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[Xantalos]

Dear god. A battlesuit sized grenade launcher. Yeah. Go ahead, I'll just stand waaaaay back here.

Personally, I'd just install a 'nade launcher on the battlesuit's shoulder or something so the hands are free to wield something bigger.

How big are battlesuits? Here I was thinking that they're 3 meters tall.

Yep, something between 3-4m, avatars are around 6.

We'll have a mass of Sod troopers on our side, presumably without lifelocked equipment. Just wait till one of them gets killed and snag their gun.

Actually, that works with the rest of your comrades as well.
...
I hereby unofficially nickname our fortress "Stevengrad".

Yeah, was gonna have Miya put some rules in place to prevent people just ordering their sods to give them their weapons as a way to get free stuff.

You could do whatever you want... including destroy the ARM or the UWM or both. Especially with a universal amp.

Well, with a universal manip, good uncon bonus and decomp, one can do most things that are possible with a manip (except influence living things), but such a character would be stupidily unbalanced and in need of serious nerfing 

Why Tyranids? They're boring.
Well, no, they're executing, but they come from 40k so I'm obligated to dislike them.
And while infecting a large portion of the life in the galaxy is part of my long term plans, that implies that I mean to stop at matter.

Xan is the Tyranid version of the pirates that don't do anything.

Keep in mind this hilariously unbalanced version of me would be only after 8-something missions.

[GreatWyrmGold]

You're basically two years late on that. :V

I wasn't here two years ago, now was I?

Anyways, um, does anyone know how the hell I could use that thing? I'm stumped on any use, really.

[Parisbre56]

You're basically two years late on that. :V

I wasn't here two years ago, now was I?

Anyways, um, does anyone know how the hell I could use that thing? I'm stumped on any use, really.

Last ditch defense. If something tries to eat you, use that to make it throw you up.

[Parisbre56]

Maybe we should have half the teams in the secondary mission thread to make things easier to manage? And the Reserve and Defense teams on the on ship thread?

[Kriellya]

Making decompensators accumulate mental strain could be a good way to balance them, yeah.

However, maybe they are merely patching a flaw of the original system? Skilled people should be capable of not overdoing things without special brain hardware.

Maybe make it so that "dynamic bonuses" for preparing an action some time in advance achieve the same purpose? I.e. you get the same amount of bonus for spending any number of turns preparing, and that bonus is either ±1, or +/- your skill/stat bonus, whichever is higher.

This way, characters with +1 or less in a skill will be able to boost themselves up by +1 by preparing, and people with higher bonuses will be able to boost higher, but up to their base bonus. Characters with +4 and higher will receive such a bonus that on anything but a 6 they will still get a 5, as long as they spend a turn to steady themselves.
Decompensators, under that system, will fall into being supplementary devices for combat - when you can't spend time to prepare. They could act like auto-amps, draining will depending on how much they have to compensate, but they would act instantly and always.

You know, I think they actually are balanced that way. Or at least, originally were. When PW first described the full range of  decompensators, he described the top tier one as 'causing mental fatigue'. He hasn't mentioned that in a while though, and we haven't seen too much use of that tier yet, so I don't know if that is still a mechanic. I meant to ask the AM about it when I had need of a decomp.

I kind of like the 'experience let's you charge more' idea. I think it would need to take more time to charge stronger effects to balance correctly, and the base line might have to be 0 potential charge? Or you can't charge something you have no skill in, since the idea of channel bonus becomes application of learned skill? Ah, that would be the system you have. Natural modifier + 1 = max dynamic bonus.

[syvarris]

It shouldn't be maximum dynamic bonus.  That would mean an entry level fleshtech can't get a dynamjc bonus beyond +/-1, which seems inappropriate for what is almost always a trained doctor.  It would also kind of ruin the original purpose for anyone aside from the higher level vets- something like charging a dynamic bonus for a aimed shot by spending several extra turns.

[Empiricist]

How about this? Dynamic charges are only for a specific action. That is, if someone does one with an amp intending to burn a hole in a wall, they are unable to use that dynamic bonus to do anything else, such as burning a hole in a different wall, or attacking an enemy. So for example, Charles may prepare a speech to proselytize the civilians thus giving him a dynamic bonus, however, if he needs to talk an enemy into surrendering, his roll will not use the bonus and he will lose the charged bonus as well.

I would also like to propose that dynamic bonuses cannot be used if someone has a penalty in that action.

[GreatWyrmGold]

You're basically two years late on that. :V

I wasn't here two years ago, now was I?

Anyways, um, does anyone know how the hell I could use that thing? I'm stumped on any use, really.

Last ditch defense. If something tries to eat you, use that to make it throw you up.

I can't even touch it without hallucinating. And the hallucinations probably don't get better the longer you touch it...

It shouldn't be maximum dynamic bonus.  That would mean an entry level fleshtech can't get a dynamjc bonus beyond +/-1, which seems inappropriate for what is almost always a trained doctor.

...?

It would also kind of ruin the original purpose for anyone aside from the higher level vets- something like charging a dynamic bonus for a aimed shot by spending several extra turns.

The original purpose was to help lower the number of overshots...

How about this? Dynamic charges are only for a specific action. That is, if someone does one with an amp intending to burn a hole in a wall, they are unable to use that dynamic bonus to do anything else, such as burning a hole in a different wall, or attacking an enemy. So for example, Charles may prepare a speech to proselytize the civilians thus giving him a dynamic bonus, however, if he needs to talk an enemy into surrendering, his roll will not use the bonus and he will lose the charged bonus as well.

That makes sense.

I would also like to propose that dynamic bonuses cannot be used if someone has a penalty in that action.

Eh, less so. I mean, even if you suck at something, taking more time still helps as much as if you didn't suck at it.

[Empiricist]

Perhaps, but taking time to counteract inexperience doesn't help THAT much if you're performing surgery. Plus dynamic bonuses are activated by doing something that would logically improve your chances, someone that inexperienced may not know what action would do that.

[Kriellya]

The current system is already limited to +/- 1. Most of the time, either by PW going 'no, I'm not letting you get something guaranteed if you dick around for a week' or by the situation shooting you dead if you don't do something sooner. Additionally, if we allow profession to be part of the 'natural modifier' then an entry fleshtech would be able to get +/- 2. Note that I'm not really proposing changes here, just discussing the system

Though I will definitely agree with Empire that it should be a charge for a specific action. This emphasizes the original role of the system :: by studying or preparing to do something specific, you would be much less likely to overshoot, and slightly more likely to suceed. Emphasis on something specific. Charging to just use an amp is just broken. Why is there any reason to not walk around as slowly as it takes to maintain *maximal charge* and obliterate any hostile you see? And yeah, I think that key element of justification has sort of faded. Not that it's usually hard to come up with justifications, but they were nice little roleplay things. And sort of a nod to the entire thing coming from the whole 'arguing with the GM' tradition

It would also kind of ruin the original purpose for anyone aside from the higher level vets- something like charging a dynamic bonus for a aimed shot by spending several extra turns.

The original purpose was to help lower the number of overshots...

Ehh, I suppose that was the original purpose, but if that was the only purpose, than the dynamic bonus should only be negative. Which perhaps it should be? I'm not sure. The main issue with them right now is that it's possible to get a guaranteed hit, which is not something an RTD should allow. Reasonably likely hit, sure. Very unlikely overshot, sure. But if, for example, Xan becomes a walking death machine who can't miss and can't be injured, the game is over.

[Xantalos]

Though given that my endgame goal requires 60 tokens and a really large mission total, by the time I get it the game will be close to over.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Perhaps, but taking time to counteract inexperience doesn't help THAT much if you're performing surgery. Plus dynamic bonuses are activated by doing something that would logically improve your chances, someone that inexperienced may not know what action would do that.

Which is true...for surgery and a few other types of actions. Most things, taking extra time helps.

Ehh, I suppose that was the original purpose, but if that was the only purpose, than the dynamic bonus should only be negative.

Notice the original thing I was criticizing with that comment. It's something that bugs me a bit...

The main issue with them right now is that it's possible to get a guaranteed hit, which is not something an RTD should allow. Reasonably likely hit, sure. Very unlikely overshot, sure. But if, for example, Xan becomes a walking death machine who can't miss and can't be injured, the game is over.

That is a problem.

Though given that my endgame goal requires 60 tokens and a really large mission total, by the time I get it the game will be close to over.

I dunno, even now if you build up enough of a dynamic bonus (the point we're discussing) you'll be able to perfectly reshape yourself. And that's pretty flexible.

[Xantalos]

I can't now that there's no +billion dynamic bonuses. Besides, I wouldn't really anyway; only reason I was doing that was because me and Gamerlord had literally nothing to do save wait around and belch.

[NAV]

GWG, here's how you pick it up without hallucinations:

It's a grabbing stick. Simple enough.

Also, I think charged bonuses should only act as negative modifiers to reduce overshoots. Because the game will run faster if people don't wait a billion turns to act.

[syvarris]

Uhm, the system is not limited to +/-1.  There's no cap, as has been pretty well demonstrated by various people in various threads.  Unless I missed a memo from PW.  I'm pretty sure Saint has never rolled anything aside from AUX:5's.

And yes, almost every fleshtech has significant medical training in their backstory.  Previously, a fleshtech's... variable performance was usually handwaved as "You're in a panicked, stressful situation, rather than a nice clean surgical operating room with several helpers and plenty of time.  You'll make mistakes."  It doesn't make sense that a doctor with plenty of time to prepare can't get a guaranteed five.  Or a sniper.  Or a mechanic.  It makes even less sense that the person only has a one in six chance of not making some form of mistake.

Also, why would Xan/whoever being able to get guaranteed fives on uncon rolls be bad?  He could buy two freaking Avatars of War for the tokens he'd need, plus many missions to get the stats, and he still wouldn't stand a chance against, say, the AM.  And being able to roll perfectly does not equate to being invincible.  He can still make bad decisions, and he can always get into situations that just kill you with no roll.

NAV, I really dislike that argument.  When has charging for dynamic bonuses slown anything down?  I mean, yes, in theory it could become a problem.  But it isn't.  Why change things to fix a 'might'.


Lastly, I do agree that it shouldn't be possible to just charge a generic bonus.  I think we should go back to the original design, which was "do action which prepares for this action".  If you can't specify what action you're preparing for, or if it's impossible for you to prepare, then you can't get a dynamic bonus.