Grrl Power #946 – Passive enthusiast
I see some of you guessed, if not this exact thing, then at least what the general function of the encapsulated nodes off of each orb might be. As for what each specific power might be…
As the stinger suggests, I like passives. Well, it depends on the game, but I tend to like them when they’re not lame like “1% Better Chance to Block.” There are a few different kinds of Passives, and the ones that extend existing abilities aren’t really what I think of when I think of Passives. You know, stuff like “10% of damage inflicted is Vampiric,” or “Do 50% extra Damage to enemies below 25% health.”
The stuff I like are passives that grant new abilities, but without any of the management overhead. They’re quality of life improvements. “5 meter automatic loot radius,” or “Reflect an attack that would have killed you – 5 minute cooldown.”
Then there are the ones that “proc” (an acronym for a Programmed Random OCcurrence – I didn’t know that until just as I was writing this and looked it up). Basically you get an unreliable power. “20% chance to dodge incoming ranged attacks,” et cetera. I’m less excited about those. It honestly depends of the proc rate. See my previous rant about lame upgrades.
Some Passives functionally take the place of attribute points. If you think about it, “Strength” in a game doesn’t do anything by itself. Strength is what’s used to calculate Carrying Capacity or Melee Damage or Jump Height or whatever. But if you could buy “Increased Carrying Capacity” or “Improved Melee Damage – Level 3” or “Hardiness – 1 Extra Health Pip,” you’re effectively acquiring the end result of buying attribute points. It could be suggested that it’s designed to be a more engaging manner of character advancement than just dropping a point into an attribute.
A lot of games RPGs have Too Many Powers in my opinion, and you only have so many hotkeys, so cynical game design analysis aside, I tend to gravitate toward passives. Give me a big hit for bosses, an AOE for swarms of things, a fun traversal ability, maybe some stealth/backstab options, and a lot of quality of life passives, and I’m happy.
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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Oml, best upgrade, and major knowledge level up!
Ok, if someone knows who made this so it can be updated it would be really great.
https://jcc10.gitlab.io/GrrlPowerSkilltree/
You can always raise an issue
https://gitlab.com/Jcc10/GrrlPowerSkilltree/-/issues
Thank you. I see the creator/maintainer noted on it 4 weeks ago so now I’m not too worried about it being forgotten.
Hmmm…Interesting name, you have there…
Is that you, Slartibartfast?
he said it wasn’t important
Let’s see…
In the book, he twice said that his name wasn’t important. Since you said it the second time here, I’ll give you 50 of those internet points that he gave me.
Fair enough?
You win 100 internet points!
That’s what the Talking Rings from the George Pal ‘The Time Machine’ as voiced by Paul Frees said.
Can’t see it. What is ES6, and how do I tell if Firefox has it?
Ok, so apparently ES6 is a newer (from 2015) JavaScript standard, that page is probably using features that it has and older standards don’t.
I’m guessing updating your Firefox will solve it but I didn’t find anything about not having it in a cursory search.
FF has supported parts of ES6 since 2011 (pre-standard features), and has had full supportsince June 2017, or roughly 64 internet years ago. If anyone’s on a browser that doesn’t support it, they should update immediately if at all possible. More likely though is a failed feature check from a polyfill or from transpiling the original code to ES5.
I updated my browser, but it still doesn’t work. Annoying but not critical. Thanks for the help anyway.
HI! It should be updated. But yes, the proper thing in this situation would have been to open a issue.
I don’t currently polyfill and previously I was busy converting most of the code from pure javascript to typescript and in doing so found a number of bugs. All fixed now but that’s why things were taking so long.
I am personally running Firefox 88.0 (64-bit) and Chromium Version 90.0.4430.93 (Official Build) (64-bit) both on Ubuntu, if anyone is having issues viewing it please let me know what you are running and I will try to fix it.
Anyway, thanks to Cleyton Carlos and Sébastien Oillic for helping get it updated faster.
Oh and DaveB? #944 is missing a ppo upgrade and #945 has it on the wrong side… You had to know that something this detailed would be analyzed on every page it appears on right?
Thank you for all of this, your work there is great and very appreciated.
About the missing upgrade… it’s a problem. Read this thread, and mostly DaveB’s two comments.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-944-something-about-interrupting-a-colonel/comment-page-1/#comment-892204
Basically he made some sort of mistake and it is yet unclear what will be the solution (other than hiding the tree behind finders).
no more vertigo for Sydney.
This was already covered on #351 – Vertigyaah!
Now I see it. She wasn’t holding the Flyball and still doesn’t have vertigo. Confusion retracted.
Pretty important, right? Sydney is using an orb without having to hold it, even if the power is passive.
Broke; Sydney made Arianna spill her coffee
Woke; Sydney instantly let Arianna know a new orb function to update the marketing of any toys
She probably will have to decid between releasing the upgrade, or holding back until the public has seen it in use.
I’m surprised she hasn’t sold a skill tree with purchasable upgrade balls that go in it. COLLECT THEM ALL!
A skill tree stand would actually make an amazing store/collector display for orb merch. Obviously the node arrangement would not match the real one, at least until it’s been seen a lot more often and publicly.
Remember that only biologicals can perceive the tree, it doesn’t appears in cameras. So almost no one knows of the tree…
Also… I wonder if photochemically reactive (non digital) cameras would capture the tree… perhaps is a function of “technological”/”digital” methods of capture…
Great as always. Love passives aswell. Buy and forget until it saves your ass.
Many times, a super power is pretty useless unless there’s also a secondary, passive power that goes with it.
Super Strength: if you don’t have some measure of invulnerability, you’ll tear your own body apart to use any significant amount of it.
Super Speed: This one might require quite a few secondary powers, depending on your upper speed limit…Brain & central nervous system to process the imaging from your senses, as well as boosting your reflexes enough to function…Enough Invulnerability at least so your bones don’t shatter bones & tear up your connective tissues plus to keep you from burning yourself up from air friction…Also need some way to continue breathing if you can move faster than 200-300 mph.
I’m certain that we’ve discussed this general topic in the comments section here long before now & it wouldn’t do any good to get extensive here. Also, YouTube has a channel named Because Science that also points out a lot of specifics when you might be trying to figure out how super powers might work in reality.
TL;DR: Re-hashing an old topic here & pointing to more info related to that topic.
Bit late to the party here but one of the most important required secondary powers for Super Speed actually breaks physics quite a bit – it’s allowing you to ignore the third law of physics – no equal and opposite reaction. A speedster would otherwise destroy the ground, heat air up quite a bit, destroy most anything they touch or take with them, etc. Unidirectional force is not used much on its own, but it would be SO powerful in any other case. The forces involved with speedster-ing, combined with their excellent reactivity, should often let them tank most explosives and shrug it off.
I definitely guessed it was a passive power, but Featherfall didn’t even enter my mind, soo…50/50? Although, now I’m wondering if the passive powers also work when the skill tree is up.
Well, kudos to those who guessed. However, didn’t Dave once say that the reason for the need to hold the orbs was that Sydney would be way overpowered without it?
I could see why she’d want all the orbs upgraded in the same way. However, I’d hesitate to do that with the PPO orb. I’d say that it’d be really dangerous if that could work without some physical effort.
My guess on the PPO would be that the orb itself becomes some kind of damage field so it can punch through things that would block it from coming to Sidney’s hand.
That would be amazing… Maybe it could even work for situations where she can’t use her hands. For example when sciona “disabled” her hands and she was “only” able to break one bone…
Or let her manage them getting trapped in a concrete shell by Concretia again.
I’d expect point defenses – shoots incoming missiles etc.
I was actually thinking that it’d make sense if it was an autotargeting upgrade. If she could fire without missing, the PPO would become a lot more viable.
Or maybe it’s turret mode, she has to grab it and start it firing, but then she can release and let it fire at the same target, letting her shield up and fly.
This just in: Window Sydney is watching you masturbate
that will be another big fine from HR.
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the “Passive” for the comball is the ability to understand what each other upgrade does -_-
Passive on the Comm-ball may very well be passive truesight with none of the other powers active.
Or a universal translator. Or anything like that.
I’m guessing passives are weak versions of the actives. Very weak versions. Her top speed versus falling slower weaker.
PPO might be shooting pistol equivalent shots.
Passive perception upgrade: 360 awareness with X radius, without holding the orb. Not “true” sight, just 360 “sight”. Ish. Maybe radar-ish. Spider-sense?
OK so this one is literally Coast, Sydney coasts instead of going ballistic when she releases the flight orb. I can see that working as shield has to be consciously taken down instead of immediately falling apart when the orb is released.
Who’s face is that on the bottom of Ariana’s cup?
It’s not a face, its coffee, the up if falling top first.
Looks like some kind of cowboy when zoomed in
There was no face on the bottom of that cup, it was coffee as the cup was falling top-down.
And the coffee was falling out of the bottom of the cup, not the top? What? So the cup is just a big tube that can’t hold coffee. Why would anyone build such a thing?
Also if you zoom in it’s clearly Moz from the IT Crowd.
It’s Moz from the IT crowd, Ariana found his Mug!
I’m pretty sure that’s Moss from the IT Crowd. It’s an in-show joke.
And you can have one too
https://www.etsy.com/listing/493787813/the-it-crowd-mugcup-maurice-moss-richard
and it’s quite literally a double-pun, as it’s a mug mug.
So whats the com orb passive?
Universaltranslator?
Or something like an appraise skill that identifies everything you look at including advanced tooltips / shows active buff/debuffs?
Universal translator seems very fitting.
Universaltranslator is still my guess for the unknown orb.
It has two branches that mirror each other and only a few nodes in each branch. One branch would be for understanding a language (listening, reading, etc.) the other for using a language (speaking, writing, etc.). Fully topped up she might even become telepathic without any language barriers.
The two sides might be hearing/speaking and reading/writing.
The passive of flight orb is a weaker form of flight. The passive of the SENSOR orb is probably permanent See Iinvisible, or enhanced senses, or something similiar.
How about a minimap?
I like it, although its usefulness of course depends an awful lot on the selected scale.
Universal translator would be cool, but another Comm Orb passive defense might be giving the opportunity to retract whatever you’ve blurted out before someone hears it. This might have been intended for diplomacy but would be truly useful for Sydney. However, as a time-slowing thing it’s probably not in keeping with the apparent mechanics of the Orb, though.
Other useful possibility: 911 call speed dial (“Maxima I’m captured again!”)
Currently she can sort of sense what’s around the com ball pip, enough to avoid going into/through solid objects, but can’t actually see what’s at the other end until she doubles herself. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-497-path-finding/
It would be really handy to be able to see out of the pip without a conspicuous copy of herself. But I’m guessing that’s an active upgrade.
Passive? Probably something moderately subtle, like knowing that there’s something around that would take truesight to see? Lesser than the actual truesight, in the same way featherfall is lesser than flight.
Lie detect.
The idea that she has abilities *without holding an orb*.
That’s friggin’ huge.
Just wait until the next time she tries the obstacle course…
She might be slower because jumping down isn’t fast any more.
Considering her last encounter with a villain, yes, it is “friggin’ huge”, and I think she’ll be sorely tempted to spend the next X points on passives (as DaveB said).
No doubt, unless she’s in dire need of something else, the next point goes to passive shield.
Never phone important people in this building. A wild Sydney may appear.
Not may, will.
She is like a cat.
Cute, cuddly, and prone to biting?
Cute , yes IMO. Ask Frix if she is also cuddly and prone to biting.
We don’t need Frix’s opinion to know that Sydney has a biting wit…
though it’s nice to see that so far most recently, she’s been keeping it to a gentle nibble
I dunno…I kinda miss hearing Sydney going on one of her cursing sprees. That’s where the best of her wit starts at.
she already has the pasive on the air orb doesnt she? i wonder what thats doing?
I was going to ask this. The previous guesses a few of us had was that it brought the Orb to her when required, but with this passive display being different from what was guessed, it might have another passive ability we don’t know, and probably never will know, about.
Has she sneezed since the comic started?
Perhaps a more effective metabolism? Need less oxygen, hold her breath longer, get more nutrients out of food. Problem is we only know it makes breathable air, so either it creates gasses or it could be the first function of a life support system (if we go by the spaceship theory).
‘Automatically jumps to the user’s hand when running low on oxygen’ might still be a passive ability. Perhaps with a few additional conditions such as ‘must have a free hand’ or ‘high stress levels’ to explain why it didn’t do this when she ran low on air within her shield.
Allows her to breathe while munching food that poisons the whole area?
+100% resistance to capsaicin. Takes all the fun out of it though.
Nah, just eat foods that deal +300% capsaicin damage. Which is what Sydney does.
1% better chance to block
It’s been there since the beginning, and she didn’t have a clue what the orb did.
Even now, it’s function is unclear.
I do not foresee the passive effect ever being determined.
It’s her Omega 13.
{No….not the dietary supplement!}
Attach this ^ to comments about the Unknown Orb.
I guess they’d be abilities that are related to the main function of the orb, but that are able to be automatically applied. I’d guess the yellow orb would grant a vision-type ability, either limited truesight or just enhanced range and detail (might not need glasses anymore). Forcefield would probably give some amount of passive durability, airball maybe increases lung capacity and resistance to toxins. Energy blast and tentacle I’m unsure about, since their abilities thus far seem limited to actives. Maybe increased strength for lighthook and energy redirection for ppo (since it seems to work by channeling a star’s energy).
Hmm…
Is this why the Life Support Orb jumped into her hand when she was drowning? That was the only orb with a Passive before this spend.
As tempting as getting the passive for the unknowns to get a hint about what they are, she really needs to get the passive for the pew-pew ball, so she have them be able to blast their way out of, say, a concrete bag.
Well my guess was sorta right — I thought they’d be semi-autonomous modes, but I couldn’t quite figure out how that would apply to the flight orb.
Didn’t quite think to extend that to “passive abilities”, for whatever reason, but now I’m left wondering exactly how this works on the Life Support orb — maybe a passive detection system for the ideal atmosphere composition of the wielder, rather than having to actively determine it?
Not sure.
Either way, this means her next pip should ***definitely*** be the shield-passive one.
This could still be a semi-autonomous mode. IT looks like controls and /or a display are now on the ball when she’s holding it, so maybe she can set a velocity or maybe even a trajectory and keep flying after she lets go.
Those were already there in previous cases when she had to change the function of an orb — it’s just that you rarely see them because the view is frequently too far away.
Now to speculate what exactly the passive abilities of the other balls are!
Shield should be shield, really. I’m guessing just a small one deflecting incoming projectiles, not the full bubble and therefore not effective against magical auras or bad atmospheres or giant fiery shockwaves or such. Lame compared to the full bubble, but neat to just not get shot, ever.
Comm ball I’m guessing the ability to detect that there is something for the truesight to see.
For the lighthook and the PPO I have no good ideas. Yet.
Well going off of Dave’s explanation, we can safely assume they’ll be new functions which complement the main function, but are separate from other abilities.
So for the Comm ball, that sounds about right, for the lighthook, mmm….. given that the theme there seems to be “manipulation of the environment”, maybe telekinesis?
For the PPO, my only guess would be some type of energy-infusing passive that makes her hit harder, but that seems somewhat anticlimactic, albeit still effective.
PPO would most likely be a “friend-foe” deterministic ability.
That does seem fitting.
That would be an incredibly useful interrogation tool.
I mean that the beam won’t hurt anyone Sidney view as friendly.
The passive function of the force field should be slapstick rules for non-attacks.
This new ability is great. She can now more easily switch between flight and PPO in battle without loosing the air coverage she had previously (ie, not fall down in a very predictable manner as she was doing in the Alari homeworld).
Technically, once the opponent gets used to it, this is probably a more predictable fall, because it’s either at a lower gravity or a fixed speed. But it’ll probably take longer for an opponent to figure it out because it’s not a move that they recognize being associated with a particular phenomenon. This is more akin to ‘always veers left when they fire’.
Was that a reference to the Salthi? Those things always turn left, regardless of if they’re firing or not.
So, I’m guessing next upgrade is going to be the shield passive, because anything passive related to that has GOT to be good and Sydney knows it. More importantly, Maxima knows it too, and doesn’t want to see Sydney get hurt. If Sydney doesn’t figure it out herself, Maxima might suggest Sydney pick up the passive for the shield ball for the extreme potential value of a passive defense.
Passive shielding would absolutely be my next pick, can’t use any new toys if she ded. After that… I guess the comm ball’s passive node, hoping it was passive truesight. Beyond that, I’d probably start speculating on the other nodes as I can’t think of a truly compelling passive use for the other orbs.
Regardless, hooray for some plot development on the central MacGuffins!
So… The airball was the only one prior to this that had its passive node purchased. Whatever its general function, it doesn’t passively make breathable air, or it presumably would have done so when Sydney first discovered that her shield was airtight back during the parking lot fight. It is the orb with the fewest nodes, and the fewest branches, though the unknown orb has the same number of branches, just fewer nodes.
I also wonder if there’s a way for her to suppress or disable the passives. While they’re presumably all good things that she’d want functioning almost all the time, what if, for instance, she actually wants to fall at full speed, whether it be to dodge, or simply descend? Will she have to use the flight orb just to pay her respects to gravity, or do the passives function intelligently, or as something she can control? It certainly would help with her firing-while-airborne-and-shielded problem, shown when she likebutta’d a tank and while erasing grays.
Maybe she needs to buy the encapsulated node on the line connecting the shield orb to the life support orb to make it act passively while the shield is up? Kinda like how her shield seems to automatically form a hole(?) to let the PPO fire through (as seen in the fight with Sciona’s robot)?
The shield does not form a hole to shoot through. The PPO paints a targeting reticule on the shield and fires from a point outside the shield. Else she would have had more trouble with the space battle.
Good point.
This is my new pet theory for the orb-to-orb connections. I suppose one could make the argument that the airb threshold was crossed previously by being underwater, perhaps in combination with her concern at being tangled in the chain. But being an experienced diver she didn’t seem particularly stressed, and was working on recovering her regulator. It makes much more sense for the trigger to be “can’t survive in the surrounding medium”, whether liquid or gas, and for the two passive skills to require a link.
I first read that as “airbnb threshold”, which I guess would be that point at which the Life Support Orb passively detects the current environment is inadequate, and makes a reservation at the nearest rental.
Cancel that thought with the shield-PPO-combination; just realized those are not „connected“ yet (I confused the shield with the fly orb).
Did anyone else notice the display on the ball when she was holding it? I think this is more than just feather fall.
All the balls have had displays/controls when she’s held them. She even comments when she gets the PPO upgrade that there is a “New” dodad. So having dodads on the balls is not something new.
Though if you grab your balls and find that there’s “doodads” on them, I would go see a doctor to get them checked out.
The space orbs that float around Sydney’s head are a case specific situation.
To be clear, for those guys who have not felt their balls yet, there should be exactly one doodad on each ball at all times. If there’s zero, that’s a different situation and probably not as life-threatening, but still something for a doctor to check out.
…
For gals feeling their balls, usually there’s exactly one doodad on each ball, but different people are different, and you should know already how many doodads go on each ball. That said, if you start with extra doodads and they don’t *initially* start out on balls when your balls come in, it’s possible the balls will grow enough so that the extra doodads are on them. It’s extra doodads forming that is the concern.
(Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor and this comment really should not even resemble a medical opinion.)
So now the important question is: Can she still drop the passive abilities? Are they always active or what are their activation criteria? Featherfall is nice and all – but it needs to be intelligently applied.
If she drops into cover (for whatever reason – even if it’s just for some sort of training course), will she just gently float out of the line of fire?
Does the featherfall ability recognize stairs, elevators and other means of vertical transport as safe (imagine featherfall activating relative to the outside inertial frame in an elevator – the elevator roof would hit you on the head)?
If she’s running (both feet off the ground at times), does she gently float down to the track after each step, potentially slowing her down tremendously?
Or just diving into a pool from a diving board, can she actually dive/drop into the pool instead of gently floating?
Air deployment would be an interesting challenge without an off switch, yeah. Be funny if it takes her a few days to turn it off. But wcan anyone think of some exploits she can make with thus power?
This. I was wondering if she’d be able to jump into the safety trench during hand grenade practice
or use the fireman’s pole as in Ghostbusters.
The Flyball’s AI would have to figure out context.
Does Featherfall have on/off/auto/temporary disable controls?
Would it slam her into her seat the next time she’s riding in the Osprey?
Ooooo! Test it on a roller coaster!!
I would think that the “Feather Fall” passive likely has an effect that constantly detects things like proximity to the ground, acceleration rate, and so on. Keep in mind that most magic items in D&D that grant Feather Fall have qualifiers like “automatically activates if falling from a height greater than five feet” since at that distance chances of serious injury (in D&D mind you) are slim (1d4 damage at most, and that’s even if your DM is going for more realism).
We also know that Sydney can call each ball to her hand, and also use them actively as blunt weapons in their own right. This strongly suggests that the balls… understand… intent. So if she’s diving behind cover, running, riding in an elevator, and otherwise doesn’t see it as “falling”, then the orb would likely just stay in “standby mode”. If she trips/slips and would fall, or falls off a height… something that would injure her… then it would likely go into “active mode” because of the instinct/reflex though that she could be hurt if it isn’t activated.
As for going off the high dive… imagine the highly complex dive routines she could pull off and still make virtually no splash when she enters the water.
Considering how complex the operation of the orbs is, they have to be able to read her intent already. Thus, featherfall was on when she wanted to stop herself from falling. When she is in an aerial dogfight, it will choose whatever she expects it to choose
(maintain vector, maintain acceleration, ballistic drop, fully or partially negate gravity….)
To quote Griffin McElroy in the Car Boys Let’s Play “THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!”
I love the fact that Syd took a few seconds to realise she was not actualy falling while not holding the ball….while Max caught on almost instantly.
I could see the following:
* Flyball – Feather Fall (I know, we know this but just listing it for consistency)
* PPO – Energy Resistance (consider that many magic items in RPGs give resistance to what they use for damage)
* Force Field – Passive armor (think of it being like a Toughness/Damage Resistance upgrade, much like magic items that grant bonus to natural AC)
* Lightbee – Danger Sense (“I HAVE SPIDY SENSE NOW!!!” … something fast enough could still thwart it. This is inspired by the “Truesight” and “Farsight” abilities combined at a low level.)
* Airball, Option One – Fast-heal (Not Wolverine or Deadpool level. More like a paper cut would be instant, a broken leg would be a week.)
* Airball, Option Two – Endurance Upgrade (think “CO2 scrubber for her lungs”, fatigues slower/hold breath longer, glows faintly when effect is working)
* Lighthook (aka: Molestorb) – Personal strength passive upgrade. (Think +2 to STR in D&D)
* Unknown – ((This is why I gave two options to the Airball, since if this IS a “med-bay”, then the Fast-Heal passive would go here.))
Endurance upgrade seems unlikely, considering that her endurance at the start of training impressed exactly nobody. Maybe she was sufficiently out of shape that upgraded endurance Sydney wouldn’t have impressed other people, but it should’ve at least impressed her.
I like the possibility of the unknown ball to be a translator. As far as I’m aware, nobody tried speaking another language while she was holding it, and especially not an off-world language.
I think she’s now walking around with a translator doodad already. Either she picked one up on Fracture, or Cora built one into her new glasses. Or maybe both. So, odds are, hears an alien language, understands it as English, never notices whether it’s an orb function or just the normal operation of the toy she’s already got.
The Airball had its passive upgrade from the beginning, so the fast heal is definitely not it. Other than that, i mostly like your ideas, especially the spidey sense.
The lighthook one seems a bit boring though. Maybe some medium range telekinesis for light objects?
oh my god, it’s really a passive. no way, that’s so cool.
some people were thinking those were passives (me included), so it’s really nice to know, now there is only the synergies to speculate.
also… maybe the passive in the atmo orb is the thing that keeps the shield from pop or un-pop when enlarging?
Is this featherfall always on? No more diving or bungee-jumping for Sidney? What about rollercoasters?
Rapid descent in an airplane?
Yeah I can’t help but think that Sydney we always knew she was going to be overpowered but now is just going to the next level of overpowered. She’s going to have from the look of it a standard power level without touching her orbs similar to Max’s standard power distribution when she’s not focusing.
Also, I am curious about how Sydney was going to test the Synergies. please brough this up.
was she going to hld both and see what it does?
My personal thoughts for what the passives might be~
Makes Air? – a low level air purifier, would extend time in the F-Orb, or extend the time sydney could resist gas/vacuum.
PPO – I am torn between two choices – either a note marking distance, or a outline for nearby objects that are explosive with the PPO.
Lighthook – a visible manifestation (like a VR screen) of mass, so when using the Lighthook you can tell what it can pick up, or hold on to.
Force Field – Gets a natural camo option – after a certain amount of time, orb takes on local coloration (but only when not moving)
T&T – “save slots” for some costuming changes – only works with people & clothing sydney has scanned
Any other good ones other people think would work? …. For that matter, Sydney might wanna pick the unknown orb passive next, since having “something” on all the time might help her figure out what the heck that orb can do.
YOur PPO guess would be a good power for the line between PPO and comm.
For ppo itself, I’d expect point defenses (shoot down incoming missiles automatically)..
Didn’t they already have this conversation about her lack of vertigo on this same rooftop a long while ago?
Yep, but she had to actively hold the flight orb to cancel the vertigo. Now she doesn’t have to hold it…. or so it seems.
Oops I missed that.
Ah, Featherfall. Another reference to the D&D opening.
to me the knowlege that the encapsulated orbs are passives make them the most important parts to get. sure the actives are powerful however passives always benefit you
(also the team strike couch no longer really needs an oxygen scrubber if the featherfall passive is applied to everything in the shield if not then the teams weight would drag her down)
unlock new sydney move arial menace turret (hold both the flight and shield orbs, fly high switch the flight orb to the ppo and spray down supressing fire before changing the fire type from supressing rapid fire to beam as needed)
I’m expecting the center to be knowledge skills about that ball. Might want to buy that one for the PPO before buying the passive. Avoid oopsies.
Life supporb is still being kept a classified ability set though–don’t exactly want to tip their hand like that.
Ok. In my books, the very next point Sydney gets should 100% no doubt go in the shield passive.
Sydney is VERY squishy, and is lucky she isn’t dead right now.
That would be nice, even if the Passive Shield seems to cover Sydney like an aura instead of a bubble & it only turns on when it needs to, in much the same way Featherfall only works if she falls without holding the Flight Orb. In such a case, Sydney would not even have to be aware of an incoming attack & a Shield Aura would turn on instantly.
If it works like an “aura” then it would have to be capable of also covering anything Sydney might be currently wearing and/or carrying…If she wanted to drop an object that she’s carrying, the aura would let it go without compromising protection for Sydney.
It would be similar to the way a Green Lantern’s ring has a passive protective aura that blunts an incoming attack enough that it doesn’t kill the ring-wearer. A power ring passively keeps a small “reserve” of energy for that purpose, even if it’s past the 24-hour charge but Sydney wouldn’t have to worry about an “energy reserve” or “recharging.”
At least, that’s how I personally would like to see a “passive shield” power work, IF indeed that’s what it would be.
So now she has 2 passive powers, cause the green one also has an enclosed one selected. And that isnt the air generation option because it required her to touch it.
Maybe that’s why she could breath on the alien planet with no issue?
Well the buxom alien invader could breath on this one, so…
In this comic, you’ll have to be more specific: WHICH buxom alien invader? :-)
Hmm. In order of appearance….
Dabbler is apparently one-sixth human (this implies something other than pair mating is involved but that’s a distraction for another day….) and Succubi have been visiting Earth for at least centuries. So she’s got the atmosphere thing worked out.
I have the impression Vale would not be inconvenienced by any particular atmosphere. It’s not entirely clear, but she seems to be of the ‘Eldritch’ persuasion and breathing is at best optional for them.
Sciona is Alari. All our favorite Earth heroes were able to breathe on her homeworld, so I guess it’s not too surprising that she was able to breathe on ours.
Decollette is another succubus, and appears to have a greater fraction of human parentage than Dabbles.
I’m figuring vampires don’t count as ‘Alien.’
And Cora’s a near-baseline human, so being able to breathe on humanity’s homeworld is unsurprising.
And I probably missed one or two? Were any of the ones in the Times Square encounter ‘Buxom?’
Why do I get the feeling that Sydney will attempt to Moonwalk while featherfalling?
I know I’d be taking the shield passive next!
The passives are nice, but I would be strongly tempted to pump all my points into the encapsulated slots between the unknown orbs and the other one, if only to try to force-learn what it is that that orb *does*.
There is something positive for that general idea, but I’d personally want to fill out at least a few more passives first. Even if it’s difficult-to-impossible to find out what they are exactly, they also make a good “baseline” for building more links between orbs.