Results 571 to 598 of 598
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2018-12-22, 08:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Idle thought: Stage 3 Insurrections cause Influence Links to decay. It should be possible to affect that rate of decay with Technology. However, I think there's a noticeably different gamefeel between "a Country with a Technology that makes Level 3 Insurrections degrade Influence Links faster" and "a Unit with a Technology that makes Level 3 Insurrections degrade faster."
What this means for us practically, I have no idea. But it seems like a worthwhile thing to keep an eye on. This sort of feel might help us decide whether or not a particular Technology Effect should be possible on Units, Countries, or both.I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2018-12-22, 08:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Last edited by Thanqol; 2018-12-22 at 08:55 PM.
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2019-01-03, 05:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-01-04, 02:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
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Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
I have watched it all. Spoilers ensue.
SpoilerHoly cow. Like, they're totally done now. They saved all possible realities and timelines. Haggar/Unerva was the final boss, of course. I was actually a bit disappointed at the relative lack of robots fighting other robots with swords and lasers. I mean, obviously the resolution is about willpower and the villain seeing her misdeeds at the last moment and helping to fix everything, but I wanted more giant robots beating up other giant robots before they fixed everything, not just the robots flying after each other for a while until one flew faster than the other one. Ah well.
I really like the Lance+Allura romance and how it just kind of became part of the normal existence but mattered in the final decision-making (you can see at the final parting that it really hurt the two of them).
Shiro's wedding to another man in the epilogue is awesome, I loved it so much! I'm also just so happy for him.
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2019-01-08, 07:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
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2019-01-13, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
In working on the new Action design, I've run into an implementation snag. Talking it out here in the hopes that it helps un-snag it:
In our old design, Actions were resolved at the start of a player's turn. Anything having to do with an action was done there, be it adding numbers to a ticker, making rolls, etc. This made sense, and didn't really need further explaining.
What's changed now is that we've divorced the effects of Actions from the Units performing them. When a Unit performs an Action, all it's doing is adding points to a value somewhere, be it Deployment, Unrest, etc. The effects of the Action are now handled by whatever's keeping track of that value. (For ease of discussion, I'ma call those things Action Objects. A Unit performs the Deploy Action, which adds points to the Deployment Action Object, which then handles the effects of that Action based on the new Deployment level/stage.) This has, in turn, made the question of what happens when really really really complicated.
Our design calls for these Action Objects to be both neutral and aligned with a given player. Unrest doesn't drop to 0 when you stop your Insurrection Action, it lingers for a while and makes life miserable until it decays down to 0. The question is when in turn order does it decay? It would make sense that it would decay at the start of the opposing player's turn (since that's when it would grow in strength while the enemy's Agent was fueling it) but what happens when the Country reverts to neutral? What happens when the Country changes hands? Should the timing of this decay also switch hands? How do we communicate such a thing to the player?
One thought would be to move everything to do with Action Objects to the end of Mr. Johnson's turn. But this introduces a weird one-turn lag in-between starting an Action, and seeing the effects of said Action, since Units are still adding points to Action Objects at the start of their owner's turn. If you were to add enough points to a Deployment to take control of a Country, you wouldn't actually take control of it until your next turn, since the Deployment Action Object hasn't yet had a chance to tally up your points and react to the new values.
This is a thorny one, and I wonder if you have any thoughts on it? You've got a fair bit more experience with strategy games and turn phases than I do, so some extra perspective could be really helpful.I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-01-13, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Advantage the player. Put the effect at the point where the player gets the most information and chance to respond to it. That's the big rule in organizing like this. It's a gamefeel thing. I'd make the majority of number-changes happen at the start of the player's turn. That's the moment when the player is processing all the information about how the gamestate has changed so it's pointless busywork to make those changes at any other point.
In general, problems like insurgencies persist when the country is neutral. It's possible to have a neutral country in a state of civil war - there are just no units to damage. It may even be desirable to build a 'moat' of insurgencies cutting off your opponent's key access routes. Be aware that is a checkmate manoeuvre and being able to pull it off on a sufficiently large scale ends the game in certain endgame crisises. That's okay, so long as we're thinki.
It does raise a good point for a variable, though - when your armed insurgency knocks Mr Johnson out of India and then your own troops roll in you get a one-time big reduction to unrest. Say 50% of unrest instantly evaporates when your troops move in, and that can be modified by technology. This is to represent the country still being chaotic after a superpower withdrawal but the local militants mostly being on your side. Also leaves room for a comeback mechanic where Mr. Johnson turns around and starts his own counter-revolution.
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2019-01-13, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Yeah, I think this is wise. I'll give this some more thought on what exactly this means for implementation, but it's a good direction to take.
Also; I didn't have Insurrections down as keyed to a particular player, but that may be workable. Although, what happens when you're starting your Deployment in the midst of your own Insurrection, and Mr. Johnson comes in and starts stirring up trouble? Does he automatically take over the Insurrection? Does he have to start from 0? If he takes over the Insurrection, how long does it take him? And what happens if you - for whatever reason - send one of your own Agenst in to incite an Insurrection at the same time?
(This is the kind of complexity that's been tying me in knots. It seems really simple in concept, but once we get to the nitty gritty rules I keep finding these weird edge cases.)I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-01-14, 02:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Insurrection is a trait of the country. Think of it like stability. Whoever's got an army deployed in the country feels the negative effects of the insurrection. Even if there's a regime change the country is still in a turbulent place. So if there's a country that you finally force Johnson out of, you immediately move your own army in, deploy, insurgency cuts to 50%. But then Mr. Johnson can come in and take over that 50% and start driving it up with his own agent. If both superpowers commit to having a proxy war in a country that country will remain an uninhabitable battleground until people stop pouring in money and guns.
The cut comes in the specific instance where someone abandons the country and the other guy moves in. That means you can hold a country, pull out of it because it's a quagmire, spend 50 turns with it as a no man's zone while the insurrection continues to be fueled by Johnson to cut off a critical location, and then when Johnson finally moves in it drops by 50% so he has an easy takeover. If you move back in it stays at 100% and you've got to fight it down the hard way.
You can't incite an insurrection in your own country. You can do it in a country that has never been claimed but there'll be no takeover benefit to either side. The takeover reduction is only and specifically for when someone pulls out and someone else moves in.
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2019-01-14, 10:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
In addition to these Insurrection tweaks, I feel like all new Deployments should start from 0. Not only is this easier, I feel like this makes more sense from a fictional, gut-feel standpoint. Even if your opponent left a bunch of equipment and infrastructure lying around, you're still going to have to work to establish your foothold in the area. And really, do we want to make it easier to Deploy, to reduce chaos?
This also leaves no chance for weird cycling exploits. If you leave, you're gone. Out. Pack your bags, move away.I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-01-14, 10:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
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2019-01-15, 06:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
In thinking more about what you said regarding turn structure, I’ve realized that “turns” in this game are “you and Mr. Johnson look at the state of the world. You both make your choices on how to use and deploy your forces. Then, next month/week/period of time, you do it all over again.” To me, that doesn’t suggest the idea of “Your turn happens, Mr. Johnson’s turn happens, and then at the start of each of your turns your individual moves resolve, repeat.” That suggests that you both commit to actions, and then there’s a single resolution phase where everything goes down, and then you do it all over again.
What does this mean for turn order/turn structure? Well, in essence, it means that the first player to act will be reacting to their opponent's previous moves, and the second player to act will be reacting to their opponent's current moves. Both players get to see the new state of the board, but the second player also gets to see what their opponent plans on doing next. Which means that, if we want to favor the player, the player should take the second turn, not the first.
I think I was stumbling around this realization when I was first wrestling with turn structure, but now that we've talked about it I think it makes a ton of sense.
Bonus: This single-resolution design also helps clean up some messy edge cases I didn't even realize we had. For instance: If one player is Breaking a Link and the other is Forging a Link, what happens in the extremes? Say the link strength is only 10 points, but it was previously at 100 - the threshold for a stage 1 Influence Link. One player is Breaking the Link, which (after Tech) removes 20 points a turn. The other player is Forging the Link, which (after Tech) adds 30 points a turn. The net change in that Link should be +10/turn, yeah? But what if the order is wrong? What if both players had an Exec there, at the right time, and turn order simply dictates that the Break Link Action fires off first? The link will drop to 0 strength, it’ll break, and then the other player will add their 30 points. Not only will the link be broken, but you'll jump up 20 points that turn instead of 10.
In this new design, all Actions fire off simultaneously. All Units will commit their Action Points, and then the resulting number will be added/subtracted from the appropriate Action Object. No more uncertainty; that Influence Link will always go up by 10 points, regardless of who acted first in a round.
I feel like for this game, turn order really shouldn’t factor into your calculations. Whether you go second or first, you should have the same results to your actions. These sorts of situations might favor the player sometimes, but it’ll also bite them sometimes too, and it’ll be a nightmare to keep track of (or more accurately, to communicate) the results of race conditions. Let's have Actions naturally cause chaos, rather than have Actions be chaotic themselves.
Bonus bonus: I think movement should happen before all other Actions are resolved. That keeps things nice, consistent, and uncomplicated.I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-01-15, 06:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
bing bong so simple
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2019-01-16, 01:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Painting's been at a bit of a standstill. When it's 40 degrees outside the paint dries on your brush awful quick. Sitch is looking to change after I get AC installed finally but until it does I've mostly been treading water.
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2019-01-17, 05:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
In analyzing the various Actions, I've discovered a few more race conditions. (And in case that term isn't as widely known outside of computer science, a race condition is where the outcome of a function/system/mechanic is dependent on the order of operations, and you don't have control over the order of operations.) I think I know how they all ought to resolve, but I'm putting them here both as a record and so that we can get another pair of eyes on it. I kept to the philosophy of giving Actions reliable outcomes, and when in doubt, favor the player.
1) Both players are Deploying to the same neutral country, and they both pass the Stage 1 threshold on the same turn
Resolution: Tie goes first to the largest Action Point total, then to the player with more Deploying Armies, then ultimately to the human player. I feel like there's a better way to break this tie than to just always give it to the player, but it's workable for now. We'll see how often this edge case comes up.
2) Does Counterespionage get one last crack at a fleeing Agent, or does the Agent always get away clean?
Resolution: Movement always goes before any other Action, so yes. If you move your Agent out of the Country, they will always escape. They'll also have to spend their turn on moving instead of whatever troublesome thing they were doing, so it's still a victory for the Counterespionage player.
3) A Deployed Army is Confiscating Tech in the middle of an Insurrection, and the Army is destroyed/temporarily disbanded. Was there a change in the Tech level?
Resolution: Yes. Units commit their Action Points first, before kill checks happen. In the case of Confiscate Tech, the Action Points are the change in Tech level, so the Tech Level will always be affected.
4) There's a nasty Insurrection on a neutral Country. Somebody is Deploying an Army there, and takes control of the Country. Is there an Insurrection check to kill the Army on the same turn that they take control?
Resolution: No. The Army should safely deploy for at least the first turn. This allows the dip in Insurrection level to fire off, and it might be confusing if an Army suddenly disappears as it was Deploying. (Note: As a consequence of this, I'm adding a "resolve ownership" phase after all other Action-related phases have fired off.)
5) A player acquires a new bit of territory. Do they get extra income the same turn, or the next turn?
Resolution: Next turn. The income that you see should always be the income that you get. Any changes in territory will adjust your income for the next turn.
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If it helps, here's what I have for the current phases. These all fire off after both players have given orders, built units, and ended their respective turns:
Distribute Income ->
Units Move/Units report their Action Points for the turn ->
Action Point changes are committed for Action Objects, passive Stage effects are applied ->
All Action checks are made (Insurrection, Counterespionage, etc.) ->
Actions that can automatically end, end ->
Countries change hands ->
Development Levels are adjusted ->
Influence Links are adjusted ->
Technology Levels are adjustedLast edited by TheAmishPirate; 2019-01-17 at 05:01 PM.
I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-01-20, 01:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Hey, so you know how I've spend the past year and a half posting garbage potato photographs of my models?
Well, I got a real camera and lightbox for my birthday.
I'm going to go back and photograph everything I've ever done. For now let's start with my most recent project, the court of Athi Hollzenstein.
Good lord I've painted a lot of mans.
Discount Offbrand Custodian GuardLast edited by Thanqol; 2019-01-20 at 01:19 AM.
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2019-01-22, 12:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Part two of Thanqol Has A Real Camera: Infinity!
Meet the BlackSun Corporation. Corporate goons kicking in a doorway near you!Last edited by Thanqol; 2019-01-28 at 05:52 AM.
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2019-01-22, 04:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Part Three: Stonecast!
I really wanted to paint some stone.Last edited by Thanqol; 2019-01-28 at 05:52 AM.
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2019-01-24, 02:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Part Four: Side Projects
Test models and sets that I finished in between bigger projects but didn't like enough to iterate into a full army.
Linksies
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2019-01-28, 05:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Part Five: Exodites of the Maiden World Talitha
I'm really proud of these guys, even still.
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2019-02-10, 02:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2019
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
doesn't know the answer for your article
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2019-02-10, 11:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
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Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
When I see weird non-sequitur posts in a Thanqol thread, my first thought is that there's a mage game I'm not part of and somebody is trying to activate a particularly complex ritual spell.
Edit: Also, more pictures of painted models when?
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2019-02-10, 11:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Behold, the Koan of the Spambot.
Edit: Also, more pictures of painted models when?
I'll get photos sometime this week.
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2019-03-02, 11:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Part Six: The Height of Contrast
I finished my Genestealer Cultists! These were great models but they kind of burned me out and it'll be a while before I want to come back to them.
The Height of Contrast is locked in an apocalyptic war against the Eldar who are determined to purge them from their planet. The Imperial garrison fell a long time ago and it's fallen to the Contrast to preserve what remains of the civilian population which they do through a ruthless campaign of environmental terrorism. The Contrast's long term plan is to cause catastrophic meltdowns in abandoned Imperial chemical manufacturing facilities which will release endless tides of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. The frail Eldar will eventually have to retreat when faced with a horrifyingly polluted planet - but though the Contrast may take many losses, they will adapt and they will survive.
The Contrast is also engaged in a religious civil war at the same time as their existential struggle against the Eldar. One faction within the Cult opposes the plan to contaminate the planet, believing that they have received messages from the Star Gods saying that this is all an elaborate trick by the Eldar - when the Star Gods arrive and feed on a toxic landscape then they will be crippled and vulnerable to the Eldar fleet. Everyone is constantly getting horrifying and contradictory alien psychic messages warning of impending disaster and it's all in all a very horrible time to be alive.
Kill Team The Washouts: Ex-Guardsmen discharged on psychiatric grounds. Consider that sentence: To wash out of the Guard you need to be really crazy, and to get a retirement (albiet a horrible one on a toxic mining world) rather than an execution you need to put in a LOT of combat hours. The Washouts are a tight knit group of paranoids and radicals. Left to right:
Yurgen: His mouth constantly drips acidic saliva, and being a reasonable kind of person he pumps it directly into a homemade webber. Horrifyingly gross.
Praise-The-Emperor Barebones: A Munitorium priest who is really fanatical about purging the xenos. Hasn't really grasped the irony.
Longhaul: Discharged from the Tempestus Scions after a mission where he technically accomplished his objective but ate more team members than regulated along the way.
Classic: Increasingly less closeted Khorne cultist
Dr. Daedelus: There were complaints about his bedside manner.
Commissar Grant: While his vigilance against heresy is commendable, the Munitorium prefers a little more paperwork when executing all other regimental commissars.
Scarecrow: Tech heretic responsible for curing Drukhari poisons after experimenting on himself/others
The Clown Killers
Part of the Washouts, these are the remnants of a brigade that had a really bad campaign against Harlequins.
LinksLast edited by Thanqol; 2019-03-02 at 11:14 PM.
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2019-04-11, 07:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
LONG OVERDUE COMPLEX UPDATE, HO
I took a pause on Complex work for February and a part of March. I also got really spotty in my PBP posting, and these two facts are connected. I saw a job posting at Studio MDHR (the folks what made Cuphead) that I seemed reasonably qualified for, so I went on a mad sprint to throw an application together. I made a pretty portfolio, but more than that, I made a whole other game for that portfolio, to flesh it out some. It's a playable essay on game feel in 2D platformers, and how controls, polish, and level design all contribute to it. While I don't think I got the job, I am proud of the game, and will be further polishing it up for future portfolios/applications. It's called Bear With Me, and you can download it here!
Now that the sprinting is done, and I've had some time to recover from said sprinting, I'm back in the saddle for Complex development. My goal is to get another playtest session going sometime around the end of April to mid May. Progress is going great, and thus far I have no reason to believe that we'll miss that target. Fingers crossed!I'm developing a game. Let's see what happens! Complex.
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2019-04-11, 07:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Bodacious! I was starting to wonder what the haps indeed was so I'm glad it was a productive couple of months.
I came out of my jan-feb painting slump and I'm fully back in the saddle. I've just about finished two more Infinity armies but they're still in progress. Ideally I get them both 100% by this time next month, at which point I will be taking all of the pictures.
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2019-06-30, 12:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
So I've been busy.
ImageFX
To most people, ImageFX is just background infrastructure - it operates a search engine, a couple of film studios, and a whole lot of journalism. That's all excess to their core mission: Reputation control.
Their chief service is offered to the elites in the Yu Jing political sphere. For a fee they'll change the story - knock a headline off the front page, de-rank a website on search rankings, even kicking in the doors to server rooms and getting rid of the backups the hard way. Think Evil Google - you pay to make information go away.
Gallery
The University of Katerinen
Built in a perfect tropical landscape on the otherwise inhospitable frontier world of Megaloschemos, the students of the University of Katerinen are archaeologists, explorers and scientists. Then they started getting robbed, kidnapped and assassinated. Everyone and their dog suddenly needed xenotechs and the University was one of the Human Sphere's foremost sources. After a while the Haqqislam government sent a contingent of special forces to train the students in self defence techniques.
Gallery
The Bikal Rangers
When the Megaloschemos colony was revealed as a gigantic scam and the planet was proven unsuitable to support human life, previously middle class colonists without the means to pay for passage off the planet were forced into a desperate battle for survival. Learning to live in the storm-wracked and poisonous landscape of Megaloschemos, making do with whatever second-hand gear they were able to scrounge, the Bikal Rangers are prepared to do basically any dirty job if it gets them a ticket off their deathtrap planet
Gallery
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2019-08-21, 04:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
Re: Thanqol Learns To Draw Six: Stealing Time
Slaanorks Rise
It was a vision thing
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