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Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

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memoryofglory said:
Is it just as dangerous to the choppers? Simon's of the opinion that it is, but I'm not seeing his logic? We're dealing with gravity magic here, Jupiter didn't bring down the whole police station when she crushed the whole room of cops down to the floor, so I'm really not convinced it's as indiscriminate as they claim it is. As long as she doesn't roll exceptionally poorly I'm not seeing why it should hurt the helicopters.
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The big issue is area of effect. It's fairly easy for Makoto to define a large, static volume around the cops that will cause the cops to fall down without encompassing the whole building. Buildings have a certain amount of margin of safety built in, too, so it's plausible to push the cops against the floor hard enough that they go down but not so hard that the floor itself collapses under their own weight and its too.

The rockets are coming in from many angles and directions, so Makoto will need to either act really fast to define "gravity zones" capable of destroying the missiles and keep her head on a swivel and fail badly if she misses a catch (she doesn't have Raising Heart acting as a radar intercept officer, for instance)... Or Makoto will need to cast a very wide net, such that no rocket can reach the helicopters without passing through it and being vigorously smashed to pieces or hurtled to the ground with far more force than it can compensate for with its engines.

The latter is where it becomes hard to catch all rockets (when they can come from any direction against any helicopter) without endangering the helicopters (who need to be completely surrounded with dangerous gravity zones they can't necessarily see).

The idea makes me nervous, not gonna lie.
 
Simon_Jester said:
The big issue is area of effect. It's fairly easy for Makoto to define a large, static volume around the cops that will cause the cops to fall down without encompassing the whole building. Buildings have a certain amount of margin of safety built in, too, so it's plausible to push the cops against the floor hard enough that they go down but not so hard that the floor itself collapses under their own weight and its too.

The rockets are coming in from many angles and directions, so Makoto will need to either act really fast to define "gravity zones" capable of destroying the missiles and keep her head on a swivel and fail badly if she misses a catch (she doesn't have Raising Heart acting as a radar intercept officer, for instance)... Or Makoto will need to cast a very wide net, such that no rocket can reach the helicopters without passing through it and being vigorously smashed to pieces or hurtled to the ground with far more force than it can compensate for with its engines.

The latter is where it becomes hard to catch all rockets (when they can come from any direction against any helicopter) without endangering the helicopters (who need to be completely surrounded with dangerous gravity zones they can't necessarily see).

The idea makes me nervous, not gonna lie.
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I mean, if there's that many rockets coming in from that many directions I'm not sure how Moon managed to block most of them with her face when she was doing that absurd teleport maneuver. Even if Jupiter can't block all of them she might be able to block enough from one direction that the choppers can try shooting some down themselves, or if she doesn't think it's safe enough to play defense she can try attacking the launch sites.

I'm not saying she'd be as good as Nanoha, but I'm not sure why we're expecting perfection on this particular front of the battle? It'll suck if some choppers go down, but people have been getting hurt all over the place, we can't perfectly protect everyone and I'm not sure why these pilots deserve more consideration than random gate guard #12.
 
Despite my worries about Jupiter's options for handling the rockets, it'd be worse to not handle them at all. Putting Out Fires doesn't handle them at all, so I'm tossing in an approval vote for the next-most-voted plan that does.
 
memoryofglory said:
I mean, if there's that many rockets coming in from that many directions I'm not sure how Moon managed to block most of them with her face when she was doing that absurd teleport maneuver. Even if Jupiter can't block all of them she might be able to block enough from one direction that the choppers can try shooting some down themselves, or if she doesn't think it's safe enough to play defense she can try attacking the launch sites.

I'm not saying she'd be as good as Nanoha, but I'm not sure why we're expecting perfection on this particular front of the battle? It'll suck if some choppers go down, but people have been getting hurt all over the place, we can't perfectly protect everyone and I'm not sure why these pilots deserve more consideration than random gate guard #12.
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At the time, the rockets were being limited only to Senshi and/or magic things in the sky. Nakatomi decided to go back to the original plan when he noticed that shooting down the flares wasn't working because Sailor Moon caused the rockets to automatically target her with her teleportation.
Sadly, that method is no longer reliable by virtue of shifting targeting priorities.
 
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Anyway, despite the vast proliferation of plans it seems like no one has yet proposed what I would consider the obvious one, which is Plan Bring Venus Back except we call the Queensguard for help rather then an archeologist:

[X] Plan Bring Venus Back + Queensguard
-[X] Sailor Moon: Try to figure out where the god-binding ritual is coming from.
-[X] Sailor Mars: Call For Support: Mercury and the Outers
-[X] Sailor Venus: Try to do something about the prisoner uprising.
-[X] Sailor Jupiter: Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis, West.
-[X] Nanoha: Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.

[X] Plan Bring Venus Back, Jupiter on Rockets
[X] Plan Mars Command
[X] Plan: You know what you doing, take off every zig!
[X] Plan Moon Jail, Nanoha Back-Up
[X] Plan Bring Venus Back
[x] Plan Putting Out Fires + Reinforcements
[X] Plan Bring Venus Back, West can Hold
 
Skelm said:
I really do not understand the plans that prioritize calling Yuuno over the Queensguard
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Skelm said:
Anyway, despite the vast proliferation of plans it seems like no one has yet proposed what I would consider the obvious one, which is Plan Bring Venus Back except we call the Queensguard for help rather then an archeologist:

[X] Plan Bring Venus Back + Queensguard
-[X] Sailor Moon: Try to figure out where the god-binding ritual is coming from.
-[X] Sailor Mars: Call For Support: Mercury and the Outers
-[X] Sailor Venus: Try to do something about the prisoner uprising.
-[X] Sailor Jupiter: Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis, West.
-[X] Nanoha: Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.

[X] Plan Bring Venus Back, Jupiter on Rockets
[X] Plan Mars Command
[X] Plan: You know what you doing, take off every zig!
[X] Plan Moon Jail, Nanoha Back-Up
[X] Plan Bring Venus Back
[x] Plan Putting Out Fires + Reinforcements
[X] Plan Bring Venus Back, West can Hold
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Because while it's been awhile and it may be hard to remember, we did have valid reasons for letting them stay in bed. Yuuno is someone who can help with the Jewel Seed if there's complications, help fight with his barrier magic, and doesn't have any particular reason he needs his rest tonight more than anyone normally does.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
One consistent pattern we've seen is that aggressive use of rapid teleport spam in a combat or combat-adjacent situation is disorienting and takes a psychological toll on Usagi- and Usagi's had a lot more opportunity to get used to it than any of the other girls.
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Fair!

How about teleporting Venus and Nanoha to their destinations (and back?) before going back to the default options, since that would save about half a combat turns worth of Senshi time even accounting for Usage having to focus?
 
After much thought and deliberation and considering this even has taken 16 parts of ever increasing levels of absolute clusterfuck, I present:

[X] Plan LEEEROOOOOOY JEENKIIIIINS!
-[X] Stop Evading
-[X] Nanoha Takamachi: Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
-[X] Sailor Mars: Try to do something about the prisoner uprising.
-[X] Sailor Venus: Try to find where the Onogoro Troops came from.
-[X] Sailor Moon: Violently interfere with man Onogoro attack axis (North)
-[X] Sailor Jupiter: Try to do something about the rockets.

Honestly, I'm okay with letting Dr. Sakurai cook, she's likely going to be Mama Bear-ing all over the poor bastard who broke in at the western side of the complex because that's where Chris got shish-kebab'd. Also, Jupiter actually *can* do something about the rockets:
Lunaryon said:
…generates a massive field of electromagical interference, screwing with the kinds of senses that are required for spatial magics of nearly all kinds.
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True, this spell is supposedly only useable for shutting down teleporters, but that description tells me it should fuck up the senses of a magically guided missile just as well.

Alright chums! Let's do this!
 
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memoryofglory said:
I mean, if there's that many rockets coming in from that many directions I'm not sure how Moon managed to block most of them with her face when she was doing that absurd teleport maneuver.
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In Round 2 the rockets were mostly in "chase the most magical thing in the sky" mode, and Usagi was inadvertently outshining the flares by that specific metric. She didn't actually need to go out of her way to block the rockets; they came to her, and she kept moving around so much that they were zig-zagging all over the sky trying to catch her.

The helicopters are about as magical as a pile of cow dung, so the "most magical thing in the sky" mode would probably look right past them. But the helicopters are susceptible to being targeted by the "red sparks" enchantment that has also been used against (at least) Minako, Genjuro, and Kintaro the oni. And probably some other people and things.

Even if Jupiter can't block all of them she might be able to block enough from one direction that the choppers can try shooting some down themselves, or if she doesn't think it's safe enough to play defense she can try attacking the launch sites.
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The helicopters definitely cannot shoot down rockets in midflight. Cobra gunships don't carry anything that could plausibly do that.

I'm not saying she'd be as good as Nanoha, but I'm not sure why we're expecting perfection on this particular front of the battle? It'll suck if some choppers go down, but people have been getting hurt all over the place, we can't perfectly protect everyone and I'm not sure why these pilots deserve more consideration than random gate guard #12.
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The big issue is that there's only eight of them and they're big conspicuous targets, which as a minor consideration also cause significant problems if they crash on something. There's a reason attack helicopters don't normally operate this close to SAM sites, and it's not because militaries consider a pilot's life several times more valuable than an infantryman. It's because as a tactical thing, it just doesn't go well; you tend to lose the helicopters without making much of a dent in the enemy.

Ratato said:
Fair!

How about teleporting Venus and Nanoha to their destinations (and back?) before going back to the default options, since that would save about half a combat turns worth of Senshi time even accounting for Usage having to focus?
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I dunno. I really don't know. So much starts depending on split-minute timing and what has to be taken care of in what order and all that.

If we start trying to split hairs like this, it's going to become mechanically necessary to have precise minute-by-minute timelines of the battle and very careful reckoning of how long things take to happen and all kinds of stuff that would greatly amplify the complexity of the game in exchange for providing this new avenue for "optimization" through players trying to think of every conceivable course of action and picking the 'best' one and hoping they didn't overlook anything obvious that winds up canceling out their hard work.

There's a reason why the consistent pattern for the Senshi's tactical behavior has been "players vote on broad-strokes priorities and details are implemented by the girls on the ground." Because trying to work out blow-by-blow "do this so you can fit three tasks in one round!" votes and their implications sounds like a losing game to me.
 
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Ratato said:
Fair!

How about teleporting Venus and Nanoha to their destinations (and back?) before going back to the default options, since that would save about half a combat turns worth of Senshi time even accounting for Usage having to focus?
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I mean, would Nanoha save much time teleporting? She's already the fastest fighter with the longest engagement range here, this is like the difference between 10 seconds and 30 seconds? And while Venus isn't quite as fast she's still running fast enough to keep up with an object flying at 150mph, she can get where she needs to go pretty damn quick herself.

Simon_Jester said:
In Round 2 the rockets were mostly in "chase the most magical thing in the sky" mode, and Usagi was inadvertently outshining the flares by that specific metric. She didn't actually need to go out of her way to block the rockets; they came to her, and she kept moving around so much that they were zig-zagging all over the sky trying to catch her.

The helicopters are about as magical as a pile of cow dung, so the "most magical thing in the sky" mode would probably look right past them. But the helicopters are susceptible to being targeted by the "red sparks" enchantment that has also been used against (at least) Minako, Genjuro, and Kintaro the oni. And probably some other people and things.

The helicopters definitely cannot shoot down rockets in midflight. Cobra gunships don't carry anything that could plausibly do that.

The big issue is that there's only eight of them and they're big conspicuous targets, which as a minor consideration also cause significant problems if they crash on something. There's a reason attack helicopters don't normally operate this close to SAM sites, and it's not because militaries consider a pilot's life several times more valuable than an infantryman. It's because as a tactical thing, it just doesn't go well; you tend to lose the helicopters without making much of a dent in the enemy.

I dunno. I really don't know. So much starts depending on split-minute timing and what has to be taken care of in what order and all that.

If we start trying to split hairs like this, it's going to become mechanically necessary to have precise minute-by-minute timelines of the battle and very careful reckoning of how long things take to happen and all kinds of stuff that would greatly amplify the complexity of the game in exchange for providing this new avenue for "optimization" through players trying to think of every conceivable course of action and picking the 'best' one and hoping they didn't overlook anything obvious that winds up canceling out their hard work.

There's a reason why the consistent pattern for the Senshi's tactical behavior has been "players vote on broad-strokes priorities and details are implemented by the girls on the ground." Because trying to work out blow-by-blow "do this so you can fit three tasks in one round!" votes and their implications sounds like a losing game to me.
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Good to know. Even with the dangers of helicopter crashes though, both sides have been shooting heavy ordinance down the street at each other this entire time, so I'm not sure how much I care about additional collateral damage at this point? Things are already FUBAR there, I'm willing to risk a bit more if it actually frees up some resources to win this thing.
 
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memoryofglory said:
Because while it's been awhile and it may be hard to remember, we did have valid reasons for letting them stay in bed. Yuuno is someone who can help with the Jewel Seed if there's complications, help fight with his barrier magic, and doesn't have any particular reason he needs his rest tonight more than anyone normally does.
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It may be hard to remember, but I agreed with that decision at the time! But we were clearly overconfident and we are running into the limits of the number of people we brought and it's time to admit we were wrong.

Regardless though, Yunno ain't gonna do shit here. He's an archaeologist, not a soldier.
 
Skelm said:
It may be hard to remember, but I agreed with that decision at the time! But we were clearly overconfident and we are running into the limits of the number of people we brought and it's time to admit we were wrong.

Regardless though, Yunno ain't gonna do shit here. He's an archaeologist, not a soldier.
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I'm not expecting him to throw back waves of enemies, but you might as well call Indian Jones 'just an archaeologist.' The kid can absolutely hold his own in a fight. And I really don't think things are bad enough that we need to call in everyone, just because we're not one-sidedly winning doesn't mean this is a disaster we need to hit all our panic buttons to fix.
 
Fuck—Wait. Hold on. Are we all stupid? The binding ritual that Onogoro is using against us. How are the ropes and tags and shit actually physically getting to us from whatever storage facility they're kept in? If the answer is "some kind of teleportation magic", I'm gonna lose it.

We literally have had a spell that prevents teleporting into or out of an area this WHOLE TIME. :facepalm:
 
...You know, I never thought of that.

It wouldn't really help Makoto if she couldn't stay in "electro" mode a while, and the area of effect is limited enough that I don't think she can cover the whole MCAT compound in it, but if it wouldn't work there would probably have to be a good reason.

There's some possibility that the concept of 'teleportation' gets finessed here, or that there's some kind of power judo involved.
 
memoryofglory said:
I'm not expecting him to throw back waves of enemies, but you might as well call Indian Jones 'just an archaeologist.' The kid can absolutely hold his own in a fight. And I really don't think things are bad enough that we need to call in everyone, just because we're not one-sidedly winning doesn't mean this is a disaster we need to hit all our panic buttons to fix.
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Remember though, he's got a trait called Killer Instinct of a Rutabega. It failed to activate in a flashback in Under A Rainbow Sky: Part 7. I don't know exactly what it'll do, but I imagine he'd be best in a purely defensive role when the enemy is people.


zernoc56 said:
Fuck—Wait. Hold on. Are we all stupid? The binding ritual that Onogoro is using against us. How are the ropes and tags and shit actually physically getting to us from whatever storage facility they're kept in? If the answer is "some kind of teleportation magic", I'm gonna lose it.

We literally have had a spell that prevents teleporting into or out of an area this WHOLE TIME. :facepalm:
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... Fuck, is it really that simple?

There are ways past Jupiter's teleport blocker, Ryuuga's curse managed to activate during the mall raid despite Jupiter having used the technique recently, but it is absolutely worth trying. Prefereably when the helicopters are out of potential EMP range.
 
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Ekzentric Lohner said:
Remember though, he's got a trait called Killer Instinct of a Rutabega. It failed to activate in a flashback in Under A Rainbow Sky: Part 7. I don't know exactly what it'll do, but I imagine he'd be best in a purely defensive role when the enemy is people.



... Fuck, is it really that simple?

There are ways past Jupiter's teleport blocker, Ryuuga's curse managed to activate during the mall raid despite Jupiter having used the technique recently, but it is absolutely worth trying. Prefereably when the helicopters are out of potential EMP range.
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I'd been thinking about the spell since I brought it up in my plan-post, thinking it might work on the rocket guidance spells, both the internal senses of the rockets themselves and the 'target designator' spell, as I figure they fall under "the kinds of senses that are required for spatial magics of nearly all kinds", then I really got thinking.
 
Can we please vote for anything but Putting out fires? It's pretty much the worst plan out of all this mess, and it seems to be close to winning. Two people on the Jewel Seeds when that is literally what Nanoha does, not calling for help when it would cost us nothing... We really need to consolidate, somehow, there's a dozen plans with one or two votes each, some virtually identical. This is messy.
 
Ekzentric Lohner said:
Remember though, he's got a trait called Killer Instinct of a Rutabega. It failed to activate in a flashback in Under A Rainbow Sky: Part 7. I don't know exactly what it'll do, but I imagine he'd be best in a purely defensive role when the enemy is people.
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I mean, I see that as an absolute win? Again, I'm not expecting him to turn the tide of the battle, but he's a useful guy with powerful magic who isn't sleeping off an international trip that involved storming a major Oblivion base or something.
 
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Throwing down the various plans that I support ATM

[X] Plan: Snag and Crush
- [X] Drop Evasive
- [X] [Nanoha] Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
-- [X] Order Helicopters to retreat
- [X] [Venus] Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
- [X] [Moon] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (West)
- [X] [Jupiter] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (West)
- [X] [Mars] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (Prison)

[X] Plan: Quiet All Fronts
- [X] Drop Evasive
- [X] [Nanoha] Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
-- [X] Order Helicopters to retreat
- [X] [Venus] Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
- [X] [Moon] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (North)
- [X] [Jupiter] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (West)
- [X] [Mars] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (Prison)

[X] Plan: Hammer and Blade
- [X] Drop Evasive
- [X] [Nanoha] Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
-- [X] Order Helicopters to retreat
- [X] [Venus] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (West)
- [X] [Moon] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (Prison)
- [X] [Jupiter] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (West)
- [X] [Mars] Try to figure out where the god-binding ritual is coming from.


[x] Plan Putting Out Fires

[X] Plan No Air Support, Moon Strike

[X] Plan Overwhelming Force

[X] Plan Slow and Steady

[X] Plan Prioritize Jewel Seed and binders.
 
Well, my plan also has Venus going looking for what I hope is the staging area/command center for the IMO here. "Where the Onogoro troops came from" It can't be that far, as it's in the area affected by the magic WP flares. Pretty sure I remember theres a switchboard operator there that's facilitating communication between the front lines and the ritual circles. Why go looking for 12+ locations that all need to be hit, when there's one location that is the lynchpin for all those other locations? The ritual people can't do jack or shit if nobody lets them know they have a target.

So, I'm banking on either Jupiter flooding the area with electromagical noise that stops the actual physical ropes from appearing to grab the Senshi as well as blinding the rockets magic guidance spells, or Venus finding a nice stationary target for some Cobra attack helicopters.
 
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Skelm said:
They absolutely do not. 12 is how many locations they need intact, not the amount we need to disable.
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Sure, okay. But we do know they have more than twelve ritual sites. So, find and hit multiple locations, or find and hit one location that makes all those ritual circles effectively useless? Work smarter, not harder.
 
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