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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 10:19:43 GMT -8
I guess I'll be the first to reply here... though it's probably not gonna be what you want to hear Agreeing with Histidine on this - It feels like an awful lot of handwaving to be done all of a sudden. If we'd had some sort of build-up to a bit of what we'd seen regarding Claude and the like, this wouldn't be as terribly surprising. Again, probably beating a dead horse, but I feel that MID-GAME content would have softened the blow far more then post-game content, because - even if it is good in a stand-alone sense - it feels like rushed damage-control. It's not like there wasn't story in storage to use - there were plans for two whole chapters in MoA regarding a focus on Claude and Icari respectively that could have been salvaged and implemented in LD. With the Doctor Who references (playful, coy character who's hinted to be a time traveler and is a doctor - not to mention her chest is more then big enough to hold two hearts ) I kinda expected Claude to be a time-traveler. But... I didn't expect her to be some God-entity - if anything it kinda makes it a plot-hole to have a walking wish-wall like that. Again, mid-game content probably could have salvaged that. Kryska's a bit more understandable though, because she's kinda like Fontana in that sense - she desperately wants to believe her cause is still savable, even if realistically it's beyond hope. Granted, Fontana's position in PACT makes his attempts somewhat more salvageable then Kryska's current one. And while I give applause to there being more character-interaction choices... it feels kinda late for it. Again, just me speaking, but it feels kinda cheep since we were already forced into a romance - had the relationship with Chigara been something we could choose to make platonic or romantic, it would make it easier narrative-wise. There didn't even need to be other romances in the game - just the choice to not have one now. As it is, with that being a forced plot-point, it gives me an uncomfortable "why bother - the romance was already locked in a while ago, so why would choice matter now?" feeling. Just some flavor differences that give enough "illusion-of-choice" to ward off the feeling of railroading would have been all that was needed for mid-game content. And I only say this because, as much flak as the ending got, it was more then matched by what people felt was a forced romance.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 10:11:29 GMT -8
Woah. Dude. Having already seen the old ending, the way the team is saved in the new one feels awfully convenient. It'd probably have been fine if I'd only ever seen the v2.00 ending, and/or the period of apparent certain death was shorter (cut short Kayto's ending soliloquy a bit maybe).
Not sure how I feel about Claude being a literal god... I mean there's sci-fi precedent for it (Star Trek's Q) but still. It seems like the whole problem with the Crow/Sola time warp would be fixed if she'd actually bother to use even half the full extent of her powers.
Looking forward to rebuilding the fleet with what little resources we can scrape up! Ah, just like the good old days. ...but with Chigara gone (for now), how are we going to upgrade the Sunrider SR-2? Don't tell me we use brainjacked Lynn for that.
What's Kryska thinking?! In any halfway realistic scenario she'd just be "disappeared" (temporarily or permanently) the moment she returns to the Alliance.
Kuushana will be interesting to deal with. I can already tell she won't just be another antagonist... wonder what role she'll play in the big scheme of things? Like, when does the inevitable heel face turn take place? I can't help but agree with you. It feels like an awful lot of handwaving to be done all of a sudden - if we'd had some sort of build-up to a bit of what we'd seen, this wouldn't be as terribly surprising. Again, probably beating a dead horse, but I feel that MID-GAME content would have softened the blow far more then post-game content, because - even if it is good in a stand-alone sense - it feels like rushed damage-control. With the Doctor Who references (playful, coy character who's hinted to be a time traveler and is a doctor - not to mention her chest is more then big enough to hold two hearts ) I kinda expected Claude to be a time-traveler. But... I didn't expect her to be some God-entity - if anything it kinda makes it a plot-hole to have a walking wish-wall like that. Again, mid-game content probably could have salvaged that. Kryska's a bit more understandable though, because she's kinda like Fontana in that sense - she desperately wants to believe her cause is still savable, even if realistically it's beyond hope. Granted, Fontana's position in PACT makes his attempts somewhat more salvageable then Kryska's current one. And while I give applause to there being more character-interaction choices... it feels kinda late for it. Again, just me speaking, but it feels kinda cheep since we were already forced into a romance - had the relationship with Chigara been something we could choose to make platonic or romantic, it would make it easier narrative-wise. As it is, with that being a forced plot-point, it gives me an uncomfortable "why bother - the romance was already locked in a while ago, so why would choice matter now?" feeling.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 9:57:51 GMT -8
I agree we're perhaps getting too long. Sorry, can't help it, I tried to restrain myself a bit in this one.
On your first three paragraphs I'll disagree (not being able to warp inside a gravity well is basically the only thing we know about warp in Sunrider), but I agree that continuing the argument on it is meaningless.
On Grey, I think you're, again, underestimating both his power and the magnitude of the Combined Fleet. First, Grey is the candidate, and by such, the leader (or at least the one moving the strings) of the Universalists, the second most powerful party in the Solar congress. It's not like he's only military, but he controls the opposition in the Congress... to a weak president which has been publically humiliated by his total failure against PACT in every front. In contrast, you have Grey, grandson of the most legendary Alliance hero, leader of the military which has just defeated the Invaders and is freeing the Neutral Rim. It's pretty much made clear that the Admiral has enough power to make a coup if he wanted: total control of the military, exceptional situation, endorsement by around half the civilian population, probably help from the majority of the lobbies, etc (he doesn't do it because he's not stupid). And again, the Alliance had been at peace this last 100 years when suddenly they had an invasion at their doorsteps; one that can be repeated if the Combined Fleet is defeated. A dread of an invasion is simply far larger than any other possibility (just look at the current international situation to see how much we can overreact over terrorism; imagine a full fledged invasion)
Second, I'm not saying that the civilian government is not against Grey (though for that, you'll have to change civilian government for "progressives", as it's pretty clear the Universalists endorse Grey), but I'm saying the civ government would have done the same. Propaganda is important, but it can't compare to 1500 ships, specially when almost anyone outside the Alliance who could benefit from such propaganda is dead: the most powerful Neutral Rim world, Cera, is destroyed, Ongess resistance has already been exterminated, the Union doesn't care, and PACT was already been fed full of propaganda. Ryuvia is the only world, but it's laughed off by everyone. Worlds with potential like Versta are simply too weak now, and they know they need the Alliance (or PACT) to survive. The Galaxy was already polarized before the conflict, so, while horrifying, it's not a game changer. And destroying worlds was actually pretty common in the New Empire and PACT; we know entire worlds were glassed during the Revolution, and PACT itself used the Legion freely, and that didn't stop Cosette from helping them (her and Shields being the closes thing we have to a "neutral party" in the conflict). The Alliance could easily justify themselves with that.
And Grey wanted peace too; the entire reason the paradox core was going to be fired and the Alliance decided on an invasion of PACT space was because they saw that event as PACT betraying them. When the other side is the one breaking the treaty and killing your fleet and leadership by a surprise attack, everything can be justified (and I'm reluctant to bring historical references, because they're always pretty polarizing, but I can do it if needed).
Likewise, I think it's more that the "only" thing we know is that you can't do it safely, not that it's flat-out undoable. But that topic's dead at this point.
Again, I think you're just overestimating it. Gray is not instantly "the leader" just because he's a candidate for president - second-powerful power means there's one higher then him. Until he's actually in office, he does not have any solid power to go towards making orders like dropping WMD's. And Gray's actions throughout the war don't necessarily qualify him to lead a government - just an army - and the politicians don't delude themselves into thinking his leading their forces means he should decide their policies. And AGAIN, him already having that kind of power is why it is so unlikely that the current ruling party would let him have any more - at least not without him needing their explicit consent to exercise it. And then the next nail in the coffin - the war was considered OVER at that point. PACT - now represented majorly by Fontana - was brokering PEACE, so any of that "war-time logic" pull goes out the window in regards to Gray retaining such power.
Second, I'm saying that I really don't buy that for one second - the Alliance pretty much built it's propaganda engine on retaliating for PACT using such horrific means. Suddenly using such means themselves is like shooting themselves in the foot and it will make them look monsters, and then all the civ support for those 1500 ships goes down the drain - and with both that and Gray gone, where's that leave them? Propaganda is where the lobbying to even have those ships out there came from in the first place! It is very much a game-changer - especially with Gray dead - because it proves once and for all that there's no right side in the conflict, and all those worlds who's people once opposed PACT... they're gonna stop resisting and start FLOCKING to join them; mass recruitment drives all around from the Neutral Rim. The Alliance's own propaganda was based off of NOT following PACT's actions - doing so isn't going to sit well with anyone, not even their own civilians.
He wanted peace through force of arms - that's hardly any better then what Alpha had wanted Alice to do (before she rebelled against that plan). And the fact that PACT was seemingly lobbying for peace would make it very, very hard to believe that the Progress Party would entrust Gray with the authority needed to use a WMD after his proven hate of PACT since that's very detrimental to peace-plans. As I said before, everything CANNOT be justified so easily - or at least not in the case of using a WMD instantaneously. Hell, even dropping such a weapon after the fact would be more understandable in the long run then having the authority to do so then and there in what should have been a peace talk! And I really don't think you can bring any such historical references - ten to one, they're not gonna fit properly in this context.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 9:39:28 GMT -8
Christ, you wrote a lot. You know how sore my hands are from typing out a response to all that?
First off... I should point out tha the Agamemnon was a LOCAL LINER that they procured for the express purpose of evacuating Versta's children. And if you try to say "but the Alliance would have provided them with a ship" - keep in mind the Alliance Military didn't expect or want those diplomats leaving Versta. Point being that the Agamemnon/Versta really doesn't count as a representation for Alliance military vessels for emergency warp capability. And at Ryuvia Prime - no, not "everywhere" was safer then there. Not Cera, not Diode, not New Eden or any of the many, many PACT worlds in Neutral Space they might have accidentally warped to... you know, provided they didn't just warp straight into a star. If faced with risks like that, then no I don't think they would just do it - not unless it was to get away from something instantaneously unsurvivable (like, again, the event horizon of a black hole ripping apart a planet).
SO, again, I restate - by all accounts, yes you CAN simply warp out in a planet's gravity well. It's just so risky that it's not something you wanna try unless you either don't care where you end up or the damage you might cause to your ship, or are simply too desperate to care. "Non-negligible danger" is still preferable to "certain death by black hole", as is appearing ahead of your supply chains. And it's not like they need to go back to Solaris - just far enough to be out-of-system. But this wasn't even the point I was making - I pointed out that coordinating the Combined Fleet to jump out in unison so as not to risk anyone else was probably why the "Paradox Missile" wasn't fired the moment Gray gave the order; they weren't going to randomly jump out either way. My point was simply that it WAS possible for them to (randomly jump away) if they'd chosen to - it just was risky as all hell (though not risker then trying to survive that missile).
But I digress. Regarding the ships, though - again, I think that might just have been more to ensure the Combined Fleet had a nice, sizable window of jump-out time between launching the missile and the actual detonation. And that's even assuming the missile NEEDED to hit Cera as opposed to simply open the black hole close enough to rip Cera out of orbit - depending on how big it was, it could have opened relatively close to where the fleet was and still would have been close enough to devastate Cera and everything there.
Presidential CANDIDATE. He leads their military but, until he's in office (and he never will be now it seems), Gray doesn't truly speak for the Alliance - he's not even the sole figure in their military. Only a stand-alone sovereign or dictator, like Arcadius, would ever have the authority to even order the creation of such a weapon, let alone use it. It's BECAUSE he's in the military that he cannot have such singular authority to use a weapon like that - not without consenting agreement from other officials or the president of the nation he serves. I think it's that you're overestimating the amount of authority a democracy would ever give/allow one single person - it was because the civilian government knew Gray was ruthless that they did not want him in charge of the civilian parliament. Do you really think any country of this world willingly portray themselves as MONSTERS of such a scale and give their enemies ample propaganda fuel to use in uniting against them? That kind of thing is only guaranteed if you leave one man with all the power and none of the restrictions - hence why it makes no sense they would let Gray have that kind of authority. Especially not when BOTH sides (Alliance parliament and Fontana's PACT Revolutionists) were pressing for peace now.
The death of Gray and the senior officers would draw attention to Cera - It wouldn't be "nothing else"; The death of their 'fearless leaders' would shatter that same air of safety and show fallibility, and the detonation of the Paradox Core would make their leaders look like monsters in the public eye. Cera would be a flashpoint - hell, it already is since the Alliance was using it as justification to continue invading the Rim. Gray wasn't thinking when he used it - he cared for nothing but revenge for his death at that point - hence why, again, I don't think it make sense for one person to have that kind of authority over a WMD! I hope these comments don't get any longer - otherwise it's just going to be us throwing text-walls at one-another and ultimately getting nowhere nope, you can't simply warp out of planet's gravity well. Samu-kun clearly said, that in Sunrider universe ships has to move away from gravity well to certain degree. I bet it goes like this: 1.) if you are far enough, gravity well doesn't influence you and you are good to go 2.) jumping inside gravity well is dangerous closer you are to planet. 3.) at some point you are so close to planet that jumping is unfeasible. Either because it's so extremely dangerous (pretty much certain death) or your warp drive is simply not powerful enough and it will fail. Of course there are exceptions, when PLOT allows you make some cool manoeuvre (like speeding around moon) that will alow you to bypass limitations somehow.
^ I think rules of the universe were already set.
and as per your plan to just detonate missile wherever : "And that's even assuming the missile NEEDED to hit Cera as opposed to simply open the black hole close enough to rip Cera out of orbit - depending on how big it was, it could have opened relatively close to where the fleet was and still would have been close enough to devastate Cera and everything there." I don't think creating ARTIFICIAL black hole inside gravity well of a planet is an easy feat. Just think about restarted Star Trek (2009) , where captain Nero executed revenge on Federation by destroying their planets. If he could create blackhole wherever (somewhere in space above planet?) then why did he bother to drill into earth so he could fire black hole under surface? Either artificial black hole would fail or it would not be enough to destroy planet. There probably was some sort of "reason" behind it.
about general Grey authority: true that general Grey was only President candidate. But still how can you confidently say, that he didnt had enough authority to create or fire black hole missile? Grey might have been simple military officer in times of peace (to change that he wished to start the war by killing those diplomats), but history has proven that during war there is no such thing as "simple general" . There were many cases of generals that authorized things that are unimaginable during peace. Also don't forget that politics don't care about "incidents" outside of their country/space as much as things happening inside their country/space. And since Cera is at outer edges (neutral rim?) of galaxy, it is clearly out of Alliance main points of interest. Another thing to consider is the fact, that Grey wasn't just some unimportant general. From his actions it looked like he was highest ranked general in the area (even generals have ranks, you know. One star, two stars, etc.) and that pretty much made him supreme commander of alliance forces. Such authority could be used to fire weapons of mass destruction.
hehehe
Might have been wrong to do that, pal.
Nope yourself - none of that makes it impossible. 1.) That doesn't make it impossible to jump out - just that the gravity may affect the jump and damage the ship, not to mention throw you off-course. 2.) Key-word being "dangerous" - NOT "impossible." 3.) Black hole opening up right in front of you is certain death in and of itself - you either stay and die for sure or you jump out and maybe survive. Most people are probably gonna pick the latter.
^ If you mean that it ONLY ever states "risky and near-suicidal" instead of "flat-out impossible", then yes.
The artificial black hole that ruined Diode didn't need to be inside the planet, nor did it need to completely destroy it to do it's job. And Star Trek (2009)'s kind of a bad example - that guy probably just wanted zero survivors and total destruction. Something the Alliance doesn't necessarily need - even if there are survivors, a black hole's an unwieldy-enough weapon to cause more then enough damage to PACT. Especially since they don't even know it's coming - even if Cera is just devastated and not destroyed, it's more then enough for what Gray wanted.
I say it because, again, he's one man and he's not in an autocracy like Arcadius was. Look at modern governments - being the highest ranking military official doesn't mean you have the authority to drop WMD's at the drop of a dime; you need the current president's authority, not to mention that of your peers; and that's putting aside even being able to have the thing made, let alone deployed. And considering that BOTH SIDES WERE ACTIVELY PURSUING PEACE, the politics would very much care - especially if several ranking/leading members of their government suddenly ended up dead! And since Cera was where an active majority of Arcadius' loyalists were gathered and before that was arguably the most-developed power in the Rim, I fail to see why the Alliance wouldn't care about it. So again, no - I don't see how Gray has that kind of instant-use authority; if anything it's overstepping his bounds big-time.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 16:02:51 GMT -8
I feel compelled to point out that the bit about Ongess is kind of a complete mistake - the majority of the Combined Fleet was docked to fuel-stations and scaffolds. He couldn't have jumped out either way because the majority of the fleet was inactive, which was the whole reason they were forced to play defensive against Fontana and Cosette. Same for Versta - the Agamemnon didn't have Chigara and, being a civilian liner, it's warp-drive wouldn't be anywhere near as advanced as the Sunrider's. Slingshotting around the moon at Ryuvia was so that they could make a PRECISION jump to a safe system - if they tried a random jump with the issues of a Gravity Well, they could have ended up crashing into a star or shooting into PACT space instead of Alliance, but the point is that it didn't mean they couldn't jump; just that it's risky and not the recommended first choice if you can help it.
So, by all accounts... yes. Yes the Alliance and PACT fleets COULD simply warp out of there that quickly - it would simply be disorganized and uncoordinated, with a high chance of ending up god-knows-where. But then again, even that's arguably better then being caught in the event horizon of a black hole as it devours a planet. Another thing - they only acted that way after Gray was dead. For all we know, they would have approached the planet to recover Gray had he survived. And it probably held position like that so that the rest of the fleet could have it's chance to warp out. Most of the troops on Cera were PACT and Alice/Chigara's actions pretty much wiped out the Alliance forces. Hell, getting as much of the fleet warped out as possible was probably the ONLY reason they didn't immediately fire the missile. PACT taking advantage of that delay to evacuate as many of their own as possible could explain why they didn't just up and flee randomly either - both sides had reasons not to immediately jump out even if they could when you think about it.
But you're again missing his point - namely that if the entire Alliance Military leadership is there, it doesn't make sense to give the trigger to just one man out of all of them. Especially not the one with the proven hothead streak. And I point out that Gray was willing to blow the Combined Fleet away before at Ongess to secure victory - blowing that world up would have had similar effects. This is, for all intents and purposes, Ongess all over again. Gray's proven that he'd rather everyone lose if he/the Alliance can't win, so that is pretty close to McArthur stupidity. The combined Fleet was docked and refueling... during the first barrage. The entire reason Grey could even make the "bluff" is because they precisely had time. After the first barrage Cosette Ryders had to take their sweet time reloading; if warping was so easy as simply spooling the warp and going then it was more than enough time to salvage the rest of the fleet is warping was so simple as *warp*. Or that was what I was going to say until i found a post by Samu-kun specifically denying they can warp. You're right on that. But even forgetting that, at Versta the Agemmeon didn't have the same warp engine as the Sunrider... except that it was a diplomatic ship in a foreign mission and that here we're talking about Alliance Fleet, most of which is specifically mentioned as being composed of old Cruisers who were actually on reserve and unmanned until the war. And at Ryuvia Prime, the Sunrider was surrounded by 300 ships and the Legion itself. Everywhere on the Neutral Rim was safer than there. If they could simply warp out and wait for the cool-down time and simply warp again, it would do it. Heck, Samu-kun even had to go out of his way to tell that a moon gravity well is small enough to jump. So, by all accounts... no, you can't simply warp out in a planet's gravity well. It's not only that it isn't sure, is that it messes with time and space; not only there's a non-negligible danger of outright dying, but there is also one of appearing far ahead of your supply chains, with the travel needing a lot more than it was supposed to take, and starve in space. Or appear isolated on PACT space and be destroyed by a simple frigate because you're a lone shield Cruiser o logistics ship. And then there's the time it takes to spool the warp drive; the Sunrider already had one of the more advanced versions, with the Seraphim data and a super-human chief engineer, and it still took precious seconds and even various minutes depending on the plot. Not only that, the Paradox Core specifically generates a micro-black hole; all the ships would need to warp out just after firing it, once it detonates then it would surely mess with everything. For the Alliance it would take considerable time only coordinating warping out even inside the gravity well, and for PACT (who knows nothing of the warhead) it would be impossible If you don't have enough, I can give a quote by Samu-kun and the link where he said it: "Ships can barely warp out of a planet's gravity well, so warping out in a black hole's gravity well's even worse. Ships have to clear gravity wells to various degrees depending on how expensive their warp drive is before they can jump to warp." We're not talking about shiny Assault Carriers, but thousands of ships of all classes with various ages and all of them mass-produced. Their warp drives are not the most advanced or expensive. For the rest, I don't disagree? it's obvious that if Grey had survived he would have been recovered, the entire reason he gave the order from the beginning is that he was dying. And holding position like that, it's obvious he was waiting for the rest of the fleet to warp out; however, if it was only doing that was there need to do it so far away from Cera. More chance for the rocket to be intercepted that way, or helping evacuation the ground (no, I don't believe the entire alliance forces on cera were the important officers and diplomats attending the ceremony; even if only to avoid giving PACT total control over it, it's pretty clear the Admirad distrusted Fontana). And, sorry, but Grey is the most respected military man in the Alliance and a presidential candidate, either with a considerable advantage over its competitor or barely behind depending on what you did at Ongess. The Solar congress is divided between progressives and Universalists, and Grey controls the Universalists and then the entire military. It's not that the civilian leadership lets him; is that it can't not let him. He is not Trump, no matter what he looks from our point of view. You seem to continue both overestimating a single world and underestimating the Combined Fleet. The Alliance has a hundred of core world even more populated than Cera, and the Combined Fleet are 1500 ships. Do you really think any country of this world, no matter the civilian control or anything, would doubt to nuke a city of 300.000 habitants in order to avoid losing a third of their entire army (and their most well equipped and veteran third) and open their metropolis to an invasion? Specially when no one else will say anything? Is not that the Admiral is doing the same at Ongess, is that the civilian government would do the same. Remember: "After Far Port, a substantial portion of the Alliance population lost interest in the war, as it became a distant fight in the Neutral Rim against a faraway totalitarian state, rather than a war for survival." Ongess would have been actually worse, because it would blow up the Ongessite deposits and make fuel a lot more expensive and hard to get. But Cera? A lone world in the furthest part of the Neutral Rim? Sure, most civilians would thing "how sad" and officially the government would pay reparations and all, but nothing else. People would even forgive Grey because he died in the incident. Christ, you wrote a lot. You know how sore my hands are from typing out a response to all that? First off... I should point out tha the Agamemnon was a LOCAL LINER that they procured for the express purpose of evacuating Versta's children. And if you try to say "but the Alliance would have provided them with a ship" - keep in mind the Alliance Military didn't expect or want those diplomats leaving Versta. Point being that the Agamemnon/Versta really doesn't count as a representation for Alliance military vessels for emergency warp capability. And at Ryuvia Prime - no, not "everywhere" was safer then there. Not Cera, not Diode, not New Eden or any of the many, many PACT worlds in Neutral Space they might have accidentally warped to... you know, provided they didn't just warp straight into a star. If faced with risks like that, then no I don't think they would just do it - not unless it was to get away from something instantaneously unsurvivable (like, again, the event horizon of a black hole ripping apart a planet). SO, again, I restate - by all accounts, yes you CAN simply warp out in a planet's gravity well. It's just so risky that it's not something you wanna try unless you either don't care where you end up or the damage you might cause to your ship, or are simply too desperate to care. "Non-negligible danger" is still preferable to "certain death by black hole", as is appearing ahead of your supply chains. And it's not like they need to go back to Solaris - just far enough to be out-of-system. But this wasn't even the point I was making - I pointed out that coordinating the Combined Fleet to jump out in unison so as not to risk anyone else was probably why the "Paradox Missile" wasn't fired the moment Gray gave the order; they weren't going to randomly jump out either way. My point was simply that it WAS possible for them to (randomly jump away) if they'd chosen to - it just was risky as all hell (though not risker then trying to survive that missile). But I digress. Regarding the ships, though - again, I think that might just have been more to ensure the Combined Fleet had a nice, sizable window of jump-out time between launching the missile and the actual detonation. And that's even assuming the missile NEEDED to hit Cera as opposed to simply open the black hole close enough to rip Cera out of orbit - depending on how big it was, it could have opened relatively close to where the fleet was and still would have been close enough to devastate Cera and everything there. Presidential CANDIDATE. He leads their military but, until he's in office (and he never will be now it seems), Gray doesn't truly speak for the Alliance - he's not even the sole figure in their military. Only a stand-alone sovereign or dictator, like Arcadius, would ever have the authority to even order the creation of such a weapon, let alone use it. It's BECAUSE he's in the military that he cannot have such singular authority to use a weapon like that - not without consenting agreement from other officials or the president of the nation he serves. I think it's that you're overestimating the amount of authority a democracy would ever give/allow one single person - it was because the civilian government knew Gray was ruthless that they did not want him in charge of the civilian parliament. Do you really think any country of this world willingly portray themselves as MONSTERS of such a scale and give their enemies ample propaganda fuel to use in uniting against them? That kind of thing is only guaranteed if you leave one man with all the power and none of the restrictions - hence why it makes no sense they would let Gray have that kind of authority. Especially not when BOTH sides (Alliance parliament and Fontana's PACT Revolutionists) were pressing for peace now. The death of Gray and the senior officers would draw attention to Cera - It wouldn't be "nothing else"; The death of their 'fearless leaders' would shatter that same air of safety and show fallibility, and the detonation of the Paradox Core would make their leaders look like monsters in the public eye. Cera would be a flashpoint - hell, it already is since the Alliance was using it as justification to continue invading the Rim. Gray wasn't thinking when he used it - he cared for nothing but revenge for his death at that point - hence why, again, I don't think it make sense for one person to have that kind of authority over a WMD! I hope these comments don't get any longer - otherwise it's just going to be us throwing text-walls at one-another and ultimately getting nowhere
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 11:50:16 GMT -8
I think it's you who are not paying that much attention. While Emergency Warps have been done sometimes, it was never in a grvity well, lack of precision is seriously harmful. In Samu-kun's words:
"Warping with nearby heavy gravity is not recommended, as the drive out point becomes more and more inaccurate. If your initial jump angle is off by even a fraction, the huge distance that you travel in a straight line during the jump could mean that you drive out hundreds of light years away from where you intended, possibly in enemy territory, or even inside a planet or a star. The time compensation also becomes inaccurate, so the jump could take longer than expected to an outside observer. A week long jump in ship time could have taken one month of regular time, leading to obvious logistical problems when you arrive at your destination behind schedule. FYI, you can only arrive behind schedule because of an inaccurate jump. It's impossible to accidentally arrive before you left.”
If it was that easy Grey's fleet at Ongess could have warped away from the attack easily, they had more than enough time. The same with the Sunrider and Agemmemon escaping from Versta (and at Versta they had their chief engineer, just not the data from the Seraphim) and basically everywhere, including Ryuvia; even after destroying the BBs and having short range warp available they had to still reach the moon. Even spooling the Warp itself can take time sometimes (first battle at Helion). The warp at the beginning was when they had already been fighting for a while in an undetermined location; considering most fights happen far from the planet and the gravity well and that the Sunrider was not far from where the Legion had just warped in, i think their position should be pretty obvious.
The Alliance or PACT fleet can't simply warp out of there in so few time. And that's not counting the personnel they still have on ground. Heck, why would even be the Machiaveli Actual, the flagship of Grey so far away from the planet when its captain is precisely on the planet if not to fire the torpedo and warp out?
And you have to look at the situation from the Alliance point of view. Being betrayed by PACT, their fleet would be taken by surprise and without leadership; the entire Combined Fleet with its 1500 ships would be decimated. This is basically deciding the war, and the main reason why Grey was given the Paradox Core warhead, to avoid the Combined Fleets destruction, either by Alice or Fontana. The loss of a planet may hurt, but losing the war and opening the core planets to an invasion would be hundred of times worse. This is very different from Mc Arthur stupidity, because this maybe on Korea, but instead of 300.000 soldiers and fighting against China you're fighting against the USSR and have 3.000.000 soldiers and the entire Pacific Fleet who've just been trapped and with all their generals slaughtered. Yes, bombing Korea will be bad PR, but that's better than losing the entire Pacific and opening Hawaii, Alaska and even Los Angeles to a Soviet Invasion. I feel compelled to point out that the bit about Ongess is kind of a complete mistake - the majority of the Combined Fleet was docked to fuel-stations and scaffolds. He couldn't have jumped out either way because the majority of the fleet was inactive, which was the whole reason they were forced to play defensive against Fontana and Cosette. Same for Versta - the Agamemnon didn't have Chigara and, being a civilian liner, it's warp-drive wouldn't be anywhere near as advanced as the Sunrider's. Slingshotting around the moon at Ryuvia was so that they could make a PRECISION jump to a safe system - if they tried a random jump with the issues of a Gravity Well, they could have ended up crashing into a star or shooting into PACT space instead of Alliance, but the point is that it didn't mean they couldn't jump; just that it's risky and not the recommended first choice if you can help it.
So, by all accounts... yes. Yes the Alliance and PACT fleets COULD simply warp out of there that quickly - it would simply be disorganized and uncoordinated, with a high chance of ending up god-knows-where. But then again, even that's arguably better then being caught in the event horizon of a black hole as it devours a planet. Another thing - they only acted that way after Gray was dead. For all we know, they would have approached the planet to recover Gray had he survived. And it probably held position like that so that the rest of the fleet could have it's chance to warp out. Most of the troops on Cera were PACT and Alice/Chigara's actions pretty much wiped out the Alliance forces. Hell, getting as much of the fleet warped out as possible was probably the ONLY reason they didn't immediately fire the missile. PACT taking advantage of that delay to evacuate as many of their own as possible could explain why they didn't just up and flee randomly either - both sides had reasons not to immediately jump out even if they could when you think about it.
But you're again missing his point - namely that if the entire Alliance Military leadership is there, it doesn't make sense to give the trigger to just one man out of all of them. Especially not the one with the proven hothead streak. And I point out that Gray was willing to blow the Combined Fleet away before at Ongess to secure victory - blowing that world up would have had similar effects. This is, for all intents and purposes, Ongess all over again. Gray's proven that he'd rather everyone lose if he/the Alliance can't win, so that is pretty close to McArthur stupidity.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 8:37:15 GMT -8
I think you didn't receive feedback on the story because (A) there wasn't much story at the time to give feedback on, and (B) people kinda expected it to at least match the depth of the past games. They didn't think/know this was something to worry about. Speaking as a layman, but I don't see how you COULDN'T have seen concerns with having Kayto & Chigara get railroaded together.
IDK if you remember... but Chigara was once winning the popularity contests (She'd either be no.1 in or tie with Ava and Sola) - But do you remember when that stopped? When she got less popular?
It was when it became obvious that there wasn't likely going to be much choice in her being the Romance Interest.
And if what you're saying is true... I'm sorry, but that almost makes it WORSE - like you gutted romance development in this game for something so arbitrary. What happened in LD could have been done without making it a Chigara romance - with the exception of the sex-scenes and obvious flirting, a lot of those scenes could have worked for a brother-sister bond instead of romance, and Asaga's jealousy could still have worked because of disbelieving any claims it wasn't what she thought.
And there's another problem - you're trying to pin the failing for this on the beta testers!!! A Beta typically deals with GAMEPLAY MECHANICS, not story stuff - if you wanted that reviewed, you tend to have to SPECIFY that, because the primary purpose of a beta is typically to iron out gameplay bugs instead of story ones. Plus, people thought LD was going to be much longer - not that what they saw in the beta was going to be 50% - 70% of the whole thing. I don't think Sam is trying to pin the blame on anyone, just offer a possible cause of why overall direction of the game veered away from general fan expectation. that said, I've seen some of the new post-ending content of V2.0 and I highly recommend giving that a chance when it comes out. Forgive my skepticism, but I would in turn highly recommend looking at the many reviews - the ending was not the real problem. It would have been perfectly acceptable had the mid-game content been done better - unless that changes, I feel no amount of post-ending content is going to rectify ANYTHING, especially not in the long-term. Hell, I actually think it might be tantamount to rubbing salt in the wound.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 7:00:08 GMT -8
Well, for what matters, we're working hard to fix the most glaring issues. 1) Yes, I agree that the ending rubbed people the wrong way, which is why we're all working overtime to create what was planned as the beginning of the fourth installment to add into the game for free. 2) Yes, MoA voices certainly can be added to the game and Vaendryl planned to code this in eventually after the release anyways, we just had too many other things to do. We are adding them back. 3) I'm not so sure we can make more story by cutting the voices. The voices were actually contracted out to an agency, and in reality, I personally only had to spend 4 days directing to get all of them. So even if I cut then, I only get 4 days of my time back to add more story, whereas with less gameplay, I get months back to write hundreds of pages of story. I really don't know why the voices are being treated as the scapegoat. I mean, I need to allocate my time since there's only so many hours in a day so I can't draw hundreds of mecha CGs, design and balance dozens of battles, and write a thousand page story, I gotta decide what to focus on. 1) I know it'll sound rude... but I don't think that'll really fix much. I mean... you gave a 'To Be Continued', so most people already know that, in spite of how it looked, there was going to be more after this point. Taking part of the intro for the next game, breaking it off and sticking it at the end of LD might just make people more sore. 2 ) In hindsight... maybe you should have had full VA's be implemented well after the release. Like what Fate/Stay Night did in first getting a story made, THEN creating and implementing a speech pack (or I think that's what they did, right? At least as far as Fate/Hollow Ataraxia goes). At least then, nobody could say it was the cost of VA's that caused an upset. 3) Thing is... what's available right now might have been a bit more passable had there been more variation to it. Maybe having Kayto commit to anyone at this stage was actually just too early. And I actually seem to recall you saying that ensuring you had all the time to do all of this was precisely why you weren't going to rush development and instead did "when it's ready" taglines. My own suggestion on how it could have been avoided... well, make Liberation Day episodic, like a small-scale version of Telltale Game's template. That way you wouldn't have needed to do "hundreds" of mecha CG's and everything else all at once. And if you need writers to help with this, I should point out that you have no shortage of willing members - hell, after all the work I've done on the Wiki I'd be more then willing to contribute suggestions, if nothing else.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 6:39:20 GMT -8
Well, honestly I think one of the things that did us in was a huge misunderstanding during our beta test process. I legitimately thought all this time that we were making an indie Japanese tactics RPG game with some VN elements. Basically, we spent the majority of our time analyzing the huge game play analysis write ups that our beta testers provided, and devising new units, strategies, items, and balance which will appeal to them. We didn't receive much feedback regarding the story during the beta test, certainly nothing on the level of Drath's gameplay analysis posts, so it never even occurred to us there were issues with the story. We heard some vague comments and grumblings from Marx, but we couldn't really figure out what he was alluding to. We all liked J tactics games, so we thought this was cool, and put a lot of effort into making larger and larger battles with more and more unit types since that seemed to be what the testers cared about. I was actually concerned there was too much story, because all the tactics RPGs I've played never took the player away from the game play as much as Liberation Day and made sure to breeze through the plot so that you could get back to the gameplay soon. I was also not really concerned about Kayto temporarily getting hitched with Chigara, since most of the JRPGs I've played have had forced romance, and everyone on the dev team already know that this wasn't really a real romance route anyways, just some plot development. Likewise, I wasn't really concerned with the lack of choices, since most of the JRPGs I've played didn't have many meaningful choices and mostly had linear story lines. I was shocked to discover on release day that people actually skipped most of the gameplay by playing on waifu mode, and breezed through the story in just 3-4 hours. Well, yeah, it's to be expected that the game would be short then, because you essentially took a tactics RPG, skipped all the tactics RPG, and just read the story. It's a pretty stupid reason in hindsight, but this time I think it was just a dumb misunderstanding caused by a bad feedback loop between the developers and the beta testers where the testers talked 80% about the game play, and then the developers thought that people want 80% of the game to be about the battles and figured the story should just be short and to the point so that they can just go back to the battles. It was a pretty costly mistake too because the game flopped, but I think we can survive. I really hope that next time, an entire product doesn't collapse just because of some dumb misunderstanding. I think you didn't receive feedback on the story because (A) there wasn't much story at the time to give feedback on, and (B) people kinda expected it to at least match the depth of the past games. They didn't think/know this was something to worry about. Speaking as a layman, but I don't see how you COULDN'T have seen concerns with having Kayto & Chigara get railroaded together.
IDK if you remember... but Chigara was once winning the popularity contests (She'd either be no.1 in or tie with Ava and Sola) - But do you remember when that stopped? When she got less popular?
It was when it became obvious that there wasn't likely going to be much choice in her being the Romance Interest.
And if what you're saying is true... I'm sorry, but that almost makes it WORSE - like you gutted romance development in this game for something so arbitrary. What happened in LD could have been done without making it a Chigara romance - with the exception of the sex-scenes and obvious flirting, a lot of those scenes could have worked for a brother-sister bond instead of romance, and Asaga's jealousy could still have worked because of disbelieving any claims it wasn't what she thought. And there's another problem - you're trying to pin the failing for this on the beta testers!!! A Beta typically deals with GAMEPLAY MECHANICS, not story stuff - if you wanted that reviewed, you tend to have to SPECIFY that, because the primary purpose of a beta is typically to iron out gameplay bugs instead of story ones. Plus, people thought LD was going to be much longer - not that what they saw in the beta was going to be 50% - 70% of the whole thing.
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