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[Xantalos]

We have three people that actually design things and do science (PW forbade using science crews on Nyartefacts, I believe). Give us a break.

Oh, I wasn't blaming you. I mostly just meant that people have slightly... inflated expectations in terms of what a crew of ~6 (or, according to you, ~3) people can do, especially given the rather loose organization of things and strange timeframes that one encounters.

"Where's my damn jetpack?!"

[Radio Controlled]

Speaking of pill machine, I was kinda hoping we would be getting pills in this next shipment. It's a shame there hasn't been more testing of it yet.

I think "it's a shame there hasn't been more X" and "we were hoping we would have Y by now" are very common sentiments in relation to the whole Hephaestus thing.

We have three people that actually design things and do science (PW forbade using science crews on Nyartefacts, I believe). Give us a break.

*cough cough*

Anyways, I'll told you before that if you have too much to do right now, you can send the pill machine to the Sword and let Miya handle access (to prevent a Grate incident again).

[Parisbre56]

"Do you actually have any of those? Steam and coal powered generators? Can I have one?"
Shopping.

"The first sign of stasis dementia is the inability to comprehend sarcasm."

The question is, was that sarcasm?

Maybe try to help that guy open his locker door. With my pickaxe.

"Here's Johnny!"

[Parisbre56]

((Uh.. yeah. Should have probably moved that to OOC.

Also, just to have a productive turn:))

Anton Chernozorov

Look through the UWM ship database for a simple construction ship design, something fit for orbital salvage and repair ops, and general space structure construction. Order two of a fitting design built and launched.

Have ARESTEVE direct the shuttle fleet to start congregating the debris and salvageable ships in orbit, so that they form a more manageable clump instead of a scattered ring of clutter.

Are you sure that's necessary? After all, Miyamoto is building a massive defensive network around the gate with no need for construction ships. So maybe Hephaestus is already equipped with those.

EDIT: Unless you mean to build a dedicated repair frigate that will travel with the rest of the combat ships to provide repairs.

[Radio Controlled]

Gonna type up a short version of my new suit idea. This is for a replacement of the battlesuit. It is based on a few observations:

in a battlesuit, you get two kinetic amps for free. This isn’t very handy for players who have no uncon skill. So, I wouldn’t include it in the new suit. However, it would be something I would include if the suit was used by our npc forces, or for people with uncon skill (since otherwise it’d be 6 tokens to get that). So, it’d be great ‘bang for your buck’ when included since you can basically get a lot of ‘free equipment’ included in the 20 token price, but for certain users it’d be a waste of resources.

So, I’d like to make the suit as basic as possible, to prevent including things people don’t want or need. On the other hand, there are quite a few subsystems that I could think of to include, and it would lower the overall value of the suit too much if I didn’t include anything (as in, make the suit so basic and without ‘free’ subsystems). As such, I have the following idea (basically stolen from the AoW):
We agree on the basic suit. It has certain roll modifiers and certain (sub)systems, but next to that, people will be allowed to choose a certain number of subsystems or gadgets from a list we agree upon.

So a buyer would have, for example, three ‘equipment slots’ so that when they buy one they can get the suit they like the most.

Examples of systems one can choose from (using 5 tokens as aiming cost per system if it were bought separately):
-mounted heavy hardpoint for mounting weapons (for EXO users)
-kinetic amp in each arm
-upgraded sensor suite (cameyes, upgraded sound for sonar/echolocation and software gadgets)
-a recharging jumppack (like the one an AoW uses)
-a flight pack (like mobility battlesuit), if needed this would account for two equipment slots (to cover the cost of needing high-grade boosters and fuel to lift this thing)
-claymore defense system
-highly upgraded generator to power weapons or systems
-Big shield to cover suit and allies
-Communications pack (maybe with quantum entanglement pack)
-Those cables for maneuvering that the Arbiter has
-...(ideas are welcome, this is from the top of my mind)

(Note that I’d try not to include guns and such as an option, weapons is something they’d still have to buy themselves (except for the kin amps, since those are a backup thing mostly anyway), unless pw says it'd be ok).

For the base suit itself, I'd go with a simple but (hopefully) rugged design, using components designed or optimized by ARESTEVE. I have a library of exoskeletons, and should have upgrades generators and computer hard/software soon-ish, as well as new armor to clad it in (using artifacts for tech, oh my). And a few standard subsystems, such as wheels under the feet (should be cheap, and seems reasonable) and eject pod would be standard in each suit. Nothing fancy or situational, but stuff any user (player or npc) could use/need.

I'm thinking of two base versions of the suit, a heavily armored one (like a battlesuit) and one that trades some armor for small maneuvering rockets and upgraded exoskeleton (like melee battlesuit) that acts as a lighter assault version with much higher emphasis on evading or closing in/getting out fast (note that, if it turns out having acceptable armor for the last one while also retaining desired mobility, it may be necessary to make this version slightly more expensive and/ or give it fewer equipment slots).

PW, opinion on this? Does this seem like a reasonable idea?

[Parisbre56]

So it's basically a battlesuit with less equipment, that has a lot more and better armour and that uses equipment slots and is easily upgradable like Sean's Modular replacement for the MKIII instead of using built in equipment, correct?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Seems reasonable to me, and is highly compatible in principle to the MACS. The MACS can probably largely replace a battlesuit's control-cuff system, by reading biometric data directly from the body of the wearer (or from robo- or synth-limbs, in case of integrated MACS systems), so in effect it would be the same as the regular MACS with a regular exoskeleton - just upscaled to a more threatening size.

Speaking of.

I think the system where the user would just buy the core suit, and get the rest of the equipment as loans (unless he breaks it, or wants to just buy it outright), could work just as well. What sort of price would we be talking about here?

Suppose the core plugsuit (which replaces the Mk2) costs 5 token. A rocket-pack module separately could cost 8 token. An exoskeleton could separately cost another 8. All together, 21 token worth of equipment to replace an equivalent Mk3 (worth 13). How much downpayment would the user have to leave for the gear to be able to loan it? How much would loaning cost?

[Nikitian]

I would like to point out that kinetic amps constitute a very small part of battlesuit price. I recall Piecewise once pointing out that a battlesuit prototype would cost a hundred tokens or so, and most of that is its armor. Other such components might be similarly cheap, given the mass-production scale required, and overall cost reduction wouldn't be so great as one might want.
Furthermore, while exciting, it might prove very difficult to keep track of all the customization; and either each one is nigh-custom built, which would mean barely any cost reduction from mass production, or (much more likely) there would have to be some kind of modular design, and then likely some upgrades will compete for space/mountpoints - like, say, the rocket pods upgrade and the power backpack.
That said, the design sounds very promising. In your opinion, would there be possible to purchase and install additional components for the same standardised fee?

Just one more idea - if the upgrades actually turn out to cost very little, why not go all the other way? Tinker in as much upgrades as we can and then apply them all to Battlesuit Mk II - slightly more expensive, yes, but far more capable. It would be in line with all the previous philosophy of suit design, and mind it: the flat cost to token price seem to be exponential - the more we stuff in, the less each additional component would add to the whole cost (if mass-produced, of course). Avatar of War prototype price to Battlesuit prototype price to Mk III prototype price to Mk II prototype price.
Or maybe let that be New Battlesuit Mk II, and let New Battlesuit Mk I be what you envisaged.

Add: @Sean I might be too conservative or cautious here, but I'd rather not let us 'borrow' equipment by 'pay the full price if you break it'. We will break them, and then go broke, and what will you do? That's the very problem of this system, I'm afraid, in other regards fairly sound.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Add: @Sean I might be too conservative or cautious here, but I'd rather not let us 'borrow' equipment by 'pay the full price if you break it'. We will break them, and then go broke, and what will you do? That's the very problem of this system, I'm afraid, in other regards fairly sound.

My original idea wasn't too much better in this regard, as it called for a "license" to use the equipment, which would be revoked if the equipment was lost, but you incurred no running cost for using stuff without damaging it.

In this case, I think "lost" is a better term, as I took "break" to mean "beyond repair" - which would mean you'd have to get something attached directly to you totally destroyed, and somehow survive anyway.

Think of it this way. The mission fund allows you to do the same thing, but by paying full price in advance, and you can't just buy anything because if you lose it everyone will get angry at you. With a loaned equipment system, your initial payment is much smaller, and you don't risk anyone's wrath for getting the costly gear destroyed. You do end up losing money if you lose the gear, but that is kind of unavoidable regardless of how you buy it in the first place. Plus the mission fund allows you to keep having decent gear for a mission even if you're broke or in debt.

[Parisbre56]

@Sean: I don't think using a suit for something as big and as complex as a battlesuit is a good idea.

While the battlesuit is mostly a fighting machine that acts as an extension of a human body, it is also a tank, a rugged vehicle with a lot of complex equipment and computational systems on it, systems of auxiliary nature, that can actually work very well even if damaged and have many failsafes and redundant system as well as a high degree of customization and versatility.

That means that having the ability to remove your hands from the control cuffs to access the various keyboards, switches and monitors is essential.

The only way to replace those keyboards and monitors would be to somehow make the receive commands from and send data to the mind of the user, which would mean that the system would become more fragile, harder to use and have the potential for feedback, possibly requiring the user to spend points in will or multiclass to exotic.

Another alternative would be using gestures or voice commands, but that too would be cumbersome and prone to failure (what if you can't move your fingers in the way required to activate the thing because you're holding something? Or what if you accidentally make a gesture?)

Place people with body armour behind riot shields

I like the way you're thinking. A literal meatshield.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Heh, but what happens if both your hands are in control cuffs? If you are holding onto the cuffs to control things, then your hands are occupied anyway, and you could use gestures or hand positions to switch motion-capture on and off in the plugsuit. If you're not holding onto the cuffs, then you must have some way of disengaging the cuffs for the same little operations within the cockpit, one that does not require a free hand, and the same can be used for the plugsuit.

Also, a lot of the Mk-series suits' internal systems are already accessed through either voice commands or mimics-powered inputs. Tongue switches, etc. Robobody people could do things by thinking text messages at the command console.

[Parisbre56]

If the battlesuit is an extension of your body, like a MK3's exoskeleton, then how are you going to move your hands when you're holding something?

And if that is not the case, if the suit is simply inside a large exoskeleton with similar features to a battlesuit, then why not just use a battlesuit, since it is easier and better? Why link the battlesuit to the suit?

[Nikitian]

@Sean Mirrsen Yeah, actually, with mission-fund approach it is quite better fit for the job; I was mostly considering the original 'go in, die horribly, and then maybe get the default 5 token' approach - and so far the latest missions seemed to implement a mix of both.

Speaking of which, a bit less than a year ago there was a great discussion on how to deal with mission rewards and such, and IIRC the poll resulted in 'Hybrid' of 'Go Straight Fucking Military' and 'Old HMRC style'.
Piecewise, what is the current status on the mission reward/equipment acquisition system reformation? Will we be transitioning to a new one at all, or what is your decision on that topic?
Because once upon a time there used to be at least a flat 5 token reward for every mission, even a failed one (Mission Serial Killer comes to mind), and now even successful missions don't often hit that mark. While this goes lengths to avoid token inflation, it interferes with the old price design (which already had ways to vent off extra tokens - by means of buying consumables, ammo, upgrades/customisation kits, etc.) and, I am led to believe, generally harms the game and the players' experience of it.
You also mentioned increasing the starting amount of tokens for new players back then. Though if the system is fixed without causing token inflation, it might prove unnecessary.

[piecewise]

Gonna type up a short version of my new suit idea. This is for a replacement of the battlesuit. It is based on a few observations:

in a battlesuit, you get two kinetic amps for free. This isn’t very handy for players who have no uncon skill. So, I wouldn’t include it in the new suit. However, it would be something I would include if the suit was used by our npc forces, or for people with uncon skill (since otherwise it’d be 6 tokens to get that). So, it’d be great ‘bang for your buck’ when included since you can basically get a lot of ‘free equipment’ included in the 20 token price, but for certain users it’d be a waste of resources.

So, I’d like to make the suit as basic as possible, to prevent including things people don’t want or need. On the other hand, there are quite a few subsystems that I could think of to include, and it would lower the overall value of the suit too much if I didn’t include anything (as in, make the suit so basic and without ‘free’ subsystems). As such, I have the following idea (basically stolen from the AoW):
We agree on the basic suit. It has certain roll modifiers and certain (sub)systems, but next to that, people will be allowed to choose a certain number of subsystems or gadgets from a list we agree upon.

So a buyer would have, for example, three ‘equipment slots’ so that when they buy one they can get the suit they like the most.

Examples of systems one can choose from (using 5 tokens as aiming cost per system if it were bought separately):
-mounted heavy hardpoint for mounting weapons (for EXO users)
-kinetic amp in each arm
-upgraded sensor suite (cameyes, upgraded sound for sonar/echolocation and software gadgets)
-a recharging jumppack (like the one an AoW uses)
-a flight pack (like mobility battlesuit), if needed this would account for two equipment slots (to cover the cost of needing high-grade boosters and fuel to lift this thing)
-claymore defense system
-highly upgraded generator to power weapons or systems
-Big shield to cover suit and allies
-Communications pack (maybe with quantum entanglement pack)
-Those cables for maneuvering that the Arbiter has
-...(ideas are welcome, this is from the top of my mind)

(Note that I’d try not to include guns and such as an option, weapons is something they’d still have to buy themselves (except for the kin amps, since those are a backup thing mostly anyway), unless pw says it'd be ok).

For the base suit itself, I'd go with a simple but (hopefully) rugged design, using components designed or optimized by ARESTEVE. I have a library of exoskeletons, and should have upgrades generators and computer hard/software soon-ish, as well as new armor to clad it in (using artifacts for tech, oh my). And a few standard subsystems, such as wheels under the feet (should be cheap, and seems reasonable) and eject pod would be standard in each suit. Nothing fancy or situational, but stuff any user (player or npc) could use/need.

I'm thinking of two base versions of the suit, a heavily armored one (like a battlesuit) and one that trades some armor for small maneuvering rockets and upgraded exoskeleton (like melee battlesuit) that acts as a lighter assault version with much higher emphasis on evading or closing in/getting out fast (note that, if it turns out having acceptable armor for the last one while also retaining desired mobility, it may be necessary to make this version slightly more expensive and/ or give it fewer equipment slots).

PW, opinion on this? Does this seem like a reasonable idea?

I sense a great deal of haggling and compromise in the future, but the basic idea is just fine and dandy.

@Sean Mirrsen Yeah, actually, with mission-fund approach it is quite better fit for the job; I was mostly considering the original 'go in, die horribly, and then maybe get the default 5 token' approach - and so far the latest missions seemed to implement a mix of both.

Speaking of which, a bit less than a year ago there was a great discussion on how to deal with mission rewards and such, and IIRC the poll resulted in 'Hybrid' of 'Go Straight Fucking Military' and 'Old HMRC style'.
Piecewise, what is the current status on the mission reward/equipment acquisition system reformation? Will we be transitioning to a new one at all, or what is your decision on that topic?
Because once upon a time there used to be at least a flat 5 token reward for every mission, even a failed one (Mission Serial Killer comes to mind), and now even successful missions don't often hit that mark. While this goes lengths to avoid token inflation, it interferes with the old price design (which already had ways to vent off extra tokens - by means of buying consumables, ammo, upgrades/customisation kits, etc.) and, I am led to believe, generally harms the game and the players' experience of it.
You also mentioned increasing the starting amount of tokens for new players back then. Though if the system is fixed without causing token inflation, it might prove unnecessary.

It's kinda random right now. Black ops is working on an almost mercenary type deal of choosing their own prices after the fact and being provided with goods, but getting little to nothing if they fail.

We're basically going more "reward" based. The team that fucked up this mission got a couple tokens to distribute among them all, and the 14 mission is going to get mostly just based on what they bring back. The standard pay is generally out.

[syvarris]

I really like Radio's idea, more customization is always good.  I kinda wonder about some of it, like an improved genner for weapons, because I'm pretty sure that idea was shot down.  Maybe offer as a generic option of 'more armor', make the default amor level three layers, and add two more slots for choices?  Then you could customize something like the mobility or melee battlesuit, sacrificing armor for more utility.  Also, you might add "Even stronger exoskeleton" to that list.  Maybe add "avatar cloth protection for joints" too.

I figure I might as well post my idea for a battlesuit supplement.  See what people think of it.

Basically, most weapons have one of two levels of effectiveness against battlesuits: "Plink", or "Kill".  There's a few exceptions; both the HGC and HEP remove one layer of armor only, but basically everything else falls into those two categories.  Even worse, space magic doesn't really give a carp about any of it's heavy armor.

Additionally, the largest weakness of a battlesuit is the fact that it's so big it can't fit indoors.  It's not quite as bad as a tank, but it's still pretty bad.

Therefore, I propose three major changes to the design philosophy: Strip three layers of armor off, because you'll still be immune to small arms fire, and take two strong hits from heavier guns.  Make mobility improvements like jetpacks standard, so that you have better defense against BS killers like PSLs, Lavalamp cannons, and space magic.  Finally, change the cockpit to a braincase, so that the overall size of the thing can be reduced so that it can still fit through doors.

The space savings from the latter should make the former two things even easier, because it's way lighter and you have much less area to protect than a full body.  We might be able to armor the joints with Avatar cloth, closing another weakness.  The biggest problem is that you have to get decapitated to use one.  I think that's acceptable- the fleshies that want to keep their head can get an old BS, and the robos can get this.  They complement each other, much like heavy tanks and light tanks.  And all our robosods wouldn't mind at all, I'm sure.

Thoughts?