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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I wonder if the unknown, maybe navigation orb, would have any translation functions included. At least basic stuff like, “Hail, Nega-Squidward. I come in peace if you stop shooting at me. Where is the bathroom?”
Consider after all the hint that the aliens recognize orb-tech. Taking a Star Trek comparison, if you showed up in low earth orbit in a Romulan warship, or a Borg Cube, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were at least a few panic shots from Federation warships before you figured out how to explain to them that you’re really just a holo-comic purveyor from a distant galaxy trying to sell a few copies of “Tales of the Electro-Squids.”
Sure these dorks might be shooting at Sidney because they’re jerks, but what if they see the orbs and interpret that as a traditionally reliable sign meaning, “I’m evil (or at least hostile). Shoot me!” Work out the communication issues and maybe Sidney gets an invitation to help finish obliterating all traces of the Alari, and a detailed description of why and how orb-tech and orb-tech users are evil and bad.
Oh, forgot to add, Sid is basically butting into someone else’s war here. Show up on a battlefield as a third party with something (orbs) associated with troublemakers, and it’s not extremely malicious action if the current combatants start shooting at you too. Squidward might be playing a bit fast and loose with R.O.E. but that does tend to happen in warzones, especially if something that might be a significant threat shows up in a surprising manner. “I swear General, it was self defense. She’s crazy, and she had ORBS!”
That WOULD be a valid point… if they hadn’t gone FAR out of their way to attack Sydney. By all indications, it seems like the ship came from another planet, and possibly another solar system entirely. This isn’t a war zone, because they already won the war. These guys are specifically here to kill Sydney, and only Sydney.
What we don’t realize is that Sydney is actually in a mirror universe, and there is an evil nega-Sydney with a wicked (fake) goatee and orbs that have plagued squidward’s peaceful society for years with her terrible spicy halitosis and solar beam.
Had a thought like that, except the squid guy IS Sydney, fused with their universe’s version of the orbs.
It does seem a bit weird that the galactic equivalent of the Blue Helmets are attacking a non-Alari, even if they were sent to exterminate an entire race…
Except we have zero idea that the orbs are “associated with troublemakers,” that’s just something you’ve made up. It could be that after the supposed analysis beam hit them that they simply wanted them for themselves. Or it could be several other reasons as well.
All we really know for certain is that they first sent out one kind of beam array that didn’t appear to be intended to do any damage and then followed up with a different kind of beam array that was in fact an application of deadly force.
Indeed. The only thing we know right now is that the scanner appeared to show voids where the orbs should be, and then everything swiftly went to hell in a hand basket.
Yep… and DaveB is the one drivin’ the bus, with all of us as passengers on that highway to hell…
Actually we as viewers do know that it took special interest in her shield orb and maybe the PPO. Taking out big threats isn’t the worse combat decision. Especially if they are tasked with taking out anything the beam wingers might have as a weapon.
We don’t know if the orbs are associated with troublemakers or not.
Hmm… I would assume the Comm-Orb (Yanno the one that has truesight and lets Syd Tele-transpose herself) would come with a Universal-translator but it seems hella risky to try an unknown Variable. After all Sydney has No Food or Water here- She’s on a Time Limit. sooner or later Sydney’s going to get tired, hungry or her ADHD is going to act up because she ran out of meds.
I’d go shield myself. It’ll either Buff the heck out of it before Squidward realizes they’re closer to hitting her damage threshold than they realize or Better yet it might sustain the shield to a point where sydney doesn’t have to hold the shield orb in order to keep it up- Therefore allowing Multitasking!
Air is from the green orb and there are other options for the same orb.
I’m a fan of unlocking new abilities.
How long does Adderal (that’s what her meds were called, right?) last anyway? Because she’s been away from HQ for many hours by now and she hasn’t really had an opportunity to take more since then.
She does have her “Batman” belt on her; and I would be surprised if she didn’t carry extra doses of Adderal in it ‘just in case’.
Honestly, the reason I would put a point in the green orb is to see if it can produce water as well as air. After all, we have no evidence that there is drinkable water on this planet. If she expects to be stuck on the planet for any time at all, she needs to find water. Don’t want to dehydrate!
Good point! The only water we’ve seen on this planet so far were the oceans we saw from orbit and those are unlikely to be fresh water!
Unless the entire ecosystem was destroyed there is likely to be fresh water to be found. After all Sciona appears to be a human type organism, and her planet is so like Earth that no mention was made of heavier or lighter gravity, and clearly the air is an Earth-like Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere mixture, so it is reasonable to assume that the Alari require water to live and that their planet has enough of it to spawn and sustain life.
ADHD meds are only needed if the person needs to sit still behind a desk and do rote tasks. (School, office work, etc) In a war zone I would bet those with ADHD actually do better than those without. Different focusing neurotransmitters kick in during stress situations and because those with ADD are accustomed to having low levels of focus related neurotransmitters, they can excel in stress situations.
not as well as one would think. most military activities involve an insane amount of boredom. whether that boredom is from a long patrol to ‘show the colors’ and listen to complaints in a reasonably friendly village, or standing in a watch tower for hours making sure the enemy doesn’t try to attack your tiny JCOP and trying to figure out if that large cat over there is a puma or not.
Clearly the large cat is a bobcat.
Well that would be organized battle where your on a team that’s on the same battlefield, have innocent people to have to work around and a base to defend. She’s got none of those to worry about here. She doesn’t have to worry about the civilized parts as there is no civilization here, least that’s not actively trying to kill her.
Since there is no instruction manual, all variables are unknown. The only real information she has is which orb she is applying the point to, but since they already do what they do ther’s no real way to assume that spending a point in a particular orb will bring about some desired outcome.
Obviously, at least to me, the smartest point to spend is the link between Flight and Shielding.
It’s clearly going to integrate the two powers better, perhaps by even allowing holding either orb to count as holding both.
At the very least, flight and shield are two powers she will ALWAYS have a use for.
It’s equally possible that the upgrade in question simply allows her shield to take a more aerodynamic form while she’s flying. That really wouldn’t help her too much here. It’s better to avoid the complete unknowns when her life is at stake. At least she has reason to believe those other upgrades will help. (Also, the flight orb and PPO are linked, so she should be able to fly and shoot if it really worked like that.
She already has the link between PPO and Flight and she can’t fly (or even hover) while shooting.
Maybe that link is why she didn’t experience any fear of falling when she switched to the PPO from Flight, maybe the passive transfers through the linkage but the active abilities don’t.
Ooh, I like. This would be way more balanced that linking full functionality – if they worked that way, the first few points would almost always be spent on getting all 7 linked, and then the user could grab almost any old orb and access most of the skill tree.
Makes way more sense that the links are passive effects or unlock combined skills. I’m trying to think if we’ve ever seen Halo use just the flight and PPO, other than at the firing demonstration? She’s almost always had to have the shield up as one of her 2 options, some firing range testing without it should reveal some new options.
Yes. Halo used the PPO and Flight when she attacked the tank
It should be noted that this is the time she found the PPO more difficult to use and when it gave her the scare as though she were touching the Sun. She’d used the PPO before that but just noted that it was “pretty powerful” and hasn’t used the two in combination (that we’ve seen) since then.
I suspect the combined use somehow gave shared power between them, allowing what would presumably be more powerful flight OR more powerful firing.
If I had to guess what the large off-shoot point is on each of the orbs, I’d say it’s automatic use. when she began drowning the green/life-support orb automatically flew to her hands. I can’t imagine why she would randomly call upon that particular orb, so best guess is that it auto-sensed the need and entered her grasp… which would be a useful trait for the shield orb to have.
Technically, she said the PPO was ALWAYS harder to use than the others… Also she mentions (as she’s prepping to blow up the tank) that last time she lit a forest on fire, otherwise her only mention of its strength is in the briefing room with the bosses.
We have no reason to believe that blast was any more powerful than before, for any reason other than she wasn’t trying to hold back (which was a conscious choice she made against the tank).
Maybe the in-between point is why she can make the little hole for the PPO, we haven’t seen her make a small hole any other time. maybe without the point, she would have to drop the shield to fire?
She does not make a hole for the PPO. The “muzzle” ring forms outside of the shield and the blasts project from there.
The Lighthook also forms outside of the Shield (although Sydney has yet to figure out how to make it appear inside the bubble). So evidentally, the orbs do not interfere with each other by default; it is not a flaw that has to be bought off.
As an avid RPG player, I know what time it is…
GRINDING TIME
Grind out enough points to fill ALL the skill points!
likely that there’s diminishing returns, though, so gotta invest wisely
Soon the “Greens” will turn “Grey” giving no experience.
I do wonder what the exponential factor is. Because if she needs double the XP for every point, then there might as well be a level cap if she need to get a million, or more, for the the last few upgrades.
well i dont know how the ability thing works but IMO this is where she needs to spend a whole lot of time tracing all the paths. it looks like the orb she doesn’t know how it works isnt actually activated so if she wants to learn what it does she will need to spend a point in it to do so. it could be the modifier orb/ branch of her skill tree. the subtle one that allows for actions other than attack and defense. like it may contain the cruise control system so she can have life support and drive and defense because it handles the basics and she gets to have the third power of her choosing active.
Actually, if I recall correctly, that orb has 3 points on it. 2/5 on one path, and 1/5 on another path. It is definitely active. We just don’t know what it does.
thanks for the info i had missed that.
My posts are still showing up weird, so I can’t remember if I linked this. But it’s my suggestion for her upgrade: https://orig00.deviantart.net/3e78/f/2018/232/3/3/suggestion__sydney_scoville_jr_s_3rd_upgrade_by_viirin-dckp3td.jpg
Looking at Sydney’s face in the last panel,he would she look with this look…?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Can%27t_We_Be_Friends%3F#/media/File:War-WhyCan%27tWeBeFriends.jpg
Sydney, how about you use the teleorb to try to teleport yourself inside, while using the shield? With a bit of luck the interior is destructible…
…and with critical hit level of luck (made possible at all by the hint this is a very advanced race scanner-wise, as they sorta labeled some orbs) you’ll find food replicators able to provide for any species in scan range inside the brig… with a little plot armor, you’ll even get one of their sensor to tell you what your orbs are for, and damn you for not having a pencil and paper to write it down!!!
Couple of problems with that plan,
from what we’ve seen she has to teleport to where the light bee goes, and while her projection can phase through objects we saw the light bee go through a grate so it seems it can’t phase.
and chances are if that squid guy is a member of the alien species and not a mega-beast kill bot kaiju or something than the scale will not be to Sydney’s advantage, worst case scenario is he’s a robot and the ship is basically just machinery and storage compartment…there are even worse case scenarios than that but those would be zero win cases like *touch anything and you die as the interior is based on a different dimension’s physics and technology and the outer shell is more like a contact suit to interact with lower dimensions or at least non-energy beings*.
Giant alien, and a ship that defies physics by virtue of being as big as it is and yet just floating there without any apparent thrusters or gravity balancers. Best not to go flying into an unknown without a plan. Her best plan was her first plan (retreat), she is pretty much being forced into a corner here till help arrives or Deus Ex MacGuffin saves her or something. Half expecting this to be the future and Dabbler contacted the Xenoarchy about the “upcoming” attack on the Alari homeworld and we have Maxima and Dabbler onboard a rescue ship with the Xevoarchy coming to bail her out.
That, and we’ve seen the shield materialise through solid objects.
Who’s to say the shield doesn’t de-materialize and re-materialize on tele-transport?
If it doesn’t, it can’t just pop up there, and therefor will try to envelop Sydney through the outer shell of the thing… maybe killing Sydney in the process.
Actually, it doesn’t materialize through objects, it bends around them – e.g. forming a dome rather than a sphere when she’s standing on something.
The only time we’ve seen it go through something was at the restaurant battle when she’s talking to Vehemence on the sidelines, and it’s been established that was only Halo’s telepresence double.
The Shield has never materialized through a solid object.
An image of the shield has materialized through a solid object, but that’s because it was just an image projected by the Comm Orb.
The shield blocks everything except visible light, so it can probably be upgraded to stealth mode. If given the chance for invisibility (on demand, not permanent), choose invisibility.
Maybe she will FINALLY start picking based on what Arc-Light intelligence suggested now?
I’d really like to see if she can eventually fly faster than Maxima. That would be cool.
I didn’t see this possibility brought up: maybe the gigantic ship that Sydney describes as bigger than every city on earth put together is full of prisoners?
What Sydney should do is keep rambling to Squidward until he figures out the language.
Apologies if this has been brought up, but I didn’t see it mentioned within 30 pages of its appearance. I’ve been looking back through things, and this was only visible on one page.
Why the heck is one of the banners in the council chamber the Machina Industries logo?!
Because the author likes hiding all kinds of nerdy easter eggs in this comic! (Congrats on finding a new one)
That’s a given, considering it’s between a minecraft creeper and the Flying Spaghetti monster, but it would be strange to have a reference from the same continuity, only visible on the last page in that scene and positioned to be clearly seen in the middle of the page, and just have it be a joke.
I had seen it there before but didn’t recognize it at first. After looking at this page, though, it stands out.
Also curious if the stylizing of the logo is just a coincidence, or if it’s designed to look like an object on a pillar being split in half. Hmm…
I still think it’s beyond coincidence that “Deus” has an “X” shaped scar and named his company “Machina” industries.
Seems like he thinks pretty highly of himself and his tech.
“Beyond coincidence”… well, yeah. Have you forgotten that this webcomic has an author? Who has clearly demonstrated a truly off-the-wall sense of humor? And who obviously adores ambiguity.
All writers like to add little nods to actors, previous works, inspiration, etc.
Rewatch Penguins of Madagascar and notice the names of all the octopi and their orders. Example: Nicholas, Cage them.
In RWBY, every member of Team RWBY are fairy tale people, and their dog Zwei is a reference to Tri Gun’s pet dog. Team JNPR are cross dressers, AND Pyrrhic Nikos is a strategy of sacrificing yourself to give everybody else time to escape. The wizard of Oz inspired all of Oz’s group, especially since the wizards first name is Oscar and his initials spell Ozpin. Team FNKI are memes. The White Fang leaders are Jungle Book characters, and in the version I read Shere Khan (Sienna Khan) was killed by bulls (Tauros) and news was sent to Bagheera (Ghira). And a LOT more.
Well, it does solve one key mystery: how did Deus know about the vault? Sounds like he was one of the people actually authorised to know about it. Huh. Has Sydney used Truesight in his presence yet? I don’t think she has, but I’m not sure and I don’t feel like a full trawl to find out.
She has not – it’s classified, although Harem reported its existence to him as she was demoing it to Archon during her initial interview.
She did use it publicly during the restaurant battle though, which had press coverage and possibly some of Deus’s employees watching, so it’s believable that he’s at least had accounts of it in action.
As brichins said, she has not, and Deus knew about it beforehand. If it were a problem he wouldn’t have allowed Sydney to get too close to him or Vale.
It isn’t clear whether he knew about the aura/effect scan part of the yellow orb. We still don’t know for certain whether that would pick out Vale’s unusualness or not.
Deus also was able to get information on what Sciona and the others wanted, so it’s hardly surprising he knew about the vault itself.
Maybe for the same reason we find a Nemo like fish sen she’s scuba diving.
Best VR novels I’ve read have the player doing it as a job. That means the game-damage hurts you in the wallet irl! Repair fees going to fix your virtual equips instead of paying rent. Losing out on that sweet gear you could have sold on commission… and so on.
Makes for some pretty realistic “ouch” factor of virtual pain.
Astrally project to communicate with Harem for a pick-up?
The distance shown from her to earth would require about 10 million times light speed to get her home before she dies from thirst. That is if she’s at the closest point to earth’s location in the milky way. She’d also need a navigation power.
Teleportation seems the best choice right now.
Except Harem can’t get to her- part of the limitations of her powers.
Okay, I’m absolutely certain no one in this comments section has actually asked these sort of questions yet [/sarcasm]. So I guess I’ll give it a go.
Why the hell do these orbs work on an XP/skilltree system?
I know there’s a bunch of video games with that mechanic, but that’s for the players, not for the characters. Even then, there is little in-universe justification or awareness of it.
What we have here is that someone MADE the orbs with the capacity for their maximum powers… and then restricted those powers until unlocked. Which… makes very little sense.
It’s not that Sydney’s gaining experience. (She is, but that’s not what’s causing the levelups.) The orbs came with a whole bunch of unlocks already before she had any experience with them at all, and a bunch of non-orb stuff that Sydney’s doing (gun training, obstacle courses) isn’t triggering the orbs. And before anyone suggests that the levelups aren’t dinging because the system knows the difference between real and simulated combat, the media dog and pony show was simulated and that got a levelup.
It’s not a system to ensure that new users of the orbs master them in training-wheel mode before unlocking the truly dangerous powers. The cutting beam of the PPO was already at max level to start with, and the flight orb was already capable of mach 4. MAYBE the previous user (who presumably died) was resoponsible for the unlocks and the orbs don’t realize that the new user hasn’t gone through the same baby steps that the old user has, but if so that seems to be a pretty severe design flaw. Someone who created a massive shield had to have user death in mind as a possibility. Maybe they just meant the orbs for their own personal use and didn’t much care what happened to the orbs after their own death… but if so, why put in a safety system with unlocks?
Maybe the unlock system represents a growing affinity between the orbs and their new user? But if so, why would Sydney already have four levels of affinity with the flight orb?
The only two scenario that makes any sense to me are these:
First the orbs themselves are absorbing something when used. Some sort of energy or power or material that Sydney then gets to allocate when there’s enough of it? (Though not literal energy or power, the PPO seems to have unlimited ammo and using it is giving this XP rather than burning through it.) Someone on a limited budget (and isn’t everyone, really?) designed the orbs to upgrade over time because they didn’t have the resources to create them fully-upgraded.
Second, the orbs themselves are gaining XP. They’re actually learning and growing… which means they have minds. Sydney, as their guardian/slavemaster (er, slavemistress?) gets to decide what they learn. Frankly, this scenario this raises far more questions and concerns than it resolves.
In any case, my earlier joke about the air orb aside, it’s obvious that Sydney should spend her point to unlock the skill tree’s labels.
There is always the possibility that it’s unlocks are based on ability of the user to synchronize with the orbs. (I’m sure there’s a better term, but synchronize should more or less make sense to most folks.)
Maybe the initial dots were due to a scan of her ability to use it combined with some basic defaults and a starter template. It’s probably a rather ‘smart’ device.
If that’s so, her getting a new pip is more of her getting more capable of handling the orbs than actual xp per say. She might be able to get upgrades just with serious practice time. Though it is generally recognized that things done in stress situations tend to have a larger impact on the person, so the actual battles are probably more useful for her than pew pewing some empty cans on a fence.
That poor fence.
I suppose that getting caught in the explosion of her own PPO blast against the tank might have counted as stressful, but that wasn’t what caused her to ding. What caused her to ding was Max’s shotput-nuke, which Sydney was both hyped for and not the slightest bit afraid of. Yet flying around at Mach 4 did not give her a ding, even though that really got into that. In this case, it’s hard to tell exactly what caused the ding (the initial nuke in front of the wormhole, grinding drones in space, or getting pinball-beamed by Squidward) because she hadn’t let go of the orbs between those events to let them ding. But if you’re right, it wasn’t grinding the drones that did it, because she was just bleh and meh about that.
We do not know that flying at Mach 4 did not give her “XP” (for lack of a better word), it might have boosted her level up enough so that the tank just nudged her over into the next skill point.
It might be a bit more like Skyrim, where you could gain whole levels just by Blacksmithing and Bartering the stuff you made. So that would beg the question “What actions can she preform in order to acquire the XP?”
Could she train with the “light hook” by lifting weights? How far would she need to fly to get points? Does just holding the shield orb count for a little bit while taking hits count for more, or is taking damage the only means of getting “XP”?
It really does raise more questions than answers.
I like to think that the orbs and or Sydney are actually getting more powerful in some way. That just sounds cooler than training wheels.
it might even be that the orbs are working on “a form you are comfortable with” so syd being a gamer gets a skill tree with the halo arbitrarily giving points as and when it feels syd has earned them ie “you have displayed aptitude with multitasking and the ORBS are in standby mode here have a point”
Hmmmm….
…. MAYBE, but it doesn’t add up. The PPO came with only one mode unlocked, and she had to unlock the machine-gun mode herself. Yet at the same time the lighthook had abilities very atypical for a gamer (so much physical versatility that you just can’t program into a game). If it was based on video-gaming-derived-comfort, I would think that she’d have multiple PPO modes already unlocked (because what FPS is complete without weapon-switching?) and have to spend more work getting comfortable with the lighthook.
I’ve always assumed it’s training wheels or perhaps put more eligantly, “power earned is better (safer?) than power granted.” Perhaps the orbs are setup with some initial power to provide some utility and discoverability. If they just floated there with no points, the user would have no idea what they were.
I like the idea that the orbs are absorbing something to become more powerful, but I can’t think of a plausible physical explanation.
Of course, the real reason is that Dave likes the idea of having an actual skill tree. It gives him a chance to explore what it would be like if something behaved like a video game in a very literal sense.
Hmm… okay, I could buy the explanation that the orb’s creators had a moral and/or aesthetic preference for having actually earned power.
And yes, I agree that there’s no plausible physical explanation… but we’re talking about orbs that grant reactionless, zero-energy and limitless-ammo high-power energy beams in a setting where superheroes fly around at supersonic speeds and magic exists. Plausible physical explanations aren’t exactly a requirement here.
My personal spin on it:
There Are No Orbs!
This is all a manifestation of Sidney’s innate super power that, due to her psychology, shows up as a “game” she likes to play. It explains why scans of the orbs reveal nothing…’cause there is nothing there.
It’s all visual and telekinetic projection originating from Sidney’s subconscious.
…. so why doesn’t Sydney have a super’s body type, then? (Also, why’d she bang her own knee in the rematch against Math?)
I favor this explanation – It explains why the orbs’ power expansion method has taken a form that favors something Sidney adores so much: RPG skill trees.
There’s actually no evidence at all that the orbs are anything but a one-off invention from some lone genius (e.g. Dabbler invented her own railgun), we’ve all just been speculating that they are an alien standard-issue survival kit. The skill tree mechanism is familiar to readers and characters alike (Dabbs uses a magic HUD to manage her loadouts), but the orbs’ creator didn’t necessarily intend them to work that way.
That said, I don’t think the orbs are “crippled” or deliberately dialed down in any way for training mode. I think the orbs are a complete system that just doesn’t have the juice to run at full capacity yet (or any more). The previous user may have never obtained enough power to activate all the functions, or may have burned off most off the juice in their final action. “Reroute all energy to shields!” while crash-landing at Chicxulub. Or being injured during a fight and going into a coma while hiding underwater, and the shield/life-support orb drained most of the system keeping them alive as long as possible.
So, skill ‘points’ may just be concentrated power cells (that are refined from the aether during intense usage? see zero-point energy), which the user can allocate as they become available. Sydney may even be able to re-spec all of the existing nodes, she just doesn’t know how.
The problem is that if it’s an alien standard-issue survival kit, A) Dabbler would have recognized it, or B) Dabbler would at least have heard of some civilization built on principles of technology/magic similar to it, or C) Dabbler could make a few basic inquiries of contacts in the galactic community and learn about it easy. Either the orbs are rare, rather than standard-issue, or they’re from very very far away. (Or both.)
Right, I meant standard-issue for a specific race, not for all aliens in the general community. Just like each Earth military has some toys that are standard issue internally, but not shared even with allied forces. The galaxy is pretty big*, it’s easy to believe that the orbs came from some lost explorer or a race that doesn’t have relations with the general galactic community in our unfashionable arm of the Milky Way.
*[Citation needed]
True enough, which is what I meant by very very far away. Dabbler’s past of
killing people and looting their corpsesadventuring would have left her very familiar with standard kits for a wide variety ofmonsterspeoples.Also, it could be less a problem of distance and more a problem of time. If the orbs were millions of years old, Dabbler might have a whale of a problem recognizing them [Cetacean Needed] even if they were in local, common usage.
The fact that the orbs waited until Sydney was under some cover and not in immediate danger suggests to me that there is at least a rudimentary AI involved. What would really convince me that the orbs have AI is if Sydney finally decides where to spend her skill-point, reaches for the appropriate orb, and a different orb quickly slaps itself into her hand instead.
I bet there’s a lot of swearing before Halo accepts the AI instead of fighting it.
Also, I bet she names it Jarvis – “Hal” would come up during the initial process while she was still frustrated, but delivering the classic line would require a lot of 4th-wall lampshading.
Sydney may have trouble operating alien chicken scanners and interpreting alien chicken scratch.
ok some one in deviant art on the grid picture said somthign about telepresence and working on its own. WHAT if maxed out allows telepresense to use the orbs or passively use the passive abilities or use the defensive and offensive or go full on piccolo and when using PPO both or possibly more use it at once aka one man crew if its a starship. but I still stand more on the high powered utility belt EVA suit
Defense, perception, attack, movement, healing, manipulation then surprise ball
GitLab.IO interactive skilltree has been updated finally, we now know which one was purchased.
The interactive skill-tree also provides ID’s for each orb item.
I would go with MB.A.1 or MB.D.1, one of them should cause the bubble to reflect damage. alternatively MB.B.5 should ether increase the health of the orb or increase the max size. I’d say it’s 50/50.
I’d put it on Center PPO slot to see if that allows 3, rather than just 2, orbs to be used at the same time.
Do you mean CENTER.PPO?
I really don’t think that there is any unlock that will allow her to use more then two hands, unless one unlocks higher levels of telepathic control…
… Wait …
…If we assume that The unknown orb is the computer, then one of the paths should allow her greater control over the orbs themselves, thereby allowing her to use the orbs without direct contact…
…Hugh.
I think she should go for the truesight orb. Perhaps let her spot weak spots? Or perhaps let her see what the other upgrades are!
Sydney should try to reallocate a point. Many RPGs have a respec option to avoid having your character locked into a poor decision forever. And a real life system should be just as flexible about not locking the user into a decision. Especially when there is no instruction manual.
She already tried that right after putting a point down once, she couldn’t.
Huh, I didn’t recall that. But I guess we have decent evidence that the makers didn’t consider a lot of quality of life issues when setting up how the experience system works. After all, having the experience array come up during combat and lock out all other functions until you spend your point is likely to get the user killed.
Hrn… Given there are connections between Orbs and they look like the center ring which, like the connections, has upgrade slots but unlike them there are two filled would upgrading those slots fuse Orbs? That would solve the Flight+Shield problem but also remove an upgrade for anything else but given the constant stream of Fodder that doesn’t seem like a bad thing… Maybe putting an upgrade in the central ring would allow for actually reading what the upgrades are?
Dammit, did the Email thing again.
FK YOU AUTOCORRECT!
I was using auto(in)correct for that, but some friends told me a much better one, autocorrupt.
So I’m spreading the word, it’s now Autocorrupt
:)
I came up with autocorrupt awhile back, it’s lovely to see it spreading
It could be that Deus has seen the logo before somewhere and decided he liked it.
The Swastika that was the symbol of the Nazi party is a reversed version of a Buddhist religious symbol.
Not quite true. It comes from closer to home with a variation on the sun wheel used by various European cultures (fylfot, sonnenrad etc).
I am surprised that Halo and Krona where not forced to sit down and reverse engineer the function of each node. Since you got the distinct impression she could see the behind the scenes mechanics.
I am also surprised Krona wasn’t desperately keen to do it anyway.
Maybe she could upgrade mystery orb and get it to do something
To be more mysterious?
Oooo, proposal on the table: call to name the mystery ball ‘Rey’, no, not that Mary Sue Anti-Jedi, butt as in Rey Mysterio :D
Is it possible she’ll have TWO pips to spend?
If just one I’d go for the PPO, she already can take the hits, but needs more firepower to take down Squidward. Also killing the Squid may provide her with further pips to spend.
Sure, they are labelled, Syndey. You just need Krona’s Sight-Beyond-Sight to see them. Too bad she is still recovering from her last effort.
Oh, I see. The skill tree labels are written in ultraviolet. See? There’s right there. What? You can’t see UV-A? Oh, that is too bad, now isn’t it? You should probably work on getting better eyes. :P
Specs already looked at them in “every spectrum”, although it’s not clear if that means the full E-M spectrum or some other types of energy entirely, and Dabbler’s cybernetic eye couldn’t see anything extra.
Of course, Krona didn’t see anything either until the skill tree appeared in front of her, so they should definitely have Specs check again while the tree is active if there’s ever a (safe) opportunity.
Perhaps the orbs are something similar to a green lantern ring. Sent out to find people to connect with across the universe. They have run into them before due to random chance. But the encounter went badly for them.
Maxima was addressing Anvil, who is addressed elsewhere as a corporal, not Sydney.
…It took me a few read throughs to get that, myself.
Just noticed the orbs are orbiting in a vertical plane this time, instead of horizontal over her head as they did for the last 2 points she got. Presumably because her back is to a wall so they are adapting, but this could also be a new (advanced) upgrade mode?
I think that the answer is as simple as: this is a comic.
I mean, there surely is a continuous movement between the orbs orbiting over her head and the vertical upgrade diagram position in panel 3. Since until now we only have seen the beginning and the end of that movement, I guess that a picture of the orbs moving from the first position to the last one, may cause some confusion.
The second panel is just the moment before the orbs form the diagram, flowing slowly towards their stationary position while creating those links between them.
I think you’re right, the orbs are moving into the vertical diagram position automatically since she’s alone and holding still. The previous 2 times we saw them orbiting she was moving around or talking to someone.
And now that I watch the panels 2 and 3 closely, I realise that there is a little mistake. The orbs in both panels are in the “same” position, but the perspective is the opposite since we see the face of Sydney in the second panel and the back of her head in the third one.
I wonder if at some point she’ll find the setting that allows her to tether the orbs together, like how the PPO and the Flight Orb are connected, so that when she switches to the PPO when flying it would allow her to atleast hover while firing it, and maybe if she links the PPO and Shield orb, she’d be able to keep the shield up and fire without having to keep hold of the shield at the same time.
As I thought! The skilltree only opens when she’s out of immediate danger! Good thing, too; it would’ve sucked to have her orbs start spinning out of control in space.
The feels when the game’s death penalty is actual literal death.
In game terms, she’s in a dungeon with no obvious exit, no shop, no save point, and no place to camp to replenish her mana.
Can she sleep while keeping her shield up? Sure, she can tape the balls to her hands, but holding the balls isn’t what activates them. This alone may limit her options for space travel.
I know people mentioned drinking the local water, but the ecosystems were recently devastated on this world. It’s unlikely any of the surface water is potable. Yum, mineral water, complete with strontium-90 and cesium-137 salts. Or wait, what kind of ecosystem was this? One that incorporates thallium or arsenic would be one I avoid the water from…
If you’re looking for manga/ anime that is game/ game based but handles fighting, pain and death realistically, I highly recommend Grimar of ash and blood (if you haven’t seen it already).
https://myanimelist.net/anime/31859/Hai_to_Gensou_no_Grimgar
DaveB might enjoy Death by Cliche, then. The books are about a Game Designer who ends up trapped inside an RPG run a by a GM who is ..terrible. And who thinks cliches are the greatest things ever.
See also the Off To Be The Wizard series; book 3 has the antagonist trap them in a cliche-ridden quest.
Haven’t finished the series, but the first 2 were a fun light-hearted read.
The debate is somewhat immaterial – the chance that 1 upgrade gives her a serious advantage over what she already has is pretty low, especially since there’s no help file. Maybe that’s one of the mystery orbs, but the help file only works with the physiology of the creators.
If you look at some of these upgrades – what could be an PPO energy output – without the knowlege if the scale is linear or exponential it could be that one point puts her on a total different level of devastation. Maybe one of the shield upgrades would hide her. Invisibility would be very good on that battlefield. Or maybe the last orb is something useful like time manipulation, hud, autoaim… Without knowlege what the upgrades do it could be everything of every scale since they seem to manipulate the universe (Look at Kronas reaction)…
The last orb… I am a dirty old man, I am. What if it was a Ben Wa Orb?
She already has a Hentai Orb. She doesn’t need ANOTHER dirty one.
Can never have too many ;)
Already suggested that, as an option to use more than two at a time (or if she wears out her ‘snuggle’ pillow)
Write a game? Note the illustrious (or perhaps infamous) Harry Potter and the Natural 20.
As she plays the modern version of that game, perhaps she is even aware of the Tower Shield Feature.
I played the much better original version, thank you, when it first came out.
This was my exact reaction when I started playing Skyrim without a manual.