jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
I was under the impression that the incompetence of the Gallian regular army was well shown in canon.
Days Gone By (Valkyria Chronicles SI)
- Thread starter Jerry Finch
- Start date
Sushi
#fuckcancer
Mostly the American tanks. Shermans, M8s had vertical stabilizers as part of a power elevation system but they were usually disabled due to increased maintenance requirements. They just fired when stationary in practice using manual elevation.
I do think much of the 'R&D' involves acquiring old prototypes the regular army rejected due to various reasons and acquiring hand-me-downs from units rotating to new things.
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That and I think tank crews just didnt like the stabilizers during maneuvers...
@ Airplanes: I thought it was only the Isara that was the first Heavier than Air craft?
Kamikaze, Well... that and the firestorm of Tokyo by American Bombers... Thaaaaat's probably not a good memory.
@ HEAT: Yeah... AP. HE. APBCHE.
@ PAK/MG: Is that VICKERS?!
Sushi
#fuckcancer
If they have recoiless antitank weapons, I think they would need HEAT to make them effective.
Could be a Vickers, Maxim or any variant.
yes... Lancers effective....
(brb trying to kill a tank that's tanking all my lances) XD
Would actually explain why it so hard to kill those tanks.
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
You have to sneak up on it, then hit it's weak point for massive damage.
Think like a pokemon! Hide in tall grass!
I have no idea which mission you're on, of course.
My first play through, in excess of 75% of my actuall losses were in one mission. (the super tank in the wasteland after investigating the ruins) ... so many losses without actually loosing :S
Think like a pokemon! Hide in tall grass!
I have no idea which mission you're on, of course.
My first play through, in excess of 75% of my actuall losses were in one mission. (the super tank in the wasteland after investigating the ruins) ... so many losses without actually loosing :S
Hated that mission. I actually ragequit the game and made a thread on the subreddit for the game.
Consensus was "Yeah it sucks the first time around since the game doesnt really tell you much."
i always found the fighting Radi Jaeger on the second to last mission the hardest espcially if you are going for the S ranking
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
I had to find a walkthrough for the very last part of the last battle. Kept loosing. It's very unforgiving, even so. There were others that took a few tries.
I just managed to take massive losses while Winning that one (as in, they don't come back. No medics for them.)
I just managed to take massive losses while Winning that one (as in, they don't come back. No medics for them.)
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Jerry Finch
Stupid but lucky.
- Location
- Slightly closer than you would be comfortable with
These are a number of valid points that you make, but with it comes another issue, that being applying it to a story format. These details make more sense in a game format, where things need balance and counterbalance. From a story perspective, however, a lot of the tech being shown here are just set pieces. They exist under the auspice that they're as effective or ineffective as the narrative requires.
When I talk about realism, I talk about it from the boots on the ground perspective I'm writing from. Technical info, while interesting in that regard, doesn't really add to the narrative in the capacity of X always fails against Y, and Y always fails against Z and so on. If Y needs to be effective against Z or weak to X in order to progress the plot, that's how it's going to be applied. This is why I'm shying away from the image of big, sweeping improvements in the manner that you might normally associate with what I would call your typical SI. Small unit applications, or clever use of simple tricks to improve things are about as far as I want to take things, because again, that's also not what the story is about.
Ultimately my definition of realism is centered around the characters themselves. How they react in conjunction with the situation they're in. What they see and think, without the whitewashing of anime goggles that the series tends to suffer from in certain formats and at the same time giving depth and life to what are, for the most part, two dimensional characters that have a three paragraph bio to draw from. I guess you could think of it as realism through life drama.
Don't get me wrong, while you have a lot of good points on the technical comparisons, most of which, yeah, may or may not apply to the situation as a whole (I say may or may not because of the setting and the format presented) but all of that doesn't really compare to the power of the narration. I'm admittedly not very skilled when it comes to writing gun porn, which is really what I view a lot of this as, and trying to give it depth of feeling doesn't really work out from a first person format. There's too much clutter otherwise.
This is actually the reason I got so hung up in Ironbound, which is another fic I wrote a while ago and admittedly not my best work. Getting too caught up in how something does work and finding a way to make it fit in with what needs to happen is jilting at best when I try to write it as such, which is what I'm trying to avoid in this fic.
That said, I have taken some time to think about the technical issues that were presented. It's good work, no doubt about it and it brings up some interesting possibilities and questions in the interim, but as it stands this sort of thing does take the back seat when needs must. From Jerry's perspective, tanks work basically by magic. Both he and I don't have the background in mechanics or engineering to putter around with that sort of thing, and it's intended to show it as such. He treats them like they're intended to be treated, as battlefield assets and nothing more. That said, on the idea of teching up, I did mention something about it in an earlier post.
Yeah, their tech tree is a little out there as far as it goes with application. I've actually got some ideas on how they made that viable though, but that's for later.
Also, I do believe that Gallia's part in EW2 went from early 1935 to early-to-mid 1936. The war between the Feds and the Imps outside of Gallia continued on both before and after the events of VC1.
Basically this.
In all honesty that's more Von Damon's fault than any real failing on the part of the army itself. Stupid tactics and stupid planning is what made the Gallian army suffer as much as it did, and for that, you need to look at the head of the snake.
My personal headcanon has me thinking the army is using the militia as a technical testbed. Things that work get adopted by the army proper, and if something doesn't work, well, militia are expendable in Von Damon's eyes. It even makes sense, depending on your perspective. I personally had significantly more trouble when using the status effect weapons VS the power or accuracy versions when I played them on harder difficulties. The only time I ever really suffered losses, you might say, is when I traded outright stopping power or accuracy for plinking down enemies with status defects. Why lower their Def or Atk when you could just outright saw them in half instead? Another good example? Mortar lances. Who ever fucking used those when they gave the same weapon to the scouts?
Don't forget that they use Ragnite as a catalyst stopgap all over the place. Depending on how powerful an explosive you can get out of a mixed powder/ragnite charge, the logic for greater efficiency may not have entered in. Not when power seems to be measured on how much ragnite blasting powder they're using. Then again, this is all speculation. However, you can't really argue that canonically, shells and rockets in general in the VC universe seem to be significantly underpowered, or at least seem to be.
Speaking of tall grass, the only mission I ever really had a lot of trouble with was that annoying hunt and kill mission that you do for Rosie. It just... takes for fucking ever if you don't know exactly where everyone is ahead of time. That was really the only one though. The Bartomys mission with the walls and the tank wasn't that hard to figure out once you got the grenade mechanic worked out. Took me a couple of tries, but still, that was more confusion than challenge for me.
Sushi
#fuckcancer
All details should pretty much serve the plot and characters. My point is from a narrative standpoint, having Gallians being numerically inferior, tactically inexperienced and given worse equipment doesn't make much sense anyway. It just helps that there's realistic basis for Gallians having decent equipment, too.
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Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
Gallian Rifles seem to be generally superior to imperial models (even in the DLC where you play from the other side.) Greater range, greater stopping power, greater accuracy. SMGs as well, from memory. And, of course, rifle grenades.
Oddly, i didn't get access to mortar lances until playing new game plus. Though new game plus is kind of a waste of time in a lot of ways because rifle grenades own the hell out of pretty much any situation that doesn't basically Require a tank. Though I'm pretty sure the lance had better range/bigger boom than the grenade? Maybe not.
I really need to play the game again.
Oddly, i didn't get access to mortar lances until playing new game plus. Though new game plus is kind of a waste of time in a lot of ways because rifle grenades own the hell out of pretty much any situation that doesn't basically Require a tank. Though I'm pretty sure the lance had better range/bigger boom than the grenade? Maybe not.
I really need to play the game again.
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Sushi
#fuckcancer
In VC3 they actually made the Imperial ones worth picking up. They did slightly less damage but held more rounds, had a longer range and were more accurate.
In VC 1 I believe it was the reverse. With Imperial weapons doing more damage but having shorter range and being less accurate.
PS know any way to play VC3 without knowing japanese or do we have to wait and hope that both 2 and 3 get translated into steam games like 1 did?
You're right, that is generally the case.
Sushi
#fuckcancer
A fan-group made a patch that converts everything except the Encyclopedia entries into English. You can boot it on a physical copy of the game or find ISOs for "programs."
Sushi
#fuckcancer
Also @Jerry Finch I finally got to chapter 2 and 3 after procrastination.
Well, you write very viscerally. Like Chuck Palahniuk turned up a notch. It adds to it, but sometimes the imagery can get a tiny bit awkward? The line about pupils constricting made me pause and go "huh? How does he know that?"
Otherwise it's pretty realistic the way things go wrong, and the emotions associated with battle seem earnest and realistic. I'm curious to see what other changes you do to verse, with the 7.92 Kurz thing and the Federation being German instead of the Empire.
Though, I don't think he'd be walking with two doses of morphine, hah. Probably would put him to sleep.
Well, you write very viscerally. Like Chuck Palahniuk turned up a notch. It adds to it, but sometimes the imagery can get a tiny bit awkward? The line about pupils constricting made me pause and go "huh? How does he know that?"
Otherwise it's pretty realistic the way things go wrong, and the emotions associated with battle seem earnest and realistic. I'm curious to see what other changes you do to verse, with the 7.92 Kurz thing and the Federation being German instead of the Empire.
Though, I don't think he'd be walking with two doses of morphine, hah. Probably would put him to sleep.
10
Jerry Finch
Stupid but lucky.
- Location
- Slightly closer than you would be comfortable with
I have no idea who that is but I am now interested in finding out.
I do admit to having a weakness for getting too far into the details while trying to express things from an outside perspective. I tend to read in a very... what's the word... involved? Maybe, sort of way. It's easy for me to imagine and visualize what I'm reading and it makes for a pretty intense experience. Sort of like being really into a game or watching a movie, really. Which is kind of why I tend to write in a very detail oriented, graphic format. I try to bring what I see out into words and it's... a work in progress. Honestly a lot of my earlier stories are built like this, where I jump in a little too intensely and then try to bring it out, but the more I do it the better I tend to get.
Truth be told it's easy for me to really get emotionally involved with my characters and plots, but when it comes to bringing that out, it's more often that I find myself removing things than adding them. Having a good editor helps too, pointing out weaknesses or otherwise immersion breaking obsession to this or that. It's a bit of a chore sometimes, but it does make for a stronger story overall. Hehe, I used to hear that the thing about writing is that there's no such thing as too much detail, but it's not really true.
That said, in the case of the pupil dilation thing, its more my trying to emote stress from the character's perspective. Things like fear and anxiety too. To be fair, it does look a little out of place once I take a step back and really look at it, though. Something to think about during a later revision phase if I ever decide to do one.
As far as changes go, well, lets just say I have plans and ignore my evil, evil, insidious laughter in the meantime.
As for the morphine thing, as I understand it, morphine does funny things when you mix it with adrenaline. One thing I do remember reading about is that the more hurt or in pain you are, the more morphine you can generally take in comparison. What would be lethal in one case is by in large barely enough in another. Its actually kind of strange. My understanding of the topic is a bit hit or miss though, so maybe. Chemistry is funny like that sometimes, when it comes to dosage versus size and weight versus injury and activity. There's a lot of math involved. That said, though, I do have plans for a future scene somewhere in the next few story chapters concerning this issue specifically. Not to spoil it, but a certain someone is going to get a strip torn off of them over a certain guesstimation about healthy dosage of a certain painkiller by a certain medical professional. The words "damn stupid foolhardy ass" also might see use.
Sushi
#fuckcancer
Guy that wrote Fight Club, Choke and such.
Well, the more you write the more you have to edit. Way I look at it, detail should be directly proportionate to the importance of something to the story. A good example is pointing out you have an STG-44. It's important for setting up that something is really different and bizarre with this timeline, while simultaneously avoiding the Tom Clancy trap of "hey this is a gas-op rifle with a thirty round mag that so and so used in this time period by these people..."
On the other hand, I did feel that ragnaid explanation scene maybe ran a bit too long, and it could have been truncated by simply using it and understanding the implications rather than talking at length about it.
It's just the one thing that stuck out to me. It breaks the immersion momentarily and makes the reader think hard about the writing rather than the situation or the feelings. You could possibly have it make sense for a character with medical training or some other knowledge about how the body acts when you're seeing a certain way, but that could also be slow just explaining things to the reader.
Uhoh. As long as evil results in the character growing I have no complaints.
The mechanism for the painkilling is .... pretty much putting you to a state of daydreaming where the pain is sorta at the back of your mind, even though it hurts you're not really thinking about it. Sometimes there's a sensation of weightlessness or vertigo, like you're repeatedly falling into the ocean. You drift in and out of sleep, usually and your breathing is very very slooooow. There's this feeling that you're about to forget to breathe and die, which is a legitimate risk from overdose.
I'm describing a dose with about half of what's in a WW2-style syrette. Long story short, a person with a full syrette is going to la-la land, probably snoozing where they administered themselves. They would stick a guy with morphine if they're screaming their heads off and giving away their position and/or is going to get stretchers and prompt medical care anyway. Stephen Ambrose wrote about it:
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Jerry Finch
Stupid but lucky.
- Location
- Slightly closer than you would be comfortable with
Ssssssooooooo the silence wafts on. Hehe. Actually, I have a bit of an announcement concerning the state of the story and my life in general. Earlier I had someone ask me about the status of the next update for Days and it brought me up a bit short, because I realized that I hadn't made mention of it here yet. Yes, I am the heel, hehe. In turn, I'm going to post up the reply I made on my SB thread here, to, so you guys know I'm still thinking about you, lovable bunch that you are. Also, it's true, I am a bit lazy, and don't feel like writing it twice.
So nya.
Long story short (and I tend to say that a lot, hu-uh?) is that I'm kinda doing the mayfly thing and dancing around the flames trying to bring up a few older fics I liked writing but in retrospect didn't come up quite how I wanted them to. Also, Easter sucks and I hates it. A lot. For varying reasons, most work related.
That said, sorry for hanging you guys out to dry for a while on this, but some news is better than no news, I'm hoping.
So nya.
Long story short (and I tend to say that a lot, hu-uh?) is that I'm kinda doing the mayfly thing and dancing around the flames trying to bring up a few older fics I liked writing but in retrospect didn't come up quite how I wanted them to. Also, Easter sucks and I hates it. A lot. For varying reasons, most work related.
That said, sorry for hanging you guys out to dry for a while on this, but some news is better than no news, I'm hoping.
De3ta
Mae
- Location
- The hellish pit known as New Jersey
Were VC fans. we've waited a while for shit to be released before, we can do it here.
Jerry Finch
Stupid but lucky.
- Location
- Slightly closer than you would be comfortable with
We're all still waiting for the VC3 port. Anxiously, delightedly, disappointingly, but yeah. On that end I did hear a rumor that someone else bought the VC license from Sega though, even if I don't rightly know if it's true. Still, ray of hope in an otherwise dreary hell.Were VC fans. we've waited a while for shit to be released before, we can do it here.
Sushi
#fuckcancer
Or playing half-ass translations v: