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Right. Cloaking.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ButtonMash, Apr 13, 2014.

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  1. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    Lol, sorry. I would have definatly fleshed out the fullest extent of the description, time allotted, however as you've probabbly noticed, I like to write alot. I have to paraphrase for myself, However, I have made these drawbacks apparent in other situations which they were used, and the person who encountered them reacted naturally. He went into alert, Swung out a shotgun, and cautiously made his way to the controll room to put out an alert. If you are who I think you are, You just said, and I quote "((Get out.", Assuming I was just doing it to annoy you. I asked you to not meta, as it's part of the roleplay, and to act naturally, You obliged, Pulled out a gattling gun bigger than yourself and maintained a continous stream of bullets on me. Whether you were I/C or otherwise, It wasn't a reaction to be taken seriously, so I disengaged the rp with you, (If a little impolitely. It was rather late.). I Do Apologize if I came off as mean towards you last night. I was far past fatigued, But threatening to evict me OOC Because of IC actions Because you "Have the right because you built the place" Didn't help either.
     
  2. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    If I may point somthing else out, And "The Overseer", whoever you are, Not trying to throw you under the bus here, I'm simply using you as a point of reference, But That character accosted Marathon (Somehow. Perhaps it was already established he was a bad guy? I'm not quite sure.), Ended up stuck in the scanner, And was gunned down, However moments before they opened the scanner doors, He went completely invisible, And only died due to the overzealous marines blindly firing inside.

    Other than a collective "Woah, Wtf? Did he log out?" From everyone, including myself, After he made it apparent that his character, now riddled with holes, had actually just went invisible, Nobody seemed to argue against it.

    Perhaps because he was dead already, so he wouldn't be doing it again, sure. But there wasn't a meticulous ((Loose)) Scientific backing behind it, Or any sort of established flaws in it, Everyone just kinda went with it. Why is my situation so different? Does my character have to be deceased for the ability to be okay? Because that seems like a harsh balance.
     
  3. Punished Tacc

    Punished Tacc New Member

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    Last person who pulled invisibility flew around dropping firebombs. I personally have lost all tolerance for malarky, to the point where if I see something god-moddy, ridiculous, or unexplained I will eject them. What's your character's backstory? How did they get access to this? If it's readily available, why doesn't everyone do it?

    Your choice of emote was poor to say the least. "Disappearing into thin air" is leagues away from *faintly cloaks with an apparent shimmer*. Also, is the effect instantaneous? Would it not take some time for the fluid to spread across your body? What kind of medical drawbacks does this have? Something of an electrical nature spreading throughout your entire body could have negative affects on your nervous system. Does it work through clothes? Is it painful? Is there a finite supply?

    Questions keep things realistic and plausible. Otherwise, I could say Ashe has nanites that turn him into Senator Armstrong instantaneously and punch everyone to death while not taking damage at all.
     
  4. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    I apreciate your Metal gear rising reference, And will gladly answer the host of your questions, if you'll entertain my train of thought.
    I do feel I've already touched over the basics of a number of most of your questions in my previous posts, however, I'll run over them again.

    Firstly, I explained that there isn't much allotted time to post "The Floran's arm began crawling over with nothingness, A grin on his face as the agent forced it's way through his blood stream, his body, and surprisingly enough his Floran themed armor starting to evaporate from the man's feild of vision untill his body was fully occupied by the gunk, The magnetic reaction from the ferrous fluid causing the light around him to bend in such a way that would suggest somthing was there, but not fully, the image of where he stood distorted by the less than complete system of cloaking, The Floran seeming smarmy and content with his percived 'foot-up' on the human", But I think one would lose interest after a while. When I first did this to the chap mentioned before, The one who reacted fluidly and naturally, Oscar, It was closer to his, as I was just beta-testing people's tollerance of the ability, And he seemed fine, Satisfied with the reaction of what I can only assume was a seasoned rper's reaction to it, I felt that Paraphrasing it would be acceptable as well.

    Secondly, A mischievous floran looking for a way to sink out of a unsavory conversation, does not a Flying, bomber-greifer make.

    Thirdly, My character's backstory is that he's the runt of a Floran litter on some backwater Floran planet that had yet to get the opportunity to reverse engineer space travel due to it's dessolation. Being a fair bit shorter than most of the warriors, and bounds weaker, He resorted to misdirection and "Backstabbing". Flanking during mass tribal confrontations, Sleight of hand. (See: The Spy, Circa Tf2, Sans Disguise device.) And benefeited for it. His superiors in his clan were always baffled at him comming back in one piece. Eventually when the first, unlucky visitor came to his planet, he was fortunate enough to be awarded the use of the ship, (Once fully researched) and now uses it to come and go as he pleases.

    Now slightly faster paced,
    4. Button Mash, Now with full facilities in Marathon, and nothing to do, after the denial of experimentation on the cadaver of "The Overseer", despite cries of a very useful outecome, and even, if applicable, Replication, duplication, and even production of the cloaking device he had, Seethed in his being kept down. Not to be overlooked, and with a new, overzealous Floran subject, eeger to better himself any way he possibly could, He began trying any range of things he could possibly think of within the bounds of the physics to make this being see-through. The pay-off for him would have been the bragging rights, and an ability to gloat.

    5. It's not readilly available, the process took just north of a few weeks, and isn't very comfortable, or practical.

    6. Some people have Trypanophobia, And take frequent baths. The delivery method and application isn't feasible for them.

    7. The effects are dependant on his heartrate, however the injection method is made to be as quick as it can without warping his veins. ((Or roots?))

    8. Assuming Floran have the same physiology as a human being, Because a heart compresses and retracts, forcing blood rather surprisingly fast through the human body, as well as metabolizing it, and the such, The metabolizing portion, (If you bothered to read one of my earlier posts, which I have a sinking suspicion you have neglected to do) would be spark the slow end to his translucent journey. However, the slower his heartrate, the slower it metabolizes, Not taking into account how strong or weak his metabolism is, Sitting still, (The preferred method of use for the device) Would help it last longer.

    9. It has many, many medical drawbacks, and most likely shaves years off his life with every use, However, The Floran was not health-sensitive at the time of consent.

    10. that's fine, I don't know how magnets work either.

    11, 12, 13 Respectivly. Yes, About as painful as an IV shooting low-pressure bursts of liquid into your veins, and Yes.

    Now, about those nanites. Did you know there's currently a study on cockroaches that involves attaching Nanites with a payload of medicine into the Strands of DNA inside the cockroach, Delivering the medicine when given a signal?
    The applications are infinite.
    Think of the war economy.
     
    #24 ButtonMash, Apr 13, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 13, 2014
  5. Punished Tacc

    Punished Tacc New Member

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    That doesn't answer the most important question of where did it come from, and how you got it.

    Also, that doesn't make sense. If it takes time to activate, wouldn't you activate it out of sight and wait for it to fully take affect? That's just lazy, and god moddy. If it takes time to take effect gradually, and yet you can use it when the situation demands, you are exploiting it.
     
  6. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    I'll put it into simpler terms.

    Jealous that he couldn't work on The Overseer's invisibility device, He sought to replicate it of his own accord. The Floran voulenteered because Button Promised him he could make him stronger.

    Also, I didn't want to break out google, but,
    https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081203093048AAelTP8
    there you are.
    There isn't an easily parced answer to why it's effects were so rapid.
    I could grasp at straws to say "His heartrate could have been high, as he was being threatened by a marshall outside of his right"?

    Surely it was a bit heavy handed to equip the camera-man helmate as soon as the post disappeared, but in terms of roleplay, Effect and emotion are to be taken into concideration. I was looking for a surprised "-The Marshall stood up, gun drawn, now on alert, eyes wide, he scanned infront of him-
    And I wouldn't have even been surprised if I got a "-The Marshall jumped into action, Raising his rifle, He fired off in a steady spray from the hip, Ripping a massive, gutteral wound through the Floran by chance-". But you didn't do any of that. You went "((Get out." And When I asked you to be serious, You hopped onto the sandbags and unloaded a massive splitbullet Gattling gun into my character.

    How does he carry that massive Mini-gun?
    why is he allowed to fire on unarmed, registered citizens showing no force?
    Could it be that you were annoyed OOC By the floran making a point to annoy the Marshall IC, for his own amusement?
    How was he able to fire that stream of powerful bullets as steady as he did?
    Why wasn't he screaming "Cry sum moar" as he did? I feel it's a bit uncharacteristic to weild a minigun with lazer-point accuracy and not be fazed at all without being the Heavy class.
     
  7. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    Now, look Tacc. I don't Enjoy Arguing these points against you. I Would Like, however, for whatever official is supposed to rule over this presiding to make his ruling, put this behind us, and be friends, having been better for it in the future. I Do Very much appreciate the immence effort it must have taken for you to build Marathon, However, I Don't Appreciate you threatening to evict me OOC for IC reasons, With your justification being "I built the place.".
    I feel I've adequately answered all of your questions, and a fair range of future questions can be answered through implication if you took the time to look back at my previous posts, (Which, And you have my apologies for, Might be a while. Lol.) therefore, I'm going to disengage in this embroilment, and return to my work.
    I've got a 5 page essay due at no later than 1:25pm tomorrow afternoon, to none other than Mrs. Satan's Wife herself, And I feel my Adderal Xr wearing off, A substance that's detrimental to my work ethic.
    Apon wearing off, I'll be nothing short of a belligerent, sore mess of anger. So I'd rather not talk to you untill i'm in my right mind tomorrow.
    You have my apologies if I in any way disrupted your roleplaying experience, Whether it be properly justified or otherwise.
    Have a good day. (That, of which, I do not mean in a passive agressive way. I hope you go on to enjoy a short sabbatical from my presence.)
     
  8. Punished Tacc

    Punished Tacc New Member

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    ...So your alt made it for him.
    I know you're already gone, but I'm going to respond to this anyway.

    - I'm no doctor, but I do know the floran was not being immediately threatened. The Marshal was asking him to leave, and was unarmed at that time.
    - If there's no answer as to why or why not, then you should avoid it
    - I refused to roleplay with something that isn't feasible.
    - This was a little childish on my part, but I felt the serious response that would reflect yours would be an OOC minigun to the face
    - The effects and emotions were not outlined, and I wasn't made aware you would be testing something not okayed by staff on our colony. It is not my responsibility to know what you want to have happen
    - He doesn't carry a massive minigun IC, that is an item given to me to showcase the potential for gun-smithing
    - I didn't but if I was a guard in a hotzone, and someone went invisible in front of me, I would probably assume it's a hostile action and open up. Why would ANYONE turn invisible in front of an armed guard in a high tension area and not expect to get lit up?
    - that was OOC, if it was IC you'd be dead and it would have been with a service pistol or pulse rifle

    I am threatening to eject you for the following reason: does not promote good roleplay. I know it seems silly when I immediately threatened you with OOC, but you made no warning that you would be testing out invisibility on my planet. The fact that Oscar responded the way you wanted is fine, but I'm not going to tolerate super powers that aren't even explained. Hell, you got the power from one of your alts, which is shady and frowned upon.

    You did not adequately answer all my questions. And my questions are going to be very similar to the questions the staff asks you.
     
  9. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    Look, Tacc. I can't help but feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I really don't want to argue with you any further about this, And would instead prefer to let one of the admins or the such give me the final answer.

    Seeing it from your perspective, I totally get it. And yeah, It was sort of a "Huh, Yeah, that would kinda set the character apart from your average floran... Let's see if we can work this in" on my part. It's about my 4th, I belive, 5th day on the server, I wasn't aware I had to clear unique powers with the admins. At the time, I was a bit mad at you for the silly "Gattling gun to the face" thing, but looking back, I was just a tad tired, and a bit embarrassed you weren't taking the power well.
    Again, you have my apologies for disrupting your roleplaying experience at all. I wasn't aiming to do that. However, I'll leave the final decision to the Admins. ((Which, btw, do I have to Pm them with this? Or what.))

    This reminds me faintly of a time I went to DM a skype-based rp group. It was my first time handling somthing with quite the scale that it had. there were about 9 people, myself included, and my character was to drive the plot. I didn't know what "Railroading" was, and didn't know it was a huge detriment to the whole plot, And that it would anger everybody.
    Natrually, the group fell apart with disinterest towards my roleplaying ineptitude, However I learned from it, and I bet a fair amount that I could run the same campaign as a compelling, intricatly woven story without a hitch.

    I find that this is somewhat like our current situation. Being new to this medium of roleplay, I simply followed "Monkey-see-Monkey-do" Protocol. I thought it was an interesting angle when The Overseer vanished into thin air, And The interesting, but overall malignant conflict the floran created when he decided to test (Ic, of course.) his new ability out, curious how the soldier would react. Now, Out of character, After two instances of use that wasn't immediatly thrown into dispute my those who beheld it, I thought it would be fine.

    To sum it up, and you'll have to forgive me for this wall of text, But The makers of Halo:Combat evolved didn't explain the intricate ins and outs of the active camo the aliens had. They implimented it to add a surprising burst of "Oh, shit, what?" When you see that energy sword bobbing towards you from across the room. That's sort of how I thought it would be, and really, I do feel rather silly for thinking such.

    (Edit) (Lol, I don't want to add Metagaming to the list of charges against me, but even if the thing is accepted, I'll try to keep it as a "Last resort", Or not at all with him. I understand you're iffy about it, and I don't want to step on anybody's toes over such piffle as a late night fatigue grudge match.)
     
    #29 ButtonMash, Apr 13, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 13, 2014
  10. Terallis

    Terallis Dark Matter of Fact

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    Just to add my two cents and perhaps they've already been covered. I mostly skimmed everything to this point, save for a few of the posts.

    First off, just thinking about the idea of cloaking itself, it seems like it would just be far more simplistic to go with tech like anywhere else. A stealth field that comes up (which is actually something being researched. The major thing that's preventing it from becoming something huge is the power source, really. You'd need a battery with the power of a nuclear reactor.) or even just something like a suit with nanofibers that refract light or something. I mean, Starbound isn't really science-fact. It's science-fiction.

    Next, I personally don't like the idea of anyone using the invisibility type of ability /at all/. Standard, that is only in the Camera Man Helmet, and it's main purpose is meant for... literally making videos or screenshots and avoid having your character in it. Making a trailer would be a great example. It just doesn't seem like something that should ever be used in anything remotely close to an RP situation.

    In addition, it does still remain as something that is very unfair and doesn't have you on equal ground to anyone else through the mechanics themselves. I do agree with the fact that this is something that everyone should have, or no one should have. Personally more in favour of the latter. But to further make this more on an equal footing, people could honestly mention that they have some form of IR goggles. This kind of tech would refract light. Not disguise heat emissions that come from the body. So honestly, even with using this form of cloaking IC, anything that detects heat could pick it up. Hell, if it's tech, something that can pick up electromagnetic signatures could detect the person as well.

    In the end, I'd personally just rather no one use the sort of invisibility at all, or if they must, RP it out or something. The mechanical invisibility is so stupid for RP.
     
  11. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    I appreciate your opinion, It's constructive, and adds to the growing pattern of dislike i'm noticing towards invisibility.
    I'd like to preface my reply with "I'm not really defending my choises anymore."
    On that note, It just happens that I considered both of those options, but, Button Mash, in all his "Hands on experience" wouldn't know anything about building a micro-nuclear reactor, Or putting together a nano-fibre suit. He's more of a "Oh, this does that when I do this?" "Trial and error learner".
    Also, The idea of the Camera Man Helmet was, again just somthing I did because I saw someone mention it as the reason The Overseer went invisible. I thought it would be a good, organic way to make whoever was engaged in the scene feel like the person was invisible. Rather than just Rping it out, while my sprite stands there, Feeling it would be a bit flaccid.
     
  12. Terallis

    Terallis Dark Matter of Fact

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    Fair enough. I was just stating what I think though, anyways. Honestly, if there were a more RP friendly way of going into some sort of cloak, I'd be more for it. But yeah. Overall, the IR goggles idea is one of the biggest flaws in using cloaking like that. But in the end, the admins would have the final say. Lets see their take on it.

    But overall, yeah. Everyone should be running that sort of thing by the admins before actually doing it. :3 Dunno if Overseer did that or not, personally, but it really should be done with stuff like that, for sure.
     
  13. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    In fact, I don't think I'll be waiting for the Admins' ruling. The only reason I fought so fervently with my words, is that when I first got into the arguement with Tacc, I was tired, and took it personally. "That one dude can have invisibility, but I can't? What the heck?! He's not even taking this rp seriously." I thought in my sleepy stupor.

    However, Now I realize I was wrong. Apon talking to Tacc, further fleshing out how he felt, his side of the story, his discrepancies and the such, It wasn't personal. For all he knew, I could be some fresh out of the barrel 10 year old from a building server who joined on accident and thought "Acting like starbound is fun!". It wasn't personal, I now find, Rather it was more of a "Oh, shit. Here we go again." Thing after this "Firebomb dropping Cloaker" incident I've heard of.

    As for everybody chiming in, in a friendly, constructive manner, Giving their opinion, and nothing more, I've come to find that, again, It's not personal. I just happened to gravitate towards a god awful unique power that's been abused and left a horrid taste in the mouth of all who beheld it.

    In this moment of clairvoyance, I do think I'll retconn the whole "Cloaking" thing, as it is a bit of a nuisance to the other rpers, I've now come to find.

    So that you can see it from my point of veiw as well, Tacc, The well for RP potential in Marathon for anybody who isn't in the Military is a barren one.
    The "Invisibility" Thing was about... Let's say 39% Me just wanting to be able to create conflict where before, there was none, As The most 'plot altering' thing any of my characters has been involved in was Button Mash performing the emergency medical resuscitation of some random avian that made his way to the front gate.

    When I think back on it, I do feel very much foolish. I should have known when making it "If it needed This Many Drawbacks to come off as appealing, I'm probably doing it wrong. So yes. I do think I'll be retconning the "Cloaking", ability. Again, My apologies for taking it personally, and letting my judgement get so clouded.
     
  14. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    He seemed like a tottally chill dude. When they were poking at his body and dragging him around, He totally went with it. Other than fuckin' with them with subtle hints he might be alive in the description of his gruesome death, He seemed like a very experienced rper. I know I would have been super butt-rustled if one of my characters got gunned down super hard with no fore-warning. And perhaps he was? Perhaps the Invisibility was his one sliver of hope that he could have managed not to get hit, skipped on out of the base and lived to a ripe old age, but surely he realized "Naw, that'd be super fuckin' lame." about one line of rp later, Rping out his character being nothing more than a new red coat of paint on the scanner.
    (Much quicker than /I/ came to terms with it.)

    (Edit. Ironically, I just had to define a word I didn't know in this book report that described me perfectly. "Obstinate".))
     
    #34 ButtonMash, Apr 13, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 13, 2014
  15. Awe

    Awe Gotta go fast!

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    This is getting out of control so I'll just ask a simple question.

    What does this cloaking actually add to your character besides a potentially OP piece of tech?
     
  16. Bloodrazer

    Bloodrazer Son of Rakkis

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    First: if this is stored in the bloodstream how does it keep your immune system from attacking it and your body ripping itself apart to try and kill it.
    Second: to be able to cover your entire body plus clothes plus anything you may be holding means that you are displacing a LOT of blood because more than likely there is a large reservoir to form to any object you may be holding.
    Third: how does it determine the difference from your clothes and the stuff in your hands from a wall that you happened to touch or the floor.
    Fourth: How is this stuff not toxic.
    Fifth: a floran MAY be able to use this if we account for stomas and all that good planty stuff but for any other race this stuff leaving their pores will absolutely shred them.
    Sixth: what happens when you say, open your mouth. does it flood into there too to be able to maintain the invisibility? because that seems like a bad idea.

    as a personal note, I really, REALLY hate the nano-bots bullshit that some people pull because realisticly even in the future nano bots are incredibly hard to produce and even harder to control. The camera man helmet in my opinion is something that never should have existed though some people like mattulip have found interesting ways to use it for RP (I.E. A monster hiding in ducts). By their power combines it sounds to me like you have a great potential for me to ignore your every action unless you can find a more realistic way to figure this out.

    also this. Tech and abilities dont make a character good. Good RP makes a character good.

    SUPER EDIT: just actually read instead of skimming. questions still stand but if you dont feel like answering then dont.
     
  17. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    Lol, It's probabbly because I type so much, but I just said "Ah, screw it. I'll retcon it. People don't like it" just a few posts back. Whether I can justify it or not isn't important to me anymore, because even if I got it through, People would dislike it. That would be selfish of me.
     
  18. ButtonMash

    ButtonMash New Member

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    Naw, they were good, medically based questions. but I'm just retconning it. From the mass of people that don't like it, I don't feel like I'd even want it if I could have it. Nah'mean?

    I could probably argue a few of these questions, But yeah. I realized already how obstinate I've been. It's not like it would bring much to the rp anyway.
     
  19. Twitch

    Twitch Wayward Star

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