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[GreatWyrmGold]

They don't have perfect accuracy, so in chasing & taking potshots at the elves they'd likely hit our house as well. And with that many ships, it might not be long before we've sustained a lot of shots.

I'm having trouble imagining a way for them to be on the same side of the node and in danger of hitting us on accident, but maybe that's because I'm assuming that the ships will have distances more comparable to RL air combat than to RL atlatl combat.

Plus, for all we know, it really would be easier to shoot through the node- if it's rather unbalanced, it could fall down with a single volley.

If nothing else, they'd be firing blind. And, you know, angering the dragon.

If they're all here for our house anyway,

Why do you assume this? Where is the evidence?

I don't think the elf lady gives two shits we're here.

All the worse for the elves. Dragons are not to be trifled with. We can't taste them or ketchup, but the elves are still crunchy.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

More like RL ship combat. They have canons & muskets, not browning 50s. The elf ship won't be on the same side, they'd be near-tangent. Therein lies the danger. You take shots at a guy peeking out of cover with a musket, at range, and you expect the cover to come out of it unscathed?

The fact that they're all here is rather convenient, and the elven ship shooting at our house and sending a party to board it is also strange. They must have had some interest in the node, because discovering us was a discovery. They weren't here for us.

They aren't too plussed by us being a dragon- we've heard of a dragon-king, and the reactions indicate we're not too common. Their technology may have made them cocky, and steampunk's instilled in me a tendency to assume everyone's nationalistic. Aka not estimating opponent's capabilities fairly.
"Sir, it looks like there's a...dragon on the rock."
"Destroy it too, the vermin's probably in-league with the elves."
That kind of thing.

Do we really want to stay and have our hand forced like that?

[Mesa]

Much to your surprise, the elven airship flies back in the direction of the Goldenvale City, leaving only you, your node and the dwarven a(i)rmada in the air.
One of the airships closes in on you, and a dwarf leaves from the bottom, utilizing the same flying backpack as the elves, but he leaves much smoke behind.

[GreatWyrmGold]

More like RL ship combat. They have canons & muskets, not browning 50s.

I'm guessing that anyone with airships is going to have decent ranges on their weaponry. Especially given that what we've seen of their weaponry isn't exactly primitive. Rifled barrels aren't that important to range.

The elf ship won't be on the same side, they'd be near-tangent. Therein lies the danger. You take shots at a guy peeking out of cover with a musket, at range, and you expect the cover to come out of it unscathed?

The problem here is that I don't agree with your assumption.

The fact that they're all here is rather convenient, and the elven ship shooting at our house and sending a party to board it is also strange. They must have had some interest in the node, because discovering us was a discovery. They weren't here for us.

That doesn't mean they'd care. For all we know, the elves were interested in seeing if this node was worth mining and the dwarves just wanted to kill the elves.

They aren't too plussed by us being a dragon- we've heard of a dragon-king, and the reactions indicate we're not too common. Their technology may have made them cocky, and steampunk's instilled in me a tendency to assume everyone's nationalistic. Aka not estimating opponent's capabilities fairly.
"Sir, it looks like there's a...dragon on the rock."
"Destroy it too, the vermin's probably in-league with the elves."
That kind of thing.

We're clearly not a normal dragon, however. In any case, it would take quite a stupid dwarf to decide to antagonize a dragon for no real reason.

Do we really want to stay and have our hand forced like that?

As opposed to what, flying away and forcing our hand in a different direction, more strongly and certainly?

Anyways:

Climb over to his side of the rick and greet him.

[Eotyrannus]

If we feel under severe threat, sink the island ourselves. We don't need to breath, and if they take the island down, odds are that they're not going to be watching out for the valuable bits.

We don't want to needlessly antagonize anyone. In response to the dwarfs, if they attack us, sink the island and leave ASAP. However, don't attempt to become best buds.

[10ebbor10]

Well, considering the strengths and weaknesses of airships, they'll either try to focus on accuracy*, in order to destroy the enemies gondolae, or just focus on more dakka, shredding the entire enemy balloon and everything around it.


*Though airships aren't the most mobile, which might result in problems with sniping. Same reason why they're seldomly used for bombardement, as it's easy to get lost, and hard to stay right above the target.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Accuracy would help with range, specifically the smaller-target bit. The gravity-drop would still need to be accounted for, but it could do so with excellent precision.

[10ebbor10]

Point is, it's hard to be accurate if you can't even maintain a similar speed/ location. Airships suffer terribly from being blown all over the place. Untill you get to the information age, it's practically impossible to reach the same amount of accuracy with airborne artillery as with artillery found on land. Smaller weapons wouldn't be that problematic, but truly long range attacks will be seldom.

Especially considering airships do very great against damage, but tend to suffer over time. (Flotation gas leaks slowely, but it still leaks.)

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Hmm, nifty. Land on our porch and wait for the envoy there. Perhaps he'll be more civilized?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

More like RL ship combat. They have canons & muskets, not browning 50s.

I'm guessing that anyone with airships is going to have decent ranges on their weaponry. Especially given that what we've seen of their weaponry isn't exactly primitive. Rifled barrels aren't that important to range.

Beg yer pardon? It makes a huge difference- that +bullet profile & what kind of powder they use. According to the wiki, the difference between a rifled-musket (a rifle) and a musket was a factor of 5. And these things go hand in hand- he had a musket on him. They're not going to be sporting modern artillery pieces if the guy's armed with a musket. It's a good thing airships are nice, fat, slow-moving targets; they can fight eachother with cannon and muskets.

The elf ship won't be on the same side, they'd be near-tangent. Therein lies the danger. You take shots at a guy peeking out of cover with a musket, at range, and you expect the cover to come out of it unscathed?

The problem here is that I don't agree with your assumption.

Fair enough, my assumption was wrong after all.

The fact that they're all here is rather convenient, and the elven ship shooting at our house and sending a party to board it is also strange. They must have had some interest in the node, because discovering us was a discovery. They weren't here for us.

That doesn't mean they'd care. For all we know, the elves were interested in seeing if this node was worth mining and the dwarves just wanted to kill the elves.

Also fair enough.

They aren't too plussed by us being a dragon- we've heard of a dragon-king, and the reactions indicate we're not too common. Their technology may have made them cocky, and steampunk's instilled in me a tendency to assume everyone's nationalistic. Aka not estimating opponent's capabilities fairly.
"Sir, it looks like there's a...dragon on the rock."
"Destroy it too, the vermin's probably in-league with the elves."
That kind of thing.

We're clearly not a normal dragon, however. In any case, it would take quite a stupid dwarf to decide to antagonize a dragon for no real reason.

Or a headstrong dwarf that has an armada at his back. I don't think they'd be able to tell the difference between a normal dragon and an abnormal dragon, nor would they necessarily care.

Do we really want to stay and have our hand forced like that?

As opposed to what, flying away and forcing our hand in a different direction, more strongly and certainly?

What direction? If we had stayed and they had all started fighting, we would have been fired upon. Our more belligerent members would have cried for attack!, and they would have been justified. It'd be rather significantly harder to be friends or neutral with the dwarves after that, and we would have gained nothing for it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

More like RL ship combat. They have canons & muskets, not browning 50s.

I'm guessing that anyone with airships is going to have decent ranges on their weaponry. Especially given that what we've seen of their weaponry isn't exactly primitive. Rifled barrels aren't that important to range.

Beg yer pardon? It makes a huge difference- that +bullet profile & what kind of powder they use. According to the wiki, the difference between a rifled-musket (a rifle) and a musket was a factor of 5. And these things go hand in hand- he had a musket on him. They're not going to be sporting modern artillery pieces if the guy's armed with a musket. It's a good thing airships are nice, fat, slow-moving targets; they can fight eachother with cannon and muskets.

I'm not as much of an expert on firearms as I'd like to be.

Fair enough, my assumption was wrong after all.

I'll try to identify and point out your assumptions more quickly in the future.

They aren't too plussed by us being a dragon- we've heard of a dragon-king, and the reactions indicate we're not too common. Their technology may have made them cocky, and steampunk's instilled in me a tendency to assume everyone's nationalistic. Aka not estimating opponent's capabilities fairly.
"Sir, it looks like there's a...dragon on the rock."
"Destroy it too, the vermin's probably in-league with the elves."
That kind of thing.

We're clearly not a normal dragon, however. In any case, it would take quite a stupid dwarf to decide to antagonize a dragon for no real reason.

Or a headstrong dwarf that has an armada at his back. I don't think they'd be able to tell the difference between a normal dragon and an abnormal dragon, nor would they necessarily care.

I cannot think of any reason to antagonize a dragon in this situation. If there was a gain? Perhaps. For no particular reason? No.
In any case, we are made of ice and bone, tell me how that is not obviously abnormal. And abnormal means unknown, which means they wouldn't know what we could do, which means they wouldn't antagonize us without good reason. Which they lack.

Do we really want to stay and have our hand forced like that?

As opposed to what, flying away and forcing our hand in a different direction, more strongly and certainly?

What direction? If we had stayed and they had all started fighting, we would have been fired upon. Our more belligerent members would have cried for attack!, and they would have been justified. It'd be rather significantly harder to be friends or neutral with the dwarves after that, and we would have gained nothing for it.

Precisely. Hence why I wanted to stay.
...What did you want to do?

[10ebbor10]

Anyway, we should probably introduce ourselves.

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume*"

*Yes, I assuming this is simply an archeological exploration. Why else would you disturb ancient sites? It's the right timeperiod too.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Hah, interesting idea there ebbor. Archaeology eh? What has become of our legacy. Let's let him get to the platform at least- those smoke-packs must not be too smooth.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fair enough, my assumption was wrong after all.

I'll try to identify and point out your assumptions more quickly in the future.

Well fine then; HAVE AT YE!

They aren't too plussed by us being a dragon- we've heard of a dragon-king, and the reactions indicate we're not too common. Their technology may have made them cocky, and steampunk's instilled in me a tendency to assume everyone's nationalistic. Aka not estimating opponent's capabilities fairly.
"Sir, it looks like there's a...dragon on the rock."
"Destroy it too, the vermin's probably in-league with the elves."
That kind of thing.

We're clearly not a normal dragon, however. In any case, it would take quite a stupid dwarf to decide to antagonize a dragon for no real reason.

Or a headstrong dwarf that has an armada at his back. I don't think they'd be able to tell the difference between a normal dragon and an abnormal dragon, nor would they necessarily care.

I cannot think of any reason to antagonize a dragon in this situation. If there was a gain? Perhaps. For no particular reason? No.
In any case, we are made of ice and bone, tell me how that is not obviously abnormal. And abnormal means unknown, which means they wouldn't know what we could do, which means they wouldn't antagonize us without good reason. Which they lack.

No it doesn't! Ab=Mal=strange/different/bad/not. Abnormal means (not)normal.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abnormal

They may not have a normal,(they don't see dragons every day), therefor how can we be abnormal?
The good reason was to kill the elves/get at our island, (for whatever purpose).

Do we really want to stay and have our hand forced like that?

As opposed to what, flying away and forcing our hand in a different direction, more strongly and certainly?

What direction? If we had stayed and they had all started fighting, we would have been fired upon. Our more belligerent members would have cried for attack!, and they would have been justified. It'd be rather significantly harder to be friends or neutral with the dwarves after that, and we would have gained nothing for it.

Precisely. Hence why I wanted to stay.
...What did you want to do?

So you wanted to not pick a side, but also to stay, thus be fired upon, thus become the enemy of the dwarves and thus pick a side?
I wanted to fly away if they went to start shooting- let them fight their own petty little battles.

[GreatWyrmGold]

In this case, abnormal means unknown. Happy?
Dragons made of ice and bone are highly unlikely to even be in their legends, seeing as they are highly unlikely to have existed. Regardless, the "bone" bit indicates undeath, which should be an indicator that this dragon is an even worse idea to annoy than most, because it's either something like a dracolich (close enough to the truth) or in thrall to a powerful necromancer (...not impossible...)
My idea was pretty much the same as your, except for the assumption that the dwarves would fire on us.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Oh hey problem with mining & archaeology: they're a bit too armed/too large of a fleet.

Legends tend to embellish the details, & they won't be ascribing any more weight to our appearance than they would if we were bright pink. Well maybe not, but as the only dragon they've seen they won't go 'now wait a minute, none of our tall-tales mention one of them was literally made of ice.', (which may not even be true, thanks to embellishments and the fact we were a terrifying ice dragon. Which, literally translated....)
If they're of the mind that 'who cares about the dragon, we have shit to do', our appearance won't dissuade them.

What idea?! You asked for plans, I suggested flying away!

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think he was talking about the elves.
If their legends are that vague on what we are, they probably haven't seen many dragons in the past century, if any in the past millenium. Also important: If we are a legend to them, attacking us would be about as smart as punching, say, Thor.
If they are of the 'who cares about the dragon, we have stuff to do' attitude, they're still likely to think "Let's be willing to spend an extra minute on this simple task so we don't risk the wrath of such a being anyways."
I was asking for plans of how to make it clear that we were not to be trifled with, not plans of how to abandon everything we have for no particular reason.