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  1. - Top - End - #151
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    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by HandofShadows View Post
    Well, that "world" is going to be slowly destroyed by kinetic bombardment. So I doubt it's a good setting for exploration.
    On the contrary, it's the kind of setting almost perfect for exploration, an RPG based on this kind of world could be carried almost entirely by exploration. Exploration is going to be the big industry at Uli-Oa for as long as there's still PTU's to be harvested.

    After all, everyone knows Uli-Oa is incredibly valuable, but no one knows exactly how valuable, and there's a hint of potential scientific knowledge to be gained here too, so before anything can be broken apart and salvaged at the cost of potential science value, it HAS to be explored, catalogued and quantified, and that means there's money in doing it. LOTS of money, since we're talking about one of the toughest substances to manufacture in the world and therefore one of the rarest and most valuable, over and above the value of artifacts and scientific knowledge that can be gained. All of that has value, and that value will bring the speculators, scavengers, legitimate businessmen, pirates, and scholars by the shuttleful.

    With a lot of money to be had in both exploration and exploitation, the espy city and probably many other nearby makeshift structures and service centers are going to be swamped with speculators, scavengers and explorers, and no few pirates, for generations. As a scifi-Wild West setting, it doesn't get much better and the plotlines almost write themselves -- you can pick a character based on any of dozens of professions from the mercenary that protects a given race's salvage interest to the scholar seeking the knowledge of the Ancient Oafans to the bedraggled law enforcement officer trying to make everyone play nice (I actually favor the last one, with the entire Rogue's Gallery literally descending on this place, RPing as a wing marshal trying desperately to maintain some semblance of order would make for a rich plot with many different directions to go)

    Anyway I've rambled enough. TL:DR, the potential for an RPG setting is pretty rich, either for a tabletop RPG or for a video game.
    Last edited by Imgran; 2016-11-20 at 05:21 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #152
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by Imgran View Post
    On the contrary, it's the kind of setting almost perfect for exploration, an RPG based on this kind of world could be carried almost entirely by exploration. Exploration is going to be the big industry at Uli-Oa for as long as there's still PTU's to be harvested.
    I think you're missing the point. Petey is going to use relativistic impactors to blast Uli-Oa into gravel. Anyone who happens to be on it will be obliterated at the time. That's why they've moved the Esspee city of it, and it's why they're unlikely to have it as part of the RPG.

  3. - Top - End - #153
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    I think you're missing the point. Petey is going to use relativistic impactors to blast Uli-Oa into gravel. Anyone who happens to be on it will be obliterated at the time. That's why they've moved the Esspee city of it, and it's why they're unlikely to have it as part of the RPG.
    Can Uli-Oa be dismantled so easily? It's made up of the toughest substance in existence. Even at relativistic speeds can ordinary rocks do more than minor damage?

  4. - Top - End - #154
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    I think i missed or forgot a bit of conversation.

    What information did Murtaugh learn? What did she actually pay for it? Why cant she use it?

  5. - Top - End - #155
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by guttering flame View Post
    Can Uli-Oa be dismantled so easily? It's made up of the toughest substance in existence. Even at relativistic speeds can ordinary rocks do more than minor damage?
    The one impactor that already hit seems to have done plenty of damage. You'd have to ask Petey for clarification on the details, though, it's his plan, not mine.

  6. - Top - End - #156
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    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    We need teraport cages that fit into themselves, so they can teraport anywhere & then, teraport anything.

  7. - Top - End - #157
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    I think i missed or forgot a bit of conversation.

    What information did Murtaugh learn? What did she actually pay for it? Why cant she use it?
    They learned how the World Forge worked, but don't have the resources to use that info. http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-11-06 But maybe someone else does.
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  8. - Top - End - #158
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    ClericGuy

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    I think he did the only morally acceptable thing by killing everyone.

  9. - Top - End - #159
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by 2xMachina View Post
    We need teraport cages that fit into themselves, so they can teraport anywhere & then, teraport anything.
    IIRC, the Esspees did that during their attac on the Toughs' ships. But you need to have at least one cage at the destination to start out with. (Or no TAD field up, in which case the cages are unnecessary.)

  10. - Top - End - #160
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    OK, I'm a little puzzled now. I can understand why they had to rip the cabins out of Cindercone since the entire interior is now a teraport cage, but why did they also have to remove Cindy herself? Surely the ship still needs some sort of AI to run it? Or is the problem that Cindercone has passed back to Oafan ownership, while Cindy belongs to the Toughs?

  11. - Top - End - #161
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    OK, I'm a little puzzled now. I can understand why they had to rip the cabins out of Cindercone since the entire interior is now a teraport cage, but why did they also have to remove Cindy herself? Surely the ship still needs some sort of AI to run it? Or is the problem that Cindercone has passed back to Oafan ownership, while Cindy belongs to the Toughs?
    My wild guess is Cindy's core was housed in the cabin sections, or otherwise installed in a portion that had to be removed to use the teraport cage.
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  12. - Top - End - #162
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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    OK, I'm a little puzzled now. I can understand why they had to rip the cabins out of Cindercone since the entire interior is now a teraport cage, but why did they also have to remove Cindy herself? Surely the ship still needs some sort of AI to run it? Or is the problem that Cindercone has passed back to Oafan ownership, while Cindy belongs to the Toughs?
    Chinook was controlling Cindercone's twin directly, the same as with the long gun corvettes. Apparently ships like that didn't normally have crews or AIs. The ships sold to UNS INT-AF-INT via Petey didn't seem to have AIs, either. Apparently Broken Wind originally did, though, but Broken Wind's boats don't. I guess ships like Broken Wind had AIs that controlled other ships and boats.

    Enesby's argument about replacing the "integrated A.I. matrix" in Broken Wind didn't apply to Cindercone, apparently because it didn't already have one. Presumably the Toughs just pulled the AI computer core from Bristlecone and installed it in Cindercone.

    BTW, I'm wondering how many people have been missing the fact that, despite Ennesby saying that Broken Wind was "ready to fly without a major refit," nearly everything we've seen in any interior shot of any of the ships (or boats) wasn't part of the original ships. Talk about major refits! (The huge hole inside Cindercone would be about the only exception.) The Oafa were just huge bags of hydrogen. Floors would just be in their way. A room that would be good for a human would be much too small for them. The decks, walls, etc., that we see would have been added for the sake of the new occupants. That's yet one more reason why it was stupid of the Toughs to use the ships rather than selling them for scrap and buying something that met their needs much better or at least using the money from the ships they did sell. Perhaps Iafa forced them to keep Broken Wind as part of the deal, but why would that have applied to Cindercone?
    Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-27 at 10:42 AM.

  13. - Top - End - #163
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    I suspect a bit part of the reason they kept the oafan ships rather than selling for mad stacks of cash would be time and availability.

    Petey 1.0 was a fluke, a properly powerful military ship isn't something you can just throw a bunch of money at and drive away from a shipyard with. It'll take time for all the orders that were there before yours to finish, it'll take time to reconfigure between jobs, it'll take time to build the thing. Then add in on top of that not necessarily having access to all the shiniest hardware options because governments don't really like nongovernments having all the fun toys. Which admittedly is the sort of problem you can theoretically throw money at to fix, but still.

    Plus, you know. Long Gun. And Kaff's long-established liking of extravagant ships.

    Also, they DID sell a bunch of oafan hulls, that was literally (part of) the reason they went to Earth.
    Man this thing was full of outdated stuff.
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  14. - Top - End - #164
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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Petey 1.0 was a fluke...
    Yes, so? They have plenty of money this time.

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    ...a properly powerful military ship isn't something you can just throw a bunch of money at and drive away from a shipyard with.
    Why not buy a used ship from a mercenary company? If you pay several times what it's worth, you should get one quickly. Since they took Oafan ships instead, they didn't get their ships quickly because they were forced to build usable interiors for the ships before they could use them. The ships were made for Oafa, not people who are heavier than air, as I just said. They never got around to adding weapons suitable for fighting the enemies the Toughs were likely to face.

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Plus, you know. Long Gun. And Kaff's long-established liking of extravagant ships.
    Um, the ships that the Toughs took didn't have any Long Guns. (Neosyncronicity was taken by Enesby separate from the Toughs and wasn't replaced.) Also, how does Kaff's "long-established liking of extravagant ships" lead to him being satisfied with such inferior ships that don't meet the Toughs' needs? Heck, it turns out that one was merely a teraport cage and they didn't even know it could do that much!

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Also, they DID sell a bunch of oafan hulls, that was literally (part of) the reason they went to Earth.
    I think that was the Oafa, not the Toughs, selling to the UNS in that case. The Toughs were merely facilitators.

    I already mentioned that the Toughs sold hulls to UNS Int-Af-Int via Petey, though, so I obviously knew that they sold some hulls. Repeating myself for about the hundredth time: The question is why didn't they buy something that met their needs better than what they have with all the cash that they got?
    Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-27 at 01:16 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #165
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Even without the teraport cage, Cindercone was still a freighter large enough to transport things like battleplates or space stations. The ability to haul freight is never a bad thing.

    As for meeting needs, the ship you have is never the ship you want. Also I'm not entirely sure what needs aren't being met, the ability to repel boarders? That's more on the crew than anything, and also their decision to lock the AI out of being able to gravy the insides.

    And even if they did have better ships, the laws of dramatics would just refactor their threats to still be just as threatening. Bigger numbers can't save you from plot.
    Man this thing was full of outdated stuff.
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  16. - Top - End - #166
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Bigger numbers can't save you from plot.
    Yeah. And vice versa (think about it)? Maybe?

    I do think that there's still a risk of Kav Tagon reappearing. I think we've seen the science module in the process of recapture, so it looks as if the Espees did really bad.
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  17. - Top - End - #167
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Someone can tell me again why they cant simply restore a backup?

    They HAVE to have backups. You can backup people now!

  18. - Top - End - #168
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    Someone can tell me again why they cant simply restore a backup?

    They HAVE to have backups. You can backup people now!
    They keep the back-ups of their brains distributed in the person itself, schlock-wise. Total body annihilation also takes back-ups. No reason given that I can recall as to why not keep a secondary back-up somewhere else (although I'd be quite worried about both identity theft and Theseus' Ship paradox).

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  19. - Top - End - #169
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    No reason given that I can recall as to why not keep a secondary back-up somewhere else
    I imagine there would be significant bandwidth issues in transmitting all that data to a remote location, and given the likelihood of total body annihilation is not that high, it's presumably a risk they consider worth it--just like you or I have a significantly higher risk of death every time we get behind the wheel of a car (as compared to sitting at home), but we do it anyway because the benefits are worth the additional risk.

  20. - Top - End - #170
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    I imagine there would be significant bandwidth issues in transmitting all that data to a remote location, and given the likelihood of total body annihilation is not that high, it's presumably a risk they consider worth it--just like you or I have a significantly higher risk of death every time we get behind the wheel of a car (as compared to sitting at home), but we do it anyway because the benefits are worth the additional risk.
    How about making a weekly backup whenever you are at home? And send monthly backups to a safe location?

  21. - Top - End - #171
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    How about making a weekly backup whenever you are at home? And send monthly backups to a safe location?
    Why couldn't the nannies make backups while the person sleeps? That would give daily backups.

    Could the nannies have bailed out of Kaff's body once they realized he intended to commit suicide?

  22. - Top - End - #172
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by eschmenk View Post
    Why couldn't the nannies make backups while the person sleeps? That would give daily backups.

    Could the nannies have bailed out of Kaff's body once they realized he intended to commit suicide?
    Followup question: are the nannies mobile enough to have made it to minimum safe distance?
    Man this thing was full of outdated stuff.
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  23. - Top - End - #173
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Followup question: are the nannies mobile enough to have made it to minimum safe distance?
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  24. - Top - End - #174
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Followup question: are the nannies mobile enough to have made it to minimum safe distance?
    VERY much doubt it. That was an anti-ship missile and it make a very big BooM. Not to mention the entire ship had to be abandon because of the thermal after effects.
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  25. - Top - End - #175
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    OK, current strip: unless I'm misremembering, the Wing Marshal has never met Chinook before. So, the can full of sky is now famous enough that everyone knows the AI who runs it. This is the main thing that annoys me about current plotlines in the strip--people know things that there is no reason they should know, and no explanation is ever given!

    It's not even that it's required the Wing Marshal knows who Chinook is--he could have said "Who are you?" and Chinook's response would have made just as much sense.

  26. - Top - End - #176
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Never having met her is not the same as never having heard of her. She was, after all, interacting with the espees before his betrayal.
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    Rockphed said it well.
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  27. - Top - End - #177
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    She was, after all, interacting with the espees before his betrayal.
    Can you point to the strip where that happened? I don't remember her directly interacting with the Esspees?

  28. - Top - End - #178
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    Can you point to the strip where that happened? I don't remember her directly interacting with the Esspees?
    Oh, she most certainly did.

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  29. - Top - End - #179
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by NEO|Phyte View Post
    Followup question: are the nannies mobile enough to have made it to minimum safe distance?
    That wouldn't have been a problem if the nannies abandoned Kaff soon enough. He had to carry the missile a long way from where it was stored to where he set it off, so they would have started at a safe distance. They probably would have needed to have a way to transfer their data before the Broken Wind was submerged in the water, though, or they might have risked being washed out of the ship.

    There was even one strip where Kaff ordered Bunny to remain in a safe location because he was expecting to need her after the battle was over. That was before we learned of his plans, but perhaps he had already come up with them by then. That could mean that Kaff went out of the way to back himself up quickly before he revealed his plan to anyone. I don't know how he would have done it, but HT could retroactively reveal a way to do it if he wants to bring Kaff back. In any case, I think of Kaff as probably just being temporarily gone.

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

    Quote Originally Posted by eschmenk View Post
    Why couldn't the nannies make backups while the person sleeps? That would give daily backups.

    Could the nannies have bailed out of Kaff's body once they realized he intended to commit suicide?
    The point i was making is that you need to transfer the backup outside of your body.

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