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[Radio Controlled]

The team fund isn't really for paying people, that's what the loot pools are for (though it could be used for that in a pinch if it's really nessesary). It's for giving newbs a little leg up, buying (mostly consumables) mission gear and paying people for doing certain jobs.

So basically your screwing the newbies over so you can add items no-one can afford to the armory? You fiend.

_{mwahaha, now your the bad guy.}

There seems to be some confusion here, I always was the bad guy.

And besides, not a whole lot of people have used the fund lately, and there's still plenty stuff in there.
I intend on selling the prototypes after they've been admitted so that the fund can sustain itself.

So no, nobody is getting screwed over here.

[AoshimaMichio]

I think sending the stuff Nyars sells to Hep is kinda pointless. All that stuff has already gone through old R&D department, which is current science teams in Hep. They already know what there is to know about those things. You might as well ask them directly.

As for Misison 18, you shouldn't heat the Eater of Cold but rather it's surroundings. It 'eats' cold by heating it up, so heating the host doesn't really do anything. Deprive it from food by removing cold around it.

[Radio Controlled]

Gameplay from story separation. It doesn't make a lot of sense IC, but it's kept like this because Nyars was originally just a funny 'lolrandom equipement' thing. It doesn't make sense in the first place that some of these things were thrown away.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The team fund isn't really for paying people, that's what the loot pools are for (though it could be used for that in a pinch if it's really nessesary). It's for giving newbs a little leg up, buying (mostly consumables) mission gear and paying people for doing certain jobs.

So basically your screwing the newbies over so you can add items no-one can afford to the armory? You fiend.

_{mwahaha, now your the bad guy.}

There seems to be some confusion here, I always was the bad guy.

And besides, not a whole lot of people have used the fund lately, and there's still plenty stuff in there.
I intend on selling the prototypes after they've been admitted so that the fund can sustain itself.

So no, nobody is getting screwed over here.

Until one of the prototypes is a full-auto screw cannon, at least.

Also, while Nyars stuff already went through R&D, right now Heph is a little more than a mere R&D depot, and is working in slightly different conditions. Plus a different manager, and at least one certifiably unhinged (although not outright crazy) weapons designer. We should be able to get a thorough second look at this stuff. Even a third look, if need be - I'm planning something devious involving the HEP once we have the high-energy lab up. ^_^

[sambojin]

@AoshimaMichio

Diffusion settings on lasers is about all we've got Con weapon-wise. Heating the air near it with a fire too. Amp/manip use is still a last option, and the user better give us all time with their bonus charging crap to run like hell. Or at least a verbal warning.

Question.
Can I charge con/dex bonuses? Is it a specific game-y "Imma chargin' ma Con bonus" thing, or is taking aim for a round synonymous with that? In theory, we're aiming anyway, so is it specific and can it be done at all (especially during quick time segments of a mission)?

[Pancaek]

@AoshimaMichio

Diffusion settings on lasers is about all we've got Con weapon-wise. Heating the air near it with a fire too. Amp/manip use is still a last option, and the user better give us all time with their bonus charging crap to run like hell. Or at least a verbal warning.

Question.
Can I charge con/dex bonuses? Is it a specific game-y "Imma chargin' ma Con bonus" thing, or is taking aim for a round synonymous with that? In theory, we're aiming anyway, so is it specific and can it be done at all (especially during quick time segments of a mission)?

You can. You just need state in your action that you want to aim and charge a con bonus. Basically, instead of aiming and firing in the same turn, you'll aim that turn and fire on the next turn with a +/-1 in con

[Harry Baldman]

I think sending the stuff Nyars sells to Hep is kinda pointless. All that stuff has already gone through old R&D department, which is current science teams in Hep. They already know what there is to know about those things. You might as well ask them directly.

As for Misison 18, you shouldn't heat the Eater of Cold but rather it's surroundings. It 'eats' cold by heating it up, so heating the host doesn't really do anything. Deprive it from food by removing cold around it.

That's actually a very solid point right there. If anything, heating up the Eater of Cold itself just makes it eat cold faster due to the increasing temperature difference.

Or at least that's the way it should work when violations of physics and good sense aren't involved, which they rather obviously are.

Hm. So far it seems like the Eater of Cold is some kind of piece of potent alien technology or lifeform that's limited by severe cooling issues mildly alleviated by being in a lifeform and having access to water to dump its heat into. Properties of interest are probably the possession mechanism, that splintering thing it does and apparent immortality. Of course, if this is correct, then it shouldn't matter all that much if we heat up the creature itself or the area around it, except that the area around it would be difficult to maintain.

We're just slightly lucky it didn't decide to jump into one of our amp people, as that would presumably allow it to cool itself down instantly and keep itself at optimal operating temperature without any form of trouble. The rationale behind the 'you kill it, you buy it' idea might be that the one that kills the Eater of Cold's current body is the creature that's expended the most energy, and probably optimal for cooling purposes? I'm not sure about that, though.

[Knight Otu]

Now, what would happen if we cool it to feed it/hasten its maturation? Can we do so without catastrophic consequences for us/the region/the planet/the system? If we get it to mature, Steve could potentially track its movement as it returns home, and it could allow for better studying its life cycle. Remember, our primary mission here is studying the eater, especially as a potential weapon against the UWM. Killing it properly is kind of a side quest, isn't it?

[Harry Baldman]

Now, what would happen if we cool it to feed it/hasten its maturation? Can we do so without catastrophic consequences for us/the region/the planet/the system? If we get it to mature, Steve could potentially track its movement as it returns home, and it could allow for better studying its life cycle. Remember, our primary mission here is studying the eater, especially as a potential weapon against the UWM. Killing it properly is kind of a side quest, isn't it?

We know it throws out a bunch of shards if it matures - we might consider cooling it and then letting it do so, then trying to collect the shards for study unless they're alien ghosts themselves or something.

We also may want to go and examine the pit we're supposed to kill it in regardless of mission success and try to figure out why it's so suitable ('there's no shade' doesn't fly, since there's no shade in the middle of any other patch of desert), because I suspect there may be alien garbage behind that as well. In addition, there's probably at least one Eater of Cold that's been killed there in the past, otherwise there'd be no confirmation of the technique - remains may be left behind.

Perhaps the old Eaters still live there, or at least sleep there, and when somebody's thrown into it, they just make a break for the body, thirsty for coolant? Even if there's an Eater in there already? If the fragments can lay dormant in the desert for a load of years, the Eater itself would probably endure as well.

Also, if ex-Dern doesn't feel like moving in the next couple of hours, we could ask Steve to get us a camera with a stupidly high framerate, then pressure a local into shooting the host dead and filming the transfer process, so that we can maybe get a picture of it. Maybe kidnap some children who don't know any better. It moves slowly enough that we can barely register it if I read correctly, so it should work pretty nicely unless the ghost in the body wises up and tries to kill us all for some reason.

I wonder if it knows the difference between an organic lifeform and a reasonable fake - say, a robot body. Robot bodies are obviously poor in terms of temperature buffering, but what if we made one out of some sort of material that has a heat capacity comparable to that of water, then attached it to a remote-controlled wheeled platform so that we can make it move without the body's input? We could even put a gun inside it and have it shoot the eater, see if it knows what's up and if flesh is the important factor here or simply water.

[AoshimaMichio]

Here's also this whole "do not lift it in into air" thing. Dropping the host into the hole (I'm imagining one with vertical walls) is equivalent of lifting it into air. I smell some trouble here. It might 'eat' cold through ground contact.

[solarlight]

Many thanks for the welcomes people, however I don't think cluttering the ship thread with them is a good idea.
Can't wait to start playing! School is gonna be a right ol' bastard though.

[sambojin]

@AoshimaMichio

Diffusion settings on lasers is about all we've got Con weapon-wise. Heating the air near it with a fire too. Amp/manip use is still a last option, and the user better give us all time with their bonus charging crap to run like hell. Or at least a verbal warning.

Question.
Can I charge con/dex bonuses? Is it a specific game-y "Imma chargin' ma Con bonus" thing, or is taking aim for a round synonymous with that? In theory, we're aiming anyway, so is it specific and can it be done at all (especially during quick time segments of a mission)?

You can. You just need state in your action that you want to aim and charge a con bonus. Basically, instead of aiming and firing in the same turn, you'll aim that turn and fire on the next turn with a +/-1 in con

Still, another plus point for amps (and maybe manips). You have to be pretty specific at what you're aiming at with Con weapons, and most Con weapons are pretty limited in functionality. Amp users can gather their will for any use, against any target, so they can react to the changing situation of that charging turn.

Risk/reward/versatility I guess. A gauss rifle rarely blows up significant portions of the team, but is fiddlier to aim.

On the question of holes and Eaters, I'm pretty sure we're not meant to kill it anyway. But if we need to chuck it in the hole while studying it, grav amps or any motion inducer (grav gun setting?) will be able to slide it down the wall of the hole, which is technically still the ground.

[Beirus]

Maybe we're lucky and "above the ground" means above the surface of the planet and the area in the hole is still considered below the ground level. Or maybe one side has a ramp. On the other hand, we're never that lucky.

[Unholy_Pariah]

Maybe you should try burying it in sand thereby encasing it in glass? If you use enough it might not be able to escape the body its possessing and the time it takes to asphyxiate might mean it fails to register its killer... which technically might be itself for melting the sand into the glass that drowned it...

[syvarris]

@Kri in on-ship thread

Feyri isn't a medic.  She's a con merc, so she actually has -2 to medical.  Worse, she has a +2 to strength, so she's just as likely to pry open your ribcage and jam the jagged ribs into your neck as to actually fix anything.  I thiiink Tir has some backstory about Feyri being horrible at medical stuff, too.

@Pit people
Steve explicitly said twenty feet above the ground, so as long as the pit isn't terribly deep, you'll probably be fine.  Anyways, the pit method has probably been done before, so it's probably safe even if it violates the normal rules.  Doesn't it involve decapitation?  We already know that's bad.

@Sambojin
Dynamic bonuses don't need you to specify what you're gonna do with them.  Miya could charge an uncon bonus for tickling a baby on the nose, and then suddenly decide he wants to split the atom instead, and the bonus is just as good.  This is because dynamic bonuses used to be infinitely stackable, as long as you specified exactly what you were going to do, and exactly how to prepare for it.  Problems arised when players that weren't me started constantly charging massive exo bonuses with their microwave amps, and kept them continually ready.  So PW swapped to the current system, and it's justified by everyone in ARM being insane.

@Unholy

You assume that physical matter will stop it from swapping bodies.  And that it will die from being encased in molten glass.  And that it won't evolve to it's next form if you do that.  All very dangerous assumptions.

Honestly, if just burying the thing alive solved the problem, you'd think the people who we're doing this for would just build a box and encase it in cement.  It would be cheaper and simpler than this method.