... and we'll have our first plugsuits.
----------------
Epsilon

1) Okay, 1.5h to start? WTH? Aren't people running this thing 5x a day?
2) It's actually really frustrating to run this SF with people who have already run it like 20x. I had no idea where I was going, and just had to passively let the 'porters zap me aorund the place.
3) People *massively* underrate Energy Blast, and it's utility in dealing with fliers. "Oh look, it's Numina, and she's flying!" *plink* "Oh look, she hit the ground."
4) Someone explain to me why the 'Future Phalanx' can be split up with some vertical positioning, but we can't do that on the full Phalanx? Did I miss where Back Alley Brawler, Manticore, and Synapse could fly? (And for the record, I *so* want Synapse's movement special effect.)
5) Allowing us to use the Dom to cheapen the Vindicators is lame, especially since you prevent it on the other two mass-AV encounters.
6) I absolutely understand why people say you need the Nuke and the Shivans before doing this SF. We got wiped like 8 times on that last encounter, and eventually gave up.

For the record, our composition:
1 Mind Dom
2 Kineticists (one was idle most of the time, bastard)
2 Thermals
1 Rad (me)
2 Brutes
--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

...is a must-read for anyone who cares about classic science-fiction. No prior knowledge of this UF is required.
Here's the strip.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

what are peoples opinions about a TF (or other group get-together) this weekend.
I would prefer sometime Friday/Saturday, but I'm flexible.-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

Peggy and I are going on vacation on Saturday; we'll be away for a week. I'm hoping to find an internet cafe near where we'll be staying, so I can stay in touch, but failing that I just wanted make folks aware so you don't think I died or anything.

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

For those of you who haven't been reading the status line at the top of the main page, we're almost done with the chapter.
If all goes well, you might expect to see it sometime early in August.

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

I thought this up waaaaay back, as a way of having asteroid racing doable within the bounds of human reactions. OGJ-period, it'd likely be going open source.
Basic problem is that stuff happens too fast for people, and some manuvers are likely going to be too tight to maintain consciousness (depending on ships and inertial compensators and whatnot) so something needs doing.
The solution I had in mind is essentially a high-resolution autopilot combined with sensors and computer systems sufficient to (reasonably accurately) predict the motions of stuff in one's flightpath based on velocity vectors.
So how this works is that, say, coming to a stationary assortment of rocks, you program the course through them as far ahead of time as you feel comfortable; computer's going to know how sharply your ship can turn and accelerate and thus what you can and can't do. Then, as you get closer, you continually fine-tune things; maybe some of the rocks are moving and your prior course would take you into them, or from long range your sensors didn't see some of them.
In stereotypical dogfighting, you probably can't do things as far ahead, but with practice and skill one could probably figure things out a few seconds ahead of time. In traditional, non-inertial-compensated craft, the basic idea is that the pilot could sketch out controlled manuvers that have them blacking out but leaving periods in between to adjust tactics and figure out what's next.
Or yeah, we could just leave all of it solely to the AIs, but what fun is that?
(why yes, I am procrastinating working on schoolwork!)

Submitted for approval.
There was much debate and study on the methods and materials to be used in the segregation of 'untainted hardtech' instruments and materials in the Miranda starship.
Many methods were tried, many materials. Most of these were a failure, with 'Wavium gleefully soaking into the material and upgrading it or changing it, until one lab assistant stumbled upon the currently-used method.
While the processing core and computer operations practice a physical and electronic segregation, the primary method of protecting the unWaved gear is the method discovered on April 1st of 2009, and it's a very simple method.
Ask.
The current procedure involves a list kept in the ship's AI, and every morning, the senior officers of the Miranda go to main engineering, stand in front of the intermix chamber, and ask, simply and politely, that the 'Wave leave these pieces of equipment alone, thank you.
And it works. Perfectly. Due care is still taken to prevent any of the listed items from being 'dunked' in a 'wavetank, but by and large, a little politeness is all that is needed.. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Considering how many cyberpunk fans (or, at least, Bubblegum Crisis fans) there are around here, I thought this Register story might be of interest.
Who'd've thought that chrome limbs would be more popular than realistic limbs? I guess that point break for obviously-artificial limbs in GURPS Cyberpunk doesn't pass the reality check...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Please note that everything I am about to write is just the result of my idle thoughts on the current arc, and very much more intended as an invitation to debate than a final proposal.
That said... I kind of get the impression that the storyline is floundering a bit, even with the Huruhi thing resolved at the meta level. Perhaps even more so, in fact - her nature and position is now only cause for in-character mystery/conflict, and the Boskone... uh, yeah, we're...fighting them, or something.
But! Is it heating up to a break point? Is it time to start bringing in a/the major villian? Where are we, in the plot arc - SOScon was the clear Beginning, now we need a Middle so we can have an End. Is this the middle, a grinding piecemeal war and rapidly eroding faith in the leadership? Put that way, it could be... Or was it the Crystal Osaka attack, that doesn't seem to have happened on screen. Was that the station where the Reavers tore through the side with a giant robot? if so, the throwaway lines in SWtA1 and the Cybers faction summary are tied for the most information on camera about it, as far as I can tell. When did it even happen?
Victory condition also need to be specified - even as simple as "find the main ba e (the Hellhole In Space? Something groundside, where the criminal organizations are based?) and bust it up, kill or capture personnel" - something that can be achieved in dramatic fashion and close most of the arc plot threads. We need to know these things, and when they will happen in-'verse, so that the story can be paced appropriately, and character arcs fit into and around it.
Or, maybe it's just me that needs this kind of planning, in which case feel free to tell me "Quitcherbitchin & Wright will work it out," and I'll go back to detailing the Miranda mission up to That Day When and Wave Convoy's crew pre-SauceCon, and mainly fit them in after the fact in the Operation For Great Justice.
- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows