Vehicles will normally recover all their ammo between missions. There are things that can effect the supply rate, that mostly depends on where you are and what's happening, it is rare but not impossible to have to run 2 missions with no resupply. Generally there will be some hint that something like that might happen. Troops will generally trickle in to replace any you lose, though they will have randomized starting stats.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Mar 4, 2017 19:50:12 GMT -8
I know it's too early to count our mission-success chickens (Jenn stands a good chance of dying next turn, for one thing) but I'm starting to solidify roles and skill upgrades for my soldiers:
Mobile Artillery Team A F1 *G3 T1 P2 D1 [Antoine] B F1 G1 *T4 P1 D1 [Lea]
Oh Fuck Oh Fuck There's So Much Blood C F1 G1 T3 P1 *D2 [Jenn] F *F3 G2 T1 P1 D1 [Neva]
Everyone Else Was Busy So It's Up To Us I Guess D *F2 G2 T2 P1 D1 [Corina] E *F2 G2 T1 P2 D1 [Erwan]
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Mar 9, 2017 10:23:43 GMT -8
I was thinking how stripping soldiers and carrying them makes sense from a flavor perspective but doesn't really work mechanically against an ever-advancing foe, so naturally my mind went to slime guns.
Slime Gun Damage: special Range: 8 (Ballistic, diff:15, drift:1)(AoE: 0) Ammo: 10/1
A large pump and sprayer contraption fed by tanks worn in a backpack. Two streams of chemicals meet directly in front of the nozzle and react to form an incredibly sticky, foamy slime that inhibits movement.
The gun creates a terrain hazard within its AoE. Any entity (Geist, soldier, or NPC) that spends any time in a slime pile first loses remaining movement for that turn, then gains for the rest of the mission new condition "Slimed" which reduces movement speed to 2. After sliming an entity, a slime pile has a 50% chance of being exhausted. (G-class geist and vehicles are not affected by infantry slime).
Alternative slime ammo "viscous slime!" Instead of "Slimed" entities get "Super Slimed" which reduces both movement speed and evasion to 0 (doesn't increase negative evasion). This exhausts the viscous slime pile, which also has a 50% chance of drying out at the beginning of each turn.
Any sort of slime can be removed by applying Slime Solvent (5 uses). Higher Tech skill increases the chance of using solvent effectively (in mechanical terms, roll Tech against 19 and on a success, a use is not consumed).
Substantially more complicated than any other weapon in the game so far, but not all that much bookkeeping, especially since regular sliming doesn't affect rolls and should be easy to remember on the map.
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Post by Gravedust on Mar 9, 2017 12:30:18 GMT -8
I was thinking how stripping soldiers and carrying them makes sense from a flavor perspective but doesn't really work mechanically against an ever-advancing foe, so naturally my mind went to slime guns. Slime Gun Damage: special Range: 8 (Ballistic, diff:15, drift:1)(AoE: 0) Ammo: 10/1 A large pump and sprayer contraption fed by tanks worn in a backpack. Two streams of chemicals meet directly in front of the nozzle and react to form an incredibly sticky, foamy slime that inhibits movement.The gun creates a terrain hazard within its AoE. Any entity (Geist, soldier, or NPC) that spends any time in a slime pile first loses remaining movement for that turn, then gains for the rest of the mission new condition "Slimed" which reduces movement speed to 2. After sliming an entity, a slime pile has a 50% chance of being exhausted. (G-class geist and vehicles are not affected by infantry slime). Alternative slime ammo "viscous slime!" Instead of "Slimed" entities get "Super Slimed" which reduces both movement speed and evasion to 0 (doesn't increase negative evasion). This exhausts the viscous slime pile, which also has a 50% chance of drying out at the beginning of each turn. Any sort of slime can be removed by applying Slime Solvent (5 uses). Higher Tech skill increases the chance of using solvent effectively (in mechanical terms, roll Tech against 19 and on a success, a use is not consumed). Substantially more complicated than any other weapon in the game so far, but not all that much bookkeeping, especially since regular sliming doesn't affect rolls and should be easy to remember on the map. Huh. That's interesting. I think making the slime debuff permanent makes it a bit too powerful against S class, who really need to have decent mobility to perform their role. But I do like the 'hit it and get stuck for a round' aspect, I think it works for both covering a retreat as well as helping to blunt advances of M-waves and certain fast S-class like Scarabs. (which presently don't have much of a counter besides massed firepower.) Dropping an obstruction patch could buy you another round to gun them down, either because they are stuck in it, or decide to go around it. M-class would probably just barge straight into them, so long as their target was on the other side. I think it would work to have a 'common' version that is man-portable item that covers multiple adjacent squares, (build your own concertina fence!) with the nicer 'rare' version being the ballistic launcher like you wrote up. I would probably make it automatically exhaust after something hits them, but make up for that with larger fields. (The launcher would be like AOE:1) Having to retreat will always kind of suck though, that's just how it is. :/ Fortunately not too many missions will have unstoppable waves like this one.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Mar 9, 2017 13:48:21 GMT -8
Yeah that sounds a lot cleaner than my first attempt! I had in mind things like the tanglefoot bag from D&D, the gel gun from Outpost 2, and of course the sticky foam developed as a less-lethal weapon irl.
I'm not upset at retreat being painful, I just think that from what we've seen so far the stripping mechanic isn't likely to see any use. None of the enemies we've encountered so far give any breathing space to spend two whole actions that are neither attacking nor healing, if someone manages to get wounded.
I'm kinda curious about the scenario you see it being used in. Maybe maggots have a speed of 3 and a range of 14?
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Post by Gravedust on Mar 9, 2017 15:29:59 GMT -8
Myeah, it was included so players at least knew it was something they could attempt. It's not necessarily a GOOD option, but it's there so at least there is an option, if you just can't get a medic somewhere. During an advance or a hold I could see players having the time to strip somebody and cart them off to the rear. But in current circumstances, yeahhh... It's dicey. (har har)
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Post by vikinghelmet on Mar 9, 2017 18:56:22 GMT -8
I could still see it being useful if someone further from the back gets dropped - the retreating front line could move to them + strip one turn, then start dragging them the next turn.
Granted, it's more likely that the front liner gets dropped in the first place, but it could happen with area attacks.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Mar 16, 2017 13:24:35 GMT -8
Mobile Artillery Team A F1 *G3 T1 P2 D1 [Antoine] B F1 G1 *T4 P1 D1 [Lea] Oh Fuck Oh Fuck There's So Much Blood C F1 G1 T3 P1 *D2 [Jenn] F R*I*P [Neva]
Everyone Else Was Busy So It's Up To Us I Guess D *F2 G2 T2 P1 D1 [Corina] E *F2 G2 T1 P2 D1 [Erwan] Mission's wrapping up, anybody else been thinking about what skill upgrades to get? And is anybody even getting anything other than their primary shooting skill? That'd be Firearms for most soldiers, Gunnery for Marina Batrace and Antoine Williams. Possibly Defense for one of the Heavy Assault Rifle troopers, who already have Firearms:2? e: any requests for the Caverns of Crunch? 4 dice is probably gonna be necessary soon.
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mydad
Full Member
Posts: 121
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Post by mydad on Mar 16, 2017 14:36:38 GMT -8
At least 2 shooting for everyone, followed by at least 2 defense for everyone, followed by other priorities. I'd have given Tobias some extra defense, but RIP Tobias.
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mydad
Full Member
Posts: 121
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Post by mydad on Mar 21, 2017 0:21:44 GMT -8
Hey, Gravedust, I just found an old file in which I wrote down the Youtube links for some of the songs you used in your Battlepods game. Do you remember the name of the Stellar Avengers mechanic? You gave him this as a theme song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Th0HT2i-T4
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Post by Gravedust on Mar 21, 2017 8:10:12 GMT -8
Halford Knox. Usually just Knox.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Apr 7, 2017 14:32:34 GMT -8
Howdy folks, quick question for ya; So I've been doing some housekeeping and am considering a change to the way weapons are displayed. basically I have reduced the size given to the weapon names and ammo count, and instead tried to shoehorn damage and range information into the tags: So in your opinion, is this layout useful, or redundant / hard to read / etc? The alternative I am considering is returning to the cleaner tags, and including damage/range/special info for your weapons in an image that goes below the main map image (hopefully it would stay in everyone's browser cache and not have to be loaded every time) Ehh, that's awfully busy and small, and most of that information isn't useful at a glance anyway. You need to pull out a calculator to calculate an attack's kill rate, and at that point it's not much more work to pull up the equipment list page too. Max range is useful to know at a glance though, since you can check that just by looking at the map and counting. Also, a small quality-of-life improvement: for the machine guns, it'd be nice if the ammo bar marked groups of three so we count area firings at a glance. Not a big deal for the LMG, but it starts mattering with MMGs.
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Post by Gravedust on Apr 7, 2017 14:53:59 GMT -8
Hmm. Sticking dividers in at the 3 round mark for Area-firing weapons is a great idea, will definitely do that.
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Post by cokerpilot on Apr 14, 2017 22:51:47 GMT -8
Some one by the name of my dad may or may not have poked me and let me know you were ruing a game again and might need players. Might need some time to look over the rules but from the brief skimming of the game thread so far it looks interesting.
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Post by Gravedust on Apr 14, 2017 23:55:42 GMT -8
Hey! Sure, have at look and if you think it suits you I'll deal you in.
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Post by siefun on Apr 15, 2017 9:20:39 GMT -8
Hello, I was invited to play this game and I would like to sign up. Thank you.
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Post by Gravedust on Apr 15, 2017 13:12:07 GMT -8
Cool, welcome aboard. I'll roll you up some troops, next mission should start tues or weds.
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Post by cokerpilot on Apr 17, 2017 11:35:55 GMT -8
Yah looking over everything this looks to be one hell of a ride would love to come along for it.
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Post by Gravedust on Apr 17, 2017 18:24:33 GMT -8
Yah looking over everything this looks to be one hell of a ride would love to come along for it. Cool. I'll get your dudes all rolled up then. I got a little less done today than I was expecting, but I'm still shooting to start on wednesday.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Apr 29, 2017 9:36:43 GMT -8
So we haven't gotten a chance to see them in action yet and I think the weapon changes so far have all been improvements, but that's not gonna stop me from theorycrafting about how they could be improved further. >:{}
With its multiple downsides and relatively small upside, H-AR still feels like "ARC, but somewhat worse." One of the drawbacks should be more severe, balanced by an improvement somewhere else. Maybe changing magazine/reload to 5/3? It's a pretty minor change but it fits the flavor better (makes the ammo feel a lot more massive than ARC), and if you use it as a secondary weapon without hauling reloads around, it actually is appreciably better than ARC (until you need to reload that is)!
Conversely, the new semi-auto rifles feel a bit too much like "ARC, but better." A real quick-and-dirty change would be to reduce the magazine by 1 and increase reloads to 6, to simulate their low rate of fire (lots of turns spent reloading instead of shooting). The Anti-Materiel and Sniper Rifles seem pretty alright other than that, mostly the Marksman Rifle needs some kind of additional drawback to keep it from being outright better than the ARC. Reduced damage or some kind of condition on the reduction in range penalty (something like "you don't get the bonus die for standing still," though that sounds pretty complicated tbh) might also be worth looking at eventually, too.
Basically I like the ARC a lot and don't want it to be outclassed. :<
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Post by Gravedust on Apr 29, 2017 13:04:34 GMT -8
You got some good points. The thing to remember about the ARC is that it is plentiful as dirt, (you get one free with every recruit and there'll usually be a bunch available between missions.) While the HAR and Marks are a bit less common, along with their ammo, so it's okay if they're a bit better than the ARC. Strictly speaking, they should be slight upgrades that are a bit more specialized, while the ARC ought to work pretty well under most circumstances, but isn't quite as good at Marks-ing or HAR-ing, when those situations arise. But if you rely too heavily on either you simply won't have enough ammo to go around. Now all that being said, I agree that that particular weapon trio aren't all hitting their niches yet still, I'll look at fiddling with them some more. I do like your proposed changes to the ammo/reload count, though. I'll take a closer look at that later.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on Apr 29, 2017 18:35:35 GMT -8
Sure, I understand that the main draw of the ARC is supposed to be that its ammunition is cheap, plentiful, and lightweight, rather than having particularly great performance. I imagine it shoots the caseless equivalent of .22 LR and it only manages to get up to 15 damage through sheer volume of fire, while H-AR fires .30 cal or something, and only needs to land a bullet or two for it to register a hit.
The more I think about it, the more pleased I am with the 5/3 H-AR. Flavorwise, it just feels a lot heavier, like all the brass in the magazine makes it fatiguing to fire for long stretches is why it has the reduced range. Mechanically, it is slightly better than the ARC until you need to reload a fourth time, and even then it's only really a problem if you're separated from supplies.
Great as a secondary weapon for some kind of specialist who won't expect to empty their rifle anyway, or for soldiers fighting right next to an APC full of supplies. Less great if you're that specialist and you unexpectedly need to reload your rifle, or if you're somehow in a situation where you need to carry all of your supplies.
(FWIW I researched caseless ammunition on Wikipedia a while back while I was thinking about this. Fun stuff, but also plagued with technical problems, I can imagine it being the stuff of science fiction indefinitely. >:V )
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Post by vikinghelmet on May 1, 2017 21:21:27 GMT -8
Is defense supposed to just be a superior version of evasion? I was kinda surprised when I was reviewing the rules today and saw that defense helps both with dodging a shot as well as surviving it if it does hit, while evasion only helps on the dodging side.
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Post by Gravedust on May 1, 2017 22:47:40 GMT -8
Hmmz, Evasion is supposed about not getting hit, and Defense is about not dying when you do hit. Defense does help against blast attacks, though, where Evasion does not, so technically the both contribute. However I do see in the rolls section that the standard attack roll erroneously includes both stats for >>>SOME DAMN REASON<<< :argh: even though I'm pretty sure I corrected it last time. My docs are just a horrifying CF for this game. What I need to do just sit down and and proofread everything so I can copy-paste without borking something. I will make time to do that ASAP this week. Anyway. Very sincere apologies that things are such a damn mess, all these errors are really awful and I will get them sorted as soon as I can.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on May 8, 2017 11:59:23 GMT -8
I had a dream that Lea Whitley had gotten isolated but she had a LMG so she was running up to mongrels and machine-gunning them in the face. Also that everyone else was being careless and letting maggots spew all over our trucks, be more careful guys. > Hope this helps (oh god help me)
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Post by Abyssal Squid on May 12, 2017 17:16:05 GMT -8
I have a sickness and the symptom is that I keep making flags, so here's some futuristic NEA flags I've cooked up. Flag of the Alliance Army insignia Medical corps insignia Special forces/research corps insignia (you get the picture, only the white emblem in the wreath changes) Flag for Tower, though I'm not super happy with it just yet. Maybe I'll just fall back to my red-winged blackbird flag... e: I like this one a lot better. Anyway, I put a bunch here, including some of what I hope are futuristic flags for other planets. e2: I'm quite pleased with these two, and and since I mentioned them here's my flags for two related, common and conspicuous American birds: grackle and red-winged blackbird.
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Post by Gravedust on May 12, 2017 19:32:16 GMT -8
Ooh wow. Those are really cool.
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Post by Abyssal Squid on May 14, 2017 20:13:20 GMT -8
There's not a whole lot of ~lore~ to work with so I just made stuff that looked cool instead of anything symbolic, but since it's the New Earth Alliance I have to assume they're allied against someone. And not just space monsters. So I came up with the Federation of Free Stars because I can't stop: I imagine that if the Federation isn't effectively the same sort of entity as the Alliance, then they're probably more like space pirates, taking advantage of the chaos caused by geist attacks to conduct operations of their own. With the black and yellow, they're probably libertarians. :V And an unaffiliated flag that uses Papua New Guinea's bird of paradise emblem and has a fictional constellation because why not:
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