Grrl Power #659 – The greatest challenge – upgrading
A game’s death penalty is a big factor in how people play it. If there’s a significant one, people tend to care more about healing and defense, whether that is damage mitigation with armor, or dodging attacks or blocking and parrying them. Of course some games are set up so that if you can lay down crazy DPS, that’s a viable survival tactic, especially if you can link some vampiric damage to the attacks.
What those games don’t take into account is how much it hurts to take damage in the first place. (Nearly all of them, yes, there’s stuff like Darkest Dungeon that takes fatigue and sanity into account.)
My point is that if you’re playing the game in real life, as Sydney is, she’d obviously much rather not take any damage at all. Sure, it’s cool to be able to survive being impaled and then regenerating, except for the part where it would really fucking hurt to get impaled. Sure, if you’re the Swamp Thing and you’re made of moss, it probably doesn’t hurt much, if at all, but if you’re Wolverine, it still hurts like hell. Obviously Wolvie has a bonkers pain threshold, but there’s got to be times where he wouldn’t mind switching powers with Kitty Pride or Colossus.
I’ve read a few LitRPG books, where characters are put in a position where they’re essentially playing a game. Sometimes they literally are, through a Matrix quality VR setup, and I don’t really care for those because as far as I’m concerned, the stakes are super low if it’s just a game, but some books have RPG elements in them even though it’s the real world (at least, within the fictional universe of the novel) like a computer or ability that rates their gear or skills and there’s an obvious progression path. Whatever the story hook is, the characters in those are usually fairly concerned with damage mitigation, but it depends on how much the writer likes to push the “ow this really hurts for real” elements of the story.
If I was Sydney, I’m not sure what I’d do. Getting out of there ASAP seems like the best option, but… upgrading her shield so she can take multiple direct hits from the “shimmer blast” as she called it also seems tasty. On the other hand, her shield is already overkill when she’s not fighting world bosses, so it might feel like a wasted point, especially since she doesn’t know if she can even max out every orb. She’s assumed that’s the case, but what if her orbs are like some game where you can only specialize in 2 or 3 things? She doesn’t know if she has a level cap.
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She should get the Label upgrade first!
She needs the label upgrade to tell her which one the label upgrade is.
I bet she would 100% get it if she knew which it was. :D
That could totally be the power of one of the unknown orbs, the LabelMaker.
Label Upgrade is an OP power when maxed out. Just look at the “i’m a Spider, so what?” manga
Sounds like a communication issue and possibly on the comm orb as an untouched upgrade.
Unfortunately, all the labels are in Galac6 which Syd doesn’t speak or read.
Still, if she had it she might ask Dabbler for help.
Not here of course. In this situation getting out alive is more important than getting things labeled. And she only has one upgrade thingie.
It’s seriously too bad Krona didn’t have a pencil and paper handy when she saw Syd’s tree, because then Dabbler and everyone else could work on figuring out what it all meant. She’d probably have either figured out which is the label display (hey it’s probably on the commball) or at least have an idea on what does what based on the glyphs within each bracelet hidden behind each of the orbs point slots.
Oh well.
My idea I suggested during the last upgrade was to look at the icons on all the orbs and see if one in particular appeared on ALL the orbs. What icon is probably on all menus? “Help”.
has she tried touching the closest orb to see if it will tell here the choices, cinda like mousing over something?
Newp, touch an orb, and ‘the system’ thinks that’s the one you want to upgrade and doesn’t allow you to switch. Sydney and ‘Greatest American Hero’, both winging it without the instruction manual.
Thats EXACTLY what she tried the first time the upgrade system came up, and it locked her upgrade into the telepresence-orb-thingy. Though it did let her teleport to her holographic thingy.
Actually it turns out she grabbed the telepresence orb with her right hand last time, the one holding the point (no wonder it thought it was a selection). Perhaps all she needs to do to see the labels is to grab the telepresence orb with her left hand and they will appear.
It doesn’t matter which hand she grabs her balls with
I wonder if she could reskill.
Dear Dave
Any chance you could publish Halo’s skill tree diagram?
Just so we can speculate wildly while waiting for the next episode to land :D
It has been posted. At Deviant Art?
Any chance we could get a version that is just the skill tree? And updated to show the points Sidney has bought? Perhaps as voting incentive?
He has already done that, you just need to know where to look; https://www.deviantart.com/davebarrack/art/Halo-s-Skilltree-Wallpaper-01-428873707
Awesome! Thanks for the link guys
https://img00.deviantart.net/9fe3/i/2014/023/f/9/halo_s_skilltree_cleaned__1_23_14__by_wwjdtd-d73gr2t.jpg
There’s one here: https://grrl-power.wikia.com/wiki/File:2014-01-20-skilltree.jpg
Now watch, she’s asked why they aren’t labelled, and the orbs will be all “Ask and you shall receive.”
HAH exactly what I thought will happen XD
If it was me, I’d choose a node that was linked to two or more orbs, maybe one of the center nodes.
She is trying to think Strategically, which has to be real tough for her right now
There’s a thought, how long does she have left on her current dose of meds? And does she have her generics on hand still?
The ArcLight team has reviewed the orbs and probably has some great theories, some of which could even be right. If I was her, I’d trust the magic scientists on the upgrade path – right up until I was in combat and really really needed something that wasn’t at the top of the list.
I am surprised that the two orbs with a linking pip are ppo and flight. You would think it would be ppo and shield.
Obviously being able to fire with the shield up is base level tech ;)
But what does it do ?
I mean if it is useful then points should be spent to link the orbs but since it has not been brought up and it is the only one that has that then it might only be a minor upgrade.
They all have a connecting pip, and the to with a filled in central pip are Flight and Forcefield
If she has to grind away to level up a couple more times, she’s going to be there a while and should start worrying about food and water.
Sydney has already shown she can drop and reform her shield rapidly, as when she enlarged it to save the team earlier. So she could float over a lake with the bottom of the shield a few inches under the surface, then blink the shield and scoop up some water inside the shield. That takes care of that.
So she really needs a food source.
Personally, I’d hope the “air” orb is a life support orb and use the point on that in hope that the next upgrade can generate food. It’s risky, but so is any choice, and she really needs food.
Better hope the water on this alien planet isn’t toxic to hyu-mons…
As a general rule of thumb for maximums:
3 minutes without air. Check, all sorted.
3 days without water
3 weeks without food
The next thing Sydney *needs* is water.
Sleep is an important need as well. Several days without adequate rest will cause hallucinations (I’ve experienced this due to Army training and missions. Sucks much.), disorientation, weakness and uncoordination, and ultimately death.
Yeah, and considering she’s had only four or five hours of sleep on average over the last four days, and they were VERY hectic days, I think she must be a lot tougher than she looks. Oh, and it’s already the fifth night now… poor Sydney.
Sleepless isn’t so bad. You get used to it eventually.
Sleep deprivation sucks! There is a point where you would rather be dead.
The big problem for Sydney would be that she would need a secure location in which to rest without her orbs active.
So, you are saying that insomnia is nothing to lose any sleep over? :)
Actually, humans do NOT die from lack of sleep! Really, really stresses out the system, but if you need sleep bad enough, you’ll take “micro-sleeps” that will tide you over until you feel safe enough to pass out. That is why, no matter how sleep-deprived someone is, a bucket of water WILL wake them up.
Animal experiments have proved that dogs and rats will die of just of sleep deprivation. Then… the tests were deemed inhumane and… haven’t been repeated for other species.
Actually, humans DO die from lack of sleep. There are long-term and also very quick effects on the heart and sleep deprivation will shorten your lifetime. There is also a always fatal disease where the body isn’t able to sleep anymore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia
I don’t think I’d go with the PPO right now. Looking at the shape of the powerup dots for that orb (a ring of what look like shortish linear progressions), Sydney started out with two dots in ‘Splodey Cutter, and then applied a point that got her the first level of “Shotgun”. The next dot would (I’m guessing) either power up her Shotgun (which is unlikely to give it better damage capacity than the ‘Splodey Cutter already has — and it ain’t enough, against this guy) or provide a new firing option (“Hey, cool, I can shoot around corners now! Still can’t get past Squiddy’s shield, though.”) — also not likely to help a lot in the current slugfest. And there’s no 3rd dot to ‘Splodey Cutter, it doesn’t look like, so I don’t know if she’s even got the *potential* to get more raw power.
Or, you know, I’ve entirely misconstrued what the grid layout means, in which case — no damned clue. Shield is tempting because of that butt-puckering moment when an attack pushed its abilities — but maybe different levels just makes it more versatile. I can see gating access to abilities where an inexperienced pilot can severely injure themselves or others (PPO, Propulsion), but I don’t know why you’d design shield control in a way that would potentially allow a fatal attack through based on pilot experience. On the other hand, a control I *can* see would be preventing the shield from forming in such a way as to, for example, chop off a section of a structure or sentient. If Sydney can get to an override on that, she could possibly fly in close and start Pacmanning off Squidward chunks.
Though more speed would be good, even if warp drive is the second chain. Life support improvements in case she’s stuck without food/water/waste handing for a protracted period would be good, too.
Yeah, no idea what she should do.
I think the longer skill tree on PPO is overall orb power, fitting in with the longer one on the flight orb being speed. Then the round one is just different types of shot.
All of them seem to have one that is a circle within a thick branch. Perhaps a hands free upgrade? It’s only filled on the Life Supporb. The Lighthook has four “long lines” like the one for speed in the flight orb. Perhaps Length, Strength, Speed of movement? Maybe Multiple Lighthooks?
I used to think the single double-line point that each orb had meant that the orb worked even when you weren’t touching it. However, the day Sydney discovered how the Air Ball works, she panicked, and dropped the Shield ball. Panicked, stunned by an inrushing wave of water, drowning – the green orb jumped right into her hand.
I think that’s what the those single double-line points are for – the ball comes when it’s needed.
Since the orbs are thought controlled, perhaps the “XP” represents how familiar are the orbs with the user’s nervous system. More familiarity unlocks more functionality so that they don’t overwhelm the host.
I’m thinking of Iron Man and his AI advisor, Jeeves, or whatever. Which dot gives her something like Siri?
Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse!
Jarvis, Jeeves was Wooster’s butler :D
Jeeves was Wooster’s Valet, not butler. A butler is a head of household; the chief servant in the building. a Valet is a gentleman’s gentleman, outranking the butler, but still your servant.
It was explained to me thusly:if one owns multiple houses, the butler sees to the place while you’re gone and while you’re there. one’s Valet goes to the house ahead of you to apprise the Butler of your coming, and make sure any changes to your personal needs are met before you arrive.
True. The original Jarvis in the comics (who had been the valet for Howard and Maria Stark, and was already managing the Stark Mansion when it became the Avengers Mansion) was very definitely based on Jeeves, though.
I love your icon mighty computer how many people have caught on to where it is from? wait don’t answer that. the answer may lead to this clones death. wait this question might lead to *V V V I I I P smoke wafting away from where i was*
There is also another upgrade path that is currently greyed out. If this one is the galactic speed, then she is screwed…
The answer is clear, little gretchin! MOAR DAKKA!
Or, if you prefer, “Use the force, Luke!”
Me personally I would level up the PPO first and hope to get like the Quantum Torpedo upgrade. Or whatever equivalent the PPO has to a missle/torpedo attack, if any.
Her shield is more than capable of withstanding all but the heaviest direct hits. Upgrading that seems redundant at this point. plus we don’t even know if upgrading it increases its defense power or simply gives it other abillities.
The same goes for her flight orb. She’s assuming that upgradin that will eventually give her acces to supra-luminous flight capabillities. But thats not a guarantee either.
So going by that logic, the safest bet, in my personal opinion, while she’s surounded by hostile forces, is to increase her firepower. If she can do enough damage she might either render them incapable of continuing their attack, or possibly get them to back off, all the while racking up the exp for her next upgrade.
There is another option for the bad guys if she does enough damage to make them back off: call in the really big guns
What Sydney doesn’t want, is for them to decide to either glass the entire planet, or destroy it entirely
I get the feeling they are more interested in taking her orbs than they are in outright vaporizing her. Otherwise they would probably have done it by now. Either that or the planet itself still holds something of value to them. Why else would they bother to leave behind a probe ( or whatever that thing was ) and have a mothership ( or a carrier at least ) nearby that could reach the planet within moments of receiving the signal. If they truly have the capacity to “Deathstar” the planet they would have done it in the first place.
They made a damn good attempt at vaporizing her when she and the rest of her team attempted to flee
Like said: if she gives them enough of a hard time, they may decide what ever is still on the planet isn’t worth her hassling them
Or, they were just trying to vaporize everone else, knowing that the blast wouldn’t be enough to kill her outright. Whatever that probe was, it was her orbs that set it off. So they must know what they are capable of to warrant a response of this magnitude.
Of course this is all speculation at this point, since we haven’t a clue what those things are really after or how they think. I guess we’ll find out in due time.
If Syd goes for the pew pew orb (I’m not cool) I hope that she gets something like a Meson gun so that NegaMegaSquidwards shield becomes irrelevant.
If the double-lined single dots are the hands-free option, then the best bet would be to grab it for either the flight or the shield orb. That way, she has the option of simo flight/shield/fire. She already knows that’s a problem for her.
Does Anyone else Realize Maxima at her full Power and unlikely to ever get more powerful but Halo Nearly her Equal and Over 3/4 her Dots are Empty… And Dabblers Worried That Maxima the Demon Avatar.. The Chaos Fire Bringer… Had a Really Creepy Idea. What If the Balls Are Just a GUI? What if there Just a Solid Projection and the Powers Innate? And if True will at some Point the Balls Begin to merge or Vanish? I mean she already gets multiple powers from some and the Pick and how she uses the Powers Mind Controlled like the LightHook that acts as another Limb.. If so she Likely does not Have to touch them as time goes by. Lastly this Upgrade seem a Bit Convient … Like Some Intelligence is DECIDING WHEN to Unlock Powers and Maybe EVEN WHAT POWERS ! So She Assuming its Like a D&D GAME.. And She Does get to Kind Pick the Type But IF IT IS A UNKNOWN INTELLIGENCE IT COULD BE DECIDING (FUDGING) WHAT POWERS SHE GETS IN WHAT GROUP NO MATTER WHAT SHE PICKS! Experience Might Have Nothing to Do With it … It Could Easily Be Some Intelligence Is Deciding When to Upgrade her and How.
Yeah, it’s name is DaveB
Or Clippy. It would explain why the orbs were abandoned.
C: “Hi! It looks like you’re trying to fight a Boss. Would you like me to start the Combat Wizard?”
S: “No, I don’t want to start the Combat Wizard!”
C: “Starting the Wizard… The lighthook can be used to hit your opponent. Try that now”
S: “What? No! Give me back the other orbs! This Boss is 12 storeys high and immune to melee attacks!”
C: “Go on, use the lighthook to, hit your opponent”
S: “No! Cancel! Abort! Undo!”
C: “I’m sorry Sydney. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
(This was SUPPOSED to be a reply to “Little Guy”‘s post above)
putting money on “labels appear but they are so vague as to be useless”
Or “creatively named”, as some games try to be so they stand out.
Like its not an Ice Bullet its a Cryotube Projection Array,
Or its not a fireball its an Ignition Sphere
and I have seen worse like you see a spell labeled *Lord Zahnon’s Touch” that require you to know the story of the setting and what is being referenced to get a clue as to what it even does. Or a counter intuitive name to common reasoning thanks to differences in the setting like “Miasma of Aries” so you think (oh a miasma is a poison cloud usually and Aries is the god of war)…but nope, its a fluffy sleep spell because in that setting Aries refers to a cute sheep girl as part of a zodiac spirits group which as a sheep specializes in sleep magic.
You have to wonder… Can she use this point to activate the FYO? She has no idea what that one does and it could be something useful…
Oh… FYO? The Fuck You Orb… the one that apparently does nothing yet.
That’s her Omega 13.
For when the situation is hopeless and there is no other solution.
Other than “FUUUUU……..” what would the last words of a NerdGirl be?
[Make it so.]?
By the power of Voltron! KABOOM super uber giant mecha is summoned
I still like the idea that this one is Navigation-related. (Back from all the comments about what she’d need to have to be basically a fully functioning space ship.)
In this case, there are two paths for this orb and one of them already has a skill point. It seems possible to me that the second point in that chain would be a label for the skilltree set. (The first would be seeing the skilltree in the first place.) The other chain might be not showing up because she needs to activate it possibly by emotion or voice to point her to where she needs to go. (Food/Earth/Generic directions such as north).
Alternatively, the orb could be navigation to essentials (1 subset), navigation to locations (2nd subset), and the third, lone skillpoint could be labels.
I disagree with seemingly all the previous comment options. No one seems to be considering the link between PPO and the Telepresence/TrueSight. What if she gets ranged attacks? She could act as a decoy without actually needing her shield.
~Just wanted to put this out there!
We can actually guess what some of the upgrades do.
Telepresence probably has a lot of functions, and it has a lot of branches unlocked – I would guess Range, True Sight, See Through and she unlocked Teleport.
I’d say she won’t get ultra-range teleport with it, since teleporting is a single-level ability on the grid.
Lighthook’s are probably Length, Strength and Flexibility… Yeah, I have no idea what the 4th branch is, but Light hook won’t help in this situation anyway.
PPO is straightforward – power and form. I don’t know what to buy here to help with Squidward’s weird shield, and I don’t think he is her first priority. She can get some exp trying other approaches first.
Flight likely has 4 points in speed, and maybe 2 are maneuvrability? Anyway, flying home is not really an option without navigation, so woudn’t put my hopes into warp drive even if it IS next. And I don’t think there’s a “Go where I’m thinking about” mechanic, that’s Meta, but Harem needs her role intact.
Shield… It’s strange that all 4 points in shield are in one branch, actually. It is strong, and it can change shape, that feels like at least 2 functions, but maybe one (strength or size) is inherent and the other is upgraded. I’d say she’s fine with it how it is – she had to protect her team before, now she can move away if she sees a strong attack coming, and it HELD last time, and there’s a high chance that it doesn’t have bigger guns.
Life support is a dark horse. There are 2 branches unlocked, one generates air, but what about the other? The other is the only orb with a “thick” single node unlocked that all orbs have, what if that IS hands-free? I’m not sure how it would generate food, but water is likely an option, I’d seriously consider focusing on long-term survivability and putting next point here, in the not-unlocked branch.
Mystery orb is a mystery :)
What’s really interesting is the “connector” nodes and “inner circle” ones. I don’t really see any particular synergy between flight and PPO (the only active “connector”), though I might miss a lot.
And I haven’t seen any special behaviour from shield and flight for active “inner circle”
This seems like a really good analysis.
I think the second branch of the life support ball would be healing/regen.
The unknown could be navigation… or Camo/Disruption against magic and physical detection, could also allow Electronic warfare, in which case navigation would be a branch of sensor/com ball
Concerning the link between flight and weapon, what if it is an aim compensation system? It seems to me she currently has to manually/consciously adjust her aim and adjusting her aim while also moving at great speed would be hard. The link up would allow the ppo fire to auto-adjust when moving to keep on aim on target…
What about the following linkups effects?
Flight – Weapon system > Target locking / aim compensation system
Flight – Manipulator > Extend flight ball passive effets to held items
Flight – Sensor/Com > HUD map display & autonav ?
Flight – Life support > allow body waste disposal during flight ?
Flight – Shield > Shield shape adaptation to the travel (better aerodynamics in atmosphere, better shape to plough through dust fields at relativistic speeds), protection against the indirect effect of flights: reentry plasma glow…
Weapon system – Manipulator > Allow energizing of manipulator for tooling purposes (such as torch, laser cutter, welders…)
Weapon system – Sensor/Com > Targeting system / friend or foe identification / homing attacks…
Weapon system – Life support > allow weaponized delivery of noxious gas or non-lethal attacks ?
Weapon system – Shield > Weaponized shield (think disintegration shield or electric currents on shield surface)
Manipulator – Sensor/Com > sampler for analysis or direct-link com ?
Manipulator – Life support > extend life support to whatever is held ?
Manipulator – Shield > Ability to cross shield with manipulator
Sensor/Com – Life support > Analysis of other living beings (health/requirements…)
Sensor/Com – Shield > Shield bypass (based on ID programming)
Life support – Navigation? > low metabolic hibernation for long travels (e.g. cryogenic sleep)
Life support – Shield > allow creation of partitions in the shield with different environments
Weapon system – Navigation? >
Sensor/Com – Navigation? > Auto-mapping
Manipulator – Navigation? >
Shield – Navigation? >
Flight – Navigation? > Allow autonav
– or –
Weapon system – Camo/Disruption? > EMP effect (also against magic users, …)
Sensor/Com – Camo/Disruption? > similar to electronic counter-countermeasures
Manipulator – Camo/Disruption? > extend effect to held/touched items
Shield – Camo/Disruption? > shield selective wavelength blackout
Flight – Camo/Disruption? > extend camo/disruption to flight effects (countrails/re-entry plasma/relativistic radiation glows/…) allow completely furtive flight
Concerning the double-lined single points : how about they allow a kind of latent semi-awareness of the ball ? It could thus present itself or even auto-activate when need arise such as the life-support ball coming to her hand when drowning…
Could the center pie be the number of balls that can be active at the same time? Has it already been ruled out?
Excellent speculation. DaveB has said in the past that he has already decided what every node does – I’d be surprised if at least a few of these don’t turn out to be correct.
Hmm so far Sydney’s options are limited, what does she put that point into? Well ether way she may have to just survive fighting that big thing long enough to GET another point, so maybe the shields will be a good idea.
The mini-boss arena conundrum as I call it.
Get into an area where the enemy levels are so high you get to level up more often, but at the same time you end up too far in so have to figure out to spend skill points on defense or attack as your best bet to get back out in one piece.
Also why escape rope type items are great to keep on you at all times, and hope the game has them. Which could be an option she isn’t considering, the last telepresence upgrade was a teleportation via light bee, the next on that could be a long distance call to places she knows, or a re-open for existing portals, or return to base *where she considers home to be (think Steven Universe bubble transport).
True enough, often I had to throw a character into high level areas that could be instant death if I done the wrong move. Anyway point made to use the point in the light bee orb BUT she can’t exactly specific in what node to point it into.
On a note regarding pain – I do think a significant component of the “impairing quality” of pain is the degree to which we anticipate the damage to last. In other words, if something is painful, but we know it won’t result in permanent harm (i.e. we’ve done it before, like icing a sprain), we’re more tolerant of it and it “hurts” less. Pain has a huge subjective component (such as those getting their limbs blown off and picking them up in a daze on the battlefield). One of the actions of opiates, and a reason they are super addictive for some people, is that they disconnect the sensation of pain from the emotional experience of the pain. You know it hurts, but you don’t care.
So for someone like Wolverine, who knows it’s going to hurt but it will also get better and have essentially no long-term consequences, I’m guessing getting impaled would be inconvenient but the “pure pain” aspect would impair him far less than someone without a healing factor. I’ve worked in many kitchens, and seem to have little problem moving very hot things with my bare hands as long as it’s just a quick poke or turn. I know that touching it for less than a second will hurt, but won’t burn me, so the sting doesn’t stop me from poking a baked potato so I can oil the bottom. Which is the only way I am in any way comparable to Wolverine.
There is always the final, mystery Orb. If she chooses a node associated with that, maybe it will activate and give her a useful ability. Though, that is a risky option.
Looks like there is a node between the Air Orb and the Mystery Orb. I’d be curious to see what that one does.
Though right now, what she needs is Defense, Offense, or Escape.
She should activate the node that connects the Flight Orb and the Shield Orb.
I don’t get the assumption that she can’t upgrade to the next branch on speed. There are multiple links to that spot, four are filled and active. Given there’s no manual for this skill tree, as yet, there’s nothing but prejudice saying she can’t put the power dot in that position. AFAIK, she hasn’t tried.
Hands free shield or flight seem optimal.
I vote for upgrading the yellow ball path to full translation and verbal assault.
I’m thinking that the operator’s manual for Sydney’s orbs is actually on one of those upgrade slots.
Of course, under the laws of comedy (specifically, the “Only When It’s Funny” clause)), the slot in question will turn out to be one of the last ones selected..
If so that’s a horrible user interface :D
As several have mentioned the links between the orbs might be the “strategic” option . Assuming they allow for dual use that is.
If I counted correctly there are 38 points used out of 145 possible , that’s a lot of potential.
And that is just for those visible at this time.
Didn’t we get an eyeful when Pixel attempted to do an analysis and ended up with information overload?
Sydney’s priorities should be as such:
1. Survival
2. Defense
3. Escape
4. Offense
Under All of them, the first thing to be listed is Intelligence, and the second should be Maneuverability. Sydney is in desperate need of some serious Intel right now. Hopefully she is allowed time to study the skill tree and maybe realize what the unidentified orb might do. I have yet to see her directly address the orbs for help/guidelines/info. It is my opinion that there is an A.I. function to these orbs that needs to be accessed.
Don’t forget about the scan MegaNegaSquidward did on the orbs! The unknown orb was scanable. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2886
As I recall, both Dabbler and Gwen had difficulty even detecting the orbs with their scans. Only the reality-programming lass seemed to get a proper info lock on the orbs. I’m guessing MNS got no joy from his scan of the orbs. I further surmise that he has difficulty detecting Sydney with his scans, due to orb interference, or else he would have locked on her position quickly and she would currently be under fire.
Okay, I went back several pages and looked at the scan panel again. Interesting as to how the Life Support Orb is registering as active without being held.
Yup. MNS did scan Sydney, but she may be able to avoid its active scans. Hopefully there is only one MNS on-planet, and she can hide on another continent if she has to rest.
Just noticed that the first view we see from the mini-Squidward’s POV is when she grabs the shield orb – it may have just seen 7 blank spots initially, then had 2 light up when she activated it. Squiddy also can see her nervous system light up; maybe he thought she was starting to power up to go super saiyan?
Maybe light up.
There’s a pile of red lines, those could be a list scans that failed to detect anything.
Actually, that’s the green orb, life support. And oh damn, isn’t it giving off a similar reaction to the active shield orb? This would confirm that the “thick” pip (which only the green orb has marked) allows for some form of hands-off activation.
Perhaps the thickened pip is the auto-engage feature – it’s the only orb we’ve seen jump into her hand (in the pool), though the level of conscious interaction there has been debated. She was reaching for her air hose and obviously thinking something like “grab the air”, and her hand was reasonably close to the green orb, but I don’t think she was summoning it. The orb either ‘volunteered’ because it has self-activation, or responded to her desires without her (semi-)conscious intent, or she just got close enough by dumb luck that she got within the ‘magnetic’ range for it to pop into place.
Speed is both defense and offense, she needs to buy speed and she needs to buy it now before a fighter comes along and splatters her all over the wall. (Yeah we know it doesn’t happen, but still).
There is no need to upgrade shields against the shimmer blast when it’s so easily avoided. He hit her with it once when she didn’t know what it was that was coming and had to cover her team too. Next time he tried to lay it down she just flew away, which she can still do only *moreso* if she ups her speed…
Ugh, why are you using the term “LitRPG”? Please don’t normalize this terrible name. I’m not saying I have all the solutions, I don’t know a good name for this genre of story. But it’s not that one.
Sydney is speaking with her mouth firmly shut in every single panel where her mouth is visible. That reminds me of a drinking game from another webcomic: every time someone speaks without opening their mouth, take a sip. Oh, and that link is also relevant for the “characters playing RPG” thing.
I wonder if the flight orb and the shield orb or the shield orb and the life support orb share a connection node. She had complained that she couldn’t fire, keep shield up and fly at the same time. Maybe the connection nodes allow her to use two orbs with only holding one.
On the other hand she might want to put a point in the comm ball at some point. She can already teleport with it, and technically move at lights speed with telepresence-scouting. If she can level both up she could simply teleport to that moon which she would have only reached after several days. And she might learn later to teleport back to known locations.
So many people asking for labels and naysayers saying they would be in an undecipherable language.
Outside of some British made and a whole lot of US consumer equipment, nobody with two neurons to link together would use real language on ANY controls.
Pictograms and pictographs are pretty much universally used now and for a good reason, they can be deciphered by using logic more times than not.
ON/OFF is that circle line thingy, direction is pointy thingies, emergency stop is RED, big and off to the side. Now more functional insignia are anthropocentric so if our makers are not humanoid then the stick figures are going to be VERY different.
Now imagine space-going octopi whose communication medium is visual only….
Everything is patterned colours.
Google “scottish toilet signs”
Whatever.
She needs to unlock the “Label” option on the skill tree. :P
Loving Sydney’s expressions.
A wild Yorpie appears!!
And so it begins… I mean continues.
Heh.
So here’s my rationale in Halos position. I can tank anything but the world boss, I can DPS anything but the world boss, and my team will come for me as soon as they figure out how. Thus I don’t need to pull off a self rescue/escape until things get at least somewhat worse, and this is an amazing grinding spot. So to hades with it I’m not only staying, I’m gonna tame this war-blasted world and soak up all that juicy, juicy XP.
Given that I’d be considering the one-off utility nodes, because versatility is king. Specifically flight, because mobility is always good, force-field as the shield can just barely tank a telegraphed hit from the world boss and that’ll probably be useful in the future, then telepresence since the last unlock there did something pretty handy.
And then after a few points for some versatility…the entire green ‘life support’ tree, as the utility provided by it is potentially much more vital than anything else right now, and with any luck those utilities will still be absolutely OP once back home. If she gets absurdly lucky she’ll hit condense water into a drinkable form, purify food/drink, negate poison, or some sort of healing.
Fully unlocked Life Support would probably just be “become Jack Harkness”.
For non-Whovians: Jack was brought back to life, but wrong. Not in a bad way… per se. It is now a fact of the universe that “Jack Harkness is alive”. Even if you kill him, even erase his existence down to one cell- even a decayed cell (which is what dust is, we leave cells everywhere we go), he WILL recover from it. Doesn’t matter what it is. Only possible actual death is billions of years later when he was a telepathic giant severed head, which is apparently natural for a human that lives for eternity.
“I can’t die but I keep aging. What happens if I live for a billion years?”
She could bypass Squidward entirely if she just lightbee’d into the ship. The ship is probably the best chance of finding water and food on this planet anyway.
Except the Bee doesn’t travel all that fast, and she can’t see its surroundings until she pops the full doppelganger out… not so fast for slipping by Squidward, but actually toggling from ‘bee to double would let her lead Squidward away from her actual location.
Although he may know more about that functionality than she does already; not sure how that could be used against her though.
I’m seeing a lot of suggestions for picking nodes, but IIRC, Sidney only has the option to choose an orb, and the node in the tree is selected for her. Yes?
That said, I would go with the shield orb; stay alive for rescue and more expts.
Not exactly, she selects an orb and then can like a skill tree in a game select the next node in a sequence, like the first in a sequence or next when the previous have been selected.
There is also a lone node that Maxima I think wanted Sydney to pick as it seemed important. Watch it be a translator.
Yeah, she picks a ball, and then the available options for that ball light up