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[PyroDesu]

prototyping.

I'm torn. On the one hand syv raises some good points on the situational nature of testing on missions. On the other hand, no testing whatsoever does seem like asking to discover annoying quirks or unbalancedness at the worst possible moment. Perhaps we can presume that in the testing phase, we send a bunch of them along with sods we ship out to other planets to 'test them'. That way, if there's anything wrong with it that pw didn't want to state outright, he can do so with an IC justification.

I'm inclined to disagree. While Syv's point is entirely valid, the point is not just to find quirks or unbalance - it is to see how players use it and how effective it is for them, as well (and PW may not know all the quirks or unbalances - the players provide a lot of that, I think). Perhaps some kind of mini-mission deal could be set up, not only to test prototypes, but also maybe award a small amount of tokens and/or skill/stat points? Something 2-3 players could do in the span of a few updates (few being relative to the lengthy monsters some of the missions can be)?

[Unholy_Pariah]

Actually a sort of combat obstacle course type deal using a few dofferent types of robotic enemy could be good.

Itd give the weapon a sort of "real world" testing and youd get to see how players react with the weapon against opponents with varied levels of armor and mobility.

Personally id only let it give tokens or the prototype weapon though.

[Empiricist]

Charles sends all the data to his Commanding Officers.

Through investigations of my own, I have determined that it is possible to modify the production lines for robotic bodies as to allow remote control by sod brains through Saint's program within a certain close proximity.

The main advantage of this is that any squad that happens to carry such a brain unit would be able to have any robotic unit act as an efficient conventional weapons user regardless of what their personal specialties are. Of course, the sod brain has no sense of self-preservation, but it is generally preferable to have an effective soldier than a non-combatant, or an incapacitated liability. Although this requires empirical verification, I believe it may also be possible for a psychokinetic amplifier user to continue utilizing their weapon whilst their body is controlled, so provided they are able to protect themselves well enough, they could become rather lethal combatants.

A secondary advantage is that such a system would be compatible with the peripherals of the 'Pawn' Suppressive Fire Entity, the prototype weapon I am currently armed with. This means that such a weapon may be deployed as a turret and remotely operated by the brain unit should such a need arise. Whilst only one such instance of this weapon exists, I have determined that the weapon itself and the peripherals are mostly independent of one another. That is, the peripherals, with little modification and the inclusion of a trigger-pulling system, would be capable of being attached to virtually any infantry portable firearm with recoil that is low enough as to not propel the weapon or turret stand free from its position.

It is thereby with the promise shown by system that I submit my findings and test data in the hopes that they, if not the product they were intended for, prove to be useful to our cause.

[Parisbre56]

((Oh, if you want a mini-mission, I can provide. Assume the following was sent before Flint was sent to the Mission and has arrived now due to time travel issues.))

Dear Simus,

How are things in Hephaestus? I hope everything is going well. We are going to need everything you can give us if we are going to have a chance of winning this war. Thankfully, we have yet to go to any missions against the UWM, so we have yet to see how they have chosen to prepare their troops for facing us. I bet that when we do, it will be an "interesting" experience for all involved parties. Especially if there is spaceship combat involved.

Speaking of which, there was something I wanted to talk to you about. After talking with Steve and searching around in Tinker and on the Internet, I found information pertaining to a Titan Super-carrier. According to Steve, those super-carriers are capable of transporting a Titan as well as many other combat and support troops on the target planet. I would also assume that they have very heavy armour and armaments. Steve said there is only one derelict super-carrier left, although he did not say where it was.

I think it would be a good idea to investigate the derelict. If we repaired it, it would be a great boon to our offensive capabilities, since it would give us the ability to deploy massive numbers of troops and even Titans (if we ever build one) on enemy worlds. Even if it is beyond repair or if it is deemed too expensive to repair, we could always cut it to pieces and transform those into smaller individual ships or just salvage it for the raw materials or to prevent the enemy from doing the same. I was unable to recover more information, mostly due to the fact that most information on the subject is restricted for me. I was hoping that someone in a position of power like you would be able to investigate further, maybe even send a few probes or a small team to investigate.

Anyway, we are in orbit above Kano right now, a small planet which does not have the level of technology or resources to render it important to the war effort. Still, there were a few things Steve deemed important on the surface, so he sent three teams down to investigate. I was not chosen for any of the missions, since they decided it would be better if we kept a low profile. And Gilgamesh is not exactly low profile. Mostly new recruits were chosen, which means they will gain some experience, so that's a plus. I just hope everything goes well.

Enclosed, you will find some plans for a monoatomic drill. It's rather expensive and prone to breaking, but it can drill through things insanely fast. Perhaps it would be useful if we ever wanted to quickly bypass the enemy's defences to reach an underground bunker or the core of some sort of asteroid base.

I also did some research on using the Abyss Sand and Energy Absorbent Hexes from the Wastes of Time as spaceship armour. Nothing important, but you might want to have someone look into that. If we are able to manufacture them cheaply, they would be far better than the armour we have now. Just keep in mind that the sand slowly grows, so over large periods of time, it may require some maintenance (i.e. someone shaving off the excess sand or some sort of automated system that does the same) since it will use any energy it gets to grow. And it would probably be too expensive to isolate the sand from all the radiation you find in space.

Hope to hear good news from you soon.

Best wishes,
Flint Westwood.

[Sean Mirrsen]

((We kinda need a decent ship before we can embark on missions of our own. Something comparable to the Sword in terms of onboard equipment. Weapons, sensors, R&D team, combat detachments and own team of idiots.

Speaking of which.))

PW, from a game-complexity perspective, would you be fine with sending some of the Sword's HMRC prisoner pods to Hephaestus with the transport? So that we could get some regular folks down here for mission ops. All-Sod missions won't be nearly as exciting.

[Parisbre56]

((Well, you don't have to send a team there right now. You just have to send a stealth probe to see what's there, basically a QEC with sensors, rockets and a computer attached.

If it looks fine, then you can just send a freighter with a small team of sods and repair bots lead by a single Hephaestus member (or several, if more want to go) to investigate, do any repairs necessary and bring it back.

If it has been taken over by Hitchers or some other semi-hostile space parasite, you just send in an extermination team  lead by a single Hephaestus member (or several, if more want to go) to take care of that before repairing it.

If the UWM is guarding it with a small token garrison, then you need a spec ops team to go in there and silently take them down while investigating or simply investigate.

If the UWM has taken over, guarding it with a large force and has started rebuilding it for their own use, then you can either send in a spec ops team with some sort of manipulator bomb or similar to destroy it or you can launch a more overt attack to try to either capture or destroy it (once you have enough ships to do that, of course).

Either way, you can send a probe there now free of charge and decide what you need later.

I think that for most missions, you don't need something comparable to the Sword, because those missions would be handled from the Sword people.

What you need is either something like a blackship (small stealth ship with good sensors, very few weapons, a QEC, a few stasis pods and jump capability) or a freighter sized blackship (a larger version of the blackship capable of carrying more things). After that, you just start building standard combat vessels and freighters for use in combat missions.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((It'll take us years to do exploratory missions, and even then I think if it's a known derelict there's a reason why it hasn't been either recycled or repaired by now.

Also.))

PW, can I assume the R&D team can handle finishing up the task without Anton? It's been rather long, and I'd like to at least start on some other things. We have two construction and two science teams idling. It's the 8th, so the science team doing Miya's exosuit research should be done by now, and I'd like to put it to use in a similar direction.

[tryrar]

Greetings! I am messaging you to send you the designs for a high-powered piece of portable artillery I created. I call it the Jackhammer Railcannon, and it's the final word for when you absolutely need to kill every motherfucker in the room-short of using nukes or amps that is. Testing and prototpying would be appreciated, if you could please. Sincerely, Michael Bayson.

[piecewise]

((@GM The regenerative fluid is the fleshknitter stuff Maurice developed during the year stay on Hephaestus:))

During the year-long break in hostilities, Maurice renews his scientific assault on a way to temporarily boost regeneration in a human (without genemodifications or any other permanent changes), likely with either tweaked stem cells (natural or functionally identical synthetic) or short-living, self-devouring organical agents equivalent to Mesk's.

We'll say you find a new substance that can heal minor to moderate injuries. It costs 5 per "can"

Ah, alright.  Might want to have to make it so that thing has some sort of easy can intake system or something since packaging it with a reservoir of that would be more expensive then simply having the ability to hook that substance up.

Go check out ... ah hell, go check out one of the fleshpits and envision if I could do something like that. Then go examine the hole the fleshbeast crawled out of and try to determine what limbs and/or grasping appendages, if any, it used to tunnel, or if it just oozed out of the ground.

Does this facility produce decompensators?

Well, you could probably do something like what one of the flesh pit tubes does. Hell, you could probably do a lot in terms of generating fleshy stuff. IT might be a little tainted, but who cares, right?

The thing used what amounted to organic tunnel boring teeth to dig it's way down, however it just brute force it's way up. Though, to be fair, the way up was already mostly cut away from earlier tunneling so whatever right?

Also yes.

Anton Chernozorov

Any news on the finalized "Spektr VLW"/"Raduga VHL" (FEL Rifle/Heavy FEL) stats from the Council?

((We haven't worked out exactly how to handle the overcharge thing, have we?


For the record, me and PW worked out in dj chat what my turn entailed. Right now, ARESTEVE is building a system of high-yield mines and laser turrets at the FTL jump point. Ready in 2 weeks.))

We worked out in dj chat what ARESTEVE would start building for the jump point defense: mines and laser turrets. Confirm start of construction?


Secondly, you know those Hammer cannons? What could be the upper limit on the speed of such a projectile be if we upgraded it? And could it be made so the projectile can make course corrections mid-flight (with rocket boosters or automanips)? Idea here is to build them throughout the system use them as long-range guided missiles to continually pelt whatever UWM ships make it through our initial defenses. Could this work?

Thirdly, what would ARESTEVE suggest we build around Hep for space defense?

Sure

Are you talking about the Hammer of Hephaestus? I don't think you understand: That thing could hit Earth from here. It would take a while, but it could. But yes, it could. Yes you could build multiple, if you're really worried, but they'd need to be on planets or at least things of significant mass not to change their orbits via firing.

Depends, what are you trying to defend against?

During the year-long break in hostilities, Maurice renews his scientific assault on a way to temporarily boost regeneration in a human (without genemodifications or any other permanent changes), likely with either tweaked stem cells (natural or functionally identical synthetic) or short-living, self-devouring organical agents equivalent to Mesk's.

We'll say you find a new substance that can heal minor to moderate injuries. It costs 5 per "can"

This stuff. A small can of it, though - enough for a mild injury, or to jump-start the healing (scarring) process of moderate to severe wounds.

As far as the Sword and your prime are concerned? Not much, other than they're in another system entirely and there were three missions being run simultaneously.

And no, we're not producing any - might have some in stock. And, because I think you're going to ask, I'm not going to let you just have one. And before you ask why, it would set a bad precedent - I don't want people thinking they can come here instead of doing a mission for free equipment.

((You're skipping a step with Syv's gun, PW. You know, getting it approved for prototyping? Just letting it get posted like that takes me out of the loop, in which case, why have me?

And yeah, Nik isn't on Heph because he wasn't here during selection. And he may or may not want to come, anyways - he is the Doctor's student, as I recall. If he does, he'll have to contact Simus about it, she'll not ask him. Might put out a general announcement with the supply ship, I dunno.))

As I said with the post to nik, adding a built in amount of that will work, but it might be cheaper and better in the long run to just have it set up to accept cans of the stuff rather then adding it straight to the suit and increasing the initial suit costs.

1.Armory description?  Here ya go.  Also, damage stats

Spoiler: Armory entry (click to show/hide)

   4|SS Testament LSW
Ammo:Tank with 180 shards worth of fluid.  Extra tanks cost 1 token.  Can use a PSL tank, which contains 810 shards worth of fluid and costs 4 tokens.
Stat Requirement: Strength 4.  Strength 8 if you use a PSL tank with it.
Range: Melee:-2 Short:+2 Medium:0 Long:-1 Extreme:N/A
Description:In effect, this is just a greatly miniaturized Piezoelectric Shard Launcher, with an added automatic function.  While it doesn't have the raw power of a gauss rifle's 20mm slug, it's still fully capable of killing a man with one shard, and even armored troops will fall easily to volley fire.  And if that's not enough, it can release a withering hail of automatic fire, to carve through almost any opposition short of a battlesuit.

Spoiler: Detailed Damage Data (click to show/hide)

((This could possibly be incorrect somewhere.  If Radio intended something different, I'll edit this post.))

Single shot:
Unarmored: Single shot penetrates into the body, severely damages localized area when it explodes.  Lethal if it hits vitals, like the head or heart.
Light armor (Longcoat):Can penetrate, but actual damage is limited somewhat.  Unlikely to kill in a single shot, unless you get very lucky.
Heavier armor (Milnoplate):Strictly speaking, capable of penetrating with a really good shot, but even then does minimal damage.  Many shots required to kill, or even really damage.

3-Volley:
Unarmored:Much more powerful than single shot.  Hitting anywhere near vitals will likely be lethal, hitting limbs will likely completely cripple that limb.
Light armor (Longcoat):Decently effective.  Reliably penetrates, but does less damage than a single-shot against an unarmored person.  Still likely lethal if you hit vitals.
Heavier armor (Milnoplate):Capable of penetrating if lucky, but still does little damage.

9-Volley:
Unarmored:Damage is more comparable to a gauss rifle- could blow the person's chest open, or a limb off.  Very likely to be lethal, even on near-misses.
Light armor (Longcoat): Somewhat less effective than against unarmored foes, but still likely lethal.
Heavier armor (Milnoplate): Likely penetrates, although damage likely isn't lethal.  You've hurt them, but only a very good shot will kill them.

Automatic (Assuming you continually fire, instead of bursting):
Unarmored:You'll probably tear them to pieces.  Interestingly, due to the delayed explosion, limbs might go flying off then detonate into further pieces.  Fun.
Light armor (Longcoat):You probably won't separate any pieces, but you'll quite thoroughly pulverize their body.
Heavier armor (Milnoplate):While any individual shot is unlikely to hurt them, the armor won't take a long period of extended abuse.  Thirty to forty rounds will probably start to ruin the armor, and seriously injure the user.

2.Wonderful things have happened yesterday- The biochemical forge and second fleshpit were finished!  First, I'd like to order the expansion of the new fleshpit to begin (thirty days as always?), and the construction of yet another one, geared for robosods, to begin.  That would mean we have two continually expanding pits, and one new construction.  Is this okay?

3.Is there an upper limit to how many fleshpits we can have, or how deep they can be?  Perhaps limits on how much of the base material we can produce and continue to supply them?

4.Request Simus to allow me to assign a construction crew to the new fleshpit.

5.Look at what the biochemical forge does- I know it makes brains, but what are it's limits? 

6.You said that we could create sod brains faster with the forge- how many fully trained brains can we make per day?  Alternatively, how long does it to make a batch of how many?

@Pyro

Well, to be fair, I have asked quite a number of times for you to approve prototyping, and you've never responded.  Most of them were before the nerf, but still.

Anyways, I did say 'if Simus doesn't object' there- do you object to the weapon?  If not, then the gun goes through prototyping, and is presumably finished by the time the shuttle launches.  If so, it doesn't.  Simple enough.

Also, I asked above for Simus' permission to assign a construction crew to another fleshpit.  That okay?

@Radio

Wrote the armory entry up myself.  Did the damage too, because I don't think PW really understood it.  If you wanna change either, go right ahead and I'll edit this post.  I'm still vaugely worried that people are going to be getting [CON:6+1] and managing to unload the entire tank in one turn, but little can be done for that, I suppose.

I tried to keep the Testament's armory entry concise- I compared it's length to the PSL, and it's only slightly longer.  Seems fair, considering it has more firing options than that.

So what we're gonna do here, after some prompting from pyro, is send 3 rifles to the Sword for Miya to distribute to good little boys and girls and we shall see how well they handle them in the coming missions.

2&3.Sure. Though eventually we might hit a bottle neck of organic material for supplying them. That is somewhat limited because it's not as easy to make as just digging it out of the ground.

4. Ok.

5.The forge is basically a 3d printer for living material. It can make basically anything, but the limiting factor is the fact that the plans for it are very complex: it builds these things on a cellular level so you basically either need to copy something that already exists or get yourself a good biologist and give them a lot of time.

6. I'm uncertain. Try getting one printed and then we'll see. But you should be able to do a good degree of mass production. Gonna zerg rush the UWM with em, I suppose.

((That, and you're not limited to a single prototype here - you can make 2 or 3 to send to different missions.))

((Indeed. Speaking of which.))

PW, what numbers are we talking about for prototypes being sent? The MCP suits, the Testaments, the rifle/heavy FELs?

((I suspect some half-dozen MCP suits, and maybe 3 apiece of the weapons.))

@Sean

Spoiler: Because I apparently get extremely verbose after midnight (click to show/hide)

((Sorry for the length.  I got a bit... carried away.))

I disagree.  How well a gun performs is highly circumstantial, reliant on the mission, the person using it, and sheer luck.

Take the Testament.  It's a suppression weapon, and good at killing people in close quarters.  If it's put on a combat mission where most of the combat takes place at range, it won't do so well.  Or if it's user is unlucky and keeps missing, or keeps rolling [CON:6+2] and kills half his team... Well, people will mostly hate that person, but they'll also hate the gun.  If it's used by a guy who understands what suppression is, and is lucky enough to have a situation where suppression is very useful, the gun will shine far brighter than is reasonable, because it was put into the perfect situation.

Worse is if a gun is put into a non-combat mission; I'm sure you remember Zako's MBL?  It... Well, I'm not sure if it was, strictly speaking, a 'good' weapon, but it wasn't really tested.  It was on a non-combat mission, and Zako was unlucky enough to have to drop it, so it just failed the prototyping.  It could have been twice as OP as the original Testament, and would have failed and been abandoned, due to simple bad luck.  That's likely less of a problem since we have lots of missions at once, and the Testament can be assigned to a guaranteed combat mission, but still.

And your argument of being used by real idiots... It makes sense in real life.  Plenty of guns have been great on paper, but had ergonomic issues, cleaning and maintenance issues, simple problems with how they were used... but none of that really applies to a gun or suit in ER.  How are you going to kill yourself accidentally with a Testament?  Bold an action saying to check the barrel, and get unlucky when PW rolls the Richard die?  That could happen with any CON weapon.  Even moreso for the MCP suit- it's basically superior in every way to the MK.1, and doesn't really lose much of anything.  The worst I could see is someone thinking it makes them immune to all hazards and leaping into magma, and is that really a point against the MCP suit, or a point for a darwin award?

Lastly, your argument as using it for a chance for PW to balance the weapon: Sure.  Is PW immune to seeing the same bias of a weapon on an inappropriate, or very appropriate mission?  If a Testament is used perfectly, will it's cost be upped?  If it's used to kill half the team, will it get cheaper?  If it happens to run out of ammo faster than anything else because the user shot whenever possible and constantly got sevens, will it get an ammo upgrade?  I don't think PW would see the bias, unless it's extremely obvious (and useless) like with Zako's MBL.  After all, he didn't notice that the Testament was OP until people started PMing him about it.  And, better, PW outright said that even if it were added to the armory, he'd be fiddling with the balance!  He'll be fiddling regardless of prototype status, so all prototyping does is delay it's entry into the armory.


But all of this depends on what prototyping will even mean now.  With the old system, the designer got given the gun for free.  Will we just give some random person a Testament, and someone else an MCP suit?  That would only really hurt Pyro's suit, because that's one free gun, and I doubt it'd reduce sales (especially if they're zero).  But with the MCP suit, everyone should get one ASAP, and get them free, so it's only a delay.

_{^{My, what a novel.  I suppose you wouldn't believe I've had trouble writing a 500-word essay in college?  I had trouble keeping this one concise...}}

Edit:Also, how much does overcharge multiply the power of your laser?

((My original design called for a single pulse of about double power. The final design might be a little over that, but I think it won't make much of a difference since we're not using hitpoints here. The difference from a laser rifle is that as long as a cooldown happens, there is going to be no damage to the gun.

Also. The MCP suits can still be given out to everyone freely as soon as the initial batch proves working. The AM can produce everything as needed, and we're not going to build up a massive stockpile before the first shipment anyway. The weapons - how many people do you think will buy 4-, 5-, or 10-token weapons right now? More than the three or so you'll send for testing? The question is not whether the weapon will enter the Armory right now, the rules for prototyping have changed. We've already worked most kinks out of the designs, and we're sending them for testing, not approval. If there is any problem, the designs or their cost will be adjusted, and this will only impact the details of what ends up in the Armory.

Finally and, in my opinion, most importantly, this prevents a decoupling of in-universe logic from real-life logic. You don't lose much at all by allowing the prototype testing to happen, and it makes sense from an in-universe standpoint rather than an out-of-universe gaming standpoint. We're still in a roleplaying game, here. ))

Depends on how many we want to send. 3 or so should probably be the max.

((We kinda need a decent ship before we can embark on missions of our own. Something comparable to the Sword in terms of onboard equipment. Weapons, sensors, R&D team, combat detachments and own team of idiots.

Speaking of which.))

PW, from a game-complexity perspective, would you be fine with sending some of the Sword's HMRC prisoner pods to Hephaestus with the transport? So that we could get some regular folks down here for mission ops. All-Sod missions won't be nearly as exciting.

You mean new people would just spawn down there or are we talking NPCs? Or the people on heph having multiple characters, one for braining, one for combating?

((It'll take us years to do exploratory missions, and even then I think if it's a known derelict there's a reason why it hasn't been either recycled or repaired by now.

Also.))

PW, can I assume the R&D team can handle finishing up the task without Anton? It's been rather long, and I'd like to at least start on some other things. We have two construction and two science teams idling. It's the 8th, so the science team doing Miya's exosuit research should be done by now, and I'd like to put it to use in a similar direction.

Yeah, you can work on other stuff.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You mean new people would just spawn down there or are we talking NPCs? Or the people on heph having multiple characters, one for braining, one for combating?

((I meant for new people to have the option of starting there, although now that I really think of it, unless we regularly have missions for them as well, it's not going to be a terribly fair position. I didn't even think of the dual-character thing. Could we? Steve could probably run some checks on the stored inmates based on our requirements, and just send us a batch of exactly the people we want for using on missions. That way we could let our characters on Hephaestus do whatever regardless of how long it takes in RL time, and have mission stuff we could do at the same time. I mean, most of the things on Heph take time anyways. Design this, build that, research those, it's all intermittent actions. Granted, a lot of these are wall-of-texty actions, but still.))

[Xantalos]

((If we're doing multiple character things, Imma clone myself again.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((If we're doing multiple character things, Imma clone myself again.))

((You can't. You're on the pill...-sized thingy in your head that's not allowing you to self-procreate.

Although more seriously, it's probably doable. I just thought the point was to have more characters, not more of the same character. ))

[Radio Controlled]

Are you talking about the Hammer of Hephaestus? I don't think you understand: That thing could hit Earth from here.

Oh, I certainly do. In fact, it seems you are the one who might be missing the point: if the Hammer shoots at big enough ranges, then those ships can just dodge the shot, even if it goes at fractions of c.

If we take the jump point as just outside the orbit of the outer planet ( 7 000 000 000 km = 7 billion km = 48.8 AU) and place it at 50 AU, then the distance between it and Hep (which is about 1 AU from the star) is about 49 AU. Light would need about 407 minutes, or more than 6 hours, to go from Hep to the jump point. So a projectile going at 0.75c would need 9 hours to reach it. That's 3 hours to dodge. It would get smaller as distance decreases, but you see my point.

However, if it can do course corrections, then that doesn't matter as much, it can just keep homing in.

Yes you could build multiple, if you're really worried, but they'd need to be on planets or at least things of significant mass not to change their orbits via firing.

If it'd be freefloating in space, how much orbit changing are we speaking here? Could a pair of thrusters correct it?
Would building it in an asteroid provide enough mass?

Thirdly, what would ARESTEVE suggest we build around Hep for space defense?

Depends, what are you trying to defend against?

1) A UWM fleet coming in to take the planet back intact(ish).
2) A UWM fleet coming in to destroy the planet (or at least prevent us from using it, without the intention of getting it back intact).

So what we're gonna do here, after some prompting from pyro, is send 3 rifles to the Sword for Miya to distribute to good little boys and girls and we shall see how well they handle them in the coming missions.

Sure, I can do that. Just tell me what I get and what, if any, restrictions there are.

Spoiler: gonna spoiler this I guess (click to show/hide)

To be honest, I'm not entirely certain what I should do now.  Before, I did try to make things clear and easy to remember, by condensing the data from previous posts into a spoiler with the important stuff.  How do I do more than that?  If I just post what I want, and PW or the committee posts what the appropriate cost and stats are, it kinda takes the fun out of tinkering.  The only really creativity is just the base idea, rather than testing the idea and figuring out where it's applicable.

I understand your concern about making tinker too, ah, sterile and not creative. However, I hope you see the reason behind trying to ensure balance somewhat? Hmm, we'll have to try and find a middle ground between the fun of tinkering and working out solutions to technical challenges, and ensuring balance. Perhaps we just keep it like it is, bu with the designer trying to stay clear with pw what the end goal is or why he's asking for certain things, and with an additional round of looking at the end product and tweaking for game-reasons a bit? Or do you have a better idea?

The former is explicitly saying "It's not that good, BUT..."

That might be how you interpreted it, but that's not what was meant. Low damage, but very high rate of fire/volume of projectiles are what this thing does, no? So isn't it just the truth?

Again, they seem like bad attempts to polish a turd, and I think you'd be really good at polishing turds.

Perhaps, but I try not to do that, and instead spend my time with more worthwhile things than silly mindgames on an internet forum.

So seeing it poorly done makes me think you intentionally did it poorly, which implies a goal; I assumed your goal to be reducing my view of the weapon, as I had written the description to overplay it a bit, and it seemed like you thought that that overplayed description was my actual opinion rather than intentional aggrandizement.

Ah, you wound me. You still really think I spend time on crap like that? I just stated what I thought was what you were looking for (nice try to 'shift blame' to me though 

I'll admit that you might have been searching for a more aggrandizing line, in which case I just didn't get the tone right yet. No subtle manipulating, just me not being able to read your thoughts and emotions to know what exactly you want (though having people in academics scream "ALWAYS BE OBJECTIVE" and "NO PURPLE PROSE ONLY FACTS YOU SHIT" at me might have something to do with it. Professor Drillsargeant can be so strict sometimes).

Is something like 'This weapon projects frankly irresponsible volumes of fire at targets at distressingly high speeds' more what you are searching for? If not, care to give me an example that would (that stays in-universe, mind you, like the other Armory items). Should it dazzle the mind with flashy new-age jargon? Promise potential buyers firepower heaven? Coax them by saying it attracts nubile young women?

Maybe if I'd thought about it longer than five seconds I'd have decided that was reading too much into it, and that you're just bad at aggrandizing things.  But knee-jerk thinking is another bad habit of mine, as is probably obvious. >.>

No harm done, but remember how I said a while ago that not bothering going down in that particular rabbit hole was so much more productive? I think this proves that point a bit.

[Nikitian]

((Well, I'm all for double characters (for this case only, of course), as if you can have two different characters, then you can always have two clones or something - but mark it, going that way can bring the whole game to ruin.

@GM The idea behind incorporating the can of the stuff, I believe, was that it would refill between missions like medical suplies in MkII+ suits/fuel in Mk III suits. That is why the increase to the overall cost was, indeed, anticipated. Adding an intake port would potentially be quite useful for field medics, though probably situational.
To think of it, can't the fleshknitter be injected or something? Or is it about treating 'closed wounds' and such where the suit might still be unpunctured?))

[Radio Controlled]

If it's actually meant to be something valuable, I'd make it cost three turns total, fire on the second turn, and have triple power.  You get extra power on the second turn, don't lose any power overall, but subject yourself to much greater risk (what if you miss?  What if you're shot on the first turn by someone you could have shot?  What if an enemy jumps out on the third turn while your gun's cooling?).  It makes it into a choice of how much risk you're willing to take, rather than just "If you're ambushing, overcharge.  Otherwise, don't.".

I personally feel like thrice is too much, and would keep it on 2. But I cannot 'prove' that that would be the right thing to to, it's just how it feels to me. I think getting a lot of extra power for no permanent loss (no need to buy special ammo or something) needs to be offset by appropriate drawbacks.

I wonder if pw would mind someone charging a CON bonus while charging. That would increase it's usability.

I'm inclined to disagree. While Syv's point is entirely valid, the point is not just to find quirks or unbalance - it is to see how players use it and how effective it is for them, as well (and PW may not know all the quirks or unbalances - the players provide a lot of that, I think). Perhaps some kind of mini-mission deal could be set up, not only to test prototypes, but also maybe award a small amount of tokens and/or skill/stat points? Something 2-3 players could do in the span of a few updates (few being relative to the lengthy monsters some of the missions can be)?

Well, it'd allow for pw to raise any additional problems he decided VR couldn't simulate, as well as giving him a a chance to mull over it for a while.

We kinda need a decent ship before we can embark on missions of our own. Something comparable to the Sword in terms of onboard equipment. Weapons, sensors, R&D team, combat detachments and own team of idiots.

Would it really need to be that comprehensive? If it's for specific missions, then I can see smaller more dedicated ships making sense.

multi char

I'm personally against letting players use multiple independent characters. One that's cloned or remote-controls a robobody seems like the limit to me. However, I'm fully in support of letting people spawn on Hep.