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Scintilla posted:I wouldn't go after the Hunchback, personally. It'll leave you up on the ridge and if the Thug comes up behind you and blocks your retreat you'll be in an extremely exposed position where pretty much every enemy unit in the south has a decent shot at you. The Thug can't fully block the Wolf Spider. A move from 1332 to 1131 is eight MP. 'Mechs can handle 2-level changes between hexes. The full cost for that, if someone would kindly check my numbers, is: -Facing change to 1232 (1 MP) -Facing change to 1231 (1 MP) -Enter 1231 (2 MP) -Enter 1131 (4 MP, 1 to enter, 2 for elevation, 1 for woods) That keeps the Wolf Spider safe from southern threats. The BIG concern is that the Unknown Assault might be standing happily in the open field ready to open up on a Wolf Spider with low movement mods. Your numbers do show the Thug is in worse shape that I thought it might be. That makes removing it more attractive, but I think that removes a smaller threat than bumping off the Hunchback. So, I suppose that's the decision for That Italian Guy: riskier move with possible better pay-off, or finishing off the cripple who's been harassing you?
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May 17, 2014 19:43
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Oh, in that case going after the Hunchback might be a better idea, because its rear torso looks like this: Rear Right - 2/4 Armour Rear Center - 9/16 Structure Rear Left - 2/4 Armour Right Arm - 12/16 Armour Left Arm - ???
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May 17, 2014 19:55
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Doesn't 1131 have LOS blocked by the level 3 hill in front of it?
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May 17, 2014 21:58
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Oh snap, it does. Hmm...he can still shoot the Hunchback if he: Turns to face 1229 (1 MP) Climbs up to 1229 (2 MP) Climbs up to 1330 (2 MP) Turns to face 1331 (1 MP) Move down to 1332 (2 MP) Total: 8 MP Then he can torso twist to the right and shoot the Hunchback, though I'm not sure if he'll be in the rear arc. Might be safer just to run to 1427, turn to face 1328 and unload on the Thug.
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May 17, 2014 22:10
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I think I've been misunderstood! For the Hunchback-shooting, the move this turn is to 1332, like Scintilla said. Next turn, if the Thug follows up the hill to block the flat return path, the Wolf Spider can move to 1131 to get back onto the northern side of the ridge and not get shot by everybody down there while standing naked on a ridgeline. 1332 is definitely in the rear arc. Edit: VVV I think 1332 is covered from the Thug. PTN's using the TacOps LOS rules, unless I'm mistaken, so the hill next to you should stop you from getting hit. I think. Lemme try to run through these, they're kinda wonky. Initiate Needless Detail! You take the height of the highest intervening hex between the two units and call that value X (so height 3). Subtract the height of the lower unit from X, to get Value A (lower unit is 0, so A is 3). Then we subtract the level of the height X from the higher unit, so that's 2-3= -1? Man, this is a weird rule. Anyway, that's Value B. We then subtract B from A, so 3-(-1) equals 4. Double that, and that becomes Value C. Finally, we count the range to that original, highest intervening hex and subtract the range to the lower from the range to higher unit; 1-3=-2. 'kay. Finally, add that last number to Value C (8+(-2)=6). If it's greater than 0, LOS is blocked. ...In summary, Tactical Operations is 1980s Game Design in pure and concentrated form. GenericServices fucked around with this message at 22:49 on May 17, 2014 |
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May 17, 2014 22:28
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I'll try to go for the Hunchie this round. I'm not sure I'm going to have a backshot, though, since I don't want to expose my own back to the Thug, since I'm almost paper thin back there. If the Thug follows me, there's also a possible Justice Foot in our future, since there's no other elevation 3 hex arounf 1430 (1430 should be protected from N backshots as well, since there are 2 tiles of light woods). That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 22:39 on May 17, 2014 |
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May 17, 2014 22:31
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That Italian Guy posted:I'll try to go for the Hunchie this round. I'm not sure I'm going to have a backshot, though, since I don't want to expose my own back to the Thug, since I'm almost paper thin back there. Godspeed. 
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May 17, 2014 22:32
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On another hand, I may have misunderstood how firing arcs work and all the Southern mechs are going to light me up like a (C)Christmas tree! SUSPANCE.
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May 17, 2014 22:48
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Can't say I'm crazy about the move, but good luck. The Spider is going to need it.
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May 18, 2014 02:43
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tuluk posted:Agreed. The clans are Honor Harrington level Mary Sues in official canon. To continue this tangent: I just picked up Basilisk Station because I'd heard that the series was a pretty major influence in modern SciFi. It wasn't bad for what it was, but it was pretty generic pulpy MilWank with a typical set of excuses for why everything basically works like WWII In Space! and all the characters were cardboard cutouts of recruitment posters. The worst offender was Harrington herself, who read like she'd been designed by a fourth-grader filling in a character-design chart. How would you describe your character in a sentence? She's the bestest bravest loyalest space captain ever! Pick two things that make your character special. a. She has a cool cat thing! b. She thinks coffee is gross so she drinks hot chocolate instead even though she's a tough space captain! What's something your character has a hard time with. She doesn't like math tests (but, like she's still really good at doing math things and finding the right answers, she just has a hard time with tests because they're silly). More troubling was the fact that nobody except the head of the Native Protection Agency seems overly concerned that the bronze-age natives have just had guns and psychosis inducing drugs dumped into their society and ten loving thousand of them were massacred as a result, and Heroism appears to measured by how many of your own people you can get killed by bravely forcing them into overbearing situations. Is the series worth continuing, or should I just keep banging out the Culture instead?
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May 18, 2014 04:22
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It gets worse. Much worse.
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May 18, 2014 04:46
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Wait, I forgot the part where David Weber cannot stop jerking himself off about how much more correct the Military is than everyone else about anything. I don't know what else I could have expected from a series whose main character is literally named "Honor". Voyager I fucked around with this message at 05:10 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 05:01
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Voyager I posted:I don't know what else I could have expected from a series whose main character is literally named "Honor". About the only thing that could be said in favour was that the stories were originally supposed to be "Horatio Hornblower IIIINNNNNN SSSSPPPPAAAAAACE!". Then missiles happened, and he couldn't let his protagonist die, how else was he supposed to string together the life and deaths of his precious missiles?
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May 18, 2014 05:19
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yeah hahaha if you think HH is bad in book one, just know that it gets worse, and worse, and worse, and worse.
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May 18, 2014 05:36
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the honor harrington series defines the term "battle-damage porn" for me. David Weber is fixated on battle-action reports, and making Honor Harrington a textbook Mary Sue. Just don't say we didn't warn you about the HH series. Another interesting milsci series was the Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell. It takes into account time-dilation across stellar distances, and is interesting for the first 2 books. Then you start to notice how much filler there is repeated in every book of the series, and you lose interest. Basically to me, modern mil scifi is a dying genre full of regurgitated ideas from Starship troopers & theory-crafting from old grognards.
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May 18, 2014 06:05
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Freehold and the related books by Michael Z Williamson are my sci-fi guilty pleasure of late. Almost reminds me of the Gray Death Legion books in the vein of the "we're outnumbered by an arguably technologically superior force, but we're 'smarter' (and have serious plot armor)." Way more smut though.
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May 18, 2014 06:50
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propatriamori posted:Freehold and the related books by Michael Z Williamson are my sci-fi guilty pleasure of late. Almost reminds me of the Gray Death Legion books in the vein of the "we're outnumbered by an arguably technologically superior force, but we're 'smarter' (and have serious plot armor)." Way more smut though. Mad Mike's a cool guy. Freehold is a little preachy, and the Weapon is really the worst(best) type of amoral special forces porn, but I can heartily recommend his Ripple Creek books. Freehold is also available for free by the publisher (Baen Books), so no  investment to decide whether or not his writing style interests you.
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May 18, 2014 07:25
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PTN's going to hate me. Also, could you guys PM me the gdoc's link again? Just resetted everything and I've lost it. That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 09:00 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 08:34
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Honestly, I just started clear of the series. It seemed popular and I wanted to buy it, but I could never get over her having 'Honor' as her first name. It was sort of a giant red flag waving from the top of the Reichstag.
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May 18, 2014 12:21
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But it's a real name that real people have?
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May 18, 2014 12:35
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True, on one side reality is often stranger than fiction, but then again none of those Honors, or Glories or Loyalties have become legendary heroes.
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May 18, 2014 12:43
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tuluk posted:the honor harrington series defines the term "battle-damage porn" for me. Also, the Lost Fleet's Backjack Geary is nearly as much a Mary Sue as Honor Harrington. "Oh no, my only problem is that I'm so awesome that everyone thinks I'm going to use my awesome to take over the government! Whatever shall I do?"  If you're looking for some good Space Opera recommendations, come on over to the Space Opera thread in Books. That's what we're there for!
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May 18, 2014 17:49
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Don't read the Honor Harrington series it's pretty loving bad. And I say that as someone who actually kinda likes the books (mainly due to nostalgia as it was one of the first sci-fi series I read.) Pretty much all the characters are flat boring one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs. Most of the battle scenes after the first two or three books are basically I fired all my uber-missiles at the badguys and they died go me. The good guys are space  and uber-libertarians whose constitution includes the right to bear arms and forbidding people from voting if they take money off government welfare. The badguys are space    who have such horrors as a universal welfare state full education, free medical care and unemployment benefits and who to top it all off are led by a guy with the name of Rob.S.Pierre. The series gets worse though space ends up allying with space  who pull a massive fleet out of nowhere and start winning the war despite being massively outnumbered. But luckily eventually the evil space communists are overthrown and once again space is ruled by right thinking libertarians. The current villains are basically a combination of the Space UN who are of course massively incompetent but nevertheless a major threat because ??? and a bunch of evil TLDR version. Don't read it and if you somehow feel you must read it here as 95% of the books are available for free due to the publishers marketing scheme. Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 18:20 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 18:18
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Readingaccount posted:True, on one side reality is often stranger than fiction, but then again none of those Honors, or Glories or Loyalties have become legendary heroes. Yeah, one of the most important things to remember about writing fiction is the writer has control over everything that happens, so something that would seem amazing if it happened in real life can be eye-rolling and contrived in a book. Someone literally named Honor or Glory in real life going on to achieve great honor and glory would be interesting, in a book it's embarrassing.
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May 18, 2014 18:44
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I wish there were good sci-fi books. I mean.. some WH40k are okay/good. Starship Troopers is good. But I can't think of anything else. (Except PTN's alternate universe BT)
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May 18, 2014 18:54
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Affi posted:I wish there were good sci-fi books. I mean.. some WH40k are okay/good. Starship Troopers is good. But I can't think of anything else. (Except PTN's alternate universe BT) Everything by Iain M. Banks.
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May 18, 2014 18:55
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Affi posted:I wish there were good sci-fi books. I mean.. some WH40k are okay/good. Starship Troopers is good. But I can't think of anything else. (Except PTN's alternate universe BT) Like, any scifi, or milwank scifi? Because Ursula K. LeGuin if the former.
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May 18, 2014 19:01
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Milwank scifi 
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May 18, 2014 19:08
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Affi posted:I wish there were good sci-fi books. I mean.. some WH40k are okay/good. Starship Troopers is good. But I can't think of anything else. (Except PTN's alternate universe BT) There's one BattleTech novel that I think is legitimately good, Wolves on the Border by Charette. Shrug.
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May 18, 2014 19:14
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Thanatz posted:Everything by Iain M. Banks. I'm going to lose all my nerd cred forever by saying I did not enjoy Consider Phlebas, the first Culture book. Admittedly, I'm so used to having low expectations for crappy sci-fi that when I heard how good the Culture series was supposed to be I was expecting something great, so maybe it just fell prey to hype, but it just didn't work for me. It felt like the author just wanted to world-build, and the characters and plot were sort of in the way of that - they felt sort of perfunctory and tacked on. It's a bad sign to me if the end of the book just becomes a series of essays explaining what went on with the war beyond the characters' involvement.
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May 18, 2014 19:18
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Dolash posted:I'm going to lose all my nerd cred forever by saying I did not enjoy Consider Phlebas, the first Culture book. Admittedly, I'm so used to having low expectations for crappy sci-fi that when I heard how good the Culture series was supposed to be I was expecting something great, so maybe it just fell prey to hype, but it just didn't work for me. Phlebas was one of the weaker Culture books. Stuff like Use of Weapons, Player of Games and Excession are much better.
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May 18, 2014 19:29
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Dolash posted:Yeah, one of the most important things to remember about writing fiction is the writer has control over everything that happens, so something that would seem amazing if it happened in real life can be eye-rolling and contrived in a book. Someone literally named Honor or Glory in real life going on to achieve great honor and glory would be interesting, in a book it's embarrassing. Although sometimes you get a Hiro Protagonist, and it all works out.
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May 18, 2014 20:28
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Defiance Industries posted:There's one BattleTech novel that I think is legitimately good, Wolves on the Border by Charette. Shrug. Wolves on the Border had that perfect honor Kurita liason officer to the Wolves who suicided himself due to inherent shame at the end. Most scifi books can be dissected as having bad characters. Iain Banks is generally rock solid, Aliaster Reynolds first 2 revelation space books are good, etc. My favorite horrible scifi book is George Lucas's novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope. Luke Skywalker goes into a fugue state and can't remember what he did whenever FORCE things happen. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 21:04 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 20:48
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tuluk posted:My favorite horrible scifi book is George Lucas's novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope. I have that book and the novelization of TPM in the attic somewhere. Haven't read them in years. Can't really say I'm hankering to do it anytime soon as well.
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May 18, 2014 21:02
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AJ_Impy posted:Player of Games and Excession Wikipedia posted:Banks briefly described The Hydrogen Sonata as being "about the whole Subliming business".
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May 18, 2014 21:17
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Welp. We're missing on 6s and hitting on 9s, so I can already tell my dice are going to be in rare form today.
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May 18, 2014 22:07
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PoptartsNinja posted:Welp. We're missing on 6s and hitting on 9s, so I can already tell my dice are going to be in rare form today. Reminds me of a megamek match I had with a friend last night and his Mortis. Mortis needs 4+ to not fall when jumping in water. Rolls 2. Mortis needs 4+ to stand with Careful stand for the next 3 turns. Two more 2s and a 3. Mortis also missing with 2/3 of its HPPC shots made at the Centurion trying to force a breach by kicking it over those 3 turns. Finally on the 4th turn in the water it doesn't careful stand, fails the first PSR, then passes the second one. My friend was understandably unhappy with his Mortis pilot that game.
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May 18, 2014 22:27
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Readingaccount posted:Honestly, I just started clear of the series. It seemed popular and I wanted to buy it, but I could never get over her having 'Honor' as her first name. It was sort of a giant red flag waving from the top of the Reichstag. I actually almost picked it up an Honor Harrington book once before, but one of Weber's 1632 books was next to it on the shelf. The words were written in American Flag and there was some overly muscled minuteman type bursting out of the front cover, and it was such obviously masturbatory founding father's fan fiction that I couldn't bring myself to take home anything by the same author. In hindsight, there was no shortage of warning signs.
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May 18, 2014 22:43
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PoptartsNinja posted:Welp. We're missing on 6s and hitting on 9s, so I can already tell my dice are going to be in rare form today. That's funny, six was what I'd calculated as the number for hitting the Hunchback. Sure hope I miscounted now! (Or one of the baddies had an easy shot on a PC and flubbed it.)
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May 18, 2014 22:56
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1632 is kinda fun in a goofy way. Time traveling rednecks in Germany!
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