SRW norms mean that of course we had to deploy a barely ready combat prototype with no armaments, and the moment we went below the stage HP the boss would have a tiny aesthetic explosion, deliver a monologue, and then exit stage left, so this is entirely SRW
I got a question that's kind of off tangent. But will Major Jonathan be promoted to Colonel/Lt. Colonel soon? He's had multiply success under his belt and shown excellent leadership so far so he's more then earning of a promotion. That and commanding officer of such a important facility/program being only a Major seems pretty low in my opinion.
Hope we can salvage good stuff from battle, Bruce mech with their apparent Pacific Rim style multiple piloting system could be useful later for larger machines.
Hope we can salvage good stuff from battle, Bruce mech with their apparent Pacific Rim style multiple piloting system could be useful later for larger machines.
It wasn't anything like pacific rim style piloting, we already have that with the physic theater. In comparison they had physical controls to make the Brute move and all that.
It wasn't anything like pacific rim style piloting, we already have that with the physic theater. In comparison they had physical controls to make the Brute move and all that.
Bruce called out, the pilot's controls working overtime as he pulled seemingly at random all sorts of levers and gears - but he knew how to control the Brute's every incarnation with more 'finesse' than any of them. "Bruce, klaw-!"
Morph Moth to the rescue! Or more specifically the Silk Shot- basically the Morph Moth boss fight from X2 has two phases to it-he starts out as a cocoon in a junkyard, and one of the his attacks is to draw in junk as his coccon grows larger. Perhaps the Beast can get to do something like that next time around?
Honestly, I'm cool with regenerating armor as a game mechanic mostly because it's a game mechanic - I don't think there's a bleedthrough mechanic nor does armor seem to work on a damage reduction basis in this system, so by moving scrap armor to be completely "nonregenerating pool of HP that you must chunk through to deal actual damage", it'd probably make scrap armor both more powerful and, well, less fun to play with.
Regenerating armor as it is currently acts as a sort of soft damage reduction per round that still enables damage to go through - I'm not sure it'd be all that much more fun/impactful as gameplay if it was "if you can't punch through the armor Bruce just isn't taking any damage this round haha" versus "Bruce is pretty bulky but a few good hits is still gonna leave a bruise every round, even if he doesn't explode"
so by moving scrap armor to be completely "nonregenerating pool of HP that you must chunk through to deal actual damage", it'd probably make scrap armor both more powerful and, well, less fun to play with
What I meant was that instead of being "reduce damage of first 2 attacks by one HP", scrap armor should be "Scrap armor reduces the damage of every attack by 1 HP, until it has blocked X amount of damage in total."
So damage reduction that will stop working after you hit it enough times, not just an extra HP pool.
Although I don't have a problem with how armor regenerates, I was just proposing something that I think fits the idea of scrap armor better.
What I'm thinking is we give Ichiro the following:
1. Anti Gravity treatment for +6 HP and another upgrade slot
2. K Scale so he has some damage reduction
3. K circuits for more attack damage
4. Upgrade his cannon to be an energy blaster
5. Figure out how to give him the equivalent of a K-suit so he gets 2 actions per turn.
I got a question that's kind of off tangent. But will Major Jonathan be promoted to Colonel/Lt. Colonel soon? He's had multiply success under his belt and shown excellent leadership so far so he's more then earning of a promotion. That and commanding officer of such a important facility/program being only a Major seems pretty low in my opinion.
I hope that party can still continue original mission to figure out missing ship, maybe get info from captured enemy pilots since they hopefully didn't have suicide pills.
1913, 27 July A.D. 2072 MSS Support Vehicle 'Porter'
"At the risk of sounding just a touch hypocritical," the mildly reprimanding voice on the other end of the line huffed, "You bloody well charged off half-cocked before we had even finished discussions with the Defense Force. Again." The holographic image of Charles Mander glared at Patrick. Though he'd gone slightly paunch around the waist in his post-military years, the man still cut an imposing figure to anyone who might not have dealt with him before - if those eyes were any more piercing, Erika could have sworn they would fire lasers of raw disapproval. "Are you even trying to reign her in anymore, Patrick?" he demanded. "You're supposed to be the reasonable one!"
"You do me too much credit, sir," the elderly man replied. He had a small smile on his face, with a mischievous twinkle to his eye to match. Her longtime servant and friend had long since gone gray in the hair, but as he'd proven lately, he was more than capable of taking on anyone in a fistfight. Shame about the dirigible, though. "You honestly believe I can dissuade Lady Erika from a course of action when she's committed to it? You overstimate my persuasive abilities."
Erika just grinned cheekily from her seat in the support vehicle. "In all honesty, the Defense Force needed the support anyhow," she said with a dismissive wave. "And we've knocked out the Brute again, and Intelligence is footing the bill."
"Be that as it may, Valiant wasn't at full capacity," Mander pointed out. "That was the best time for it - and now it looks as if the wasp's nest was kicked over."
"Expecting more trouble, sir?" Patrick asked. The humor muted somewhat.
"Always am, I'm afraid," Mander sighed. "But the Brute wouldn't have been there without Wallace's oversight. And that bloody superweapon to top it all off." Setting aside his annoyance for the moment, he looked at Erika. "You're due to debrief with them shortly, yes?"
"After the gentlemen and ladies in the sharp suits finish carting off the prisoners and wreckage," Erika confirmed. "I'll see what I can glean off of them." She shook her head. "I've never seen anything like that damned thing. Granted, it doesn't surprise me they were suicidal enough to strap that thing onto their frame, but it went sideways for them even more quickly than usual."
"Find out what you can," Mander said. "I'm not squandering a favor from the experimental division of the Defense Force on just information like that, mind."
"How do you plan to cash that in, sir?" Patrick asked.
"Too soon to tell. But we'll need all the help we can get soon enough." Mander looked grim as he glanced at something outside of the projection. "Things are likely going to look worse before they get better..."
For Valiant's support at the last minute, Charles Mander will call upon the DFRI for a favor in the future.
1938, 27 July A.D. 2072
Shade Command Vehicle
"Ow!" Ichiro winced as another servo arm poked at something in his arm. "Watch it, Lana!"
"Oh, quit being such a baby!" the engineering AI snapped back. "You're lucky I'm streaming in here to help patch you up anyway!"
"Don't improve your bedside manner or anything, Lana," Jiro commented. The link was voice only, but Ichiro could already imagine that the new Engineering member was working on something in the background. Probably looking over the Seeker components or something, if he was any judge.
"Shut up, clown!" The servo arms from the internals of the Shade hissed as it began to weld something, and Ichiro just gritted his nonexistent teeth. "You're just damned lucky that your whole arm didn't explode when you pulled that stunt!" The wrecked remains of the cannon's barrel laid to the side, as if just to prove his sister's point - a good chunk of the barrel had outright melted from whatever had hit him, and fused it into an unsightly chunk. If Ichiro chose to configure at that point, he'd be nothing but a gun-less tank - not ideal for hiding. As it was, they were likely going to send him back to the Institute after this for a refit. Which was fine - this wasn't a fight anyone was expecting him to fight, much less even happen. It just showed he could use more than a few upgrades.
He'd probably keep the gun remains as a reminder, though. His first fight wasn't a smashing success, but with some practical experience now, he could figure out what else he could do to avoid this in the future. "Did we find anything?" Ichiro asked, choosing to focus on something other than his partially disassembled arm. Idly he felt a fresh component clank! its way inside, and a tiny portion of his HUD registered green as opposed to red.
"Oh, yes." Anna was frowning as she looked over something. The majority of the wreckage had been taken away, and the pilots were already in custody. Anna seemed surprised they hadn't tried to go out in a final blaze of glory somehow, but they had them, and Intelligence would do what Intelligence did in this situation. "I found what's left of the truck that hit you," she commented. With a swipe, the report materialized on Ichiro's HUD, revealing the image of an unholy mashup of circuitry, wires, and weaponry that looked oddly familiar. "Lana, Jiro, does any of this make sense to you?" she asked.
The servos stopped for a moment - thankfully when they weren't guts deep in his arm. "A bit hard to say," Jiro said. "I'm new here, but that looks kind of like the heavier stuff we use, isn't it?"
"Not exactly what we use," Lana said grimly. "That..." She paused, as if she were zooming in on something. "...well, crap. That's Kausen weaponry."
"Thought I recognized that," Ichiro growled. His own HUD zoomed in on an additional feature, while his own recordings of the superweapon going off overlaid itself to the side - and for the benefit of the debrief, uploaded itself into the report proper. "It almost looks like they took a couple of the weapons the Legion uses and welded them together into a bigger gun," he commented. "I'm no engineer, but now I'm not surprised it exploded on them..."
"Westphalia and the Free Brothers. Lovely." Anna just exhaled sharply, her thought processes not liking where this was going at all. "Guess it was only a matter of time before they started talking with each other."
"If they're trading guns, then what did they give to them?" Jiro pointedly asked.
"A question for another time," Anna muttered. She looked up as the Valiant's support vehicle began to pull up. And just like that, Anna's frustrated, annoyed look was wiped away to display the casual smirk she often showed to others. "And hello to you!" she called out cheerfully. "Glad to have you join us!"
"Sorry for the delay." Erika Drake hopped out from the passenger's side, and an older gentleman dressed in a sharp suit clambered down somewhat more slowly. "Our employer was a little annoyed we rushed off too quickly."
"Well, I sure as hell didn't mind," Ichiro said. From his seated position, he couldn't lean in too closely - not unless he wanted the repair tools to mess up something. "I appreciate the assist. Name's Ichiro - you'll have to show me how you do some of the stuff you did out there."
"I'd be happy to," Erika replied. "Why don't you hop out of there and we can talk?"
"...hop out of what?" Ichiro's optics dulled for a moment, his facsimile of a blink of confusion. "I'm right here."
"Well, yes, you're here, but you're still in there, aren't you? Hop on out."
"But I'm here."
Erika paused, then looked at Anna. "I'm missing something here aren't I?"
Anna's smirk was far more genuine, amusement crossing her face along with her smile. "So you're going to be sworn to secrecy," she said cheerfully. "But let's just say that there's a bit to the Kausen we keep under wraps."
"...pardon?"
Prism Array wreckage recovered - potentially Kausen in origin.
Tank-Mobile, Walker wreckage recovered for analysis.
Erika is confused - and the scene had been recorded for Institute leadership's amusement.
Well I have no problem with them having a favor on us after all if they didn't come we may not have won that fight. But I will say If they ask for any of our Tech or Government Secrets with said Favor I will give that a resounding no not going to happen. And personally I don't feel they should have revealed Ichiro to them like that because even if Erika is sworn to silence she will probably still tell people in Mander's Security Solutions and the Kasuen secret as well honestly. But this quest bluntly isn't about government accuracy and more about giant fighting robots so I assume Erika will keep this all a secret from everyone else and move on from it.
But this quest bluntly isn't about government accuracy and more about giant fighting robots so I assume Erika will keep this all a secret from everyone else and move on from it.
Figured as much so it's me pointing it out and going meh oh well onto the Robots!
And on that note I say we focus on the Westphalians and Free Brotherhood for now them aligning themselves with each other is a serious threat we need to stop sooner then later.
Anna's smirk was far more genuine, amusement crossing her face along with her smile. "So you're going to be sworn to secrecy," she said cheerfully. "But let's just say that there's a bit to the Kausen we keep under wraps."
@Basarin please write that conversation and her subsequent reaction. its going to be hilarious. And if drawn, her face even more hilarious. I would not be able to do it justice.
AI development still pretty huge, I'm surprised rest of military hasn't asked for their own yet. Not to mention research groups, corps, etc. Lets hope that Union has patented that shit hard.
Erika.exe has stopped responding, please reboot to continue.
Also, since Erika here is probably European/Caucasian descent with her knightly mannerisms, would she happen to look somewhat like Luviagelita Edelfelt?
(Which would probably be a problem in itself... how would she be able to fit in all that fabulous hair into the Valiant's cockpit?)
@Basarin please write that conversation and her subsequent reaction. its going to be hilarious. And if drawn, her face even more hilarious. I would not be able to do it justice.
AI development still pretty huge, I'm surprised rest of military hasn't asked for their own yet. Not to mention research groups, corps, etc. Lets hope that Union has patented that shit hard.
As I say - you have the outline, you can fill in the blanks as to how that conversation went.
As for Super AI, it's still a very closely guarded secret. Erika is the first person outside of the Defense Force to know what it is beyond the high levels of the Union government.
Erika.exe has stopped responding, please reboot to continue.
Also, since Erika here is probably European/Caucasian descent with her knightly mannerisms, would she happen to look somewhat like Luviagelita Edelfelt?
Sounds about right. As for appearance, aside from a few visual cues I tend to leave the descriptions of the characters semi vague so I don't get too caught up on particular bits in the writing.
That, and unlike with mecha design, I haven't found an artist for characters.
Speaking of art - someone asked earlier if a redo of the modern Beowulf is in the works or not. Eventually is the answer - I try to space out art due to cost.
Erika.exe has stopped responding, please reboot to continue.
Also, since Erika here is probably European/Caucasian descent with her knightly mannerisms, would she happen to look somewhat like Luviagelita Edelfelt?
(Which would probably be a problem in itself... how would she be able to fit in all that fabulous hair into the Valiant's cockpit?)
*stares*...
That is NOT the personality I saw in that cockpit. Frankly I was thinking she'd be some kind of punk-rocker looking chicka. How that happened I have no idea, and I might need to be consigned to re-reading the quest all over again, but wow.
