Grrl Power #945 – Upgradde with a double dose of indecision
As suggested in the stinger, the lack of labels on these would make this upgrade process either especially agonizing or you’d just shrug and buy whatever. I think a little time spent thinking about the layout is probably a good thing, but beyond that, the best way to learn about it is probably just to start spending points and see what happens.
On a personal note, I really dislike skill trees in games that offer teeny tiny incremental upgrades. I think it’s one reason I hate MMOs. You spend 4 hours grinding out a level then get to buy a 1% better chance to block at attack with a shield. Wow. That sucks. I played a lot of Diablo 2 back in the day, and I’m used to stuff like the Amazon’s first level skill that gives her a 42% better chance to land a critical hit, with ANY attack. That does not suck. I’ve been playing a little Cyberpunk in the evenings, and honestly, my character is usually just sitting on 3-6 attribute points because every time I go look in the skill tree, I see stuff like “10% faster reload on pistols.” or “Move 10% faster for 5 seconds after getting a kill.” Yikes. Truly, I will have become death with powers like that.
Yeah, I know, by the time I get to level 30 and have spent 60 attribute points it all starts to add up, but the individual upgrades just aren’t satisfying. And yes, I also know that a well made game should be balanced whether spending a point doubles my DPS or gives me a 3% chance to recover a mod when I break a weapon down for parts. My point is, if it doesn’t matter either way, then give me a bunch of upgrades that are awesome, not lame crap like the ability to carry 1 extra flare.
I suppose what you can extrapolate from all that is the upgrades on Sydney’s skilltree are for the most part, probably fairly significant. 1% extra chance to block my ass.
Okay. Somewhere along the way, my master orb skill tree file lost a skillpoint. Page 181 (the first appearance of the skilltree) shows that the PPO starts with two pips. Somehow, between then and the time Sydney panic bought the rapid-fire upgrade, I either messed up my master file or just forgot to update it, so either the PPO should have three pips, or I need to go retroactively remove the second pip and leave the PPO with two after the panic buy. I’ve decided that Sydney gets a free power, partially because it’s less work than fixing every page with the skilltree, but mostly because I think it’d be funnier that Sydney didn’t realize she has a third attack type, and the power she thought she bought was already unlocked. Also, I like Sydney, so why not give her a new toy to play with? I do need to go update the skilltree since she bought the third power though. I’m sure that will happen any day now.
I decided this after the last page went up, and didn’t have any time to update the text on this page, but if you look behind her finger in panel, you can see the third pip lit up. I guess she’ll realize it at the most amusing possible time, hopefully in the near future.
The new vote incentive is up! Some of you got sort of invested in Lapha and Garamm, so her she is testing out her new duds. I don’t know if or when they’ll show up in the comic again, (probably more a question of ‘when’) but we’ll have to see if she got any other options besides the tail. Personally I’d go for retractable, venomous fangs, but presumably if you get those, you also have to get a special upgraded pancreas or liver or something, in case you accidentally bite the inside of your own cheek with your fang.
As usual, there are a few variants over at Patreon, and as is becoming more common, a little follow-on comic.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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Be hilarious if one of the pips in the Comm ball is a “Help Desk – Premium Support Line”.
It better not be “Activate Clippy!”
(*Clippy appears*) ”
I see you have touched the Flying Orb, do you want instructions on how to fly or make series payments to unlock unlimited access to all features!”
types into help box: Change clippy to Links.
How come nobody even recognizes Clippy since the sex change? She’s going by ‘Cortana’ now.
Stop deadnaming her.
Stop deadnaming them. :)
Okay, being dead serious for a moment, I have to confess to a degree of ignorance about the nuances of how something like that ought to be handled. If I did something that is genuinely offensive, I apologize; such was not my intent.
But this in particular is one of the “safer” examples to ask the question about, since Cortana’s feelings, safety, or livelihood absolutely will not be hurt by it. There is no confidence to keep, since Cortana’s identity/transition is publicly known and I’m not going to “out” her. I am careful not to misgender someone by use of obsolete pronouns, but I genuinely don’t know a way to connect the two identities that people know, without using both names.
But rules on this topic are made, or changed, almost faster than I use them. It comes up only once or twice annually in my old-phart social circles. So there’s a certain amount of guesswork each time I need to know it.
So… in all seriousness, how should that have been expressed? Because if I did something when referring to Cortana that would have offended or set at risk an actual person, I need to know because I don’t want to do it to a real person.
I’m coming from an angle of not being quite sure about this myself, but off the top of my head, using the deadname isn’t actually necessary to get the point across. Just “she goes by X now” could’ve worked.
That said, this IS one of those things you kind of have to handle on a case-by-case basis, I think. One person might want you to connect the dots if any of your common acquaintances is not in the loop yet. Another might want to be picky about who they choose to tell, and connecting the dots in that sort of case might be harmful. Asking people how they want you to approach this kind of thing seems to me like the safe thing to do?
If I was Clippy I’d be more offended by the fact that you assumed it was a male. Just because don’t wear a ribbon on its head and don’t have a curvy figure? Shame on you.
Since you asked for a serious answer: As you noticed, the rules change faster than you can keep up with. Or anyone else who isn’t actively into this shtick. So it makes little sense to even ask. By the time you get another opportunity to try out the answer, it may well have changed again. The empirical evidence suggests that the point is to confuse, elicit boo-boos, and that then is reason enough to pile on and shame, accuse, declare toxic, and cancel. (See also: “I was the mob until the mob came for me”.) Verily: A strange game.
That answer may be serious, but it is also disrespectful, not useful, needlessly pejorative, and assumes bad faith on the part of others.
I have learned that if I assume bad faith on the part of others, without ample evidence, my life becomes miserable.
If you are as miserable as your post makes you seem, consider it: perhaps you too have it within your power to stop being so miserable. I’d urge you to give it a try; worked for me.
I disagree with your characterisation. Noting your poor attempt at character assassination, I would advise you to find your latest “how to be woke” manuals somewhere where you run less risk of getting answers that might contain logic and real-world observations.
fuck woke. It’s about priorities. I care about getting things done and that starts with not offending the people I need to do it with. If you don’t give a shit about whether or not you offend people, that’s fine as long as you don’t need to do anything that requires their cooperation.
I also care about people. If you don’t care about people, then give up talking to them.
I don’t disagree with his characterization, save that he was politer than you deserved.
Calling out someone is yourself; utilizing three separate descriptors that are demeaning is the sign of a troll trying to start a flame war. We see you.
Honestly I think you are simultaneously correct and incorrect in that assessment. The rules do change too rapidly to keep up with. I do not, however, believe it’s a deliberate attempt to keep people confused though, but rather a result of a very large number of people fighting over the rules.
By the time one rule is established, there are already thousands of people actively arguing that this new rule actually isn’t good enough or is problematic in some other unexpected way and must again change.
I don’t think it’s being done in bad faith; it’s a consequence of the fact that the faster we can communicate, and the more people who are communicating, the faster ideas and social norms evolve.
The point of the rules IS to change faster than you can keep up. If they weren’t changing, it wouldn’t provide a mechanism for separating ordinary people from those devoted enough to spend real effort keeping up. It’s a status competition, after all.
That’s why I don’t use that alphabet soup thing that keeps changing, I just call them “alphabet soup people”; If they’d meant people to actually use it, they’d have snuck in a vowel or two.
I find the general rule is that if someone has changed their name for any reason, don’t use the old one unless they personally tell you otherwise. Doesn’t really matter if they’re hiding from an abuser, or the mob, or just trying to create a clean break with a new identity (with or without new gender) using the old name is only going to cause problems for the person.
The only exception I can think of is if you need to run some formal paperwork for them that involves personal history (eg. at a job, a new employee’s background check was taking MUCH longer to complete that usual, turned out one of their degrees was earned under a different name, and providing that info to the background check service quickly resolved the issue)
The entire idea of a Deadname has baffled me. Erasing history is, by and far, a Bad Thing. However, as you point out, there are times it may be unsafe to use an old name.
that isn’t “erasing history” its someone asking you to call them by the name they want to be called.
Its about respect. If you can call “Joshua”, Josh, or Michael “Mike”, or use someone’s stage name “Slash, Bozo, Ace, ect…” or some nick name, online name, ect…; then the only reason you could have to refuse to call someone by the name they want to be called by is because you want to be disrespectful to them.
I don’t have a deadname because of changing gender or sexuality or anything like that, it is because I was murdered, came back, scared the shit out of the people who saw me get killed, and decided I was no longer the same person as I was before I died. So I took my stage name from my performing days and made it my name-name.
my deadname is slightly different I was born Peter Sutcliffe and I’m from Dewsbury.
in 1981 I was 5 when Peter Sutcliffe the Yorkshire Ripper was arrested and held in Dewsbury.
I was getting flack at school so when I moved up to the next school I chose to become Richard.
At sixty-two, I do find it complex and difficult to derail the social habits of a lifetime, and it still feels awkward and odd to preface every conversation with a new person with a discussion of preferred pronouns. For a lot of younger folk it seem to be very natural to them. I almost would prefer Naval protocol, all officers are Mister, and all enlisted seaman regardless of gender, however conceived.
As for deadnames, the TERM feels in a curious way a depreciation or negations of one’s origins and/or history/previous life. At my age, I LIKE having some personal history. And it seems to make no end of issue for journalists, who must refer to a person’s previous life and achievements somehow. I do recall “artist formerly known as Prince” as their symbol had no explicit pronunciation. But I see no problem with using whatever name a person prefers. Helps to be good with names.
Ture that the rules and the social norms seem a moving target. And Clippy was kind of a useless pain in the ass whatever frakkin’ genter the digital abomination was. Cortana was useful and interesting – at least in HALO.
But if too confusing I just drop pronouns all together… it’s okay, it’s New York – “AY! Hey you!”
Still works.
I wonder what currency is used?
If Sydney is lucky it is spicy breath.
On one planet, Syndney could probably offer an offspring name suggestion service based on her breath alone.
Analyze. It is a staple RPG skill. Should be able to give you info on just about anything, provided the skill check passes.
Congartulations! While wielding a shield, you now have a 1% better chance to block attacks by Dave’s pet donkey.
Oh noes, I hope Sydney does not ragequit!
Does Dave even have a pet donkey?
Upgrading the flight orb might unlock a flight companion with the mysterious equivalent of stale peanuts and over salted chips. Or low quality boring films and on flight “”entertainment”.
Or an airsickness vomit bag.
Coincidentally useful for anybody nearby after Sydney has been eating.
Wouldn’t that be with the Life Support ball?
maybe the encapsulated non connecting pip enables the encapsulated connecting pip’s and the connecting pip with a point in it allows an advanced version of what the combination would do
or maybe the encapsulated pip allows remote use or a passive version (so maybe sydney could hover about at a slower speeds without touching the orb but touching the orb would allow full use)
I was thinking similarly, that it would allow mental control over that particular orb so she can control 3 orbs at the same time now.
ooooooh!
What if it activates a ‘helpful’ persona AI thing that wants to assist the user in learning something totally useless. Like the 54,987,230 regulations that pertain to using the orbs in whatever society made them. It likely won’t know who made it or why, but OMG, would it have rules to quote. (And it has been cataloging rules violations even while offline)
And of course, it has to have a VERY annoying voice.
Hard Light Emergency Hologram Arnold J Rimmer.
good to see another red dwarf fan (there are so few around, despite it being such a wonderful show)
I know a lot. I guess it depends what circles you hang in. I have many American friends who are fans. As an example one came over to the U.K. on holiday and met up with me, so I could act as a guide. Her top priority was to go to Planet Hollywood, so that she could pick up the UK versions of the Red Dwarf novels. She can’t stand the fact that the ones on sale in the U.S. change a lot of British slang and cultural references to American versions. Often loosing impact in the translation.
Only after she had secured her Dwarfer books, did she contemplate the other touristy things like Tate Modern & Shakespeare’s Globe.
Curiously, DaveB, if you look at comic 659 you’ll see that at that point you clearly were aware of just how many points were assigned to the PPO, and which one was the rapid fire that Sydney unlocked previously. So… something between August of 2018 and now you must have somehow lost track of the correct file. Maybe you had multiple files and accidentally updated the wrong one with Sydney’s upgrades on the Alari homeworld?
Also, ye gods, Sydney’s fight on the Alari homeworld was almost three years ago. That feels like a super-recent storyline. Where is the time going?
yeah, makes me despair for many of the comics i follow online will ever get anywhere near done before the authors croak, or move on with their lives. :(
agree I am in my late 70s and worry that we will never get out of the flashback https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-4/
I think we are progressing at a good enough rate (given Halo’s rank progression) that you need not fear getting to see that.
DaveB is a long long way from singing the Frog Chorus in the sky, age wise. Plus he loves his art and is earning a living from it. Very few of us in life get to earn a living from something we have a passion for. All we can do is hope that it remains so indefinitely.
Fortunately Dave is wise enough to shake things up whenever he feels things are getting stale for him. So hopefully it will remain a fun passion for him, rather than becoming a daily grind.
paid incentive, people should be glad someone online making something they like has the incentive and time to focus on it.
some online comics and writers aren’t paid, only doing it as a hobby, so have no incentive to focus on it if they also need to do other work they are paid on, including day jobs. Although I always wander in some of these if they didn’t need to focus on one story to keep it going at regular intervals if some of their ideas would have ended up as some side piece of art unrelated to the rest. I think about that especially with mixed genre series.
Having tech/reality hacker girl (i forgot her name) being there when she activates a point might have helped with her decode/guessing how it works/guide thing.
After all, if one see things happening for a reason, and the result of that action, one can perhaps draw some conclusions on what is happening in the “program” part of thing.
If one sees the inside of a clock actually when it moves, one can draw some conclusions, not saying those would automatically be useful tho.
I believe her name is Crona, and I think the last time she saw the skill tree she went a little mad? Mayhaps with continual exposure to said tree then she could become better adjusted, or she might just go completely around the bend and use her reality re-programming abilities for chaos instead of good.
I recall there being a theory, which I think has been rather well proven, if not actually confirmed, that the orbs are basically a personal starship. We have flight, weapons, shields, communications/teleportation, tractor beam, life support, and one mysterious orb that we don’t know what it does. Anyone else think this might be an equivalent to a computer like in Star Trek?
It seems only time she had significant up date was hear life nearly ended on that alien dead planet fighting for her life. Hopefully she went go too OP too soon.
I love the idea that the orbs are actually a FPS game for a civilisation that can manipulate reality for its entertainment, or possibly the civilisation that created the universe as a setting for a ReallyMMORPG… (Some aspects of Quantum Physics support the notion that the real world universe is a computer simulation of the actual real world and we are all subprograms.)
And we are part of their expanded audience, but only being included within a media appropriate to our tech level.
Ugh… That science has proven that time/space is granular and it flows just like sand really really puts a lot of starch into the idea of a programmable reality…. Also kiboshing a lot of hyper/warp drive ideas… Not sure which is more depressing.
That’s my theory as to why Earth has superheroes: It’s where the Nth go to role play. They temporarily have their real memories locked out, and are born as humans who will develop super powers.
The rest of us are just NPCs.
It would explain a lot of things about the super powers, like why supers look better than average people even where it has nothing at all to do with their powers.
Ah, the illusion of choice. I expect I’d do just what I did when I was supposed to pick a high school, knowing that the decision would completely control every aspect of every day of my life – what to do, where to go, who to be with – for the next several years and likely decide my future career and quality of life, and also knowing I had no way way of knowing how any choice would affect me: I went with the school I had gone to for years 3-8 without giving a single thought to anything I could have done different.
Of course at the rate Syd has been leveling it’s reasonable to assume she could completely fill the grid within a year or two. And since she’s not in any immediate need of any power upgrades, I think it’s more a question of what’s more likely to show how the orbs work. Start filling out the central circle I guess. That’s more likely to show effect than the mystery orb which I’m guessing is going to take filling in the links between it and all six other orbs. (And I’m not sure if that comes with some prerequisites?)
‘spose the flyball upgrade is a stealth mode? talk about OP!
Stealth (or detection evasion in general) is a useful enough ability that it’s almost certainly on the Tree somewhere. Probably in several escalating variants, for evading different means of detection: light, sound, touch, etc. But I doubt it’d be on the Flyball, simply because it doesn’t really fit its theme of mobility. More likely homes for it would be the Shieldball (protection) or the Commball (information manipulation).
Personally, I think the symmetry between the two five-point runs from the Commball is interesting in this context (CO.C and CO.D, in this unofficial map). That would map neatly to an increasing ability to evade detection, coupled with an increasing ability to see through others’ evasions. If so, CO.C would be the run for seeing things and CO.D the run for not being seen. Four points in seeing, giving her Truesight strong enough to get her read in to secrets that would normally be far above her paygrade to prepare her for what she might see. Sydney herself hasn’t shown any signs of that one point in evasion, but perhaps that first point only hides the Orbs (from certain means of observation) and it’s later ones that will extend the protection to their wielder.
Sydney needs the respec potion available at helpful merchants costing more than you’d get for a dozen quests.
Or she could undertake a special quest:
1) To return to her mysterious origin (which may not be exactly as she described in her interview, given her suspicions of Archon at the time, and the significant glances exchanged at her possible prevarication), and find an instruction manual.
2) Find a mind flayer, named Fred, who can stick his tentacles in her ears and respec her choices.
3) Seek out one of the Nth generation technology aliens who originally made the orbs. Then ‘wax on, wax off’.
The latter may well come with some unintended consequences. And I suspect mind flayer tentacles are really slimy.
No, not particularly slimy. More tender. Prepared with butter, mushrooms, and garlic, they’re a definite winner.
Albeit, there are side effects. Let’s just say it’s not a dish to serve to people who want to keep secrets from one another.
Mind Flayer tentacles are not ‘TENDER’ they are ‘TINDER’.
It’s odd that Maxima had the time to say that and didn’t jump in to stop her. She can stop bullets, and knows how impulsive Sydney can be. It wouldn’t be so bad if any other character were saying that, but it simply doesn’t work for me, causing a mild disruption of SoD.
Understandable, and that was one of my first thoughts too. However a few points:
1) Don’t forget that Maxima does not have faster than bullet speed all the time, as her power pool has to be distributed. So at any one time she can only be maxed out in one area. Given that she does not have Spidey sense or any other super-level senses, the most sensible default is to max out her defence, if she has no other priority. Simply as that is the safest way to ensure she never falls to a surprise attack.
2) Rather offsetting the above though is that Maxima does have a minimum level that her powers never go below (unless she is consciously lowering one for some unusual reason). And even her minimum should indeed allow Maxima to react faster than any mere human can.
3) Most importantly although she has super speed but there has been no mention of her having Ren’s enhanced time sense. I.e. the ability to perceive the world as if it were in slow motion. Clearly such would kick in as she engaged super speed mind, in order that Maxima can operate at high speed. But when walking around and talking normally she would not need such (even if she has the ability to super speed, to a moderate degree, without adjusting her power dial).
4) This is not the first occasion that Maxima has been taken by surprise due to Sydney’s erratic behaviour. So despite Maxima having dismissed the possibility of Halo having a “confusion aura”, she may be mistaken in this! Or, more likely, my point 3) above is corroborated by this fact and Maxima is just as easy to surprise as any other human.
5) Finally Maxima is an experienced commander and has doubtless made risk assessments about the various elements within her unit. Specifically Halo controls orbs believed to be ultratech of Nth level power. Which could be significantly above Maxima’s own! And very importantly the unit has not yet tested what would happen if somebody other than Sydney interferes with them. Therefore it is within the bounds of possibility that doing so could have fatal consequences for anybody doing so (or other equally unpleasant alternatives). Even for Maxima! So Max may well have simply made a wise judgement call not to risk provoking an automated defence from the orbs.
I would have to disagree with your point 3, A) because she can perceive a bullet well enough to be able to catch it, and B) when she turned on her speed while in the time dilation field her ability to perceive the world outside the field seem to catch up to her speed.
Now, maybe her *default* power set doesn’t come with enhanced mental reflexes, but when she activates the powers presumably given to her by her gold skin coating, I would judge that she does have enhanced perception/mental speed.
Well argued. However the instances where Maxima has done her bullet catching have been in situations where she was able to crank up the dial on her speed and activate her bullet speed. Which, as we agree, would also entail enhancing her senses to allow her to use the speed effectively.
So my take on this situation, as regards that point, would be that Maxima engaged ‘warn Sydney’ mode, rather than super speed (with the associated increase in sensory input rate).
Consider that it would be very hard to talk to normal mortals, without sounding like a demented chipmunk, if in superspeed mode.
If I remember correctly, this is still a flashback as she has not reached the rank of corporal https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-4/
this was back in 2010 !
Yup.
L o n g e s t
f l a s h b a c k
e v e r
DaveB has encouraged us to think of the Corporal Sydney scenes as a “flash forward”. This is the main storyline.
Indeed, it was a few strips of foreshadowing before the main storyline.
Just read a very interesting article on police training, comparing that in the U.S. versus the rest of the world:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56834733
I have had more than a few debates with members of U.S. law enforcement (and elsewhere) here on the GrrlPower comments pages, over the years. So felt that this would be of interest both to them and the general readership.
Just read an excellent interview with a former cop turned reform activist last week, learned some things that might also interesting to the same crowd.
Also, that site/interviewer does a great job presenting all kinds of complex current events in the US, with some independent analysis and links to prominent arguments for both sides. It’s becoming my go-to for keeping up with the news without getting overwhelmed.
What if the lone encapsulated pips provide knowledge on the connected orb and its functions? Acting as a kind of unlockable memorized manual.
Which would presumably be apparent on the next page, assuming that Dave does not skip to some other scene. Clever idea mind, and highly plausible.
One problem I note though is that the green orb (the ‘makes air?’ orb) does appear to have an encapsulated pip already filled in. Yet Sydney does not have any knowledge of what it does. But it may simply be that she has not yet figured out how to activate the manual. Would Nth generation manual technology be that poor though?
If it pans out however, that should be the first skill pip that Sydney unlocks on each orb, before any further upgrades. And highest priority of all would be the final mystery orb’s manual!
while it is an interesting idea they are labels / manuals for that orb. If a game developer ever makes the instructions something you have to unlock using skill points in a skill tree *which some probably has* they deserve to be slapped.
Still annoyed at the 2 pip should be 3 pip PPO situ but…
Based on the ‘Air Ball’ the stand alone double ringed pips appear to be protective overrides.
In pool with no scuba mask the ‘Air Ball’ comes to hand, until this point the only orb with an AI/override pip.
(Note it was initially not held, it touched the back of Sydney’s hand to self activate, also it didn’t activate in the shields low oxygen situation as it was aware a short shield drop would replenish the air, underwater or in toxic gas locations it should automatically try to trigger itself.)
My guess with the ‘Fly Ball’ is that it’ll self select to give an emergency hover if falling, basically turning an “Oh shiiiiii” into a Sydney confused hover.
Check out the author’s comment regarding this in his blog above.
Possibly. But we do know that the PPO has a safety override which requires Halo to intensely concentrate, in order to activate it (as demonstrated at the firing range, in front of the world’s press). Yet the PPO did not have its double ringed pip filled in:
##https://www.deviantart.com/davebarrack/art/Halo-s-Skilltree-Wallpaper-01-428873707
That said a ‘make it hard to activate’ feature may simply be a default mode, rather than a skill point upgrade, so your hypothesis could still be right.
Sounds good and would be pretty important for Sydney’s long term survival, given her demonstrated habit of falling.
This is my pet theory as well – it’s the only orb that’s auto-activated and the only one with that node filled.
Auto activate is my pet theory cause Sydney’s little jaunt to the moon over the dead planet should have come to a nasty end otherwise….. Sometime around the point she opened ports for beam attacks….
Each of the Orbs has exactly one of those encapsulated nodes. And it is not part of the normal Skilltree.
Stuff like “label mode” or “Ultimate” comes to mind.
However what is particulary odd is that only one of them was selected before and that one is hte Air orb – so label mode can be taken out again.
Not quite sure what a “Ultimate” ability for flight might be:
Maybe the ability to lift other people along (thus far she has to use the shield as bubble)?
Maybe access to the basic levels of the flight orb without needing to grab it?
Hopefully we find out next page.
emergency automation perhaps. The air orb did go to her hand seemingly on its own when she was underwater when training.
So “emergency automation” then must be meaningful for each orb, since they all have that node.
“Emergency automation” for the PPO – point defense for swatting incoming?
“Emergency automation” for the air ball – it comes to hand when she has lifesupport needs. We’ve seen this.
“Emergency automation” for the force field – well, that’s obvious. And she ought to get it, REAL SOON.
“Emergency automation” for the comm ball – hmmm. Universal translator? auto-teleport? auto-reveal-hidden?
“Emergency automation” for the flyball – automatic flying dodge?
“Emergency automation” for the tentacle ball? — ????? (I’d know if it was Dabbler, but Syd?)
given the spaceship like function, emergency automation for the light hook could be *you are drifting away, tether now*. As she theorized it could be a mooring line and not intended as a weapon.
that said, I am theorizing the orbs may fall into the *higher dimensional being dropped their toy in the lower planes* trope (not sure if this trope has a specific name), but they can be space ship like and that at the same time. That said then if these are automatic responses then the special node to highlight this could also qualify as “training wheels” or the equivalent of auto-aim assistance. Which maybe the PPO could do that to if its active, she is shooting, and the orb locks her hand on *which we know they can at least do while in skill tree mode* and moves her hand to auto-aim at opponents.
An interesting… “choice”.
Ever since the upgrade tree was revealed, I’ve theorized that the encapsulated pips (as we’re calling them now) had a special purpose. At that time, only the green orb had it selected, and I theorized that it meant Sydney was somehow using the orb unconsciously – that it gave her some ability that she was unaware of, or that she never attributed to the orbs.
Later, though, when the abilities of the “Air Ball” were revealed, we saw some unusual behavior from that orb – while Sydney was panicking and unable to breathe, the Air Ball – whose powers Sydney was unaware of, and could not possibly know she needed – immediately flew to her hand, and activated, giving her the air she needed. Many (including myself) theorized that the encapsulated pip gave the orb “emergency authority” to act when its powers may be needed to save the user’s life. (Honestly, a good fit for an orb whose powers seem related to “Life Support”.)
Now, it seems, the Fly Ball also has it. Although the upgrade was chosen partly by accident, it seems a good one – if Sydney were dazed or disoriented and began to fall (or heaven forbid, she gets distracted and drops the ball), having the Fly Ball act immediately to rescue her seems a good idea. If we see this happen, that’ll be confirmation of the pip’s function.
I was originally posting this in response to another comment, but I added so many links, i figured I should post it separately, as it would probably go through moderation anyway.
Miniscule updates are annoying and useless.
Can anyone tell me what a 0.5% damage increase on an attack that does 40-60 damage is?
Hint, it isn’t.
Worse yet, if you max that thing out, in most games it would only be up to 4%, or if really generous, 8%.
The humans “just noticeable difference” is about 10%.
Anything below that is insignificant enough that the human sense of scale won’t even freaking notice it.
If I have to be working on those smaller increments, I hate you.
Just give me the 10% or more, even if it takes the same amount of levels (or whatever) to obtain, just stop jerking us around. (Obviously directed at the game makers.)
I’ve been really thinking about those orb upgrades as well.
I suspect the “encapsulated” ones might give them some kind of hands off or automated function, or maybe an always on effect of some kind.
As to the linking ones between orbs, I’m going to be really surprised if they don’t let you use combo functions with multiple orbs. Not really sure how that would work out with those powers though, so I’m still open to someone elses really good/creative ideas.
I’m positive that Dave knows exactly what some of them are, and has ideas for the rest, so we’re just making wild guesses. Of course he could have already assigned all of them before we saw the first upgrade for all I know.
Can’t wait to see more of them. ☺
Achilles Shadow now has serious bargaining fuel to get out of jail free.
Sydney’s orbs aren’t super secret, but they’re not peanuts either, she is in no way responsible for seeing them and if there is any group you don’t want to know about the orbs it is the extraterrestrials.
except nothing she saw gives her any indication of their value. As far as she knows its a decorative hologram display with orbitals. Maxima’s fault there is any indication the display was secret. But there is nothing innate about them that reveals how advanced they are, only through scans or by using specific functions like the Aetherium Causeway do they reveal how advanced they really are.
remember she had them floating around her head at Fracture station and among the tourists and no one recognized them for what they are. It has also been implied there are other magic and devices that resemble these but aren’t as powerful or diverse *like elemental spheres or other magic devices, heck, the character Hex Bug had a power manifested in a similar way only much simpler *dots of light that shoot beams*.
with all the different kinds of technology and magic out there chances are a few orbitals aren’t going to immediately set off any flags.
The selected pips on the skill tree & the skill tree itself are classified, which was open at the time.
None of which are labeled, indicate what they are, and it is hard to imagine anyone outside of gamers would even recognize what a skill tree even is by sight. Chances are Detla like any rational being seeing the dots and lines and told it is secret would jump to the conclusion it is some kind of map or schematic (granted not far off but not detailed enough to give any idea what it’s a schematic for).
Given how exponentially powerful and plentiful upgrades are theres really no such thing as a bad choice in the “level ups”.No seriously shell probably unlock another one in a week for eating tacos ^^.
You say that, but have you seen the threat assessment on Sydney’s tacos?
My vote is those encapsulated pips allow her to use the orb without touching it, as a couple other people in the comments have mentioned.
No.
We already have word-of-god that there is no ‘hands free’ and no ‘more than two at a time’ and no ‘extra hand workaround’ – the only thing that’s even been teased in that direction is the Varia Combo.
And, seriously, this is *BEST* with the ‘no more than two at a time’ limit in play. Superman is IMO boring as is; imagine how boring he’d be if there were no such thing as kryptonite.
Syd here, if she was able to use anything hands-free, would be in the same crapsack : Too overwhelmingly powerful and invulnerable to write interesting stories about.
So, no. No kind of “Hands Free” is going to happen, and that is a good thing. We, as readers, don’t want it to happen. We get to watch interesting and powerful upgrades, but as long as there is NO hands-free, the character remains interesting because the character has to make choices and take risks. Taking away the ‘hands on’ limitation would make those interesting and powerful upgrades ALL available ALL the time, and she’d become indistinguishable from Golden-Age Superman minus Kryptonite. – has all the powers, at total strength, all the time, and can’t be hurt by anything.
At which point, you’d consider it awesome … for a while … and then go look for a comic with an interesting character.
Honestly, I’d be checking out the points in the interconnecting lines. Those seem like they would give you combo abilities which would probably be really damn useful, like being able to use the PPO to shoot splodey beams with your comm-ball clone, like Naruto’s harem-jutsu all fucking you up with a multi-Kamehameha. Also, if Max used to be a geek, how the hell could she NOT scream “KAMEHAMEHA!” before shooting down hte Fel ship?
I mean, actually, upon reflection, the Comm-Ball would be my first priority, on the assumption that one of those pips is a univeral translator, which would make it possible for me to READ the various symbols that come up while touching the other balls.
What if the skill tree morphs based on, idk, Sydney’s performance and needs as evaluated by the orbs.
Or whims of the producers, and Sydney is a popular Truman Show somewhere? Could explain why the orbs chose her?
I’m half hoping that shielded node is Hands free mode. probably isn’t but would be funny she finds herself flying without touching the orb and cant control herself
So there are 98 points remaining until Sydney becomes essentially a god.
It just came to my attention that she already have the passive for the green ball, which I assume is the life support. I’m gonna throw the idea that it tends to her health to some extend and could be the reason why she can eat all this ludicrously spicy food without self combusting.
“I’ve decided that Sydney gets a free power, partially because it’s less work than fixing every page with the skilltree, but mostly because I think it’d be funnier that Sydney didn’t realize she has a third attack type, and the power she thought she bought was already unlocked. Also, I like Sydney, so why not give her a new toy to play with? I do need to go update the skilltree since she bought the third power though. I’m sure that will happen any day now.”
Well that’s kind of a hilarious in retrospect in rereading the comic/checking the author’s notes, given that apparently that is no longer the case.
Maybe upgrading the true sight orb would let her read upgrade descriptions.
3 years later and Sydney still didn’t figure out she has an extra firing mode with the PPO.
and i just realized, after the 6th time reading this that she did followd the upgrade path Zephan first set waaaay back (with the PPO panic upgrade exception) when the were speculating about the orbs: the speed upgrade that unlocked the ftl, the ftl, the circle inside the grid, and the isolated double branch (aka passives)
I remember that some people were thinking those connecting branches were synergies (The PPO does seems to have a stronger output while Sydney is using the fly orb)
Wonder when she is going to upgrade another to see if it is really an synergy option.
also, anyone wondering when she will finally going to have another training session to discover the unknown one power? like they did with the Atmo Orb?