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[Toaster]

Considering the AM herself uses one, I'm surprised no one's gone for one sooner.

[Parisbre56]

You can. They're just 7 tokens apiece for each kind of influence. I presume the most common ones are well-foreseen by the Arbiter amp insurance plan.

Wonder if AoPs are gravity-protected, by the way, since one of the selling points of that is that nobody bothers to protect themselves against gravity.

what?

That... That's actually something that I had this long drawn out conversation in Tinker with PW about... and there were preexisting automanips for it?!?
...
...
...

Mission 24, when someone finally reads the entry for 'kinetic shunt.'  Just remember, it takes batteries, so it will cost to use them.

A) Kinetic Shut costs 16 tokens.
B) Kinetic Shunt does not protect against manipulators.
C) Passive Kinetic Barrier is a defensive automanipulator that stops kinetic projectiles and costs 7 tokens (but should probably become cheaper with the new armory prices being lower). It can also presumably stop vector attacks.

They are talking about the more obscure "defensive automanipulators", that I think are not in the armory. Although I think the invisible sniper guy whose name I forget had bought enough to defend himself from lasers/microwave and kinetics for... 9 tokens I think?

EDIT: If you think about it, isn't the kinetic infuser a smaller and less advanced version of the kinetic shunt?

EDIT2: Yeah, it's Bishop and his inventory calls them 3 automated protection manipulators but doesn't specify what they protect against... But I remember him using them to protect himself during the Hephaestus Assault. I'll see if I can find the post he bought them.

[Devastator]

Wow.. that's really, really cheap.  Amazingly cheap, in fact.  Immunity to AoPs?  7 tokens.

[Parisbre56]

Wow.. that's really, really cheap.  Amazingly cheap, in fact.  Immunity to AoPs?  7 tokens.

Did you even read the description? Or what I wrote?
Or how the AoP attacks?
Because you're missing either one or the other.

EDIT: And they have all the problems defensive automanips have, so it's hardly immune.

[Devastator]

Wow.. that's really, really cheap.  Amazingly cheap, in fact.  Immunity to AoPs?  7 tokens.

Did you even read the description? Or what I wrote?
Or how the AoP attacks?
Because you're missing either one or the other.

EDIT: And they have all the problems defensive automanips have, so it's hardly immune.

I'm exaggerating a little, but if it can stop bullets, I don't see why it wouldn't stop extremely fast moving non-bullet objects, even if not perfectly.  AoPs attack physically, with high-speed flexable extremely narrow blades, IIRC.  Should be pretty effective.

-edit-  Since enemies only move a few times, if it buys you two-ish turns, it should be enough for everyone else to put it on the floor.  Yeah, should be extremely good against AoPs, if less so against other enemies.  Certainly cheap at the price.

[Parisbre56]

Looks like my memory was not right. For good coverage against mundane and magical attacks, you need about 20-23 tokens:

((I was hoping to see stuff like the installable shields that are available, as well as other possible protective stuff.))

Count all my tokens, then see what I can get given my current amount of funds that can be protective. Namely armour plating, shields, space magic or other special stuff.

With 23 tokens you can buy a goddamn battle suit. Or automated manipulators to stop bullets and shrapnel. Or mini point defense guns. Or mirrored armor for lasers. Hell, you can get just about anything.

Purchase enough automated manipulators to completely protect my whole suit and the rocket pods. Buy some armour plating too if I can, and have it placed on my head, neck, vitals, rocket pods and torso sections of my suit first before the rest of it. Get my rocket rifle clip refilled and buy another one if possible, then head to the briefing.

You get 3 of the automated manipulators, enough to give you a good degree of protection vs pretty much anything for a while at least.

Wow.. that's really, really cheap.  Amazingly cheap, in fact.  Immunity to AoPs?  7 tokens.

Did you even read the description? Or what I wrote?
Or how the AoP attacks?
Because you're missing either one or the other.

EDIT: And they have all the problems defensive automanips have, so it's hardly immune.

I'm exaggerating a little, but if it can stop bullets, I don't see why it wouldn't stop extremely fast moving non-bullet objects, even if not perfectly.  AoPs attack physically, with high-speed flexable extremely narrow blades, IIRC.  Should be pretty effective.

An automanipulator shield. Automatically manipulates the vector of anything entering it's field at dangerous speeds. Can only operate so quickly, so it will not work well against quick firing weapons or lasers. Will not work on projectiles significantly larger than a softball. Limited charges.

So it could stop some attacks, let you live a bit longer.
But the moment the AoP uses an automanipulator to attack, you're dead.
The AoP bodyslams you, you're dead.
The AoP launches an object at you, you're dead.
The AoP launches a shock-wave at you, you're dead.
The AoP launches multiple wires at you, you're dead.
The AoP does rapid punches, you're dead.
Your battery runs out, you're dead.

If you're going up against an AoP at close range, it might be better to just go for heavy armour and a tesla arc. Or maybe a good cloaking device and a tesla arc. Or Renen treatment and a tesla arc. Or some sort of teleporter that leaves a nuke behind, if you don't care about civilian casualties and destruction of property. (Reason I'm saying Tesla Arc is because despite his speed, I doubt he's as fast as lightning. Unless he knows kung-fu fighting...)

EDIT: I find it funny that the description mentions lasers as a projectile weapon. Well, I guess if you count photons as projectiles...

[Devastator]

So it could stop some attacks, let you live a bit longer.
But the moment the AoP uses an automanipulator to attack, you're dead.
The AoP bodyslams you, you're dead.
The AoP launches an object at you, you're dead.
The AoP launches a shock-wave at you, you're dead.
The AoP launches multiple wires at you, you're dead.
The AoP does rapid punches, you're dead.
Your battery runs out, you're dead.

If you're going up against an AoP at close range, it might be better to just go for heavy armour and a tesla arc. Or maybe a good cloaking device and a tesla arc. Or Renen treatment and a tesla arc. Or some sort of teleporter that leaves a nuke behind, if you don't care about civilian casualties and destruction of property. (Reason I'm saying Tesla Arc is because despite his speed, I doubt he's as fast as lightning. Unless he knows kung-fu fighting...)

A lot of those sound pretty theoretical.  If it buys you a turn, it could be a big win.  And if the first attack whiffs, it could well buy you a turn.

As for the other stuff, at the end of the day things that 'make you dead' just don't seem to kill a lot of people.  I'd expect the vast majority of those attacks to end with 'you live, but are moderately wounded/badly wounded/braincased, with temp-death becoming possible if you happen to not be a robot or synthflesh.  I'd expect to lose no more than one person per two opposition turns, with it hitting the floor after three or so friendly turns, for 1.5 permadead or so.  Those automanips would probably cut casulties in half, if not better than that.

[Parisbre56]

That's your opinion. But it didn't seem to turn out that way during the mission. Granted, the deep team had the wrong kind of equipment and skills to take him on (only Lyra had useful things/skills and she got unlucky). But it seemed to me that every turn the arbiter launched a number of AoE attacks that were of the "if anybody does not roll 5, they get injured or killed, depending on the roll and their skills". So if you don't have something to either deter or damage the AoP and stop his attacks, you won't live for long. A shield automanipulator would just stop the tip of one crowd wire at a time. It wouldn't stop shockwaves and it wouldn't stop multiple wires. In fact, if someone dodged/run into a wire instead of having the tip of the wire fly into them, they'd still get hurt. Or if the AoP twisted the wires around sideways not quickly enough for them to register as a projectile (assuming they could even register as a projectile, since their large length could prevent that from happening).

[Lenglon]

Weren't you discussing ways to detect space magic, not ways to protect against it?

yes, but whatever an automanip uses to detect that it needs to activate in the first place could be used standalone, couldn't it?

[Devastator]

That's your opinion. But it didn't seem to turn out that way during the mission. Granted, the deep team had the wrong kind of equipment and skills to take him on (only Lyra had useful things/skills and she got unlucky). But it seemed to me that every turn the arbiter launched a number of AoE attacks that were of the "if anybody does not roll 5, they get injured or killed, depending on the roll and their skills". So if you don't have something to either deter or damage the AoP and stop his attacks, you won't live for long. A shield automanipulator would just stop the tip of one crowd wire at a time. It wouldn't stop shockwaves and it wouldn't stop multiple wires. In fact, if someone dodged/run into a wire instead of having the tip of the wire fly into them, they'd still get hurt. Or if the AoP twisted the wires around sideways not quickly enough for them to register as a projectile (assuming they could even register as a projectile, since their large length could prevent that from happening).

At the end of the day, the AoP killed no-one.  I don't see how the result of it killing nobody can be used to state how much more dangerous it is than I'm thinking.  Injuries, injuries, injuries, but no kills.  Lyra rolled a pair of ones, and shook it off.

I get that you're saying it's not immunity to an AoP, but you don't need immunity, just need to keep it busy for a turn or two.

[Devastator]

Weren't you discussing ways to detect space magic, not ways to protect against it?

yes, but whatever an automanip uses to detect that it needs to activate in the first place could be used standalone, couldn't it?

I wouldn't worry about it.  You survived a round of melee with an AoP, while rolling two ones in that round.  Arguing the price down on an item that would make it require a third one to even touch you is just petty at that point.  Save the add-ons to grant saves for the people who don't have them guaranteed already.

[Lenglon]

Lyra would easily die to Lyra though. Although Lyra has bonuses to detect Lyra, Lyra still would have trouble detecting Lyra. So Lyra could just stealth-amp Lyra, just like Lyra tried vs the AoP, and it would instantly kill Lyra. giving Lyra the ability to detect it happening would let Lyra try to dodge the effect, since space magic targets locations instead of individuals.

[Parisbre56]

@Dev: Like I said, that's your opinion. Can't do anything about that. I interpret that data differently.

@Lenglon: Maybe my wording was wrong, but that's what I meant when I was talking about shield automanipulators: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135884.msg6096321;topicseen#msg6096321

I'd add to that that the Haebi were also capable of sensing space magic somehow, so Hephaestus might be able to use the brain we recovered to create some sort of sensor.

And we have the new artefact that lights up whenever certain forms of space magic are used while also defending against them. You could ask Hephaestus to look into that.

[Nikitian]

@Devastator
You know, I don't buy it into "didn't kill anyone". Hasn't he basically dismembered pretty much everyone down below (maybe apart from one or two people, I don't remember the details)? You know, people die if they are killed, or specifically dismembered in this case. It might take it a little time to have them bleed to death on the heap of their own entrails, but death's a death, even if it hasn't yet set in, or is temporarily reversible one. Think Charro Hootzal.

The problem is, what I think you'd desire to see, more common perma-deaths. And here it breaks up: a 'permanent' death is a meta-game term, that has no place in-game. We're not zombies for enemies to target our heads as the only way to stop us - killing us, even just dismembering us a little bit does the trick just as well. And while "recoverable brains for later revival" is a thing from IC perspective, I don't see any enemy going after those except for maybe someone specifically bent on denying us brains and slightly psychopatic at that - maybe the serial killer would fit, I don't know.
All the AoP had to do was to take us out of action. Even if he wanted to kill us all here and now (and not, say, protect the cargo from our intrusion, hypothetically), just leaving us up to the liquefying device would work. Only ampers in brain-cases could still pose a threat when dismembered, and adjusting for no inputs would still make it difficult for them - I think Lyra was either overlooked, or left for later.

So - no, he did optimally and almost wiped the team. 'Almost' here being the result of Steve's intervention, which he apparently wasn't prepared for, and not the Arbiter's incompetence or inefficiency (by design or by Piecewise going soft on us). And Steve's intervention wasn't Deux Ex Machina (in the sense of completely unexpected help coming out of the blue), it was a carefully planned and developed project that was mentioned or at least hinted at for quite some time now (thus rather classifying it as Chekhov's Gun, if you wish).

[Parisbre56]

Not only that, he also thinks that the AoP would had died in three turns. I'd like to see how he proposes that happens, given that it was completely unhurt, was protected by automanips and had taken half the team out of action.