((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.
They're not as impractical as they sound. When you get the time, search "Alstrom Effect" on the computers.
Hmm weapons you're not terrible with. Tricky, very tricky. You've got a negative 1 on every single type of weapon category...
I recommend leveling up to be better at stuff. (Which we will do here, shortly)
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.
Well, payouts need adjustment and We still need to do level ups and such...so that update will have to wait.
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.
I'll be frank with ya, Mr. Rens. After money is handed out, we're doing level ups, and then a planning meeting for our defenses and then a timeskip of sorts. So you're not really gonna be able to work with the doc till later. Unfortunate, I know, but it is what it is.
((Well I got skipped RIGHT over. Guess that means no bonus for revives?
Also I'm still pretty sure we got shafted overall on this, seeing as we apparently aren't even getting the baseline 5.))
Did I miss your post? Because if so, 2 token +1 for missing you.
((PW: Can I get a token count for Xan with the 2 added? I think it's 3 all told.))
I intend to do the updates once all the money stuff is settled, so It can all get done at once and not get muddled with 35 minor updates that might have to be partially undone and...yeah, complexity.
((You have Lars's bonus tokens next to Lukas, but that's just a minor point. No objections otherwise.))
((Fixed, thanks.))
((Team Joker should probably receive "outside" standard tokens. In any case...))
Milno notices the albino freak is bothering Jim and Feyri and that his usual second-in-command isn't anywhere to be seen.
Search for Thomas.
((I think so too, but just to be safe I included them. If their pay turns out to be outside the budget I'll just up the pay of other people.))
Also, action:
Look up where Titans were previously used, go over major campaigns and battles where they were important. look up most common armaments and subtypes.
((This would be the place where I'd rant about Titans being big wastes of resources and inefficient and that big superweapons are ridiculous, while giving examples from history (mostly WWII Germany's attempts at those) and blablabla. Luckily, Fun > Realism in games.))
Titans are less a giant Avatar carrying a single massive gun, more like a modern day battle ship or aircraft carrier. They're mobile fire support and weapons platforms, as well as staging areas and carriers. They're used to bring ordnance that would otherwise require special installation procedures to the active battle field. They're also damn good morale boosters. You try walking into battle with a synthflesh Godzilla packing heat and not feel a little bit better about your chances.
As per battles, they really only saw active usage in the Altered wars; no other conflict was worth their activation and transportation. They were essential in many battles during the altered wars, mostly because of their simple ability to direct an unprecedented amount of fire down upon the enemy and prevent them from successfully reanimating or reusing the biomass of their dead. Lines of Titans would slowly scour the planet with nuclear fire and push back the encroaching hordes. There are many varieties that have been created over the years, but the major two are common Hexapedal, which is little more then a massive platform on 6 synthflesh legs. The lesser seen biped form exists more as a figurehead of sorts; it's still more then functional, but their form is more for the sake of being a massive humanoid then purely practical.
Weaponry is varied depending on the situation, since it can be switched out. A lot of nuclear tipped gauss weapons and reusable fission instigators though.
Once given tokens or not, go to VR. List all programs available.
No tokens yet. As per available VR stuff, see renen's reply
Assume Flint returns to the Sword sometime in the future when he stops being depressed, returns the shield, cameras and grenades for 4 tokens and gives them to Miyamoto. He will then tell Steve to give him however many tokens he deems appropriate.
We'll say you return that stuff for those 4 tokens and that you get 3 token bonus.
Thomas, still holding a sod arm, steps into the hall and begins to walk towards the Rec Room. On his way, he sends a message to the doctor. If he runs into Milno, apologize for the abscence and listen to what he has to say.
I have the arm you need to create the hawk I was speaking about a few missions back. Whenever you're ready, I will give it to you.
"Hey. Your girlfriend is bothering people."
"Okay. Thanks for the heads up."
Find May.
You find May hanging around in the briefing room and pick her up and drag her away from other people and give her a hug.
I am currently content with my one token. It's shiny.
((This new system doesn't seem very friendly to noobs compared to the old one. ((Just gonna say again how ridiculous not having the standard 5 tokens is. Seriously, us newbies who can't reliably do anything without permadeath are getting 1 or 2 tokens per mission, while vets are getting big bonuses on top of their head start. I feel like I'm falling further and further behind just because I didn't jump into the game the moment I joined Bay12.))
I am worried for Dubley's future in this economy.))
Examine token. Is it actually shiny?
Also go ask The Doctor if he can cure baldness
Also also, how many tokens was my Civic defender's longcoat?
You can still get plenty of tokens even if you are active and doing useful things. You don't have to be a combat beast to be useful.
I am, however, considering upping the amount of tokens that people start with, to counter potentially lower salaries to begin with. That, or maybe letting token count, if nothing else, carry over between characters.
The problem is that I'm trying to reign in the rather large amount of token inflation and reward people who are actually doing things, or at least trying to do things. Hopefully this problem will work itself out more once we get smaller, 5 or 10 man missions going, where people will have more of a chance to do things and the mission budget will be able to be divided between smaller numbers.
Economies man, they're hard to balance.
Tokens are small purplish plastic disks. They're sorta shiny.
Your defender longcoat was 3 tokens I believe.
And the doctor's cure for baldness probably involves head tentacles.
"Suppose I should turn in my rented gear."
Hand over the remaining gauss clip, the Sibilus, and the longcoat.
((I used my last token from before the mission on the longcoat, so I should get that back right? And the token are large purple discs.))
1 token returned and 10 added to the team fund. Yeah I know some of that stuff was used, but I'm gonna be nice.
((This would be the place where I'd rant about Titans being big wastes of resources and inefficient and that big superweapons are ridiculous, while giving examples from history (mostly WWII Germany's attempts at those) and blablabla. Luckily, Fun > Realism in games.))
((The Soviets had some great giant superweapons, too.))
((And some hilarious low-tech ones too. Bombs strapped to dogs to kill tanks anyone? (yes, they actually tried this)
((Didn't that fail because they trained the dogs by putting food under broken tanks, but when they released the dogs they did a 180° turn and ran under the Russian tanks because they were trained with those types? I seem to remember this from somewhere))
Pancaek goes to find Milno
"Hey chief, I'm here to return the tokens I borrowed."
Give Milno his two tokens back
You don't have those two tokens yet. Lets wait till the payment deal is handled then worry about that.
Be Healed
You continue to chill out in your tank, regrowing all those organs that got fried.
((The pooling up of loot is fair because it is an incentive for people to actually help instead of acting like a magpie. Otherwise, the magpies would be favored in detriment of the players who decided to focus on the mission. It is rather simple and obvious logic.
That system was explained several times and that's it.))
Milno stretches, glancing at the direction of the "touching" reunion happening close by. "Well, I mostly led the group around like a pack of retarded moles after we got our main objective done - but we did get it done and we kept moving, so that's something. Hey, Steve. Faith was helpful but she was acting like a zombie; has she gotten any better and is she getting rewarded like the rest of the team?"
Do I get the same bonus as Simus due to services rendered? And question.
Yeah, you get the same bonus.
And faith gets no bonus, but gets the standard 5 tokens.
Jimiya Team: 30 tokens
15 Jim perfect exo decomp
2 Flint nades and cameras
3 Flint battle suit shield
thus: 30 - 15 - 2 - 3 = 10
Defense team: 30 tokens
12 skylar drones
2 morul ammo
2 morul longcoat
7 morul sibilus gaus rifle
30 - 12 - 11 = 7
Sabotage team: no tokens, special equipment though.
various tools, including microwelder
silenced gauss pistols
disguised bomb
medical supplies
So, that brings us to a current total of: 10 + 7 + 1 (from Michael) = 18 tokens.
perfect exo decomp SC has told us in private chat he'd rather keep his decomp, and in turn not be paid this mission. Any questions or comments regarding this can be aimed at him
nades and cameras from Flint 1 token for everything. Probably better to just keep these and label the whole package (cameras + smoke bombs) as worth 1 token
drone pallet, 3 drones destroyed 6 tokens
longcoat 1 token
sibilus gaus rifle 3 token might be 7 or 6, since only 1 shot was fired. That counts as used though, but not damaged, so unsure of how much we'll get. I used 3 for calculating total
Battlesuit shield 3 token
various tools
microwelder
silenced gauss pistols We'll just divide these among the people of Milno's team, since this'll be easiest. Rest of it will just be divided among who wants it, otherwise this'll become too complicated.
disguised bomb I'll just roll some dice if there are several people who want any of these
medical supplies
magnetic manip 4 token
micro manip 1 token
light bending cloak 2 token? cannot find the post where he bought it, so this is a guesstimate
broken changeling cloak 2 token? gonna assume same as above cloak until proven otherwise. Yes I know it's broken, but it's also more high-tech, so I guess it evens out
gauss rifle ammo 1 token
So, that comes down to 18 + all of above = 42 tokens
Let's hope this is the final list:
0 tokens
Dubley Steptimus [NAV] +1 Steve bonus
Subject 19-3 "Jim" [SeriousConcentrate]
Vichislav "Vich" Freidberg [Thearpox]
Stacy Buttle [Harry Baldman] +2 Steve bonus
Teal The Arsonist [Tack]
Charles Leroux [Empiricist]
Jobasio "Jack" Hootzal [Yoink]
Theodore "Knight" Catar [Alarith]
Derya Bakkal [Tsuchigumo550]
1 token
Gorat "Chin" Ivanos [Knight Otu]
Lyra Arden [Lenglon] +2 Steve bonus
Leo Girard [Devastator] +1 Steve bonus
Astra [wolfchild]
Jack Hansan [Tavik Toth]
Xan [Xantalos] +2 Steve bonus
May [TCM]
Trendon Balto [Execute/Dumbo.exe] +1 Steve bonus
Grate Worm Gold [GreatWyrmGold] +2 Steve bonus
Jhoseph Wilkes [Corsair] +1 Steve bonus
2 tokens
Renen Averius von Raptum [Grunhill]
Morul Migrurkeshin [kisame12794] +4 Steve bonus I'd put you a bracket lower, but +1 to compensate that personal token
STEPHEN HAWKING [BFEL]
Denzel Gaunt [Doomblade187] +2 Steve bonus
Auron Kell [Unholy Pariah] +4 Steve bonus
Anton "Blackeye" Chernozorov [Sean Mirrsen] +3 Steve bonus
Skylar Niabs [Kriellya] +5 Steve bonus
Bishop Willis [Zako] +4 Steve bonus
Miyamoto "The Boss" De Bergerac [Radio Controlled] +5 Steve bonus
Feyri Nirel [Tiruin]
3 tokens
Flint Westwood [Parisbre56]
Mesk "Kickboxing Doctor" Vraite [Remalle] +2 Steve bonus
Lukas Stark [Prosperus]
Brother Lars [Toaster] +3 Steve bonus
Remember, +1 for these people as requested by Steve.
5 tokens, NOT FROM TOKEN FUND
Simulacrus "Simus" Ferratum-Inanis [PyroDesu] +2 Steve bonus
Milno Enedrasi [Caellath]
Faith "Worst Medic" Valentine [IronyOwl]
Pancaek "Spoonman" Nilys [Pancaek] +4 Steve bonus
Thomas Harrison [Spinal_Taper]
((I took 2 as standard pay, gave 1 extra to people on Jim's team, then bumped a few people down so the budget would balance out. Sorry if you're in the 1 token bracket, but in that case I really just don't remember what you did this mission.
If there are more complaints with this list, you guys just deal with it among yourselves. Otherwise this'll drag on even longer, meaning we'll have to wait longer to get horribly mauled by scary aliens; y'know, the fun bits. So, if GWG for example thinks Astra deserves that token more than him, he can just GIVE it to her himself.
IF ANYONE WANTS EQUIPMENT INSTEAD OF TOKENS, LET PW KNOW BEFORE NEXT TURN IF POSSIBLE. PLEASE HAND IN YOUR MISSION FUNDED EQUIPMENT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY. JOKER TEAM, DECIDE WHAT STUFF YOU WANT TO KEEP FROM YOUR MISSION GEAR.
AND SOMEBODY, FIX MY CAPS LOCK, IT IS STUCK.))
@ PW: this is the payment list. Could you please add tokens as appropriate to people's sheets while also removing the correct stuff from their inventories?
((A very valid point indeed, but then how about that re-organisation we did mid-mission? How do we take that into account? Really, I did it like this to keep it easy to manage and keep my sanity ))
((Actual post with pay in next post))
((Reorganization is fine, but I don't think there was any sharing of purchased gear, or loot that wasn't from either team's suddenly dead members, post-merge. It should be pretty straightforward - can you try calculating a split again and see how it works with separate funds? I know the Defense team will get even less this way - a lot of the fund got used and there are many people, but at least it'll be fair to everyone.))
((I'm terribly sorry, but I saw this just as I was about finished, and I don't have the heart to do it yet again. Next time maybe, but right now, I have more pressing matters to attend to than playing Space Accountant.))
Action: hand over the stuff from the team fund or general loot to AM, then use tokens from that to distribute pay.
Look up where Titans were previously used, go over major campaigns and battles where they were important. Look up most common armaments and subtypes.
Alright, we appear to have a bit of a discrepancy in pay here. People who did a dutiful, if uneventful, job are getting basically nothing. You could argue it's hazard pay, but still, not terribly fair.
Though, personal tokens should also matter less because of the team fund...
Alright, lets think about ways to handle this:
1. Return to the old methods. Unfortunately this means that Vets will still probably be far and away more able to do things worthy of praise and money. Plus, I'd have to do a hard cut down on bonuses to reduce token inflation.
2.We keep this method and I increase the team budget. By a lot. I kinda don't want to do this to prevent BATTLE SUIT BATTALION HOOOOO. Namely because then I'd have to make your enemies so fucking outrageous that anyone not strapping 50 pounds of iron to their dick as an athletic supporter would find their head swiftly removed from the other parts of their body that are being swiftly removed from each other.
3. I say fuck it and we go STRAIGHT FUCKING MILITARY on this shit. Namely ranks, promotions, specialized roles and standardized armaments. The good part about this being that everyone, even the newbies, will have more equipment and it will be better suited to their abilities. And as you gain promotions, you'll be given the new equipment automatically, so you'll see a lot more people in Mk III's with Siblus rifles in the higher level infantry, etc. This does however mean that
1. Your roles are gonna be more constrained. Admittedly, you probably already have a role you designed your character for so thats not too bad.
2. Less personal freedom with load outs. You can still bring whatever you want, but pay is gonna be reduced since most of your shit is being given to you, so it will take longer to buy your own personal shit. Though, many things, such as decomps, will be included in those rank up standard load outs.
3. You're probably still gonna spend your first mission in a MK I with a gauss rifle and terrified urine in your suit. Though, if you do your job and don' fuck things up, that will change.
4. There will be reorganization. Pain shall ensue.
OPINIONS?! IDEAS?! YELL AT ME BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE MONEY!