Zeropoint

5 hours ago, Sundog said:

Nor I, but the question arises: Were they hitting anything at that fast a rate of fire?

Oh yes. Check out "cowboy action shooting".

17 hours ago, Sundog said:

Plus, if you want firepower right-here right-now, pump and lever are no faster than bolt-action.

I've seen numerous people getting multiple spent shells in the air at once with lever and pump actions, but I've never seen anyone do that with a bolt action.

So it turns out that semi-autos are illegal in at least some of the places you can do African game hunting. I still have to wonder about pump or lever action, though.

That's a beautiful and mechanically interesting rifle. I was expecting two separate bolts with gear teeth on the back, largely because I unthinkingly assumed that they'd have forward locking lugs. I do wonder about the setback of the bolt faces under recoil, given that you've got both the stretching of the receiver and the compressing of the bolts going on. Obviously it's not a problem; I'm just curious as to how far they move.

Maybe it's because I'm not a famous firearms designer, but MY solution to "a little more capacity to it than a double-barreled, but also . . . a little more rapid rate of fire than a bolt action" would be a semi-automatic. I know, NOT traditional for African game hunting, and it makes people think of matte finishes and plastic hardware, but there's no reason you COULDN'T make a semi-automatic big-bore rifle with high-polish blued steel and fine walnut furniture.

So, it seems that voting is no longer enough, because the government refuses to respond to the will of the people. What's the next step?

17 minutes ago, death tribble said:

The police don't kill,  they arrest and prosecute with the rest of the legal apparatus. But they can kill if they feel they are protecting people (usually).

We all wish that were the case.

OR, you could use that as a seed for future adventures. WHY are there so hecking many dire wolves in this area? Is someone breeding them? Is something pushing them out of their normal habitat? Are they being drawn by magic as part of someone's plan, or as a side effect of something else? Are they coming back from the dead and you've just killed the same pack of dire wolves three times in a row? Is this a second-order effect of ecological disruption caused by the activities of intelligent races?

As an interesting example of that last kind of thing, Charles Darwin once noted that a certain kind of wildflower was more abundant around cities than out in the wilderness with the same climate. He investigated and found that, indirectly, concentrations of humans CAUSED the abundance of those wildflowers:

* Humans keep cats as pets

* More humans --> more cats

* Cats prey on mice

* More humans --> more cats --> fewer mice

* Mice eat bumblebee larvae

* More humans --> more cats --> fewer mice --> more bumblebees

* Bumblebees are the main pollinator of this particular wildflower

* More humans --> more cats --> fewer mice --> more bumblebees --> more wildflowers

You'd be a special kind of crazy to have that kind of detail all over your RPG world, but I still think it's neat.

On 10/1/2018 at 3:18 PM, Pattern Ghost said:

Dragon breeder friends of mine

I thought someone was posting from Ankh-Morpork for a moment there.

Yeah, my basic approach to the question, and the Fermi Paradox is "we're not qualified to have an opinion yet". When we've put biologist boots on the ground on all the accessible bodies in our solar system, then we'll have enough data to START speculating.

I've long been a fan of "son of a motherless goat" from The Three Amigos, and lately, internet memes, specifically snek pics, have led me to use "heck" as a substitute for all swear words regardless of what part of speech they should be, if I feel that toning it down is appropriate. This could lead to constructions, for instance, like "heck off, you hecking mother-hecker."

Some confusion creeps in here because the word "caliber" has three distinct uses in the field of firearms technology.

One definition is only encountered when talking about big guns, like artillery or naval guns: the length of the gun tube can be expressed in terms of multiples of its bore diameter. For instance, a five-inch twenty-caliber gun has a bore diameter of five inches and a barrel length of 100 inches. This sense is never used in discussing small arms, so we can segue into the next definition.

The second sense of the word "caliber" is, as Surrealeone points out, simply bore diameter. In the US it is customary to measure this at the "lands" of the rifling (the smaller diameter) while elsewhere it is common to measure it at the "grooves" (the larger diameter). Broadly speaking, a firearm with a larger bore diameter is more powerful than one with a smaller bore, but bore diameter does NOT tell the whole story; the weight of the bullet and the amount of powder in the case are equally important, if not more so.

The third sense is not actually correct, but still commonly encountered, especially in informal conversation: the world "caliber" is used to refer to a particular cartridge specification. For instance, when discussing semi-automatic pistols, someone might refer to "45 caliber". In context, this will be understood not to simply mean that the gun has a .45 inch bore, but that it is designed to take the .45 Auto cartridge specifically. When speaking of revolvers, however, "45 caliber" probably means the .45 Colt. Each of those names refers to an industry standard set of specifications regulating all aspects of the cartridge to ensure compatibility and safety. While almost all cartridge designations have a diameter in the name, this is usually only approximate; often rounded or truncated to two places.. For example, the .45 Auto specifies a bullet diameter of .451" while the .45 Colt takes a .454" bullet. In some cases, it's even worse: the .38 Special cartridge has a bullet diameter of .357 inches.

I shouldn't have to say this, but it's critically important to be sure that a firearm is operated with only the correct ammunition. Attempting to fire the wrong ammunition will AT BEST result in the gun working poorly; more serious consequences include permanent damage to the gun and injury to the operator. Such injury often affects delicate areas such as the hands and face, for reasons that should be obvious.

It's my understanding that drug addiction is generally a symptom rather than a cause. For instance, you've probably heard about how addictive heroin is; why, that rat in the classic experiment kept pressing the lever for another hit at the expense of eating! Well, a critical detail that scientists failed to consider the first time around is that rats are intelligent and social animals, and THOSE rats were kept in a tiny, empty cage all alone. They were in solitary confinement; no wonder they turned to drugs to ease the pain of their existence. When the experiment was repeated, with the critical difference of providing the rats with a large habitat with enrichment features and, most importantly, other rats to socialize with . . . the heroin wasn't a big deal to them.

It's largely the same with humans. When you find a human who has a crippling substance addiction problem, you'll probably find that they have significant mental/emotional needs that aren't being met. The way to minimize drug abuse is to provide better community connections, and better health care, both physical and mental.

Things just got interesting.

On 9/19/2018 at 5:04 AM, Starlord said:

The planet Vulcan has been discovered

If I'm understanding the article correctly, it's even a desert planet with a higher surface gravity than Earth.

Not bad, but it needs more Picattiny rail; maybe an M-LOK or Keymod barrel shroud.

5 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

A swap of Beauty and the Beast would be interesting, if a little bit scary depending on your view of masculinity.

With some thanks to the Disney and anime, the image coming to my mind makes me glad that I don't set much stock in traditional narrow-minded ideals of masculinity.

Would it legally count as discrimination if an all-you-can-eat restaurant excluded hobbits and Ctarl-Ctarl?

Well, I retract my statement about the gods not trying different things.

On 9/10/2018 at 10:54 PM, Badger said:

If the locals follow tradition, they'll buy 3 loaves of bread, one gallon of milk, and 2 dozen eggs per person per day expected to be out of the loop.

French toast is a critical part of any disaster preparation plan.

Wow. I already recognized the Snarl as the big threat in the comic, but that strip puts it in a whole new weight class.

Edit: It also makes it look (at first glance, at least) like the gods are pretty bad at recognizing when a plan isn't working.

3 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Omg we're all gonna die!!!

Die, die we all pass away.
But don't wear a frown 'cause it's really okay;
And you might try and hide,
And you might try and pray,
But we all end up the remains of the day.

That IS "neat". It would fit right in with the pictures that should be fantasy locations, too.

Is it a house or a crypt?

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

a high speed tailgate with an eighty-pound kid hanging off it made contact with my skull, and I did indeed take x2 STUN.

One time in the Navy I walked into a low-hanging fire sprinkler valve. It hurt so bad I wound up down on one knee, and I don't remember actually GOING down to the knee. For a few seconds, I couldn't do anything else and for several seconds more I didn't do anything except pull myself together. Afterward, I analyzed in HERO terms and found that the game is pretty accurate:

Assuming that all my stats were baseline, I figured that what happened is that I did a move-through on the ship (and failed to do any knockback, of course). That does STR damage plus a velocity bonus that I wasn't moving fast enough to get, so I did 2d6 Physical to the ship and got the same damage in return. Assuming average results, I took 2 Body and 7 Stun, reduced to 0 Body and 5 Stun by my natural 2 PD. After applying x2 Stun for the hit location and another x2 Stun for taking damage out of combat, my total damage taken was 0 Body and 20 Stun. With my CON of 10, I was Stunned but not unconscious. My "next phase" was consumed by recovering from being stunned, and then I voluntarily "took a recovery" on all my actions until I had my Stun back.

TL;DR: head injuries hurt and I'm a nerd.

That's what white phosphorus munitions are for.

48 minutes ago, archer said:

But I'll admit that might change if I were to see a topless filly in real life.

The other half would be a problem for centaurs. You know, you spend a minute or two admiring the shapely hindquarters of a fine filly with one of your centaur buddies and then something stops blocking your view and you find out you've been perving on a horse.