*wipes forehead*
Okay, I FINALLY finished reading this from page 1 to now. Now I can sign up for a AKP and a Jacket to fight the ravening hordes, right?
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My Thoughts:
In all seriousness, I'm very impressed with this game, as its a very refreshing take on the "vs the World" formula, involving the smaller characters is great and feels like its a hybrid with RTS elements, almost, while not loosing the original game structure/mechanics. And punching Kaiju with giant robots is still awesome, especially when there's Power Armor (any day now!) soldiers joining the fight too!
I would rate this game 5/5 exploding Kaijus.
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How I Would Like to Participate:
I would like to join this game, but I have to give a small warning ale of things. I'm not sure how much free time I'd have to post, as I'm a co-GM/editor on the "The Road Not Taken" 40K game also on SV and that sucks up a lot of my free time. I also have a summer camp job, which will end in a month, but its a LONG day (travel time is 2.5hrs one way with two buses, 1hr with a train back). I'll contribute what I can.
Also, I have to admit a lot of the mechanics in the game seem like Swahili crossbred with whatever Covenant Elites speak as their language, ie its too complicated for me to grasp the math and formulae being used. I just love reading the action posts and the turn results, which are a style I'm more familiar with (sharing elements with CK2-style games on SV and SB).
I'm a HUGE tech guy, I have a link in my signature that can be delved into for tech ideas, though its not strictly speaking meant for Jaeger-Kaiju fun, its adaptable stuff, and I always try and have supporting links to anything cool I find. I have to admit, I've already found several cool tech ideas just reading through this game!
So, my primary contribution would be thinking up tech ideas, mostly cribbing from other SF and making up technobabble for the worst of it (which is done here, so I should fit right in).
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Game Tech Ideas:
In pseudo-post-apocalyptic stories like this one with SF elements, I tend to lean towards automation, robotics, and that kind of thing, though I'm a big fan of energy production and weapons techs obviously, we all seem to be here lol. Actual tech recommendations I've thought of so far:
- That 105mm mobile artillery piece that the GM posted a youtube video of, that would be a perfect design for this game!...with some modifications. Slightly larger, beefier engine(s?) to compensate for larger size, autoloaders, and instead of one barrel its three in a cyclic firing cycle, allowing for firing three rounds within 5 seconds, with pinpoint accuracy. Just occurred to me that would make a GREAT upgrade for a vehicle like that, and obviously possible if we can build skyscraper-sized robots that violate the laws of physics (and fucking magic of course).
- A drone-carrying helicopter-sized transport, a force multiplier for our always not enough soldiers/armed forces. It would be either remote piloted or have one pilot (maybe both for redundancy). The back would be a seeming solid block, with slits in the sides. Upon arriving in battle the helicopter fires these out the sides:
Imagine that with a solid circular covering, making it look like a giant dinner plate. The blades would pop out from the top. Say each transports carries ~20 plates, and each "plate" carries say a decent feed of 10mm rounds (100ish?) with various properties, and there's SWARMS of these drones coordinating their fire all together from all sides with perfect triangulation (and the drones can just reslide back into the copter-transport to rearm). And it doesn't have to be always 10mm rounds, could be those taser-balls, energy weapons, micro-missiles/smart grenades, whatever. Would be amazing against a lot of Cat 0 threats or smaller, and I can imagine the business guy would LOVE to get his hands on a few of these aerial drone transports for his own protection, if not rent ours to help him as has already been discussed. An obvious weakness is anything that emits EMP-esque signals that disrupt drone communications, but we could install programming backups that in the event of comm loss the drones aren't useless and insta-die, but just target enemies by themselves with a accuracy penalty or something until network uplink is restored. Would take miniaturization and development of specialized drones for this, but this is an ideal result.
- Slimmed down Jackets (meaning cheaper) for use in civilian construction or various industries.
- Our existing factories in Savannah, do they even HAVE robotic arms or any automation at all? Automating/roboticizing our factories would massively free up valuable humans for other purposes, plus amplify our industrial output, meaning more actions or something like that. And we NEED more actions ASAP.
- And automated warehouses like what is being developed today, with Amazon experimenting with robot workers moving pallets, crates, and parts instead of humans:
- And something to automate mines would be great to reduce safety issues (if there's less people there straight off).
- Somebody already mentioned pushing for ultraviolet lasers, and there's that organic stuff that is a better lasing medium that we can buy from the business guy (forgetting his name). Great combo. Could also get that Naudynium? - well, the new element - with platinum in some kind of high-power generating generator hooked up to capacitors to power vehicle- or Jaeger-sized Uberlas weapons like this. Obviously would take multiple researches to do, but I love the idea of cutting a Kaiju in half with a ridiculously oversized laser emitter.
- Really though, we need to buy ALL the tech from the business guy. That food one especially will really help out with pop growth and overall quality of life, both of which will effect morale, which will bleed over into productivity...people are complicated, one things ripples outwards into many things.
- Since we're violating the laws of physics on a whim now...I wonder if there are any Kaiju, recorded or not, that can manipulate gravity? Getting antigrav would be so goddamn useful, both for high-mobility combat units and non-military applications. Hey, maybe we can build even better Jaegers?
- I feel like the Iron Bitch's 800mm cannon is a bit overboard, even for taking down Kaiju. Reduce that down to say 500mm, upgrade it to be a railgun, and the additional velocity would more than compensate for the smaller diameter of the round fired. Throw in a secondary laser that ionizes the air in front of the railgun's line of firing a nanosecond BEFORE firing, and the air will be moved out of the way resulting in a faster firing time and less energy bleed off into the atmosphere, resulting in more accurate and stronger hits.
- Oh, and don't mount those on trains, mount them on giant armored turrets so they can shoot at air and ground targets. Obviously only good for larger Kaiju, but this would be a great step to upgrading defensive fortifications, and ensuring even if there are NO Jaegers available in the event of a complete disaster defenses are still adequate even with conventionals only.
- Oh, and mount them on trains too, why the fuck not. Maybe call them "Iron Hoes" or something, a cute name for them or something like the Bitch but toned down for easier manufacturing. I'm reminded of in StarCraft 2 when the Dominion built the Odin, a fuckoff huge prototype with ridiculous super-features built in, and the Odin was the mass production model with a lot of the luxuries of the Odin toned down or eliminated.
- Providing our Jacket AKPs with heavier weapons that the Jackets can handle the recoil of. "Recoilless" weapons, missile launchers, automatic grenade launchers, super-giant shotguns, etc. Considering how deadly nest creatures and Cat 0s are I'm thinking a heavier round than 7.62mm is needed, and since I have a thing for nice neat round numbers why not 10mm? Works great, substantially bigger than 7.62mm but not as hand-breaking as 12.7mm/.50 caliber rounds are, and Jackets can carry the additional ammo size just fine all day. Plus, 10mm weapons would still be quite usable by non-Jacket forces too, just with a slight mobility penalty or needing an APC to carry more ammo nearby with deployments for sustained engagements.
- Also, armor-piercing is probably going to have to become the new standard, as nest creatures and Cat 0s are still pretty goddamn tough. And honestly, I'd be okay with the standard being 10mm HEAP rounds for all non-human threats, as default.
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Culture/Worldbuilding:
- In a world as ravaged by the Kaiju as Earth seems to be getting, human society and life is precious, every casualty takes away irrevocable knowledge from our world, replacing it with a void. In a world where there's no global internet anymore and telecom is shot bc of Apocalypse's pulses, humanity has been dropped to almost a high-tech medievalism, whatever is in your local bubble or horizon is "the world", and California might as well be on Mars in terms of the possibility of accessibility. High-tech medievalism is the best phrasing I can think of to describe what human populations are going through (this is where my anthropology degree bleeds through
).
- In the above light, Jaegers are our knights (now in giant skyscraper-mechs!), and Kaiju are our demons.
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Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. Will comment later, hope any of my inane rambling helps inspire.
