Christopher

Questions:
Where does Knockback end and Falling Start**?
Actually, where does Flight end and Falling Start?

How much of the "damage" from Knockback is hitting stuff. How much is sliding over the ground?

At a first glance, it should give everyone KB resistance. Same way as similar levels of Density Increase does.

Of course in order to move normally under these conditions, characters also need extra ordinary strenght.

Density Increase and Growth are designed so that the Extra STR from them does compensate perfectly for the extra weight*

*There is this rule if STR goes down to 0. And that 0 point inreases with DI/Growth.

**That part is particulary tricky. Knockback can move you further in one segment (when you might not even have a phase) then many people can travel per phase. It is effectively entirely outside of the Segment/Phase/normal movement mechanic.

I recently came up with an idea for a robotic/android superhero. 

 

The story goes, a highly evolved form of Artificial Intelligence was capable of emotions, perceiving and interpreting the things around it, deciding what was right and wrong, etc. At some point, it became totally disillusioned with the human race and the state of the world that it was living in, and decided to commit digicide (computer suicide). BUT... before it deleted its own code, it built a large andriod as a kind of "saviour" to the human race, hoping that would help, but still feeling incapable of stomaching the potential failure. The andriod was capable of transforming different parts of its body to be a nigh-unstoppable evil-fighting machine, and had a transformable human form.

 

I need help with:

 

1. Coming up with a better word for digicide. Codicide? Robocide? There might already be a word in standard use for this act, but I don't know it.

 

2. Coming up with a name for the super-saviour-android Hero. I wanted something computer-code-like, that has something to do with protecting, saving, failsafes, fixing, debugging, cleaning, defragmenting, etc. But I'm not a computer programmer, so I'm not familiar with the lingo.

 

Thanks in advance!

Re Story:

I actually had a variant on this, using the Loa from Sword of the Stars (I wrote about them over on the Alien Collectors Thread in Star Hero Forum). Basically story went:

Loa are a "post rebellious" AI Species. Thier name literally just means "Spirit" and they consider themself to be "naturally evolved" as much as the humans that created them.

Loa was stranded on earth. Joined a superhero team.

At start the members were a bit distrustfull. So they installed a keyword wich could take complete control of the body for a short while.

The Loa grew in personality, but the word stayed active

A villian found out. Used it to turn the Loa on it's team.

The Team prevailed, subdued both villain and Loa.

As the Loa had not been aware of that failsafe amd might feel hurt/violated for installing it, they tried to alter it's memory using the same technique

Same technique no longer worked. Loa was understandably really pissed and turned it's back on Heroing and really any human contact.

Fast Forward a decade or so:

Loa without Social Contact go insane, similar to how a normal human would.

Loa feels it's sanity slipping. Does not want it to end that way.

There are two reproduction ways for Loa: Mingling (with ohters of it's kind) or Fission (splitting off a part of itself).

Being unable to rejoin humanity as it is now, it splits off the part of itself still interested without the bad precedent into a seperate Loa.

While the new Fission Loa starts heroing, the old one (now without any positive tendencies towards humanity/organics) quickly becomes a secret villain. And does not interact will with it's "Offspring".

Re 1. Suicide:

Sui- means self

-cide means murder

So suicide fits, regardless of the Form the existence had.

Re 2. If Transistor pointed anything out to me, then that just putting the () brakets behind a word let's it look more "Codified". The Archievement page shows that nicely: http://steamcommunity.com/stats/237930/achievements/

It also taught me that true Programmers Humor can not be understood or copied by non-programmers. Sorry, but it will usually fall short. Few people will even understand that Transistor saying "Hello World"* at one point has a deeper meaning.

Stuff like naming one Character Reisz (a possibly anagramm of Resize with one e missing*). Even noticing that without knowing how Resize might mater is impossible.

*Asuming there is a thing for "Anagramms using only the unique letters", 'helowrd' would be the letters for Hello World.

I also want to point out that Transistor is a really nice game. Definitely worth playing. You propably way to buy the OST too.

Flux: So, did you record the conversation?

Hero Shrew: Was I supposed to?

Flux: *facepalm* Explicit bloody instructions.

Hero Shrew: Hang about, I wrote it down somewhere.... Yeah, the dead guy is Phillip Graves, which is supposed to be funny but I don't know why, and his guns aren't his fetters but the bar he's after is, but I don't think the bar is a nightclub, but they can't give him the bar because of some gate they have to keep shut and they've got some kind of deal with San Fransisco like what the Zoo has with Chinatown.

Flux: ...that's it, we're fitting Scooter with a bug.

Fireflash: Hopefully one he won't eat.

Depends how big the bug is. And how delicious:

http://www.lfg.co/page/1035/

When in doubt, just install it like one would with a Dog: Wherever he can not bite ot scratch it out.

Okay, if there is nothing withine up to the 30th I guess it is up for Grabs.

But I thought this Elf had a sort of "Witcher" feel with that white hair (not that I actually know alot about that lore).

The thing is that most uses that Smartphones have, are not integral part of Smartphones. Smartphones mereely allow access to the phone and internet networks, wich provides the actuall data/services.

Waze/Weather/Soudnhound/Yelp Apps do not actually have the data to answer anything. There is nowhere near enough storage or processing power on those little Computers to actually run those Application.

The real application runs on some Sever in the Internet. That server most likely has a Webserice (Rest, XML, there are a few kinds). The app requests the data from the Webservice. And recieves it.

The only comparisions I could think of would be of using a gun without bullets. Or a car without fuel. Or trying to use a analog telephone without a landline connected to it.

Disconnect your internet access right now - and you could not even see or answer on this Thread. That is how little the end device maters.

Unlike simple Radio, internet and phone networks are not something natural or easy to access.

Mobile phone and thus by extension mobile internet networks are way beyond simple Radio. You can not just send out some waves on the right frequency and get back the contents of the Wikipage on Mobile Phones.

First you need to understand the protocolls being used (and yes, there are a few. that is what the number behind the G stands for).

Then you have to provide login information that the other end accepts (one of the few jobs simcards still have is providing those login informations)

And that is after you consider that without a receiver in a few Kilometers, that is useless.

All the real work is part of the Networks. The remote servers. And the internet connecting both.

All a mobile phone really has is:

A Display & tactile input
A camera.

Microphone/Loudspeaker combo

the operating system and just enough Hardware to run it

maybe a light

the reciever/transmitter hardware (that is again useless without the network)

Schiaparelli Lander Doomed by Negative Altitude

The Inertial Guidance System. Every. Single. Time. the Intertial Guidance System:

https://around.com/ariane.html

And the worst part about firing the guy that made the mistake? The new guy can make it all over again, plus a thousand others that were avoided beforehand.

Summary: Met the Pirates and two Primitives. Otherwise rather lonely in my corner.
 

Presidents:
Consul Aomane Okada; Influence, Spaceport building

Persons of Note:
Admiral Douglas Sutton; Scout;
Governor Eric Conrad; Tileblocker Removal; Unity

2200.01.01:
Start of the Exploration. 1 Nearby Colonyworld in Bir on Sensors.

2200.02.05:
We found a Tomb World in Hasseleh System. This is what might have happened if the Forces of Democracy had not prevailed back on earth and when forming the Unity Initiative.

2200.03.15:
We found ourself some Alien Ships. But these appear to be some kind of Space Pirates. They are to our South in the Propous System.

2200.06.07:
Even more Pirates to our North in Geqietum.

2201.07.01:
Damn those Pirates!
In the Rim System Sarack our Fleet was abushed by them and annihilated.

2201.12.10:
To the north the Tyl System is very interesting for our Pioneers. While it does have a somewhat high gravity and a few Titanic beasts roaming the surface, it also has plenty of free space.
The Toua and Bir Systems are also interesting for colonisation.

2203.11.15:
Stratal to our West has a serious Pirate Problem. It appears to be the main heaven for that Criminal Scum. We will have to deal with it someday soon.
Luckily our Scientist Xavier Ward managed to escape.

2205.04.19:
The Planet "Beaty" in Kenn Hijal System north of Tyl contains the primitive Tendra-Zuhn species. We will look into doing some observation once our borders reach there from Tyl.

2205.06.14:
Our Ship the Crysanthemum was not the only experimental Wormhole Drive Arcship. The Hyacinth was supposed to arrive somewhere in our neck of the woods, but evidently never did.

2205.11.02:
It is time for some Frontier Spirit. Scientist under "Hong Kong" (Female, 35) just finished the groundwork for building ourself a Colonyship. The first Prototype will be finished within 1 year.

2206.08.18:
We finally found the Hyacinth a lot closer then expected. In Sheratan, literally the closest System to Unity. We will try to investigate what happened to them and why they have not contacted us.

2206.11.02:
Our first Colonyship has been build. The COD Shining City is on it's way to the Tyl System. In Homage to the giant Monsters roaming there the Colony will be caleld "Japan".

2207.01.08:
We figured out what happened to the Hyacinth and it is not pretty. Apparently after being stranded without working reactor the crew - about a quarter million colonists suffered from starvation. Wich eventually lead to Canibalism and Mutiny. The Hyacinth will be towed into Unities orbit to become a Museum for those brave colonists that lost thier life.

2207.04.28:
And humanity is officially a interestellar Civilisation. Well, asuming our brothers back on earth did not beat us too it. Japan will still need a lot of support, but it is going to become a big child quickly

2208.04.08:
In Mirce near Japan/Tyl we found a Pre-Sentient species. They look like somewhat larger Cockroaches. They have been dubbed the "Valurt" by the scientists. Maybe we get around to accelerating thier development a bit later.

2208.05.01:
And Japan is up and running.
 

Another joke Empire. This time I made a empire according to the AI Personality: "Democratic Crusaders"

"Democratic Crusaders believe that it is their moral imperative to spread their democratic way of life. They tend to get along well with other democracies, but are more than willing to use military force to "liberate" the populations of less democratic empires."

Ethoi: Fanatic Individualist, Militarist

Government: Military Republic

AI Personality Properties:

Conqueror (Conquer planets from other empires)

Ideologue (Extra-aggressive against other ethoses)

Infiltrator (Infiltrate primitives)

Liberator (Liberate conquered empires)

Migrator (Migrate to other empires)

Multispecies (Give rights to aliens)

Robot Exploiter (Use robots for menial labor)

Game Setup:
Using a modified Commonwealth of Man.

600 Stars

0 Fallen Empires

Warp only
No Advanced Neighbours

The evidence has been there for all to see...

 

 

As the late Leaonard Nimoy would have said:

"May the geek be with you, always!" (or something like that)

I have issues deciphering what you wrote. A few questions:

Is this a player character, a NPC or a whole Race?

What kind of link is it (telepathy, technological, other)?

Does it work in realtime over interstellar distances or is there a range limit?

How quick is the access to data that only Drone 4,412,231,567 has?

What if the knowledge has to be searched first?

In particular, what are the limits of sharing Skills, Knowledge and Experience that way?

Schiaparelli Lander Doomed by Negative Altitude

Damit, not again!

The altitude/sensor things are really an issue with ESA.

What does heated air have to do with anything?  And it's not at all clear that they measured thrust, when what signal they did get is so noisy and doesn't match what would ordinarily be expected, and when so little effort was made to rule out thermal effects.  All they had to do was put the thing on a balance and turn it on and measure the CG shift.

 

There's nothing wrong with further testing, but only if that testing is going to be way less sloppy than it has been so far.  Otherwise it's just going to waste more time and money and not answer anything.  Measuring a force in ten-thousandths of a gram is not going to be easier remotely, in hard vacuum, with limited telemetry, after a violent rocket launch.  The logical next step is a finely made apparatus in an abandoned salt mine in Nevada, not the hard radiation and vacuum of orbit.

There are two explanations for the holes in the Paper:

a) they are really bad at doing the testing

they keep it vague to intentionally keep the process a secret

This could be either due to pre-existing Military Applications (for all we know X-37 is already using that technology to keep up there so long)

Or it could be to have a "edge" on the other space agencies. NASA budget is not exactly high (considering how hard it is to get into space). And having income from providing sattellite operations in the future might be worth a pretty penny.

This is pretty much just a random Elf Archer I found on Deviant Art and used for a single, one off adventure. What do you make of him?

Climate change is a bit more terestial as far as problems go. But scientists recently found not one, but two ways to combat the greenhouse gasses:

Seeweed removes the Methane from Cow Farts almost entirely:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-cow-farting-1.3856202

And CO² can be turned into Ethanol in one single, cheap, scaleable step:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-into-ethanol/

Especially as a Energy Storage, ethanol might be interesting here.

1 week has pased since posting that Image. So, BoloOfEarth, who won this one?

For the record, when I said I wasn't going to click on it, that didn't mean I wanted someone to tell me what was in it here.

 

I was rather enjoying my mental image of some guy rapidly rubbing two Cheetos together trying to get a spark.

You would be shocked with what all can burn. You can literally burn Coffee Powder. Hence why Dust Explosions are a thing.

For that mater, you can actually run the more robust diesel engines on stuff like used Cooking Oil or Liquid Manure (you need to filter out anything chunky, it is not "top grade" fuel, and more modern diesel engines might have a problem - but it works).

I'm not going to click on that because I want to simply enjoy the absurdity of that headline.

Does not appear to be as absurd as one might think first.

"Police suspect he tried to use individual Cheetos as an accelerant, perhaps being unable to find any paper. In fact, according to Lifehacker, chips like Doritos and Cheetos can actually be used to ignite a blaze. In fact, one commenter says that Cheetos, described as “fire-friendly,” work “even better” than the others. Another user explains, “If you think about it, its basically pure hydrocarbons (which burn) soaked in fat (which burns).”"

Of course that "information" is from Lifehacker.com. So reliability is questionable at best.

The automobiles and medicine thing was someone else's example.  I'm just saying it isn't as crazy as you seem to think.

 

One of my non-game interests is in a type of urban planning, what is today called "New Urbanism".  Not to bore anyone with the details (my girlfriend zones out when I bring it up), but it's basically about how you should design cities to interact with pedestrians, not cars.  Some of the die hard New Urbanists argue that the development of the automobile has actually retarded our development as a civilization.  There's a group of people today saying we'd be better off if cars had never been invented.  I don't know if they're right or not, but it's easy to imagine a world that made different choices than we did.  It wouldn't just be modern Earth with horses and buggies instead of cars, the cities would be laid out differently.  The lifestyles would be different.

 

The point is, just because cars were an obvious development for us, that doesn't mean that another civilization would have gone the same way.  Imagine a planet where most of the inhabitable land was strewn about through a vast archipelago.  Hundreds of thousands of little islands would be spread all around the world, but none of them big enough to really merit a large system of roads.  Land vehicles may have never been that important.  All trade and transportation would have been based around boats and ships.

If people/goods transport themself via Cars/Trucks, Trains or Ships does not mater. The basic technology is the same.

Knowledge in one, translates into knowledge of the other. Once the Ship/Train engines developed far enough, somebody would have the idea to make a car.

Even a hypothethical city optimised for pedestrians would also be optimised for Bikes by accidents.

So bikes would become very common. Putting a motor on a bike is not that far fetched. Motorized Bicycle.

Boom, we got cars again developed from Ship technology over a bunch of archipellagos.

Or think about a world that didn't have easily accessible oil and coal deposits.  They use whale oil or its equivalent until those start to run out, and then they have to switch to some other form of fuel.  They're stuck in a pre-industrial state until they can develop hydroelectric power or something, because their planet just doesn't have enough fossil fuels.

Then there is a decent chance they never develop an industrial age civilisation.

I am pretty convinced that if we somehow manage to set our civilisation back 500 years, that new human culture would have no fuel to burn for an industrial revolution.

True, but the point is that Hawaii isn't the place that invented cars.  Somebody came in, with cars already invented elsewhere, and brought them to the island.  While it is now economical to use cars, it does not appear like it was economical to develop them on the island.

 

Now, Hawaii on its own never developed any sort of advanced technology.  But if you had a "Planet Hawaii", where every inhabited place was a tropical island, they'd have probably created very different technologies by this point.

I find it doublfull that this "Planet Hawai" people would ever had any option to develop to industrial age to begin with.

I mean our planet is only 30% landmass, of wich a large part is unuseable for Human habitation. But at least it allows relatively easy access to resources. We would not even have the option to mine underwater or in space without those landlocked resouces fuelling our growth to begin with.

The Motto of the Los Angeles Police Department is "To Protect and to Serve", since back in 1955.

A lot of other Police forces took that motto too.

"The Protector" would fit well with him having a Shield. Maybe "the Blue Shield"?

Can we please keep politics out of this thread? I already unsubscribed from the one in the NGD. And I really don't want to stop following this thread, which I started, btw.

The Thread is called "More Space news!".

And they just discussed why there was so little news regarding space. Mainly a certain political decision in one of the biggest world economies and Space exploring nations.

While I agree that we should not discuss politics at lenght (unless they pertain to space news), you might be a bit over-reacting in this case.

Cheers.

Well, it is a European crater.

We Europeans are leaving our marks everywhere!

I agree. And no one is talking about it because Hillary Clinton locked herself in her hotel room in a drunken rage and our president elect likes to grab the opposite sex by the crotch.

I can highly advice this Blog post on why TV News is waste of human effort (and it is not even the newscasters fault):

Why TV News is a Waste of Human Effort: One Example Worth a Trillion Dollars — CGP Grey

"Only gods could defeat the Outsider Invasion. But the Outsiders knew of all the big ones. They were prepared for each and every one of them and so all the big religions Deities fell.

What was left was us, the forgotten ones. The Greek gods. The Egyptians. The Mayan.

But our alliance did not stop there. It included gods and godesses of whom the people had even forgotten even the language to speak thier names in - like the Celtic ones or the revered ancestors immortalised and deified with the ancient Moai.

But even united in purpose and goals there was no way for us to defeat the outsiders at this point. In the end even our temples, our shrines were destroyed as was the entire earth. But we were not defeated that day. We still had one option left. A option almost forgotten to time, as every other time a god would try it, his own Pantheon or all the others would surely intervene during the departure: Time Travel.

So we permanently fused our divine essence together. And stepped back into the past, before the Outsider Invasion.
The current gods and even our past selves are not...amiciable to our existence or activity. But that does not mater. We will stop the invasion, one way or the other. If you need a name for us, call us Pantheon."

Pantheon is the amalgam of all those lesser gods from no longer relevant religions, that fused together and travelled back in time to prevent the "Outsider Invasion". They are not greated well by the existing gods, as time travel was generally a taboo amongst the gods. In particular the big, current ones view it with suspicion, as not part of them is inside Pantheon (wich is simply because they were defeated first, so nothing was left to join the Alliance).

While a timetraveller send to prevent a alien invasion sounds good, Pantheons methods seem questionable at best so he is regarded on the far end of the "Dark Hero/Vigilantee/Villain" spectrum. It should also not be mistaken for being generally pro-Earth existence. A lot of the dieties of those ancient religions were trying to destroy the earth themself. The are mostly along becaue "how can I destroy the planet, if the outsiders already do so?"

How about this one? 

 

I see several lesser Religious known Semi-Religious Symbols:

To the top could be a piece of Stonehenge.

Left of that piece of a Greek Temple.

A lot of Maoi heads.

I also see a Egyptian Pyramid and it think Chichen Itza (Maya Pyramid).

Anyone else here Watch the Dr. Strange Marvel Movie yet?

As I understand the magic in there:

Anyone can learn magic. How they channel it (combatively or to stop being a paraphlegic) is up to them.

But there is also the source of artifact magic. Dr. Strange has the cloak of levitation. Quite a partical tool if you often enter dimension without clear gravity/very deep drops.

I asume everyone can levitate, superjump or even open a sling-ring portal without the proper artifact. But doing takes either extrodinary amount of practice in that particular are. And/or lenght rituals to prepare. And of course considerable concentration/unbroken concentration (like turning back time). Or as the Mordo there said:
"Some spells are so demanding, we can not wield them directly. We instead put them into Artifacts."

"Shift to Mirror Dimension" and the creation of Shields and Weapons is one of the few things one does not need artifacts for.

8) Conspiracy Nuts that claim during healing the mutants would also manipulate people.

Magellans substory "the Olay Mystery" goes into that direction, but there is no access to it yet except for voting on Topwebcomic:

http://magellanverse.com/the-olaf-mystery-p13/

The Olaf Mystery can now be properly browsed completely without needing to vote:

http://magellanverse.com/tales/olaf/olaf.html

While the ability to turn the recently deceased into living beings again, the exact ramifications are not known.

Is the revived person a secret Zombie Minion?

Maybe the soul has to be copied into the Soulsphere for the process to work, so there is now a trapped version of this person inside Olaf?

He is also highly resistant to telepathy. As if you could only hear the public voice of a nation, without being able to speak to any of it's parts directly.

Oxygen really is vile stuff! Our type of life just developed means of countering its toxic effects....for awhile.

While it is really reactionfriendly, I think that makes it a nessesity too. It's reactionfriendliness makes it one of the few choices for respiration.

The three most common elements in the Universe are:

Hydrogen

Helium

Oxygen

Hydrogen will just bind with Oxygen to create water. Good old "Di-hydrogen Monoxide".

Helium is plain useless for chemical reactions. Because it is chemically innert. It is the lowest and most common "noble" gas.

Basically the two can be ignored except for creating water or being the stuff you use in Natural Nuclear Fusion.

Now oxygen is the opposite of Innert. Wich makes it such a good thing to breath. In particular if it has contact with carbon, it is a hellishly good fuel.

Fire? that is in 99% of the cases just Oxygen+Carbon forming Carbon-Dioxyde.

Our Metabolism is practically a Exothermic Oxygen/Carbon chemical reactor. The concentrations are held so low a uncontrolled Fire does not usually take place.

While plants are endothermic reactions, using Solar Energy to make up the difference.

Pure Dioxygen is comparatively abundant.

Creating Carbon-Dioxide with Oxygen and Food it produces a good amount of net energy from the mass defect.

Yet it is still somewhat easy to disolve it back into Oxygen and Carbon using Photosynthesis, wich only needs solar power.

The respiratory fuel of intelligent life would need to be:

Abundant across a wide area.

Produce a high net yield energy if combined with another common element

Must be easily returnable to the ready state using only solar energy or have otherwise effectively unlimited supply.

While there is life in extreme situations using an alternative respiratory fuel, none of those fuels fits the bill for intelligent life as well as Oxygen on earth.