Not a bar, but plays one on TV

trogdor

00:35

lol

I always forget how to do that too

I ended up bookmarking one of the times someone explained it to me

But i can't link it cause I'm on my phone

XD

Jan 2 '16 at 2:36, by Pixie

Do a url but like [spoiler] and (http://spoiler_goes_here)

There's one

I have no idea if they have changed it since then, but at the time at the very least, the only way to do it was a fake link

I know how to actually spoiler tag stuff in Discord but i think that doesn't work here

Also my phone doesn't even have the characters for it

XD

V2Blast

01:00

@trogdor Correct. Or otherwise using ROT13 or similar like kviiri did

No native spoiler-tag in chat

trogdor

Mmmk

So basically nothing has changed on that front

XD

For,... Oh god it was 4 years ago

XD

I'm 378 years old, don't wait up for me

V2Blast

01:23

lol

kviiri

07:00

@trogdor I did that but it didn't work

Testing

Okay, now I get it, it needs the format specifier

trogdor

yeah

sorry I didn't clarify that

kviiri

It's ok, we can work on that when I next forget how it works x)

trogdor

07:16

lol

you mean when we both do

spoiler

Gwideon

14:31

hello

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Heeey. While you were gone, I started and finished the Mandalorian (Season 1 anyway).

Gwideon

how was it

vicky_molokh

Great recommendation.

The Tron series are in the queue but I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

Gwideon

yeah it is really good

vicky_molokh

It's not flawless, but it's as Starwarsy as Star Wars EU gets, and good-quality.

Though I'd say Fallen Order is on the same level, albeit of course in a totally different way.

Gwideon

14:34

I agree.

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh Honestly, I enjoyed it more than any Star Wars thing I can remember recently, with the exception of maybe Rogue One.

I had no/low expectations going in which probably helped.

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose R1 was weird for me. On one hand, as a film as a whole I liked it. On the other hand, I feel it totally misses on the Star Wars feel/mood/style. On the third hand, half the characters, including the primary ones, was forgettable, with the Jedi wannabe stealing the spotlight from them.

Gwideon

I saw rise of skywalker during the holidays. I actualy liked it.

kviiri

@Gwideon Sup! It's been a while

Rubiksmoose

@Gwideon I largely did as well. You kinda just have to not think about it. It was enjoyable as a Star Wars film.

Gwideon

14:36

@kviiri Yeah it has

kviiri

How have you been?

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh Maybe the different feel is kinds what appealed to me about it? I agree about the characters though and the pseudo jedi. It's been a long time since I've watched it. I wonder how I'd like it now.

Gwideon

anyways. I also kinda started something during the holiday. I kinda started to design a space ship miniature wargame. Also I've been good. tired but good

also started the witcher. haven't had time to get through it.

Rubiksmoose

@Gwideon What do you think so far? I thought the first episode was ... fine.

Gwideon

@Rubiksmoose I've only seen the first episode. I am a newbie so I'm not quite sure. It seems interesting and it got me interested in witcher lore

Rubiksmoose

14:42

@Gwideon I'm glad. If you like those kinds of things the Witcher 3 game is absolutely amazing.

Gwideon

I don't have anything that can run it

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon I found it imperfect, but about as good an ending as we could expect/deserve for a saga that got bought from the author and then torn between two new authors who don't see eye to eye. Also, I find it highly amusing that it had ALL THE EGGS (except those taken by Ready Player One).

Gwideon

hahaha

vicky_molokh

Which I suppose is a way of saying that I enjoyed it, but I don't expect many people to share or even tolerate my sentiment.

Rubiksmoose

@Gwideon darn.

vicky_molokh

14:44

@Gwideon Got a link to the design draft?

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh Not really. Haven't gotten it into a google doc yet. Used a old journal for it

vicky_molokh

On my own end, I'm experimenting with making a system (or at least a basic diceroll resolution engine) that would allow arbitrarily scaling most relevant parameters (such as turn length, or the number of characters in a squad/army/etc.) up and down without producing glitches, by way of relying on logarithmic scales.

With the internal workings exposed, it probably looks scary, but I hope that once the work is done it can be smoothed up to only keep the intuitive modifiers exposed and hide the reasons behind them.

Gwideon

okay

it's actually fairly simple and not super complicated.

vicky_molokh

I do hope that in the end, I'll be able to use the same mechanics for anything from a one on one duel through a squad on squad skirmish to a stardestroyer on calamari slugfest to fleet on fleet action, and any possible mismatches between those categories, with just an addition of a few easy-to-look-up modifiers.

This of course would by necessity require a certain level of abstraction.

An unintended but perhaps positive effect is that the way modifiers work, there's a strong incentive to have everyone possess exactly the same amount of hit points, and to represent differences in durability/toughness/etc. by way of a simple modifier to the damage roll.

Gwideon

15:05

that's pretty interesting

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon If it actually is, here's a rough draft with some samples of how it's meant to work. Warning: lots of fiddly bits still exposed, and no guidance on how to exactly to work with things like range penalties, bonuses for upscaling in size or number etc.

Gwideon

15:19

just skimming over it is pretty interesting

@vicky_molokh here's a link to my rules doc. docs.google.com/document/d/…

it's still very alpha but it's a functioning base for a game.

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Played on a hexmap or something? Also, I'm unsure of two things: (1) how is energy used - is it spend on everything, or is it just a way of expressing shield regeneration and (2) how is damage figured - is it based on weapon stats only, or does margin of success/victory on rolls influence it?

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh energy is spent on everything. all actions have an energy cost. damage is based on weapons stats only at this moment.

my main goal for this was to make a simple to understand game that offered alot of tactical options

also it's played on a square grid map

vicky_molokh

In that case, I have a thought, though I'm not sure if it's in line with what sort of game you're going for:
- don't penalise defence for low speed; instead, only give bonuses for high speed;
- defence bonus should require spending energy on movement (or acceleration, if going for a more realistic set of physics) in the previous/current turn.

@Gwideon I guess squares are more familiar for someone with a late-edition D&D background.

@Gwideon That's a great goal, though an ambitious one. It's certainly an effect I would want when making a tactical game, but I found it hard. I think making positioning important is key to making tactical grid games with a lot of options.

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh actually for this i'm drawing on my heroclix background more than my dnd background. I've never actually done mini combat for dnd. also I have heroclix maps that i can use for playtesting

@vicky_molokh also I've though about maybe adding a weapon attribute that tells you where it's mounted on the ship. so say if a weapon is mounted on the side it can only shoot from the side.

vicky_molokh

15:35

@Gwideon Ah, broadsides fights.

Gwideon

is that a good idea.

vicky_molokh

Though broadsides immediately make me want to either use a protractor with no grid, or at least a more nuanced-angle grid than squares. Because lining up a ship to attack 'rook-style' would likely be hard.

An important bit about broadsides is the ability to control distance by steering slightly towards or away from the target.

Also, turn rates matter.

Yuuki

what about gimballed emplacements?

vicky_molokh

And the ratio of turn rate to movement speed can produce different feels for the combat.

@Gwideon E.g. a slow turn with a high speed and short weapons range leads to 'bombing runs'.

Gwideon

I've playtested that idea with a friend and it's not actually that hard. everything works in 90 degree angles. also a turn is just one movement. I'm not going for super realistic here. you just turn it in place.

kviiri

15:41

I'm not an expert of physics but I think turning "in place" (or more appropriately, without altering course) should be more feasible for spaceships than conventional ships

Space has no objections to things flying sideways x)

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Oh, I'm not expecting realism. Realism went out the window pretty early in the mention of shield and movement rules. But some depending on how they're phrased, some restrictions can become either meaningless or too strict.

Carcer

@kviiri it's an important strategy in any half-decent space sim

Gwideon

like I said I'm trying to keep it simple and making movement super complicated isn't really in the spirit of that.

vicky_molokh

@kviiri Sure, but that invites Newtonian physics, like in Babylon 5 I Found Her Danger and Opportunity, and that's a can of worms for miniatures games. (I've played in a test combat using such rules by way of GURPS Spaceships. Lots of people find Newtonian physics counterintuitive in space.)

Carcer

I can still remember playing freelancer, hitting the afterburner to get up to full speed, then cut engines and flip around and use all your "forward" facing guns to shoot down pursuers

kviiri

15:44

@vicky_molokh Mmh, I don't think adherence to such has to be an all-or-nothing affair

vicky_molokh

Basically, tactical options require having an interesting set of restrictions.

@kviiri Oh sure, there are variants such as Star Control's *semi-*Newtonian physics.

Carcer

it only gets to be half-decent because a fully decent space sim doesn't impose maximum speeds < c

vicky_molokh

@Carcer B5 doesn't impose such a limit AFAIK, though you do have limited delta.

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh basically if someone wants to turn they just pick up the ship turn it 90 degrees then set it down. I intend to do that with ships. a lot of the tactical decisions will be made in building the fleet. it's a bit like building a deck in magic

anyways I'll be quite

vicky_molokh

Anyway, what I see from the draft so far:
- if turning is instant, then firing arcs are not as big a limitation as initially envisioned;
- beware of incentivising deathblobs all sitting in one square and moving as a fleet;
- I guess there's some space for rock-paper-scissors in the weapon types already;
- maybe categorising weapons by intended target size could provide some more tactical choices, e.g. classic corvettes are good against fighters and classic cruisers against corvettes, classic bombers good against cruisers+ and fighters shred bombers.

@Gwideon Naw, it's an interesting project, do keep sharing please.

kviiri

15:49

Related to the topic, has anyone played Talon, a space combat game by GMT Games?

Carcer

@kviiri depends on the size of the ship, really

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh corvette type ships (which are fast) are kinda meant to discourage death blobs. also things like sniper ships with punch through and all that.

Carcer

the bigger they are the more complicated turning around is

it's harder to do it faster and the faster you do it the more damage you risk doing to your ship/crew

kviiri

It's been on my watch list for a while but I'm always a bit skeptical of 2player games

@Carcer hmm, true, there might be significant forces involved

Carcer

@kviiri yeah, spin your 100m long spaceship on a dime and the front and rear ends of that will suddenly be going very fast laterally

vicky_molokh

15:52

@Carcer Instant question: how long is a turn and how fast is 'on a dime' in this context?

Carcer

@vicky_molokh fair point

that is meaningful

vicky_molokh

There's the speed-range-turnlength triangle that influences combat considerations a lot, with the firepower-integrity tug of war providing an extra dimension.

kviiri

@Carcer Depends on the speed :>

Carcer

I am probably influenced considerably by way of currently reading the Expanse novels, which feature a ship of the order 100m long (I think?) doing 360 spins in order to shoot a spine-mount railgun at things chasing it

inside of 3-4 seconds

vicky_molokh

@Carcer Also, what does a spaceship care about suddenly going very fast laterally? It cares about the rotary acceleration, and that is likely to be modest compared to linear acceleration.

Carcer

15:56

@vicky_molokh your spaceship could be very well designed to handle linear stresses due to thrust and much less designed to handle the lateral stress of high-speed rotation

in normal operation you'd expect normal thrust to be the most significant force you have to worry about so if you don't expect to be spinning rapidly it'd be a waste to reinforce your ship in order to handle that stress

Gwideon

sorry I'm a bit lost.

Carcer

@Gwideon 66.media.tumblr.com/2d750207a43135c40c0be97d9ada2ad5/…

Gwideon

can't look at tumblr

vicky_molokh

It's got a wacky Legoman yelling 'Spaceship'.

Gwideon

ahhh

kviiri

16:01

oh yeah now I remember another thing that weirded me out when first hearing of Talon

It's played with hexagonal cardboard counters that one draws on

I have no rational reason to dislike it and I don't really judge but it just feels very unconventional

Gwideon

I'm having to use lego to design place holder miniatures so I can playtest stuff

Carcer

carcer.co.uk/random/spaceship.webp

Gwideon

so yeah that is interesting

Carcer

hopefully you can see that one

Gwideon

i can't

Carcer

16:04

what manner of evil does your school think I am

kviiri

@Gwideon legos are great for prototying everything

Gwideon

I don't know

kviiri

Not literally everything

But still x)

Gwideon

oh yeah legos are great for prototyping

vicky_molokh

Let's say you need to turn 180° in 4 seconds, going from no rotation to high-speed rotation to no rotation. That implies an average angular velocity of 45°, or a peak angular velocity of 90° in case of even acceleration/deceleration. Which implies angular acceleration of 90°/s in two seconds or 45°/s². That's П/4 per second squared. Assuming a 50m radius (rotating by the midpoint), that's an acceleration of 40m/s². Which is IIRC less than modern military flycraft can handle.
Did I miss or miscalculate something up there?

Carcer

16:05

legos are also great for potatotyping! You can press 'em into the potatoes to make patterns.

Gwideon

hahaha

ahhhhh physics

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Not suggesting that stuff for your game, just doing some amateur back-of-the-envelope probing into the Expanse numbers.

Yuuki

physics, the water blanket dm of reality

Carcer

@vicky_molokh yeah, in the specific example I invoked it's doing a 360 in 3-4s with a bit in the middle where it stops to line up a railgun before turning around again

vicky_molokh

@Carcer OK, that does produce higher accelerations, but still probably not terrible by futuristic material standards.

Carcer

16:09

I'm certainly not arguing you can't design a ship to take that

vicky_molokh

I wonder if computerised aiming in space would even do the line-up slowdown at all.

Carcer

but you would have to design a ship to take that

@vicky_molokh it could do it really fast, but at the sort of ranges space combat takes place in, aiming the gun has to be extraordinarily precise, much harder to do without stopping the spin at all

vicky_molokh

@Carcer Oh great, now you got me thinking about whether railguns can even plausibly hit a dodging target given how overpowered Expanse thrusters are. ^_^

Gwideon

anyways I'm gonna go so I can work on some stuff

Carcer

@Gwideon have fun

vicky_molokh

16:12

@Gwideon Have a successful . . . workstuff.

Carcer

@vicky_molokh I mean, in the expanse the answer is no! The military ships have a tremendously hard time hitting each other with railguns at anything approaching a respectable range, they're usually only effective against targets which can't effectively dodge like slow civ ships or stuff that's at the space equivalent of point-blank range

they use torpedoes for fighting and the railguns are mainly there so they can save on torpedoes when hunting something defenceless.

Gwideon

19:29

hello

V2Blast

21:04

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, I liked that it felt different. Especially given how samey recent SW films have felt.

@Rubiksmoose I, uh... did not like TRoS at all. I've generally been fairly meh about Star Wars in general, but TRoS sorta killed what interest I had in the films.

I did post my thoughts in Discord earlier

Rubiksmoose

@V2Blast That's fair and I think entirely reasonable.

I can certainly see how people think that.

V2Blast

@Gwideon I recently finished the season of The Witcher. I enjoyed it on the whole, though it was not without its flaws

(also The Mandalorian was pretty solid, finished that season too)

Gwideon

definitely

V2Blast

My total experience playing the Witcher games is watching the long opening cinematic of the first game and then the game freezing immediately after it ended

Gwideon

oof

V2Blast

21:09

@vicky_molokh It's Benny from The Lego Movie! :)

@Gwideon lol, yeah. I plan to go back and play them... eventually

Rubiksmoose

@V2Blast XD

vicky_molokh

I tried to get into the Witcher twice with the games and once with the series some years before that. Neither worked out, despite people always telling me how unique and awesome it supposedly is (it's not; it's yet another staple Eurasian fantasy). So I dropped it soon after trying. And now people are giving me the same pitches about the new stuff as they did about old.

Yuuki

I dunno, my main pitch with the Netflix Witcher is that Henry Cavill is in it. Not sure if that's applicable to any old Witcher stuff.

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh I wouldn't call it unique by any stretch, but the game was well designed as far as story and quest structures with some being legitimately affecting and delighting.

I've only played W3 though

Yuuki

@V2Blast Oh yeah, I should get a free trial now that all the episodes are out.

Rubiksmoose

21:15

I have to resist gushing about how much I like Mandalorian every time someone says they are going to watch it.

V2Blast

21:37

@vicky_molokh Note that the Netflix series is based on the books (I haven't read them), not the games. In particular, it's worth noting that the first book or two are collections of short stories, set at different times, so the timeline of the first few episodes does jump around a bit - this isn't immediately obvious, but there are a few big hints at it (that are easy to miss). As the characters the story follows meet one another, the relationship of the timelines becomes clearer.

And yeah, I wouldn't say it's exactly unique, but it is fairly well-done from what I've seen

MikeQ

@vicky_molokh The story and worldbuilding are not especially unique, but as a game the gameplay and design are pretty good

trogdor

yeah personally I might have been into it 10 years ago but the worldbuilding kinda puts me off now

I'm really not sure why they made a show about it myself but apparently some people like it XD

vicky_molokh

21:53

I'm not disputing the technical quality of the game nor the show, but I guess I'm just not the target audience. (Also, it's got that guy infamous for playing the boring version Superman from the film where the Daredevil actor got cast as a boring Batman, and this is supposedly a selling point?)

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor $$$, as always.

Yuuki

@vicky_molokh Henry Cavill is pretty great in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. though.

MikeQ

22:09

Let's not confuse bad directing with bad acting. Cavill's fine.

Yuuki

22:20

By far most complaints about "bad acting" I've come across turn out to be examples of bad directing instead.

Or bad writing.

I guess the issue is that to differentiate between bad acting and bad directing, you have to be familiar with the actor's body of work.

And most people just don't have time to watch that many movies.

MikeQ

You can also compare the acting to the context of other things going on in the scene and story

(Which is much easier said than done, especially since different cultures/contexts/genres have different standards for how characters should act)

BESW

@Yuuki See: Keanu Reeves, who is a great body actor but seems like a terrible actor if the director insists on doing a lot of face close-ups.

(The best use of Keanu Reeves ever is Henry's Crime, which starts by playing into the "wooden actor" assumptions about him and the main character arc of the story is him slowly loosening up over the course of the film.)

Yuuki

I mean, he could be a great actor in the latter scenario with the right setting. Reminds me that I need to watch The Day The Earth Stood Still remake.

vicky_molokh

@MikeQ I'm not sure it's a matter of directing, but when I looked at him in BvS, I just didn't get a feel of the big blue boyscout that I've come to know in the late 80s. (I have not watched Man of Steel.)

Yuuki

I suppose that's down to personal taste then, because my reaction to the casting was "well, he definitely looks like Superman".

BESW

22:35

I enjoyed Tyler Hoechlin's Superman.

vicky_molokh

@Yuuki Anatomically yes, but when seen in action, I just didn't get the impression that this is the guy who unironically stops masked robbers and terrorists, provides disaster relief, fights alien tyrants, and rescues kittens from trees with an equal sense of importance.

In fact he gave me more of an impression of some 90s hero, almost Spawn-like.

But maybe that impression would actually work well for Geralt, if it's a natural part of the actor's manner!

I guess I'm just not really sold on Witcher after three attempts.

Carcer

@trogdor the Witcher games are themselves based on a series of Polish novels and strictly the tv series is an adaption of those, not the games (though it is admittedly true the franchise's popularity outside poland is mostly due to the success of the games)

Yuuki

@vicky_molokh Based on previous movies and interviews, that seems more a function of the setting of the movie and other intangibles than Cavill's mannerisms.

Carcer

I need to read

nevermind me

trogdor

22:57

@Carcer yeah I knew both were based off of books

I suppose it makes sense the show is based off of the books rather than the game

but it still baffles me either way

XD

@Rubiksmoose yeah I guess so

Carcer

@trogdor whyso? Adaptations of popular franchises into other media happen all the time

trogdor

@Carcer I mean, maybe I am just too jaded, and because I have no interest in it I assume it's more dumb than it is

XD

Transcript for

Not a bar, but plays one on TV