Go looking for whoever in charge since I'm not sure where they are right now.
You find the one armed synthflesh man who is shouting in authoritarian manner in the briefing room. He seems to be in charge, though he also seems to be giving orders to other leaders who are wandering off toward the hanger.
get some military paint from the armoury then go paint the APC in Urban camouflage. If I'm told to go help with something, leave the paint cans near or on top of the APC.
((That was hilarious XD))
[handi:6-1+1]
You give the apc a complete paintjob...including all the windows.
Damn it.
"Steve, would it be possible for me to acquire a high-grade speech-decompensator and pay it off with my current tokens along with every other token I'm paid until it's paid off? Normally, I wouldn't ask, but seeing as the negotiations here are vital, I'm probably one of the best public speakers here and well, you've seen what happens if I don't have one, would it be possible for some sort of arrangement to be made?"
Charles asks Steve.
>Fine. But you welch on payment and I'll get Nyars to come take it out of your knee caps.You can just assume you have it.
Any chance of getting the shock chip removed?
>Don't think of it as a shock chip. Think of it as a button I can push to stop you from doing something stupid. Because it's that or the explosive collars.
((@piecewise: I meant outside the Sword, though I didn't make things too clear.))
Perform that preliminary sweep of the area around the Sword's cage for any witnesses still alive. Poke anyone that seems healthy enough to be faking dead, too.
You do a quick lap around the ship, rocketing up and down the levels and occasionally landing like a big cyborg fly on the damaged structure of the cage to look around.
You don't find anyone, alive or dead.
Continue transformation! Don't really care how long it takes so long as I get a heavily armored gigantic firebreathing lizard. No wings though; too heavy.
((Huh. How do they cheat, or is that spoilers?
Regarding the Flood ... not even the Flood with ridiculous bullshit hax from the Forerunner book trilogy?))
You become the large lizard thing, but the firebreathing part needs time to develop.
((Maybe you can ask someone who has actually seen them.))
((Huh. How do they cheat, or is that spoilers?
((Who, the Tyranids? A few ways. I was referring to their ability to incorporate the DNa of things they fight into new 'nids; they can also make more soldiers from the corpses of the dead on both sides, including more "grunt troops" (capable of killing a typical soldier easily) than the enemy is likely to have bullets as well as large numbers of soldiers capable of soloing tanks with ease, plus they have a hive mind so strong it messes with WH40k's magic. And there's probably other stuff I'm forgetting.))
incorporate the DNa of things they fight
This will go extremely poorly for them.
Look around, then go to the briefing room... again. Try to figure out what happened. Volunteer to be on the mission ((going to nod/shake my head if asked, regarding communcation style)) if anyone asks or explains what's going on.
((I want to go on Lar's team strange as it sounds. I can explain why if asked. my secondary pick would be Simus's team. I can work with being on any of them though.))
Well, we'll stick you in that room but being chosen is up to the team leaders.
Cool, let me know when we can get to work Steve. I'm going to go take a look at the blackship damage in the mean time.
Head to the blackship, start up the ship computer and get a damage report
You start up the computer in diagnostic mode. There are plenty of points of damage across the hull, but they're all relatively minor; just need to be resealed and maybe a few wires or boards replaced. The only real damage is to the back right engine, which has a big old hole in it. Repairing it is gonna need some specific parts and pieces.
(Ahh, this reminds me of the good old days in HellMOO, repairing downed Cesnas in the middle of the nuclear desert)
((Most of the Tyranids are melee oriented, with some ranged forms. If the Altered do absorb biomatter on contact, then the Tyranids wouldn't have a chance to bring flesh back to the hive. The Tyranids do conform to most biological guidelines, but the Altered have shown no qualms about ignoring biology altogether. Simply put, the Tyranids need time to assimilate things, and the Altered do not. You can't beat a cheating enemy without cheating yourself.))
((Um, I disagreee, strongly, with that final "can't beat cheaters without cheating" principal. It may be true in this case, but I've knowingly competed against cheaters and won while still playing fair. It's hard, but if you keep your mind open and figure out not just that they're cheating, but what exactly the cheat is, then you can act to counter it.))
There's a reason Hexbarax was famous amongst Altered war battles. It was one of the few that actually employed ground troops in a semi-offensive manner. Usually ground troops were used only to provide cover while planets were evacuated or similar.
And I think that is probably the difference between the imperium and the UWM. The Imperium is bigger and angrier and has more advanced tech, but they don't seem terribly pragmatic with it. They send millions of ground troops in to fight and use warp travel that is ostensibly extremely deadly.
The UWM on the other hand, their standard response to Altered infection was a Planet Killer system. Which involved dropping 10 ton Iridium shells at a significant percent of c down in a grid pattern with spaces of 10 square miles between them across the entire surface of the planet. To put that in perspective, each impact produces double the amount of energy that the entire human race currently uses in a year. Thats 1,142,000 Tsar Bombas. To put that in further perspective, 1 tsar bomba has enough thermal energy to start fires and cause 3rd degree burns to everything in 70 kilometers of ground zero. The planets that they did that to are STILL cooling, if they even exist in a recognizable form anymore.
((On that topic, I just wanted to note:
Tyranids are essentially 'beaten' through war, bullets and manpower.
The Altered, as far as we can tell, were killed out through war, bullets and manpower.
Hell, even the MassEffect universe's reapers (Massive capital-ship sized AI which created new troops out of their fallen/captured enemies) were pushed back pretty far by bullets, war and manpower.
But something like the flood with the only solution being "eliminate their food source" is a different scale of threat, canonically.
(Although I haven't played Halo 3-onwards, so I dunno how they end up pulling it off)).
I think thats mostly because the forces in halo didn't have the levels of "Fuck you" firepower that the UWM and 40k universes do. The flood are pretty damn tame compared to the Altered. I mean, you can kill them with a hand gun.
That was fun. Say, can we get that pill machine back?
No, we are NOT doing that again.
"My machine! Um, I bought it from the one guy, and I got a gun, and I went to kill the amp guy, and everything exploded, and I woke up, please don't hurt me Mister Minimotor..."
"Oh god, you don't even remember. Listen, what you did was very bad and destructive, so if you ever feel like doing something like this again, just don't. Or ask the AM first. Oh, and it's Miyamoto. Mi-ya-mo-to. Or just Miya."
Tell the Grate what happened, then release him, sans pill machine.
@Miyamoto: I don't believe I've ever mentioned the glove's abilities IC, though I may be wrong.))
((Oh, in that case never mind. It's kinda hard to keep track who knows what in-game or not. You can let Milno bring it up on his own if you want later on.))
Was it Flint or Auron who bought Gilgamesh?
((Flint bought Gilgamesh.))
Looks like you'll want to join up with Miyamoto's Combat Ops team. "Big guns and Small life spans." is their motto.
((Why you little! He's only had 1 permadeath under his direct command, or 2 if you include Grate.))
The Tyranids would also probably do poorly. Again, The Altered cheat.
((But as has been said before, Tyranids cheat to. So I guess it comes down to either having scientific plausibility, in which case the Nids win by a large margin, or having a cool enemy but throwing believability to the wind, in which case it's anyone's guess. Can't have your cake and eat it too after all.
Really, if the Altered are even more powerful than depicted up till now (like in battle of Hexbarax), and even on par with the Tyranids, then I am very curious what kind of trick (aka spess magick) the UWM pulled to eradicate them.))
Mostly just a device for getting into the lower parts of the base from ground level. That and a few Flamethrowers.
((Ooh, maybe they'll be namite throwers. Good chance to further test those.))
((Also if anyone wants Xan for the combat teams just tell me and I'll go over to your team after I'm done the transformation.))
((Well, in your dragon form you'll be too big to go down into the tunnels, and I don't need more people to stay behind with Miya. So unless you are willing to go into human form (or at least resembling one) I'm not sure if you'll be helpful. And you'd scare the civies to, if we encounter any.))
((Um, I disagreee, strongly, with that final "can't beat cheaters without cheating" principal. It may be true in this case, but I've knowingly competed against cheaters and won while still playing fair. It's hard, but if you keep your mind open and figure out not just that they're cheating, but what exactly the cheat is, then you can act to counter it.))
((Problem is their cheating amounts to pulling a gun during a game of chess and shooting the other player, then claiming you won because you changed the game to a free-for-all shootout, you just didn't tell the other player.))
since digestive juices aren't exactly organic matter
((Yes they are. The acids and peristaltics and the like involved in digestion aren't, but digestion is done in large part with digestive enzymes, which are biomolecules.))
"Fuck, do all prisons look like this?" Felix mutters to himself, before turning right from the intersection, into the hangar, and looking around. That Avatar probably knew something. He walked right up to it and gave it a lazy salute.
"You look important. What the hell's going on here?"
Give him a quick rundown of the situation. Too lazy to type it all out again.
((Darn, it seems most of the (actively posting) vets are taken already. Oh well, we'll just make due.
Current Combat teams:
Team A: Will start with aboveground sweep, will go down after that and help B team.
Miyamoto will stay behind once the team goes underground to start planning the defense
Maurice will lead team A once Miya can't go with them anymore
Sean O'Derry to give the new players a chance at some action
Dubley
Denzel
Gorat
Team B: will first go clean up the amp overload SNAFU, then finish underground sweep. ((@SC; this is just a proposal, in case your job doesn't allow for proper planning, feel free to dismiss if you want.))
Jim
Felix to give the new players a chance at some action
Morul
Teal
Jack Hansan
Unless there are objections, I'd like my team to be ready to leave the turn after this one. Post in the other thread once you're ready.))
In terms of the Altered cheating and defying physics...yeah thats pretty much it. It was one of the biggest problems the UWM had with fighting them. They didn't fucking make sense. They built organic structures FAAAAR and away too large to be plausible on physics or biological levels, you couldn't kill'em, just reduce their body mass, and every attempt to calculate how and where they got their energy and how any of their biological processes worked left scientists tearing their hair out. They shouldn't exist, and yet they did. The only way we won was because they couldn't use FTL travel so humans managed to out maneuver them and wipe them out through a process of EXTREME overkill, mostly using manipulator enhanced kinetic weapons and shit like the ghost ships which broke physics right back at them.
There's a reason why practically any weapon from back then has nuclear tipped bullets.
And thats all I'm gonna say on the matter since Jim appears to be cracking his knuckles in my general direction.