Heh, yeah, was just trying to figure out what might be visible on the outside as far as weapons go - "no missiles, but plenty of small gatling cannons and a big-ass railgun". Then just slap on the right number of gauge increasers and etc.
Whatever we make, ideally, it should never have to land. That means an infinite power source if at all possible. Maybe solar powered? I'd like something that can literally stay floating all night while we sleep and then keep travelling all day. If we're making this, I don't want to land unless we're doing it for resources or for Surge-audience. Maybe not even then, leave it hovering high above while we personally teleport down.
So, infinity power source is the main thing I want in our aircraft, but if we can manage it, some kind of cloaking effect would be good too. We probably don't need to worry about visual too much, but I'm a little worried some Inspired will end up being able to track us by our exotic energy signature or something...
Whatever we make, ideally, it should never have to land. That means an infinite power source if at all possible. Maybe solar powered? I'd like something that can literally stay floating all night while we sleep and then keep travelling all day. If we're making this, I don't want to land unless we're doing it for resources or for Surge-audience. Maybe not even then, leave it hovering high above while we personally teleport down.
So, infinity power source is the main thing I want in our aircraft, but if we can manage it, some kind of cloaking effect would be good too. We probably don't need to worry about visual too much, but I'm a little worried some Inspired will end up being able to track us by our exotic energy signature or something...
Fusion reactors, railguns... I think you guys might be getting a bit ahead of yourselves here. First we should decide how soon we need our flying base, i.e. within the next few days/weeks/months/years. Then we need to take inventory, see what we have and what we can get on short notice, where we can get stuff, where the people are to power our surges, etc. Then we need to actually acquire those resources, and then we can start working on our flying base.
I think that you're expecting a much larger vehicle than I am. I'm thinking of something about the size of a big dump truck. Nothing that'd take a significant amount of time to move through a portal. Semi with shipping container at the absolute maximum, likely much smaller.
I was thinking more of a mobile home. Maybe a couple of wagons. Honestly, I was considering making Master Payne's Circus of Adventure, but I don't think we'd be able to find enough people to run a circus.
The main reason I want a land vehicle is because making this is going to be like designing the SR-71, from the sound of it. We're going to be reaching the cutting edge of Inspired technology, finding it's not far enough, and going beyond it.
This looks like such a fun quest! I didn't know we could modify and insert our own stuff into voting though?? Also, am I completely misunderstanding the setting? Because I don't see how we can get the resources and means for a flying fortress any time in the foreseeable future, so I'm confused as to why we're making the vote now, instead of planning it for later.
Yep, write-ins are a thing. It'd be boring if the only options were the ones the QM could come up with - this lets us apply much more creativity than just a single writer could manage.
Also, am I completely misunderstanding the setting? Because I don't see how we can get the resources and means for a flying fortress any time in the foreseeable future, so I'm confused as to why we're making the vote now, instead of planning it for later.
You're correct that we can't build it immediately, and we don't at all expect it to get built in the next update. However, that doesn't mean we can't start voting for it. A few reasons. First, it's a long-term plan, so we need to get started early. Also, some variations on the "flying fortress" idea can be pursued incrementally; for example, a fortress that's more of a cluster of small buildings flying in formation can be built one building at a time. Finally, we need some feedback re: feasibility from our Inspiration before we can really get started looking for resources, so we need to present it as part of a vote to promote it to an IC idea.
@Vebyast thanks for the info! I'm...pretty new to this 'actually participating' thing, haha. I think I'll leave the actual planning to you experienced folk. But I am 150% on board for a flying fortress, so
Nah dude. The thing just looks that way cause of the giant tree and other plant and animal life that's been living there with no humans and one active caretaker robot for the past few centuries.
Granted, it was definitely less "Fortress" and more "City" back in it's heyday, but it's heyday also included dropping a super-explosion laser turret and robots that could tank artillery and tank shells on a bad day.
Peaceful it was not.
Also, I'm just waiting for some bullshit like "Oh yeah, and only Inspired can hear my accent! Die!" But that might be my shadowrun instincts tingling, cause we're basically neck deep in one of the worst places we can be from the sounds of it with the empowered?
They don't believe it, you know. Fortunately, their agreement was never a requirement. You just need enough of them thinking about the possibility of them changing. When fighting against a stubborn Inspired armed with the thoughts of hundreds of humans and supported by a cooperative gift, reality needs to bring more than casual indifference. You couldn't do this in a city, for instance; artificial structures and expectations would work against you. Reality would have a predefined set of rules and you'd have an exceptionally difficult time fighting them.
You know...now that I reread this, I'm starting to think maybe we should build a traveling circus. I suspect we'd probably be able to subtly warp reality and progress our own projects, under the guise of stage magic. At least, if we design our acts properly.
The key is in forcing them to think of the possibility of the impossible happening, according to this. Even if they think it's mirrors, or an optical illusion, or whatever, they'll still probably think about the possibility of any act we do being real. And that's where we'd be able to get them.
We could always be a traveling solo performer, but having the circus atmosphere could help with getting people in the right mindset. It's supposed to be a place where the unusual or impossible occurs, after all. Plus, we'd probably get fewer issues with muggers. Though maybe more with bandits...
Anyway, it could also be a nice way to smuggle around some enhanced protectors, as well. Using our own Constructs as fellow circus members would probably help with the possibility of them turning on us. It could be a nice way to smuggle materials and parts, as well. Every metal component used in the wagons can theoretically be reclaimed later, meaning we aren't obviously hauling lots of metal everywhere.
This, of course, assumes that circuses, stage magic, and/or traveling performers are things here. Which they may not be. Still, if they are...that begins to look appealing.
We could also build a travelling trade caravan if the circus idea does not pan out. A trade caravan would actually be superior, because we would be able to acquire materials much less conspicuously.
We could also build a travelling trade caravan if the circus idea does not pan out. A trade caravan would actually be superior, because we would be able to acquire materials much less conspicuously.
To some degree, yes. But the materials we could make by abusing our ability to warp reality would probably be superior. And trade caravans are even more likely to get attacked by bandits. On the other hand, that may not be a bad thing, if we're able to defend ourselves effectively. Bandit weapons and armor are often made of metal, after all. And, if we want to go that route, they also have bodies and organs that we could potentially 'repurpose'.
It's also a good way somewhat hide our special abilities, if we do it right.
Another point is that merchant caravans also trade in information, so it would also a good source of HUMINT.
I'm not a fan of the "hiding in plain sight" idea. It worked for Master Payne basically because his circus was a bunch of minor sparks and they kept their heads as far down as they could. The instant they got into something serious they got chewed up and spit out and only Agatha's bullshit got them out with less than 100% casualties. After that they were done. Up until that point they crept through areas without causing trouble and made sure there were no witnesses.
Lorelei, on the opposite extreme, intends to kill the hell out of any Inspired she crosses paths with so she can prove her superiority and jack their stuff. That is not something that Master Payne could have gotten away with; people would quickly realize that Sparks tended to vanish when his circus visited. Furthermore, Inspiration seems to require an audience, so maintaining a low profile may directly conflict with building things. Avoiding activities that would blow our cover would be impossible because the things that give us the most power are powerful because they blow our cover. Even the "mysterious cloaked Inspired with a staff shows up, does insane thing, vanishes" routine would crystallize into an identity eventually.
In other words, while hiding in plain sight might work as an immediate tactic, I don't think it'd suffice for even the medium term. I feel like we're better off going loud, winning through mobility (and being impossible to nail down) and smashing anyone that challenges us until we're strong enough to just declare ourselves to be In Charge.
That's not to say that we shouldn't conceal anything. I was pretty serious about announcing our existence to our parents by dropping our flying fortress on their house, so I'd like to keep our name quiet if nothing else. Probably a lost cause, I doubt there are that many Inspired women around with that color hair, but I still want to try it.
Personally, I'm all for Plan Flying Fortress of DOOM. Mostly because I'll get to stretch the limits of FTD's physics engine visualizing our abomination of a flying machine.
Oh i never inteded it for the long term, just as long we are vulnerable. I don't agree that Lorelei wanta to go around offing other Inspired to get at their stuff. No don't get me wrong, I am not against killing, I am just convinced that we shouldn't see all problems as nails. The are so many creative ways of dealing with enemies, just killing to steal their stuff feels... amateurisch. I mean, there's causing embarasment, ruining reputations, creating spontanious mobs including gratutious pitchforks and torches, rumours, trade wars, ACME anvils, cream pie, and so much more.
And never forget high explosives. There's never enough linear shaped charges and detcord in stories!
Oh i never inteded it for the long term, just as long we are vulnerable. I don't agree that Lorelei wanta to go around offing other Inspired to get at their stuff. No don't get me wrong, I am not against killing, I am just convinced that we shouldn't see all problems as nails. The are so many creative ways of dealing with enemies, just killing to steal their stuff feels... amateurisch. I mean, there's causing embarasment, ruining reputations, creating spontanious mobs including gratutious pitchforks and torches, rumours, trade wars, ACME anvils, cream pie, and so much more.
And never forget high explosives. There's never enough linear shaped charges and detcord in stories!
They will be dead, because she isn´t stupid.
You don´t rob an inspired, let them live and don´t expect them make lots of things/plans that involve them killing you in a lot of very painful ways.
Killing them will prevent them from becomeing a problem later on when we don´t have the time/res, will or all of it do deal with them again, just because we didn´t finish them off the first time (or if we are extra stuipd/inept they are an recurring problem).
You also make sure that their death isn´t up to chance.
oh but if you do it right, you never even have to touch them, because others will decide that your victim has become a danger to others interest. First you reduce their resources, taking what you need, drive them to lash out and when others decide to act, watch the fireworks. Sure sometimes it goes wrong and you have to get more hands on, but remeber there's Inspired and then there's those that hate Inspired and like nothing more than to do them some injury.
[x] You can make no promises, but you can try.
-[x] Can Vincent tell you where their bases are? Might speed things up.
"I can't make any promises, but I can at least try. Do you happen to know where their bases are or where they're likely to gather? It might make things easier for whoever is on the other end."
Vincent shakes his head before you're even halfway finished speaking. At this point, his accent has all-but vanished. You're really not sure why he bothered with it in the first place.
"'East' is the best I can say. They both have workshops in one o' the inner cities, same as every other Inspired in our fair League, but they ain't really bases. Everyone knows the more fortified territory an Inspired can claim as their own, the madder they get. It can't be too difficult to find 'em; their armies are each a thousand strong with plenty of factory warclocks to back 'em up."
While the term isn't one you've heard before, you must admit it's somewhat better than just referring to all automatons as 'clockwork.' Not all clockwork creations are capable of independent movement. Still, what do they call the others? Peaceclocks? No, that just sounds moronic.
And for something "everyone knows," the part about territory is news to you. You're inclined to ignore it.
[x] Thank Vincent for his time.
You get to your feet and immediately have to squash an instinctive curtsy. You're wearing trousers right now; how are you supposed to curtsy without even a small skirt? It just wouldn't work even if it would be in character, which you're not sure it would. Bowing your head will just have to do.
"Well, either way, you've been a much bigger help than I expected. Thank you for your time."
Vincent gives you a sheepish smile and gets to his feet. After wiping his hands on his apron, he appears to hesitate before clasping both hands behind his back.
"Happy to help. Good night, Miss...?"
You give him an apologetic smile and shake your head.
"I must apologize; I don't believe it's a good idea for us to get better acquainted. I travel too much to maintain effective relationships with others."
Vincent's monstrously large eyebrows rise to join his hairline.
"You can never have too many friends."
You shake your head, still carefully maintaining your polite smile.
"I most certainly canwhen I'm risking my life on a weekly basis. Friends can only die once while concern and regret are eternal."
Turning on one heel and walking away should've been enough to let you have the last word, especially with the volume necessary to shout across the room. That doesn't seem to stop the determined innkeeper, who seems to have completely lost his 'accent.'
"That really isn't a healthy mindset!"
It is when a powerless uninspired is more likely to be a victim than a player.
"Good night, Vincent."
-[x] Go to bed.
[X] Get a sandwich or something for the road and depart.
-[x] Take care of your horse, too.
Vincent isn't maintaining the inn the following morning. Instead, you're faced with a black-haired dwarf who looks nothing like his so-called "brother." No matter how hard you try, you can't find any features common to each of them. At least none of the other customers object, and unless a half-dozen people were planted just to avoid suspicions, you're willing to acknowledge the idea of adoption or the meddling of Inspired.
Either way, Jeremiah is happy to give you something for the road. It's plain fare, certainly, but it's warm and thus automatically an improvement over your usual rations.
[X] Start building yourself a mobile fortress. Flying would be ideal, but crawling would be a good way to get started.
-[x] You're going to need parts for this. Conveniently, there are a couple of morons nearby with enough material to make poor choices. "Someone important", then, is you.
-[x] Find out where your targets are and head for one of them.
--[X] If you didn't get anything from Vincent, head back to the site of yesterday's battle to get information and maybe (if you're lucky) materials for another Surge.
-[X] Be careful. Keep an eye out, scout using high-altitude linked portals, etc. Use Skybreaker to make sure nobody can follow you, change direction so nobody can predict your course, etc. Surprise isn't totally necessary but it'd be very useful.
You exit Stehauslen by its westernmost gate, wrinkling your nose as you pass over the tar-black moat surrounding the town. It may not smell any worse than the rest of the city, true, but does anyone care about what that has to be doing to any natural sources of water in the city proper? You weren't even sure it was possible for water to turn that color without liberal use of dye.
After looping back to the east and getting a half-hour of distance between you and Stehauslen, you unwrap Skybreaker and begin some basic tests with it. Sure, you could keep all the batteries filled in case of an emergency, but that seems like a waste of perfectly good time and power generation.
Strangely enough, it seems Skybreaker's rifts will always be opened either horizontally or vertically, never diagonally no matter how you swipe Skybreaker. They'll also always open to face you, but you knew that part.
Rifts aren't perfect spheres; instead, they seem to be closer in shape to your own eyes, or ovals with two pointed ends. You hope you can change that at some point. When a rift is about to close, the edges begin to wobble precariously before the entire thing snaps shut. A long stick you'd held in one isn't cut in half like you'd expected, but crushed until the two ends separated.
Size has arguably the largest effect on power with the way you plan on using it, but to your own surprise, its cost scaling seems to follow a relatively simple formula. A linear formula, even. Opening a rift around 100 centimeters from tip to tip only costs about twice as much as the smallest rifts you can make, ones thirty centimeters large. Your best guess is that rifts have a startup cost of approximately sixty or seventy centimeters, a hypothesis which gains more evidence when you compare costs with the 450-cm rifts you've been opening for your horse and yourself. As expected, they cost a bit more than three times as much as a 100-cm rift pair.
Meanwhile, distance seems to multiply the cost based on how far from you a linked rift is opened. Two linked rifts consumed approximately four times as much as two similarly-sized rifts opened right next to you, but only around two and two-thirds as much when compared to a pair with one rift next to you and one at your maximum range.
Your careful tests show that rifts to the Void don't care about distance from you, only size. However, their starting cost is similar to a pair of linked rifts of similar size despite the fact that only one rift is opened. Overall, the lack of distance concerns still makes them significantly cheaper.
You can't open a rift through another rift, for both meanings of the word "through;" you can neither cross rifts nor extend your range with them. Trying just increases the size of the first pair without affecting the duration at all.
Rift Costs (Estimation)
Total cost: ( (Approximately 60 to 70) + (rift length from tip to tip in CM) ) x Distance Modifier.
Minimum rift size: 30 CM.
Distance Multipliers (Estimation)
x1 for two rifts located next to you.
x1 for rifts opened to the Void regardless of distance.
x1.5 for one rift next to you and its partner three kilometers in one direction.
x4 for two rifts located relatively close to one another, but three kilometers away from you.
x8 for a linked pair with each three kilometers away from you and six kilometers from each other.
Overall, you feel your experimentation gained you some valuable knowledge while only costing you one battery and some change. You burn the remainder of your second battery on another ten horse-sized travel portals, effectively crossing thirty kilometers in five minutes. Based on that information, you're guessing you can get around thirteen or fourteen travel pairs per battery. With about three batteries charging every day, that's somewhere around 90 "free" kilometers daily, which is just plain ridiculous.
Inspiration is surprisingly quiet for the duration of your testing. You'd expected some kind of feedback or assistance, but all you receive is a vague sense of happy drowsiness. You can't even tell if it's from you or it.
You open a 20-cm rift pair every fifteen minutes or so to check on the path ahead, a precaution you're rather glad you took. Around two hours after you left Stehauslen, you spot a conspicuously large column of troops approaching from the east. Too large, in fact. They're too far away for you to get a good look at them, but judging by the differently-colored warclocks on the road ahead, you think the two pathetic Inspired may very well have joined forces. They're even marching under the same brown and yellow banners. You'd applaud their surprising display of intelligence if it didn't present such an irritating problem.
(Current Skybreaker Capacity: 2.9/5 Batteries)
Inspiration finally stirs when you consider continuing your charge toward them. If you could make another device on the same level as Skybreaker...
Inspired Mechanics. Human Biology. Ballistics. Human Medicine.
It's the work of moments to browse and translate the suspiciously specific content your gift decided to share.
I am a squishy human until and unless I get their minds thinking along the right tracks?
You're about seventy percent certain the subsequent concern you feel is not entirely your own.
I'll take that as a yes.
[] Turn around and head west, further into the League.
-[] Burn a Skybreaker battery on getting some distance between you and the now-merged armies.
--[] And then burn a second to cut through Stehauslen and a healthy distance out the other side.
-[] Once you reach the next major town or city, locate the nearest major civic building and carry out your pseudo-promise to Vincent.
-[] Try to find out if they have any sort of newspaper or papers you could grab. Surely even this strange land finds the work of Inspired interesting?
[] Decide the entire League is entirely more trouble than it's worth; go off the roads and into the wilds. You wanted someplace relatively abandoned, not a land that may very well be the biggest threat in the world.
-[] North.
-[] South.
[] Write-in
You may move to cow the populace, but you'll need a plan first.
Please provide even a little reasoning (not as part of the [X]'d IC vote itself) for why you vote a specific way, even if it's just a sentence or two. What you're hoping to accomplish by voting that way, why it seems like a good idea, something else along those lines. Your vote will not be counted otherwise.
i understand why our "spark" is concered about our health ...
we could try to get their attention again and use that to start a "full" surge and then use that to lay the foundation for the flying castle.
Pretty sure that isn´t really a smart thing to do, but it would likely jump start us pretty hard as it would act as an mobile base + the mobility from skybreaker means we could go against nations and could have an resonable chance to win a "fight/war" against them simply because we are to fast for them.
if we spark we have thre choices: flying base
earthbound base
something else like a self propelled anti-personnel device like for example a gatling on two legs or something incompletle different
if we don't spark, we'll have to find other ways to get materials.
I personally wouldn't be adverse to build some sort of helping mechanical contraption like a mad scientist version of an astromech droid first.
... ... ... So, let's talk about theatrics. I'm wondering if we can play around with Skybreaker to make thunder somehow via atmospheric shenanigans. Appearing with a boom from the sky, dropping down through rifts, and perhaps decapitating the leadership in a single blow via portals to the void.
Hmm, but no, too sudden, not enough build up. Ideally, we should try and build up some kind of mounting dread. Let's see... Find a hill somewhere ahead of them, open gigantic portal of doom above us, like we thought about doing for that city, then wait for them to approach while we look all ominous. Maybe open small rifts from right in front of us to their ears, and speak through the rifts, demanding their surrender? We're in trouble if they have ranged weaponry though. Maybe we can box them in with some really big rifts facing them, leading to the Void? Trapping them in an enclosure of portals seem like it'll get them into the right mindset.
Ok, what if we drop from the sky, and as our first move, open a big void-portal separating Inspired from the rest of the troops (I'm assuming the Inspired would be either at the front or the rear of the columns rather than being in the middle of the masses). Then we do some rapid teleportation and more rifts to trap the troops in either a triangle or a rectangular enclosure of portals so they can't interfere. Then we deal with the Inspired. Or maybe deal with the Inspired first, after separating them from the troops.
To deal with the Inspired, I'm thinking maybe we can make some linked rifts, one in front of us, and the other 3km above. Then we just need to shove them inside the one in front of us, and that should take care of it.
But before we do anything, we should maybe do some scouting. Keep up with that trick of opening small portals to spy from a distance, try and figure out what weapons they have and where the Inspired are.
The key is, can we separate the Inspired from their troops? If we can, I'll pit Skybreaker against any toys they have on their person. If we can't, well... That's a lot trickier.
I was personally thinking that we could backtrack the armies to where they came from and then repurpose one of the inspired's bases for our own use. Principally, to turn their war production into our base production. The problem with that is whether the armies are marching towards or away from their respective bases.
My first instinct is to say away as they have already joined banners and presumably the competing bases were separated, which implies that they joined together at some point in the middle to march against a common foe, but I could be wrong about that.
