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.
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What I really DISlike in my current addiction, STO (or Star Trek Online for all you non-addicts), are the “passive” bonuses that aren’t really passive because the devices they’re attached to have to be activated for them to kick in. “Heal all shields equal to 10% of incoming energy damage”, for example, sounds like a brilliant perk, until you realize that you have to slot that ability in the same place as your special weapon quick activation or else waste precious seconds finding it on the tool wheel. And then it lasts for 30 seconds and recharges for 2 minutes. I’m sure it’s less of a problem on PC where you have a huge selection of keys that you can map commands to, but on console there are only 5 quick commands plus the main weapon toggles. Give me a plain-jane “+40 damage resistance all types” that’s always in force, over the exotic perks any day.
Chrono-Capacitor Array, Aux2Bat (plus DOff) and/or Photonic Officer will let you drop that cooldown towards 60 seconds, but Reverse Shield Polarity is an “Osh It” button, not a passive.
Passives go in the Console, Duty Officer, Endeavour, or Traits (Personal/Reputation/Bridge Officer/Starship) slots, not the Ability (Captain/Bridge Officer) or Active Rep slots.
Some of these abilities act like passives though, in the sense that you can set them to auto trigger and forget it.
It would help if more of these “self effect” consoles could be toggled to activate automatically. A huge number of offensive boff skills can be set up this way, to the point that I have almost every tactical, science, and engineer skill going off either “whenever possible” or on a condition, but the gold consoles and kits can almost never be set that way. I can set a photon grenade to throw at any enemy above Captain level, but I can’t program my Tal Shiar acid grenades to do the same thing. Why not? A grenade’s a grenade….
I realize that it’s for game balance reasons, they don’t want every super special thing firing off at once, resulting in an instakill. But right now my Mirror Crossfield almost does that anyway with all the Disco rep consoles loaded. Borg cubes dissolve. It’s a beautiful thing… except that I still have to go into the wheel to activate some of the effects, and I’m never sure if they’re working or not once I let go of the trigger.
PC STO absolutely has too-many-buttons-syndrome, though it’s hard to address because PC MMO players tend to have a violent reaction to “Dumbing it down,” which is how they describe literally any reduction in the number of icons on the screen.
Hell, there are still WoW players who want to go back to the old talent system. Why have six concise choices between new abilities and/or strong passives when you can have a massive tree of 1% upgrades?
On PC, you can set up macros… I use custom made macros for carrier ships that direct the pets to attack what ever I’m firing my energy weapons at. Combine that with phased polaron beams, and butt tons of other energy draining and system disabling equipment and consoles, and using elite swarmers which use antiproton and DOFFs that dramatically decrease pet launch cooldown time and you’ve got some seriously non-intuitive butt kicking. The energy draining abilities of polaron and that plasma doohicky console that just go all in on energy drain abilities, and you basically turn the shields of what ever you’re attacking into rice paper, which the elite swarmers easily cut through with their antiproton beams.
I get called an idiot for the build, but always end up with the highest score on PUG STFS. It doesn’t really do area effect damage for crap, but it carves up individual ships like thanksgiving turkeys.
Also that build is using the lobi crystal version of the obelisk carrier. So it can probably be done even better with more modern carriers, but it’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. Never tried it in PvP though, I don’t really like PvP.
Does anybody like PvP? :D
There are a lot of little improvements on console that I’m sure would be considered “dumbing down”- like locking on to the target that’s in my reticle when I first start firing, instead of auto-targeting what the game chooses as the “most threatening” target would be nice (and I only use auto targeting because the manual option is so finicky, a double click of the thumb stick which may or may not lock on to what you intended). I guess what I’m saying here is, an easier manual system, not one that separates the true elites from everyone else.
Not having to drop out of full impulse just because an enemy is nearby… And why is it that PC ships automatically drop out of full impulse the second we’re shot at, but escaping shuttles and prison ships can keep going full throttle? The game is a cheating bastard, is why….
That’s only two. I could think of a lot more, but I’d rather eat this taco. Mmmmmmm….. taco…..
senator replies dryly. I hear Sydney is up to something. I have subordinates like that too.
Ew, don’t humanize it.
look there are senators that have become inhuman monsters worthy of a heroic takedown (naming no names) but some of them are in fact, human beings. so, until I know which senator she’s talking to… i prefer to think of them as human.
Few of them are. Mostly greys and lizardoids, and a few humans with earworms (usually the same ones with pants worms).
it’s not just Senators. Plenty of Representative are better at trying to command their constituents rather than represent them…
Also, not sure it’s been brought up, but I’m enjoying the little bit where Sydney got this point from /personal growth/.
Yeah, and it seems really easy to level up in general. Maybe baseline humans are just so low-leveled in the grand scheme of things that everything else is worth massive EXP.
Some games give XP specifically for roleplay, or hitting story beats, and usually in those games a few XP is enough to do a thing with it.
the easier it is to get XP the higher the level cap usually is and strong enemies expected further down the way.
Like the Disgaea series, now the first game despite having one of the better stories was the most annoying to level grind, especially healers, as it stuck to the (defeat enemy to get xp…or bonus xp for performing combos as part of a prize chart for the stage).
however subsequent games corrected this so, defending, getting hit, using your skills *which have their own separate levels too*, and even using items would call give you some XP.
that seems like a lot, but the level cap is usually 9999 and while you can usually beat the game with a party around 60-100 in level, the post game/side missions increase that level insanely into the hundreds and thousands with extra bosses making the final story boss look like a complete weakling…and the trailer for Disgaea 6 claiming they raised that level cap to like 999,999 or something. So yeah, make it easier to gain XP was a good move.
however I have noticed the opposite in some games as well, the ones trying to artificially make it harder to level up, by not just increasing the amount xp needed to level up but adjusting how much you get from earlier opponents. like an XP 10 opponent suddenly becomes XP 1…while also making it so you needed a higher amount of XP anyway…you’d think one or the other would work, not both.
I’ve come to the opinion that most humans start at 0-level and stay there until they’re occupying a rocking chair in the nursing home and wondering what the heck happened. A good 75% of the human race never concern themselves with anything beyond what’s for dinner tonight, and is the dog *really* getting enough cheese.
But the dog gettng the right amount of cheese is really important :(
Failing to give the dog the right amount of cheese is one of the big ways to lose XP. Unless you’re a cat person, in which case you level up by collecting more cats.
Which should really be worth a lot of XP, since the average 0th level person can be _killed_ by their cat in one blow. To be a cat lady, gotta level-up, quick!
I propose that most games include the “unwritten” class of characters that are known as “ordinary citizen” which can increase in level & improve whatever mundane skills they have. It comes in handy for those that need a few extra HP & skill increases so that they can eventually “proficient” in the ordinary life.
I think Yorp would be happy to approve of your opinion…
“Roleplaying XP, sucker! All I have to do is spin a sob story about my past and BOOM! Bonus experience points for me!” -Belkar Bitterleaf
Oooo this upgrade is awesome! Getting the encapsulateds will massively offset her orb management weakness.
Yeah, that “dropping ballistically whenever you want to shoot with shields up” is a bummer.
Next point goes to shields, 100%. Sydney likes living.
unless the passive on the com ball is a universal translator?
‘spose the passive on life support is some sort of biological quarantine for microbes? force field-stone skin? force field- improved dodge?
Forcefield-Pinball Ricochet.
Oh dear. Sydney would LOVE that.
Force feild is definitely a passive defense boost.
Life support is probably passive BUT SLOW regen.
AIR BUBBLE….passive air filter?
you are probably right about the telcomm being a translator.
i wonder what the PPO and HENTORB
PPO—Point defense? Or maybe something that makes sense with a different fire mode.
Hentorb—Probably just leave the tentacle out and holding whatever it’s holding if she switches orbs. I think that’s what most of the passives will do: allow for orb-swapping.
PPO – Lock-on.
Sydney nominates a target and she can take her hand off the ball. The PPO then continuously targets that thing until it’s destroyed or she grabs the orb to select a new target.
Hentorb – Hold this
The Light Tentacle does not vanish if it’s holding something when released. But stays locked in position relative to Sydney.
This makes me wonder, is it truly passive?
Maybe it only grants a passive immediately after using the relevant orb (Featherfall only works after she used the Fly ball until she releases another Orb)
The air ball self-activated at need, in the pool long ago, so it’s not “only after using the relevant orb”.
Did it though? Sydney lost her breather, was flapping her hand around reaching for the hose while at the same time internally screaming “AIR! MUST! HAVE! AIR!!” and it wouldn’t be the first ball to leap to her hand(s) when needed (remember the last time Sydney was in this position? and FlyBall flew to her hand. or that time she first met Sci-Fright, Mr Buble tried to reach her hands before Sci grabbed both hands preventing the save)
The difference in those scenarios is Sydney’s own knowledge. When Sydney fell, and the time with Sciona, Sydney knew what she wanted to do, and knew which ball would let her do it. The FlyBall didn’t move on its own in those scenarios, Sydney was willing it to her. When she was drowning, she had NO IDEA the green ball would let her breathe. Unless you believe that, while panicking, she made a wild guess, or had a sudden epiphany out of nowhere that happened to be exactly what she needed, then the AirBall had to be acting of its own accord.
Still think the air ball which I think already has its capsule node up is an emergency function, like going to her hand on its own when she was in danger of drowning.
Oh I was just thinking it was her ridiculous capsaicin tolerance lol
She already has one of those though.
Might want to watch out for the PPO’s passive. It sounds like exactly the kind of situation that could leave her Blessed With Suck forever. Maybe she’ll melt everything she touches or something. On the other hand, it might just improve her vision for better targeting — no more glasses! But then she has no excuse to keep Cora’s nifty alien AR glasses.
The reason to keep the glasses can be found between belt and knee under very much fur
I disagree with one of those words. Specifically, “The.”
cue turret mode or point defense mode. borderlands roland or the axon guy
This. Feather fall is a terrible flight passive. Consider her fight with the aliens, flying with shield, switching flight to PPO to fire. Now she will no longer have a ballistic flight path when she drops her flight orb, but instead just hang there, making her a much easier target for anything that might be able to get something past her shield.
Would it? Does it negate sideways movement, or just vertical? It could just lead to a much LONGER ballistic trajectory.
it would have made her fight against the one in gravity easier if she didn’t have to keep switching so quickly due to free fall and concentrate fire on one spot longer.
you don’t need a thousand cut when you can pump a hundred shots into one spot.
So? Forcefield. It occurs to me that for a big monster she could fly up it’s butt, enlarge the shield then fly back out, literally tearing it a new one.
As in, the Ant-Man theory from Endgame.
as a side note: pretty sure that would have crushed Ant-Man to expand inside something with a much higher resistance than himself. Like trying to grow a watermelon inside a tony metal box.
It seems to be a debate if she can expand it while its up or if she has to drop, expand range, and then bring it up again.
Expanding or contracting the shield while it is in operation would cause drastic.
perhaps unhealthful changes in air pressure inside the shield.
Also unpleasant: Dropping shield and instantly going to normal air pressure.
That might cause The Bends. Potentially deadly.
Previously, she went purely ballistic, as in “continue momentum with gravity acceleration”. I’d bet she gets to choose what it does – continue vector, continue acceleration, go ballistic, maybe some other options – by the orb reading her expectations.
I suspect that the passive abilities can be configured on the orb.
Who’s that on the bottom of Arianna’s mug?
Moss from the IT Crowd
Oh my freaking God I love this comic more and more each day…
I’m actually a little surprised Ari would go for something as geeky as a Moss mug, but then again she did take a job wrangling nerds.
I bet 20 internet points that Sydney has secretly had a pile of mugs printed and steadily replaced every mug in the building, like, bring in and take home 6/day.
Meanwhile, some villain is wondering why all the expensive mugs he setup with listening devices and carefully infiltrated into Arcswat are only picking up Sydney’s snoring and morning expletives.
And Sydney noisily slurping [hot morning beverage]…
…and making a little sighing “huh” sound after every sip.
Repeat.
PPO’s is finger guns. *Pew Pew!*
Why did this post here?
Can I get a mod to delete this, please?
Nope. Error posts are eternal.
“Proc” doesn’t mean “programmed randomized occurrence.” That’s a backronym. It’s actually short for “procedure,” that is, a piece of code associated with an object, creature, or other entity that runs when certain conditions are met. In the history of the term, it would also have applied if for example a potion had custom effects instead of a standard effect handled by general “potion” code, even if it wasn’t randomized. The modern usage of the term derives from the ones that DID have a randomized activation chance, so you might say that you “triggered the proc” which of course in gamer slang gets shortened to just “proc.”
(Similarly, “mob” is short for “mobile,” distinguishing things that can move from “objects” that can’t. Any other expansion of the term is a backronym.)
The broader sense of “proc” that isn’t based on a random chance is nowadays generally referred to as a “script,” although that term technically only applies if the associated code is stored as data in the object instead of something built into the game code.
This.
Also, I recall there being a lot of procs in games that weren’t at all random. They may have had cooldowns associated with them, but if they hadn’t been used within the cooldown period, when an event triggered them, you got them every time. True, they’re dwarfed by the number that had a random element, but I always preferred them over the random ones because of their reliability.
I remember writing PROCs for IBM mainframe JCL – not on punched cards, that would have been too primitive, we had green screen CRTs like the cool kids do.
https://www.ibmmainframer.com/jcl-tutorial/jcl-procedure/
I kick myself (HARD!) every time I think about the old Zycom system I got for FREE 20 years ago that was working 100% yet I didn’t think it was important so tossed it after playing with it for a few weeks (and got me an 8088 system and then upgrading every few months or year or two because I loved computers)… green screen, dual 8″ floppy drives and an additional external dual floppy drive plus about 200 floppies full of wiring diagrams from whirlpool (they had upgraded their system and threw away their old once all the diagrams were transferred to the new mainframe).
I want to cry every time I think about it, would have been worth quite a bit now…
yeah, there are some old thingies that I would love to have back, because sometimes gameplay is not about the graphics, it’s about the game.
Lesson learned, too late as usual ;-)
I discovered archive.org has a pretty good catalog of old games, and there are a ton of emulator projects out there that let you play just about anything on your computer.
What I had was an industrial computer with huge EIGHT inch floppy drives, 4 in total. Boot disks, data disks with wiring diagrams for fridges, A/Cs, etc etc. Had over 200 floppies. It was used to keep records of the wiring diagrams for everything they made or had ever made… REALLY wish I’d copied those diagrams before I MORONICALLY threw away the whole setup, would have been worth a MINT by now… working green screen computer with a 7 inch screen built in.
I THOUGHT it was a Zycom brand computer system but this is a LOT like what it looked like so maybe I’m remembering wrong? It was over 25 years ago right when 486 based computers were coming out that Whirlpool upgraded their computers and I got it from a relative of a current (then) Whirlpool employee…
https://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3453
I’m old enough that I personally punched a card deck while learning COBOL. Never punched JCL, but coded a bunch of it on those green screens.
And that code would still work after 3 decades, compared to “modern” languages that rot … errr …”are upgraded” every 3-4 years, like the stuff the kiddies write.
My best story about card decks: a fellow workstudy student was assigned to a professor who had a Brilliant Idea: print his short survey on punchcards so the keypunchers could convert the response written onto each card onto the card itself! I guess he figured it would simplify keypunching or maybe he wanted the original responses retained or who knows why? It was a brilliant idea, right?
Anyway my friend had the job of feeding boxes of these cards through the reader. First box ok, 2nd box a couple of jams, 3rd box the reader many many jams and then it quit. The tech pointed out that when you write on a punch card with a ball point, it leaves a ink, a little bit of which rubs off on the reader; more than 10,000 layers of that stuff the machine jams most efficiently.
My friend walked out of the computer center with his life and counted himself lucky.
I recall hearing about a punch card project that kept being reported as uncompilable or very buggy by the overseas client in a developing nation, in spite of no issues at all being found by the developing company. After a dozen rounds of international mail tag with new versions, they finally sent the lead dev over with the cards in a suitcase to install and verify the program in person. While he was going through customs at the foreign airport, he watched as the officers opened each package and suitcase coming off the plane, checked it for contraband, and then extracted an item or two from each to cover their token bribe.
Sure enough, when they got to him and the suitcase of carefully sorted punchcards, they yanked out a small handful of cards from several random spots, and calmly rebuffed his objections. “That’s just how it’s done here. We don’t have to know or care what they are, if you’re carrying a suitcase full they must be worth something, so we’ll find someone to buy them.”
That’s a fascinating story that the guys over at r/computers should hear.
In one of the paperbacks I own, ‘A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon’, there’s a story
about the chemistry lab getting super accurate super expensive weights from
The National Bureau of Standards… but….
Before the lab got them Inventory Control drilled tiny holes in them and attached
tiny brass plates that read “Property of US Army”.
* screams in engineer *
Once it was found that Russian aircraft were immune to the debilitating effects of an EMP pulse, American military finally figured out that they were still using Radio Vacuum Tubes instead of Solid State Transistors in their aircraft electronic circuitry. By that time, there were no more American factories making vacuum tubes & started to generate massive purchasing of the RVTs so that we Americans could retrograde our communications backup systems that are immune to EMP bursts.
I can imagine what that must have looked like to Russian Customs Agents for inspecting outgoing purchase orders…
Customs Agent: “I must report this purchase to our intelligence agencies. I think you must be trying to smuggle restricted equipment form our country.”
American Purchasing Agent: “No, I swear that there’s nothing classified about radio vacuum tubes. We simply gave up manufacturing these things back in the 1970’s or so.”
I think it’s possible that there might be a few factories that have retrofitted to manufacture Radio Tubes since then…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, strictly speaking, ALL procs run every time the condition is satisfied. It’s just that the first thing that a lot of them do is generate a random number and bail out if it’s not in the activation range. :P
What happens if you want to fall? Like if you are being shot at?
Yeah, this. If she can’t control the speed of decent she just became an aerial floating target. I get that she could fly ball to dive still, and gravity is occasionally fatal, but this does seem like overkill. Even most RPG passives have on/off switches, maybe buying the point defaulted it to “On” status and she can turn it off?
probably has a toggle on it
Sydney Iis already on the roof of the Archon building, so it would be easy to test it out right now…IF either Sydney or Maxima think about it.
She controls the orbs by will, so almost certainly she will fall normally if she wishes to. The passives are backups to cover her ass when she’s caught unawares. Fly gives her featherfall, Life Support gives her air, Shields gives her a basic shield when hit by surprise, the PPO gives her a basic pew pew etc
WELL OBVIOUSLY the best way to test this is a cannonball.
Fly down?
I’m sure that might come up at some point. :)
now imagining that Steven Universe episode where he first learning to float and got stuck too high in the air and had to figure out how to get to the ground faster *without also falling to his death*
I’m thinking of Magrat turning everything into pumpkins because she did not figure out how to change wand functionality.
Maxima is RIGHT THERE.
Have her fly down to where Sydney is but 6 feet lower, grab one of Sydney’s
legs just above the ankle, and turn off her flight power.
Will they both featherfall?
Featherfall except three times faster? (Vo=1mps x (Maxima’s weight/Halo’s weight))
Newtonfall?
Twist: Everytime that she’s on the phone to a senator and screams? It’s the same senator.
“Was it Sydney again?”
“… Yes.”
And none of the other senators believe that senator, because it never happens to anyone else.
Double twist, that senator is her dad (maybe mum given the comic but statistically her dad.)
…And there lies the basic opportunity to establish yet another running gag for the comic. Good job!
So lets guess the others.
Shield ball passive: I am thinking something along the lines of split second defense. It activates long enough to deflect anything she sees coming. Probably great synergy with the truesight ball. Or alternatively it could just be an overall toughness improvement.
PPO: 2 theories. active defense that shoots at things coming at sydney or a passive improvement to her overall spacial awareness for the sake of aiming better with both the PPO and of course her service weapon.
Truesight Ball: Weaker version of truesight
Lighthook: Minor passive telekinesis? Like in a Mage Hand sort of way where things dont just float but instead still leave a giveaway that sydney would inevitably miss and earn 100 laps on the outside track for.
Airball: Maybe she doesnt need as much air as she did before? Not really a solid way to check after she had it for this long.
Mystery ball: Well I heard people assume the ball is a sort of selfhealing ball so IF that was the case which I am not 100% sold on but IF(!) it was that then obviously a minor healing factor or something similar.
Flyball – Featherfall, AND she stays on vector when releasing the ball.
Shield – reactive defense, AND when she puts it up, it stays up even if she’s not holding it.
PPO – automated point defense
Hentorb – (redacted)
Prediction: Turns out, there’s no reason you have to actually HOLD the balls once you’ve set them in operation. And the two-ball lines allow you to control the two balls by holding either. Thus, filling more than 6 of the 21 two-ball lines is largely redundant.
Hentorb- Variable surface tension controls.
Shield: auto activate main shield or a new passive breathable shield
PPO: homing/directable ordinance
Truesight: passive %50 as strong as active (no tele, no illusion creation)
Lighthook: tele push, tele pull, tele hold (nothing more dexterous than that, though)
air ball: air is always filtered, but at a lower rate, and also acts as an alarm for bad air
I’m gonna disagree on the Truesight only because it feels like it would teleport whatever ball she’s looking for directly into her hands.
Truesight: “Something looks suspicious. Maybe you want to investigate further, perhaps using the Orb directly.”
Otherwise known as, “It’s quiet. Too quiet.”
cue elf sense that can grant automatic detection check on any hidden object
The air-ball passive could include some kind of rapid atmospheric pressure/temperature change protection.
Shield passive could be a skintight, air permiable, lower level force field around her at all times. Ie, minor invulnerability
She actually already has the passive for the air ball. That’s the one encapsulated that was already active, and the reason it auto flew into her hand and started working the first time she needed air when we first learned what that one could do.
Not going to lie… Feather fall is a pretty sweet passive to get like that. Question though. Does it only work in a full free fall or would it lessen the fall while tripping and face planting?
Rule of funny says that it will only avoid a face plant by causing a breast-face-plant.
In this comic it seems likely yes.
Anyone face-planting on Sydney is likely to beak their nose in the process.
That might require reorienting Sydney to a position where her breasts stick out past her face, so everybodywould see it coming. Especially Dabbler.
I meant the opposite, where her face stuck out in the direction of the nearest breasts.
Passive shield would be my next one %100
At least this was easier to figure out than the “air” orb. I mean, there was still a certain measure of luck involved in the discovery, but they had a more obvious starting point (they knew it was the flight orb, so the skill would be flight-related) and considerably less danger involved in the accidental discovery (Sydney knew she could just grab the flight orb and prevent her fall as opposed to only grabbing the air orb by accident while trapped underwater due to general Sydney-ness).
Also, I tend to prefer passive skills like this as well whenever they’re available.
Some Passive Powers that are new can be harder to figure out what it actually is than others…
I wonder if the Featherfall also compensates falling rate if Sydney is carrying a passenger, say for example, clinging tenaciously onto her shoulders from her back. Or any other kind of load, if she’s wearing a loaded backpack.
Well that answers that question.
New questions:
Is it truly passive? Sydney WAS thinking about grabbing the fly orb. Did that activate it? If so next question…
If her concentration was on using two other orbs would she still get the featherfall?
How does weight effect her fall rate? [How fast would her featherfall if she was tied to Anvil? lol]
Can Sydney still enjoy a fast trip on the Anvil Express, or will her featherfall take over every time?
So I was half right: It’s a massive utility boost that works without physical contact but doesn’t give her flight, only feather fall.
I think the passive nodes aren’t exactly passive, they’re just more of an automatic reaction function. Air orb automatically reacted to Sydney’s need for air, florb automatically reacted to Sydney’s need to not fall. Shield orb is probably going to automatically react to not wanting to be hurt, comball will probably automatically react to needing to be aware of something, ppo will probably auto react to something needing to be shot (hopefully with pinpoint precision) lighthook automatically reacts to something needing to be moved and the unknown orb probably is some sort of healing orb. We’ve never seen Sydney try to heal herself with it. For that matter we’ve barely seen any actual orb training to discover orb functions
Actually, I wonder if that double ring implies the pip gives two functions. A passive *and* an automatic reaction function…
“I apologize, senator, Halo is just floating outside my window.”
“Completely understandable.”
I Appreciate that Arianna Stole Moss’s cup.
Now comes the real montage of gettin sydney those passives, but it also means finding out if the passives are limited to how man she can have at once.
shes going to need to swap her coffee for horlicks.
Truesight passive: 360 spatial awareness. she knows what’s going on around her without looking, for a certain range.
Is the oxygen orb “gas” or “life support”: if the latter, auto healing.
PPO: hard to imagine a passive pew-pew. someone suggested point defense. as good a guess as any.
Lighthook: similarly difficult to imagine a passive. Maybe sustain an existing lighthook construct after letting go of orb.
Shield passive: auto defense? Maybe maintain a shield after letting go of orb.
Shield passive could be spot-defense shields – mini shields that block things flying at her (maybe only things she is not aware of?)
This passive could actually be huge for transportation. Assuming it wouldn’t bring her to an immediate stop, she could take people who can’t go as fast as her (so basically all bar maybe Maxima). By then coasting and refreshing the air in Mr Bubble, they would almost never need the Osprey for a mass deployment.
flight assist like empyrion go direction turn off thrusters and you just keep going in direction OR this now seems more like nth tech EVA suit or exploration suit. iron man armor. maybe original user was shot by badguys and did emergency warp keep it from enemy hands and thus ended up in earth
… Okay, get EVERY passive! TentaBall (lighthook) first?
I’m thinking that the TentaBall passive would allow constant orb connection, but I’m not entirely sure.
Shield first, 100%.
Senator AH. I believe I voted for him. Great campaign posters.
The makes air orb has a passive active, what’s it do?
go to her hand automatically of its own accord when she was at risk of drowning and immediately produce a field of breathable air for her while submerged without her focusing on or tapping a glyph to do it.
That would be very lame. I would hope that all the passives would do something without being held.
besides shove itself into Sdy’s hand when she was drowning ?
Hmm, this now technically means she gets one noticable super power without needing to hold the orb. Feather fall.
not a bad one. Also thought the air ball already had this special pip filled on it, so assumed automatic emergency function to go to her hand when she was in danger of drowning and produce air immediately.
Although this can also be seen as an emergency function *no vertigo and don’t fall to your death, giving more time to grab the fly ball to adjust speed in any direction as wanted*
That said I can see Sydney playing with this so much, like standing ontop of her comic shop and leaping off in front of the stain glass window, slowing floating down while T-posing.
bonus: if she starts to display powers while not holding the orbs *even subtle ones like this* it could make future opponents double guess the trap the orbs weakness. Some disinformation/tactical misdirection to spread to future opponents.
So, if each pip represents a ‘level”, would that make Syd level 40?
A level for that orb, she has level 8 flight, but only level 2 life support.
So what would level 8 life support be, Wolverine style regeneration?
a skill tree focus game will sometimes not have levels and be based on the skill tree upgrades with their branching paths.
of course games that don’t have levels and only skill trees are also the ones that end up doing that whole percentage melee increase or points towards defense, ect…
hmm so I guess the passives will be weaker versions of the orbs base use. Flight is feather fall. should help with her flight combat since she has more air time. shield maybe a weaker shield forms when attacked or a durability boost? comm enhanced senses.
PPO might be aim assist *which may sound redundant with her glasses, but the glasses are instructions not auto-aim assist which the PPO might have*
maybe the shield makes mini-shields with less strength if something is detected incoming too fast like those little light barrier grid shields in some anime.
Even full redundancy between glasses and Orb functions can’t be ruled out just on those grounds. Even if the Orbs somehow know that their current user is using a separate technological assist, that will not be the case all the time or for every potential user.
My point was it may sound redundant but they aren’t the same thing.
the glasses are putting a cross hair on a screen and giving instructions on where to hold the gun to get the best arc, everything else is up to Sydney to actually do that.
the idea I was thinking was if the passive for the PPO gave her auto-aim, as in a subconscious or extra-conscious control over her motor skills when firing to give her the perfect shot she was wanting.
the difference between a game giving you a red dot or cross-hair vs the game auto-locking onto an enemy *and possibly selecting between points to shoot at like head, torso, leg* and you just have to push the button.
OK, a finer shade of distinction than I’d initially picked up on.
Of course, whether auto-aim for the PPO will translate successfully to auto-aim with any other sort of thrown or shot projectile (and whether the Orb tries regardless) is a separate question.
If Sydney is in mid air what happens if Maxima grabs one of the orbs and tries to ‘drag’ Sydney in a certain direction?
Basically nothing. As seen from way early in the comic when Max was trying to get Sydney out from under the ambulance the orbs only move when she moves.
Either Max succeeds in dragging Sydney, or she finds that she cannot move the orb. Depends on the comedic possibilities. The “Rule Of Funny” always applies.
Mmm. What passives would I like?
* Tins to automatically open when I am hungry.
* An emergency holographic walker, to manifest anytime I want walkies and there is not a suitable human around.
* And, for when the weather is too inclement, a hamster ball big enough for me to walk in.
Only when the weather is too inclement? I’m imagining a quiet weekday morning in the country, cows going about their daily business… Suddenly Yorp comes over the hill, full-speed hamsterballing fit to win the Grand National!
*wags tail approvingly*
Human-size hamster balls are good for all kinds of things – sports, swimming, downhill races…
However best appreciated by those of us with four legs.
I just had a mental image of a good doggo trying their confused, desperate best to fetch their human as it rolled away down a hill.
But humans are bound to roll away down the hill, in a hamster ball. You bipeds are just not very good in hammyballs.
I think it would be even more interesting if instead of providing a passive ability, it enabled the usage of the first level of the orb without holding it.
For all we know, the first level of the flight orb could be just feather fall.
Even better if the points connecting orbs improved this ability, so maybe a point in encapsulated nodes does nothing by itself (which would explain why she has no passive from life support orb), but unlocks the passive ability feature from the orb, that needs to be improved by the points connecting orbs.
Which means she is getting first level passive flight from that point that connects flight with PPO, and now she could either pick the encapsulated point in PPO to have its first level passive, or get another point connecting flight and any other orb to further improve her passive flight.
So, a life saving passive mode. Interesting.
Of course that raises the question what the “Air” orb does?
It does not provide Air as a passive benefit – she had to hold it to use that power.
Also she does keep running out of Oxygen inside the bubble and needs a oxygen reservoir for that.
Maybe the part where the Orb automatically moved into her hand is the passive? In a life support failure, there can be precious little time to decide what to do before shock sets in – so the orb moving to any free hand to activate the right life support could be the emergency feature.
Or maybe normally the shield actually creates a vacuum on the inside, and the air orb just allows her to breath at all while inside?
Some things to test with 6th/Green/Air? Orb:
– put her in a pressure chamber at 50% earth pressure
– put her in a pressure chamber at 200% earth pressure
– check what happens with her and flight wind (actuall flight or wind channel) without the shield orb
You are not subjected to noticeable/dangerous levels of these things in everyday life and she always raised her shield when she expected she might be subject to dangerous levels (quick flight, spaceflight over the Alari Homeworld).
Best I can think is that auto move to hand, like what happened in the pool. It’d be a strange instinct to grab that orb of all orbs but the other excuse is the just thought of the need for oxygen and that summoned it. If it is passively providing some air then its not much as she eventually started feeling light headed at the restaurant and had to refresh air while only she sat in the bubble, but maybe poisons are a thing.
maybe sensing iminent danger was a requirement.
Like she only felt light headed but it hadn’t gotten to life threatening yet, while underwater triggers a panic response. Maybe flight will be that way, she can jump off a low height but tripping or anything where she goes into uncontrolled freefall and feather fall triggers…although this could have some comedic potential as the subconscious can’t decide what is really dangerous…she may want to avoid rollar coasters from now unless she wants to be like a balloon gripping the safety bar to not be left floating out of it during a fall. Or she jumps off a diving board and that brief moment in the brain of “falling” triggers it so she lightly dips down to the water.
she may want to test this.
The shield is pretty good at differentiating between dangerous lasers and, and beneficial light and radiowaves. It would make sense that the other Orbs also can tell “beneficial/wanted” and “dangerous” appart.
Definetly something to test, but I have few worries here.
I knew that is what that did, also she should never get the laser passive.
Now to figure out how passive lasers wo-…he-he-he, I’m not imagining it as the “IMMA FIRIN MY LAZORS!1!” meme where everytime she opens her mouth lasers fly out. Maybe it’s a cyclops problem and she’ll need magic sunglasses to keep the lasers from slicing through everything.
So many questions.
Then there’s the tentacle. If she can’t make more then one I can imagine it ending up as a tail or if she can then they’ll start coming out of her back like with Nurgle from Grim Adventures.
Not sure how the passive for the com orb would be, telepathy? True Seeing enchantment 24/7?
And the rebreather orb, would that one give her the ability to breath in thinner air pressures followed by under water and ending with breathing in space?
Would the shield be like the one Glory Girl has in Worm (it’s a web novel) where it can take any attack once? What happens if she feather falls while using the shield with passengers, would their weight still cause it to fall like normal or would they be cancelled out by the feather fall and on that note would any attacks with kinetic force behind them now be drastically reduced due to “falling” in a direction other then where she wants to go if she has the shield up?
I’m running on the logic that each other the orbs provide a rendition on a weaker version of each power. The rebreather has only one pip so it makes sense it’s too weak to know what that would be.
my next 2 upgrades would be the shield and air balls. shield so i have passive defense at all times. air because the other passive upgrades might not be as useful as being able to swim underwater with the space boyfriend for hours at a time.
yess! green orb is life support. The passive gives her faster healing and high spice tolerance. Id wager that when they ask her about it she’d recall that she started getting tolerant of extremely spicy foods shortly after getting the orbs.
Imagine the com orb passive is true sight on ALL the time. Then imagine a moment when not seeing would be preferable.
I wonder if there’d be an eventual com orb ability to unsee something?
Actually, based on @MetaChthonia above, I’d say the com orb passive would do something weaker, like ‘spidey senses tingling’. Or maybe it nags you with a popup hint, “Press X to look behind you!”
Hmmm. 360 degree vision would be an interesting effect for the comm ball.
She could see all squirrels and jangling keys in any direction.
This! Backronyms like that drive me nuts, especially when the people that created the name in the first place are still around – just freaking ask them.
20% ranged avoidance is fine if weapons only do what amounts to chip damage, because if you’ve got to take ~20 hits to go down, that means you end up ‘really’ needing to take ~25 hits instead.