Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[10ebbor10]

In this case, however, it is. It was a 10% solution to a tiny problem.

, and the progress is made slow by the thick mud generated by the non-stop rain and lack of vegetation,

Quite clearly, the Jungle degradation was not prevented. It was simply never as big a problem as you thought.

[Chiefwaffles]

"Lack of vegetation" does not imply that suddenly the jungle is gone, and it does not mean that we're fighting at an extreme disadvantage. We're fighting at a minor disadvantage, but I'm saying it's minor because the worst was prevented by the plant growth spell. But we may as well just get the factual answer.
Evicted, did the Plant Growth spell end up giving us any noticeable benefits in terms of preventing Moskurgian advantages from lack of Jungle terrain?

[10ebbor10]

Ebbor:
So the Tuneable Antimagic Charm is basically a huge anti-magic charm with a large radius that cancels out one spell
Shouldn't the anti-magic effect it creates dispel the summoned crystal? I also think it should either be extreme theatre-wide range with national effort or mid-range with expensive.

Our anti magic charms have never dissipated crystals.

Though I'm worried that it introduces too many vital things at once. While I'm positive we won't get penalties for it being too new, in order for it to work the Tuneable Charm has to have a large radius and the ability to selectively cancel out spells (and a good expense level). If it doesn't have any of these things, it won't work. Small radius, we have the "guided missile with tracking cut out 1 second from impact" problem. No selective cancelling, then it makes the things it's supposed to protect useless. If it has too high of an expense level (Reminder that our cannons are just Expensive) then it can't be deployed to protect enough things. Unless it gets a good enough range.
If it works, though, it'd be great.

You need a certain amount of complexity to make it work, I stripped everything out that couldn't be adjusted further.

We have no luck related magic. Trying to do this is, is :

A : Opening a new field of magic
B : Trying to beat, in this new field of magic, an enemy Spell
C : Trying, in this new field of magic, to also replicate the effect of that enemy spell.

It's too ambitious.

A : Yes, this is an issue, but this is worth is. Certainly more worth it than that worthless plant magic or developing crystal magic that makes our mineral advantage pointless. It can be used for many different things by many different people, buffing everything we do at relatively low risk of failure.
B : The enemy spell has no competition. It has no way to defend against a spell trying to defeat it. Furthermore, it has a lot more applications than merely beating an enemy spell.
C : It is not the same spell. It's less powerful but it has much broader application. The low power is all that's needed to defeat the enemy spell. Nudging a projectile only a little bit to the side is a lot easier to do than ensuring a projectile hits with full accuracy with so many variables involved. Their spell probably only compensates for mundane challenges, not magical ones.

I would like to reiterate how worthless the plant design was and that it was a complete waste of a design phase. I have no idea what possessed those who voted for it to design it, even going against the desires of our commanders yet again.

Glory to Arstotzka.

A: We never aimed to make worthless plant spells. They aimed to make instant Jungle. Same will happen to you. You aim for super lucky, you're going to get a minor improvement in dice games.
B & C : These are just hopefull assumptions

It's kind of funny to see you complaining about something while making the exact same error.

[Chiefwaffles]

That's the point about the complexity. Even if it's as simple as it can be, that may not be enough.
It's not a huge issue, but it's risky.

Our anti magic charms have never dissipated crystals.

Ah, I assumed wrongly then. Still, what happens if enemy anti-magic gets within range? Then it's made useless. Again, this isn't some critical issue, but it's something to consider.

And what's your opinion on making it an addition to the frost tower to possibly make the range part easier to do?

[10ebbor10]

"Lack of vegetation" does not imply that suddenly the jungle is gone, and it does not mean that we're fighting at an extreme disadvantage. We're fighting at a minor disadvantage, but I'm saying it's minor because the worst was prevented by the plant growth spell. But we may as well just get the factual answer.
Evicted, did the Plant Growth spell end up giving us any noticeable benefits in terms of preventing Moskurgian advantages from lack of Jungle terrain?

Asking the wrong question.

The correct question is :

Did it prevent the degradation of Jungle terrain. That question has already been asked and answered.

Can we at least confirm that the jungle is safe now?
  -If you mean from vanishing, then no.  Plant magic is decent at fixing small portions, but unless it stops snowing in the tropical jungle the ecosystem will continue to fade.

But anyway, we're getting away from the point, which is :

New Magic is never an instant solution

That's the point about the complexity. Even if it's as simple as it can be, that may not be enough.

What must be done must be done.

Ah, I assumed wrongly then. Still, what happens if enemy anti-magic gets within range? Then it's made useless. Again, this isn't some critical issue, but it's something to consider.

It has battlefield wide effect, if the enemy gets to our crystal, we have been defeated.

And what's your opinion on making it an addition to the frost tower to possibly make the range part easier to do?

Researched subtechs are conserved. We don't need to shoehorn it into the frost tower to get the benefit.

Shoehorning in the frost tower seems like it would have more drawbacks than benefits, anyhow.

[Chiefwaffles]

That's the point about the complexity. Even if it's as simple as it can be, that may not be enough.

What must be done must be done.

...Why are you arguing this?

To the jungle stuff: My exact point still remains. Seriously. Read it again and pretend I posted that again.

And about the crystal: That seems a lot like a national effort. Which means we couldn't deploy it with the frost tower. How could something that globally cancels out a spell across the entire battlefield even be Very Expensive?

[10ebbor10]

That's the point about the complexity. Even if it's as simple as it can be, that may not be enough.

What must be done must be done.

...Why are you arguing this?

To the jungle stuff: My exact point still remains. Seriously. Read it again and pretend I posted that again.

And about the crystal: That seems a lot like a national effort. Which means we couldn't deploy it with the frost tower. How could something that globally cancels out a spell across the entire battlefield even be Very Expensive?

I can not understand your logic.

At one end, you propose a spell that is supposed to be cheap, supposed to block multiple spells as well as provide magical cover. All that over the entire battlefield.

At the other, you complain that a much more limited spell must be more expensive?

To the jungle stuff: My exact point still remains. Seriously. Read it again and pretend I posted that again.

You created a strawman. There was never a risk of the entire Jungle being gone in the current timeframe. The fact that it hasn't happened doesn't mean that the plant spell works, it just means that it was not at risk of disappearing.

The extreme disadvantage you supposedly prevented was never going to happen.

It would be the same as me taking credit for the sky not falling down.

[Chiefwaffles]

Okay. I'm done.
Your post is so blatantly false I'm not going to participate in this any more if you're just resorting to pretending I said things I didn't.

Instead, just go actually read my posts and not just read every 5th word then form the worst possible conclusion from it.

[Andres]

The thing about the proposed counters is that they do nothing more than counter the spell. It doesn't give us any kind of advantage to use against our enemies, it just negates an advantage they have.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[10ebbor10]

Design: Disrupting Mist (This is a design because the goal is to make it more resistant to wind and to counter lucky strike)
Disrupting mist is an iteration of obscuring mist. It has two advantages: One is that the mist is magically "anchored" to its intended location, whether that location is mobile or not. This prevents wind and similar effects from merely blowing the mist away and rendering it less useful. It also means that as those summoning the mist don't have to constantly summon it to account for the mist being blown away and as such the mages casting Disrupting Mist have a bit more free time on their hands than those casting the previous version.
Secondly and more importantly, the mist works almost as a magical "jamming field" via the wonders of Mathematics. It doesn't disrupt magic performed within, but continuous effects will have greatly reduced effectiveness if not just fizzling outright and attempting to channel magic into something inside the fog from outside is impossibly difficult.

This is the design we are talking about.

These are my claims about it.

a spell that is supposed to be cheap, supposed to block multiple spells as well as provide magical cover. All that over the entire battlefield.

Let's analyze.

Disrupting mist is an iteration of obscuring mist.

Obscuring mist was supposed to be a cheap battlefield wide mist spell.    Claim Validated

It doesn't disrupt magic performed within

Extra claim added. Your design wants to selectively disable spells.  Claim validated

but continuous effects will have greatly reduced effectiveness if not just fizzling outright and attempting to channel magic into something inside the fog from outside is impossibly difficu

You want to stop multiple continious and all spells from outside Claim Validated

One is that the mist is magically "anchored" to its intended location, whether that location is mobile or not. This prevents wind and similar effects from merely blowing the mist away and rendering it less useful

And here is the magical cover.  Claim validated

So, I do not understand what your problem is. My analysis is perfectly valid.

The thing about the proposed counters is that they do nothing more than counter the spell. It doesn't give us any kind of advantage to use against our enemies, it just negates an advantage they have.

Glory to Arstotzka.

Yes. The problem is that overstretching will result in failure.

[Chiefwaffles]

@Andres: When the spell is Lucky Strike and it's been giving them huge advantages throughout the entire game, I think it's pretty important to counter it. And ultimately, in my opinion, being able to use our 2 revisions for something that isn't making the design do what it was supposed to do in the first place is much better than making a multi-purpose spell that requires 1-2 revisions to get barely functioning.
Like the plant growth! While I still maintain that it's helped to some degree, it's still very disappointing. Even though we got fairly good rolls and spent a revision on it, it's still useless for anything but terrain restoration and it's not even doing that job competently.

We need to stop being forced to spend revisions on things to make them simply work and instead make things that work without revisions then use the revisions for things that'll help us.


In short:
Having a design specifically to hard counter one of their most important spells + 2 revisions to drastically improve other things > Having a design that soft counters one of their most important spells and gives us some benefits in other area + 0-1 revisions to drastically improve other things.


And @Ebbor: You go have fun arguing. I'm done.

[Andres]

I still don't think Disrupting Mist is what we should design. It simply might not do anything regarding the missiles and I've explained why. Crystal Canopy similarly isn't that great for our infantry. It's only good for our artillery. Lucky Charms helps with both. If there's some way we can use magic we already have to deal with both, then I'm willing to consider it.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[10ebbor10]

And @Ebbor: You go have fun arguing. I'm done with you twisting my words.

I fail to see where I have twisted your words.

You can hardly complain that I ask that you apply the same standards to my designs as to your own.

I still don't think Disrupting Mist is what we should design. It simply might not do anything regarding the missiles and I've explained why. Crystal Canopy similarly isn't that great for our infantry. It's only good for our artillery. Lucky Charms helps with both. If there's some way we can use magic we already have to deal with both, then I'm willing to consider it.

Lucky Charms will help if it works.

But, because it's new research, it will not work.

[10ebbor10]

Anyway, how about this.

Crystal Plates

These big, crystal plates are simple to summon and can be created in large amounts. Special notches in the side can be used to click multiple plates together, allowing for the creation of larger objects out of multiple smaller plates. In the field, leather gambesons can be placed over the holes to prevent lucky strike arrows from going through the seems. Mass production allows the plates to be deployed in every situation. Rapid assembly of shelter, extra armor for fortified positions, defending boats against ballistae.

Similar to crystal canopy, but useable for infantry and naval as well.

[Chiefwaffles]

Definitely easy to design and create, but it still has the anti-magic problem. At arrow range, aren't they useless due to the range of their anti-magic?
Perhaps it could be Anchored Crystal Plates. It'd likely be a bit harder to do, but almost definitely easier than any of the proposed designs so far.

@Your argumentative stuff:
Nope.