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Petals of Carbon Steel -- You're a Pilot, Not an Ace. Try your best.

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Wiadi said:
Given this, and given that death is apparently on the table, could you clarify what that outcome would structurally mean for the quest? Assuming it does specifically turn out to be death rather than maiming, I mean. Do we just end there, or get assigned a new PC, or (as Alectai appears to be theorizing) automatically burn a Chance to instead not die, or what?
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Sorry, I do not typically give away the consequences of voting options in advance. The way you burn an Extra Chance here is to take a third voting option, though.
 
Gazetteer said:
Sorry, I do not typically give away the consequences of voting options in advance. The way you burn an Extra Chance here is to take a third voting option, though.
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Fair. Mostly just asking because I thought the out-of-universe nature of questions like "will the quest continue" might make a sufficient difference. Would generalizing it to just that - "if we die, will the quest terminate or continue in some unrevealed form?" - be acceptably vague?

Basically my reasoning is that a "maybe" there is functionally equivalent to saying the quest terminates on death, in that I can't really imagine a world where we're collectively willing to take that risk, so if the quest will continue then all revealing that does is expand the viable pool of votes.

Obviously your call in the end though, so I'll drop the subject if that's still too much to give away.
 
So, some analysis of the Extra Chance mechanic: we have 3. There will be the ability to get them back. This is called out as rare, not impossible nor unique. We can thus assume that, over the course of the quest, there is a reasonable chance that we will get to spend at least 5 Extra Chances.

Hoarding Extra Chances is not like saving your megalixirs in a Final Fantasy game: any that we end the story with are straight-up wasted, not just because they were a tool we didn't use and didn't need, but because they were not used to defray consequences that we could have used.

Assuming this quest is roughly comparable to the last one in terms of length, we can reasonably spend 1 Extra Chance/10 updates, and not all updates are going to be needing a vote or certainly not needing an Extra Chance. We got through four updates without even potentially spending one, after all.

The bar to spend an Extra Chance should be, roughly, "is this in the most concerning 10% of the quest?"

I think we can safely say "the unexpected enemy ace in a prototype mecha that is obliterating our squads and mothership" is at least a contender for that. Thus, I am for spending an Extra Chance here, even more than I am for any specific plan.

I want to see this plan, though:

[ ] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
[ ] The damages to your surviving machines are less serious than you'd feared
[ ] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

We score some blow on the BS super-mecha, have our cast not completely harrowed, and can still fight.
 
[ ] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
[ ] The damages to your surviving machines are less serious than you'd feared

This is critical, especially if we want to retain any combat capacity to fulfill mission objectives. (Sink the damn ship!)

[ ] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

This I think is less critical. Our goal is to capture it. Though if the pilot is a fanatic we are screwed.
 
Right, so I'm going to do some campaigning for an action here.
[ ] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

So, let's not downplay what situation we are in here. Kana is a regular pilot, not an ace. Gloria; J6; Ito to a lesser extent, those were all aces, capable of more or less singlehandedly changing the course of an otherwise equal battle. We don't do that.

That thing we're fighting right now? That's not an Ace either. Salimus is testpilot who was forced into the real thing by unfortunate circumstances, AKA a Soldamned protagonist. I would not be surprised if at the end of this Quest he had the second highest onscreen bodycount of any character, only beaten by Mosi and her actual warcrimes. That unnamed mech is going to be wrecking havoc amongst our poor rebels like a scythe through wheat, and I will not let it do so unopposed!

I am going to pull up a quote from Titanium:
Gazetteer said:
Three times, you voted to mitigate damage done to the Rose or avoid failing objectives by voting for enemies to escape at least somewhat intact. The first of these was the second skirmish where Daystar and J6 were introduced—that vote resulted in the raiding fleet tracking the Rose and the Lily, a battle in which a pilot lost his life. The second time was in that very battle against the raiding fleet—it survived intact, was not spent in the battle of Iapetus, and remerges again to harry you here, accompanying the survivors of Iapetus, whom you also voted to have escape.

Obviously, you did not pick wrong, but this was always a choice that was going to come back to bite you somehow.
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While I do not regret our votes in Titanium (Owusu's right here with us, after all), I am not going to let the enemy come out undented this time. Last time we consequently prioritised defence (of non-Rose ships) over attack, which as a chain of various ultimately lead to J6's death.

Kana might be a faceless pilot in the series of Petals, but by the Profane Empress, she is not going to be powerless!

Raiseth said:
Even if damaging it makes it easier to fight it later,
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Nono, the goal of damaging the superprototype is not to make it easier to fight. Kana is a mook and Sir Salimus is a hero unit. No way in hell we're fighting that.

The reason to damage that monster is to make it easier for us and our allies to disengage immediately once it shows up again, so we hopefully avoid having, lemme count, 1-2-3-4 MIA pilots in the span of like half an update.

This is not a one-time encounter, and I will not be feeding that thing allies at a sustained rate if I can help it. And to do that, we need to try and kick its teeth in.

Raiseth said:
And if we die, well, we could even get a (practically nonexistent) chance to play as Owusu!
Come on, Omegahugger, I know you wanna.
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... You know, trying to entice me with the prospect of Owusu as the protagonist would probably work better if it wasn't coupled to an argument of why we should kill our protagonist.

Allies are safer than player characters, SV is more willing to self-sacrifice than sacrifice others as a general rule.
 
Omegahugger said:
You know, trying to entice me with the prospect of Owusu as the protagonist would probably work better if it wasn't coupled to an argument of why we should kill our protagonist.

Allies are safer than player characters, SV is more willing to self-sacrifice than sacrifice others as a general rule.
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... Dammit!
My elaborate scheme to kill Owusu is foiled!

Next time, Omegahugger, next time.
 
[X] Plan Spite
- [X] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed
- [X] You are not seriously injured or killed
- [X] The Esther Strova isn't seriously damaged
 
[ ] Plan Scars Are Cool.
Allies, Ship, and Spite.

[ ] Plan One Protagonist, One Ship, and One Spiteful Shot
-[ ] You are not seriously injured or killed
-[ ] The Esther Strova isn't seriously damaged
-[ ] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

Ourselves, our ship, and that mecha. And honestly, I hate to say this, but @Tayta Malikai has a point. I can't keep track of everyone as it stands. :(

I'm going to vote for one of these two, but probably the latter. Why spend a EC? An incremental improvement now compounds over time. Yes, we need one for the Critical moment(s), but one now will save us from dying from a million papercuts later.

The downside with this plan is that our mecha complement is going to be *devastated*, but that's something I'm willing to risk, for now.
 
[X] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
[X] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

I am not losing half of the supporting cast on the first mission. And any damage we do to the enemy mecha is crucial to keep it on the back-foot going forward. Half the problems the Rose had in the first quest were due to damage we took piling up over time.
 
[x] Plan Acquire Pirate Eyepatch
- [x] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
- [x] The damages to your surviving machines are less serious than you'd feared
- [x] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed
 
[X] Plan Scarred and Maimed
-[X] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
-[X] The Esther Strova isn't seriously damaged
 
[x] Plan Acquire Pirate Eyepatch
- [x] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
- [x] The damages to your surviving machines are less serious than you'd feared
- [x] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed
 
serra2 said:
[X] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
[X] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

I am not losing half of the supporting cast on the first mission. And any damage we do to the enemy mecha is crucial to keep it on the back-foot going forward. Half the problems the Rose had in the first quest were due to damage we took piling up over time.
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Plan voting.
 
[] Plan Close Shave
-[] The Esther Strova isn't seriously damaged
-[] You are not seriously injured or killed

We're more likely to get nerve damage and concussions than an eyepatch.
 
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[X] Plan Scars Are Cool.
-[X] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
-[X] The Esther Strova isn't seriously damaged
-[X] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

The Esther Strova remaining relatively intact is something I'm less attached to compared to the other options, and I actually want Kana to get a cool amputation or something.

I'd also be totally down for this quest instead becoming a sitcom of Kana and Azara going through lengthy recovery periods. Imagine: Kana has been stuck in the same room as Azara for three weeks, and Azara hasn't stopped being annoyingly upbeat and perky for a single minute of it. It would be Kana's own personal Hell. :V

Edit: The vote is being split between Plan Scars Are Cool and the similar Plan Acquire Pirate Eyepatch in a manner that means neither will win out over a third plan that has greater differences from them. Please vote for Plan Acquire Pirate Eyepatch instead of my plan. The plan is remaining in this post because it is defining the plan for the vote tally system, but I have spoken to Gazetteer and my vote is being subtracted from the total.
 
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I would caution people against assuming "killed or seriously injured" only means a cool scar and will not cost you something meaningful.

13th Fleet said:
[X] Plan Scars Are Cool.
-[X] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
-[X] The Esther Strova isn't seriously damaged
-[X] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed

[X] Plan Acquire Pirate Eyepatch

The Esther Strova remaining relatively intact is something I'm less attached to compared to the other options, and I actually want Kana to get a cool amputation or something.

I'd also be totally down for this quest instead becoming a sitcom of Kana and Azara going through lengthy recovery periods. Imagine: Kana has been stuck in the same room as Azara for three weeks, and Azara hasn't stopped being annoyingly upbeat and perky for a single minute of it. It would be Kana's own personal Hell. :V
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It seems like you're voting for two plans here, instead of just one. Am I misunderstanding?
 
Gazetteer said:
I would caution people against assuming "killed or seriously injured" only means a cool scar and will not cost you something meaningful.
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I've always thought that living with two kidneys is luxurious and downright decadent. :V

Look, Gazetteer. Fair is fair, you've warned us. Now, step aside so we can maim ourselves for the greater good.

Like, if this is coming as a surprise to you, I don't know what to say.
 
Raiseth said:
I've always thought that living with two kidneys is luxurious and downright decadent. :V

Look, Gazetteer. Fair is fair, you've warned us. Now, step aside so we can maim ourselves for the greater good.

Like, if this is coming as a surprise to you, I don't know what to say.
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Don't worry, I don't include options I can't live with people taking.
 
Gazetteer said:
I would caution people against assuming "killed or seriously injured" only means a cool scar and will not cost you something meaningful.

It seems like you're voting for two plans here, instead of just one. Am I misunderstanding?
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Yeah, losing a limb would be a pretty major in-story thing, likely taking Kana out of action for months at least if not permanently. I still am totally down with it.

And yes, I am, because I like my plan more but I'm fine with either winning.
 
[x] Plan Acquire Pirate Eyepatch
- [x] You don't lose as many people as you'd feared
- [x] The damages to your surviving machines are less serious than you'd feared
- [x] The enemy mecha doesn't escape unscathed
 
[] Plan Scarred and Maimed

Edit: Changed vote

I'm not fond of the idea of using an Extra Chance on a plan that doesn't include saving ourselves from injury. If it ends up being extremely serious we could be forced to blow 2 of our 3 Extra Chances on the first fight, which is not ideal.
Inaccurate - we can't use an extra chance after the fact it seems.
 
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