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Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: April 07, 2013, 10:34:35 am

[Sean Mirrsen]

((I mean, with Xan we already have a Flesh. Now we just need a Pit for him to put his Excess in.))

((We already have a Pit as well. With wonderful mutation-accelerating properties, to boot. Courtesy of Teal, by the way.))

[Xantalos]

((And also me, partially.
It just occurred to me that I'm potentially the most physicalyy powerful person on the ship right now, given that I have the mass of several dozen Sods and weigh in the tons.))

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

i wonder if you need a centralized nervous system, which is i don't know what i'm talking about speak for not having a specific spot of a 'brain' so to speak, i cant recall exactly, but i think i recall that starfish don't have a brain, but function perfectly well moving hundreds of legs underneath the other eight bigger legs, in any case, if you didn't need a specific area in which brain functions take place, as well as having your survival rate skyrocket, from my hopothosis you would move better because all of the brain would be spread out and allows faster reacting, if its possible of course.

[Parisbre56]

((Did you forget about the Amp overload? There's plenty of flesh down there.))

[Tiruin]

i wonder if you need a centralized nervous system, which is i don't know what i'm talking about speak for not having a specific spot of a 'brain' so to speak, i cant recall exactly, but i think i recall that starfish don't have a brain, but function perfectly well moving hundreds of legs underneath the other eight bigger legs, in any case, if you didn't need a specific area in which brain functions take place, as well as having your survival rate skyrocket, from my hopothosis you would move better because all of the brain would be spread out and allows faster reacting, if its possible of course.

1. We're not starfish.
2. What (who) are you talking about?
3. Hypothesis. ( sorry)
4. ...Faster reacting? >_>

...If we didn't need a CNS, then why do we need brains. 

[PyroDesu]

i wonder if you need a centralized nervous system, which is i don't know what i'm talking about speak for not having a specific spot of a 'brain' so to speak, i cant recall exactly, but i think i recall that starfish don't have a brain, but function perfectly well moving hundreds of legs underneath the other eight bigger legs, in any case, if you didn't need a specific area in which brain functions take place, as well as having your survival rate skyrocket, from my hopothosis you would move better because all of the brain would be spread out and allows faster reacting, if its possible of course.

((Yes, he needs (and has) a CNS. When the Doc made him, he was warned that his brain could not be distributed and would have to be protected, since it's the only part of him that he cannot regenerate if it's damaged because he'd already be dead from the damage.

Or, at least, that's if my memory doesn't fail me. You could just thread search until you find his creation, though, if you really want to know. It's still fairly recent.))

[Tack]

((Who gets the feeling we're going to need to hunt down the fleshbomination which was our teammate?))

[GreatWyrmGold]

i wonder if you need a centralized nervous system, which is i don't know what i'm talking about speak for not having a specific spot of a 'brain' so to speak, i cant recall exactly, but i think i recall that starfish don't have a brain, but function perfectly well moving hundreds of legs underneath the other eight bigger legs, in any case, if you didn't need a specific area in which brain functions take place, as well as having your survival rate skyrocket, from my hopothosis you would move better because all of the brain would be spread out and allows faster reacting, if its possible of course.

((Um...a few things.
1. No, distributed nervous systems don't work like that. Oh sure, each leg might be better-off in reacting to threats to that leg, but the organism as a whole wouldn't be much better-off. Starfish are fine with distributed nervous systems because they don't do anything complex enough to really need a brain. (Anyways, the nerve ring and radial nerve serve the same purpose as the CNS in chordates. A better example for "no CNS" would be the jellyfish.) Humans and creatures of human intelligence need centralized nervous systems to think, because doing otherwise would be basically like having a couple dozen Smartphones scattered across the room and communicating via wi-fi replacing a single normal computer in the middle.
2. Xan was specifically told he needed to keep the brain.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((That's not an entirely good analogue, GWG, because a smartphone cluster linked into cloud computing can still function as a processing core. You get some latency, but individual processes can be carried out, and distributed memory works as well. That's the actual issue with having a distributed brain - your individual segments would have delays in interacting, meaning that things like visual memory and associative thought will be very sluggish. You trade that for an increase in redundancy and survivability, plus an increase in basic, reflexive reaction speed if you have the setup for it, but you don't think any clearer or faster on the overall.

I should say that in combat, preparing for taking a whole lot of damage to unspecified areas of the organism, the distributed nerve system can actually be a benefit. A central nervous system is too obvious a weakspot, and there are limits to how well it can be protected. Splitting the whole thing up into an equivalent of a cloud computer/RAID array allows to take damage without the whole thing ceasing to function. And if you turn yourself into a 16-legged chitinous combine harvester that needs no actions more complex than "find hostile organic, kill, consume", the slowing of cognitive functions won't hamper you too much.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((That's not an entirely good analogue, GWG, because a smartphone cluster linked into cloud computing can still function as a processing core. You get some latency, but individual processes can be carried out, and distributed memory works as well. That's the actual issue with having a distributed brain - your individual segments would have delays in interacting, meaning that things like visual memory and associative thought will be very sluggish. You trade that for an increase in redundancy and survivability, plus an increase in basic, reflexive reaction speed if you have the setup for it, but you don't think any clearer or faster on the overall.

((Wait, I'm confused. First you say my analogy isn't good, then you say that it hits the nail on the head.))

I should say that in combat, preparing for taking a whole lot of damage to unspecified areas of the organism, the distributed nerve system can actually be a benefit. A central nervous system is too obvious a weakspot, and there are limits to how well it can be protected. Splitting the whole thing up into an equivalent of a cloud computer/RAID array allows to take damage without the whole thing ceasing to function. And if you turn yourself into a 16-legged chitinous combine harvester that needs no actions more complex than "find hostile organic, kill, consume", the slowing of cognitive functions won't hamper you too much.))

((Yeah, but who would want to remove their ability to function on a human level just to be...oh, right.))

[piecewise]

Defense, No noteworthy successful actions, no noteworthy danger to teammates, never used team fund, standard 5 tokens.

Self-evaluation

>You didn't pose any danger to your teammates because you spent most of the mission napping or doing cat things. Which will be great for internet videos once we finally remove that whole genetics ban, but right now, not terribly useful. Not being harmful isn't the same as being useful, otherwise I'd have to pay the corpses the same. You get 2. And thats only because I think you're pragmatic enough to use them well.

"No, what I'm asking, Steve, is whether Steve is your official name or just one you picked for yourself in an unofficial capacity - I'm thinking the second is more likely, but hey, you never know. Maybe whoever made you just went 'hey, let's just call him Steve and go home'."

"Also... what did I do? Let's see. I went along with the ship recovery team, where I took several shots for the team, saving fleshier people from doing the same. Well, maybe with the exception of Xan, but he got better, it seems. That's not very impressive, I have to say, but one also cannot state that I did not try."

"Secondly, I went along with the amp-hunting team. There things took an... interesting turn. There are two perspectives one can consider on that front, really. There's the positive perspective and the negative perspective. From a positive perspective, I used a microwave field manipulator to deprive the amp man of cover, remove the trouble of the bottleneck he tried to place us into and make him sustain light damage while inflicting no permanent harm to any teammates, it seems," Stacy explains, glancing at Grate. "And if you really, really push it, you might even say that the result of this action that I took led to another teammate, General Jim, inflicting the killing blow on said amp person before he could perform another, possibly deadly amp attack. It's really up for interpretation how it would have gone otherwise, but it most certainly would have been different."

"If you prefer the negative perspective, then you can also mention that said manipulator maneuver buried and otherwise hurt several teammates, though none of them seem to have sustained much in the way of permanent harm, as was mentioned. I am sure some of them, or possibly most of them, hold a grudge over the event, one that I hope to alleviate by never using a manipulator again. I believe one of them even said they would make me eat my manipulator as well as any I bought from there on in despite the obvious fact that I have nothing to eat it with as well as the less obvious fact that this could very well obliterate large swathes of perfectly good property."

"In conclusion, to assign a token value to the bonus I could get... I, naturally, would prefer for my total tokens for this mission to add up to five or so, or six if you really feel that I was a net positive for the team, but would also be content, if slightly disappointed, with four total, as that would make my pay this time around lesser than the time I overloaded my previous manipulator and froze over a huge section of a populated city."

Provide question and summary.

>The scientists making me called me steve as a placeholder, until they could think up an impressive sounding acronym. But they never quite did get around to that, so Steve I remained.

I'm questioning the fact that you were helpful, but your actions did hurt the Amp Specialist, even if they also sort of killed grate and injured several other people. I suppose 2 tokens would be fine.

"Let's see, I began setting up defenses, warned the main defense force about incoming sods, took a few out, searched for and destroyed the anomalous heat source, and survived the Amp Specialist. Uhhhh, four token?

Four token as a bonus?

>If I remember right you were also injured in battle after charging the sod forces. Well, we don't have medals or promotions, so I suppose money will have to suffice as an alternative. Four tokens sounds reasonable.

I woke up, then you sent me on the mission. I got there just as things were wrapping up, but I did manage to test my rifle a bit and drag a wounded soldier to safety.
1 token
Hey Steve, could you also give an extra token to that giant robot guy? He saved my ass.
(1 token for Lukas)

>Fair enough evaluation of your actions. One token it is.

"Haven't been too ineffectual, blasted scout drones disregarded, I suppose. Aided defensive efforts, staked out the flying underground lair of the space wizard, provided a pair of teammates with experimental rifles - though only partially with own funds..."

Anton looks around, and gets the attention of Feyri and Auron.

"I'll be expecting a field performance review on those, by the way!"

He turns back to Steve.

"Don't think I did anything else that mattered in the end. So... I don't know. The mission was mostly hours of waiting followed by five minutes of excitement and a hospital bed, for me. Two token? Three? I'd really rather have five in total to make a second Red Hand, but any amount I end up with is fine, I guess."

Answer. Ask for two or three token bonus, or just five standard total with any other payouts. Remind Auron and Feyri to provide reviews of the Gungnir, in order to have it as standard gear in the Armory.

>Though you weren't terribly useful, you did always attempt to be helpful. Never let it be said that intentions aren't taken into account around here. Three tokens.

Gorat lets out a humorless laugh. "Leeets seeeee... I doused a flare. That's about it for positive contributions. I accidentally fried a teammate. That's about it for negative contributions. I did some ultimately pointless searching and running into all the wrong directions and getting beaten to killing the sods because someone or something was faster. I'd put those into the neutral bag. I guess I helped Teal up onto the roof... before I fried him. So yeah. 'Bonus' of negative one?"

Spoiler: Gorat 'Chin' Ivanos (click to show/hide)

Str 3; Dex 3; End 3; Cha 5; Int 4; Wil 12//Spe 0; Int 1; Han 0 (-1); Con 1; Unc 0; Exo 8; Aux 1 (+1); Med 0
Mk II Suit; Microwave PK Amp; laser rifle: normal cigarettes; blue smokes; datapad (with platformer shooter); nanoghosts; shock trigger (with me, right now)
Appearance: 5'11'', 170 pounds in a rather unmuscular frame, shoulder-long brown hair, short goatee, brown eyes, a rather long chin that earned him his nickname. Age 32
Half a robot foot. Robot right arm.

>We don't do negatives around here, for the sake of everyone's well being. But if you don't think you deserve a token, then I'm not one to argue with you.

Lars looks up lovingly at Steve.  "You most glorious holiness, it was an honor to simply serve you and follow your commands.  If you are wondering what we did, I removed two Sods that were about to warn many others, and then lead a team to track down that heat source.  I would only ask a couple extra tokens for my labors.


Two token bonus, maybe?

>Fair enough. I'll give you 3 because I expect you to work as head of Propaganda. We'll have to get some poster presses running, Radio broadcasts made, all variety of things. You'll be busy this next year.

Rate your own performance, huh? Well... I performed medic and corpse shoveling services for most of the mission, and recovered the blackship and helped insure the return of its data. On the downside... we blew up the shipyards. Sorry... I hope that isn't a serious problem for the facility as a whole, there must be more repair pits like that one. Though as you've pointed out, that was as much enemy action as anything else. Still, we could have done more. So... 3 to 5 token bonus for medic duty and blackship recovery and repair? Depending on the cost to replace the lost drones, I might prefer to keep the drone platform instead of a bonus. But hell if I know, I am really bad at this kind of evaluation.

Evaluation, 3 to 5 tokens?

>Though the team you were on caused a great deal of damage, as an individual, you were a positive force. 5 tokens it is.

"well I moved boxes and mopped floors without setting off nuclear devices... but other than that I had little chance to do anything, could I claim a dead guy's salary?"
ask

>You can have Michael's money, whatever Miyamoto was going to give him at least. And one token, for trying to help out.

"I... uh... I acted as a bullet sponge, saved a few lives, worked some technical wizardry?  Two tokens?"

>Fair. Two tokens it is.

I stood on the catwalk for the majority of the mission before dying and becoming what I am now. In the process of dying I took out a sniper. I also assisted in taking down the chair man.

Additionally, I assisted Morul in surviving by lending him my knife and disposed of the Sod corpses. Slightly above average, I would think. 2 token bonus, perhaps.

2 token bonus on top of the usual 5?

((Argh rating yourself is so difficult.))

>Two tokens is fine, though the actual pay will be decided by Miyamoto.

Not much to say, really. Orders carried out - though you might want to send someone to retrieve that bomb now we're in command, and reactivate the junction. Only real bonus I can think of is hazard pay - we were an infiltration unit for this, with no armor and limited capability to defend ourselves were we discovered. That we were not could also be considered a bonus, in its stead, if you prefer. 2-4 tokens plus 5 token flat-rate.

That is, unless you have any objections or additions, Milno.

Your team is a bit different. I've told Miyamoto he can just give you the flat rate of 5, since your objectives and team budget were different. As per a bonus, 2 tokens seems about right.

I played some music and got a civilian out of the line of fire with Chin.  Not too much other than that, set up a flanking move on some sods, but it proved unnecessary.  Backed up Bishop looking for the UM, but didn't find him.  Zero or +1.

Oh, and asked if any of the crates on the gangway were explosive.

>We'll go with 1.

"My team completed its objective flawlessly and I killed the UWM amp user. However, this decompensator is payment enough. I won't ask for more tokens. If you feel I deserve them, then distribute them to my team instead. They earned them."

>How generous of you. Miyamoto, when giving out pay, give one extra to each of Jim's original teammates.

"well, i did do some things, but that would be blacked out by the fact i had a bout of laser... ing the controls on the blackship, so i doubt i did much of worth. "

>I'll give you one, because you're new, on the condition that you try your best not to do that again.

"Well, I sat around on the catwalk for a bit before helping storm the blackship, during which I took a claymore for my team, and after that did a lot of guard duty and trying to figure out controls/stop the blackship from crashing. I don't know. About two tokens to add to the two each from the team fund?"

2-token bonus?

>Seems fair. Two tokens.

"I, um, I helped with the defense. Kinda. And I would have shot at the amp user if I didn't get squished first...I also found some mice test subjects we could use for various tests of special drugs and chemicals and stuff...and I didn't blow anything up..."

One token or whatever the standard is? Maybe replace it with some not-sucking training courtesy of the AM, or at least the opportunity to get some?

>I'll give you two, one for services rendered, and another for returning from the dead to keep fighting. Try and get yourself a weapon or something.

"Nothing of note. Negative two. I don't need anything right now anyway."
-2 Token Bonus

>We'll go with zero instead.

"Glub"

((I did the starting work on Maurice's flesh pit.))

>If this were football you might be drafted for that kick. But it's not, and you're not. Zero.

I assisted in the capture and repair of the control room without killing any civilians or damaging any equipment, got shot in the back of the head twice by a teammate, set a sods head on fire with a lightning bolt, performed a rocket propelled leap into a toilet to avoid death preventing me from completing my mission, continuing to perform my duties even with a broken leg, assisted in the amp specialist hunt, recovered two teammates bodies from the aftermath of an amp overload and i brought back a "quantum corpse" which i delivered to the infirmary for study.

so, regulation 5 tokens plus maybe a little extra for completing my objectives without killing a teammate or damaging vital equipment and being generally competant?

get moneys or moneys+

>I'm not sure what Miyamoto will give you, but I'll give you 4.

"Well, uhh, I spearheaded the assault on the gangway, took out a few dozen sods, at least 2 UEs and another mystery agent we never could identify really. Punched that Amper of the building and basically ferried my two teammates safely to the Command room so they could take over. Oh, and that LESHO round got deflected as well. Unfortunately, I also did quite some structural damage, though nothing of real value was lost there. Can't say the same about those civilians they tied to those shields though. Poor saps.
I reorganized the squads once the main objectives were completed in order to better hunt down those stragglers and to get the men of their asses. Didn't do a whole lot in the second Amper battle unfortunately, I guess I was just completely spend by that time.
Oh, and some accounting at the end I guess, though that doesn't really count.
So, I think something between 7-9 might be fair? I dunno, hard to determine your own value really. Whatever you think is fairest will do.

By the way Steve, while this system is sort of egalitarian, the problem is that people who are rather shy or have low self-esteem might under-appreciate their own contributions, whereas more, erm, boastful people would do the opposite. And if you say your judgement will prevent that from happening, then tell me, why ask us for our input anyways? Aside from reminding you of what we did maybe?"

Talk to Steve. Do research on Titans: what are they exactly (kinda like a big AoW, right?), what armaments and armor do they have, etc. Look for prior uses of Titans; what battlefield niche do they fill, how are they usually used, what are their exploitable weaknesses. If needed, spread research over several turns (just say so, and I'll copypaste it for a few actions).

((Also, question: since Steve will apparently already be rewarding personal competence, can we still also divide the token budget as we see fit? Cause there isn't enough to just give everybody 2. Or can we also reward people like this? Or can we just say that Steve will use up the token budget in handing out rewards?))

(You divide the token budget as you see fit. Basically, after this post, just go through, look at what people got for bonuses and add on whatever you want to give them, token-wise, and then post a big old list with whatever the total is (By adding bonus and what you're giving them). Steves bonuses don't come out of the money you're using.)

>I'd say you were fairly invaluable for that whole assault on the control room. 5 tokens seems appropriate.

Titans are basically Enormous Avatars that fill the roll of being mobile weapons platforms, staging areas and even hanger bays. They're basically ground based battleships made of synthflesh and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Their only real weakness is that their enormous size and slow movement means that they need to be defended from faster, smaller attackers. They're usually covered in point defense systems to this end, but are also deployed along with Battle suit infantry and standard soldiers.

"I, uh, I stood guard on that walkway for an annoyingly long time. As ordered. Then when they came to attack the sword I threw up a shield and stopped a few guass rounds, probably saving the other defenders and the sword from getting hit a few times. Then I threw the guass rounds back for some happy-murder-friends-action with Renen.

So, I don't know. Regulation 5 with whatever that little stunt was worth. I'm not really sure how" He puts his hands up and makes airquotes "  'mission critical' that little stunt was, so I'll defer to your judgement as to wether it's worth a bonus."

say above to steve

>That shield of yours probably prevented the loss of several lives, so I'm going to give you 4 tokens.

"I was with Miyamoto for the assault, and kept us moving toward our objective. I airlifted Flint around a lot, helped keep us alive from sods, jacked that elevator so we could climb the shaft and plugged you in through my suit so you could do your thing. After that, I helped with the hunt and almost got killed by an idiot not shooting the suicidal UE. I also kept my personal property damage at a minimum.

So I think I earned about the same as Miyamoto, maybe a bit less or more. I dunno, just something worthwhile for the effort I went through."

Chat with Steve.

>Four sounds about right.





>Alright now, Miyamoto, give them the rest of their pay and lets get going on to new things.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Those titans sound even less practical than giant robots. They fit well.))

"Thank you, Mister Steve!"
Thank Steve. Try to think of what weapons I would be the least terrible with.

[Toaster]

Lars bangs his head on the floor a few times.  "Thank you for your most gracious generosity, O Glorious Steve!  I will ensure your glory is shouted to all the cosmos!

Collect payment.  Assuming Miyamoto distributes and we're dismissed, see how much trade in I'd get for the MkIII.  Check for updated idiots in space.txt.

[kisame12794]

"Err, yeah. I suppose I did get shot up a bit. Should probably stay in cover next time."

[Grunhill]

Renen starts moving after a somewhat surprise coma.

So is this finished, do I have my standard five? Time for the training.

Look for Doc, see if I can continue the training.