Redlynne

I have a decided preference for Option A, because the "vent holes" are either there to let the Actor breathe ... or are a speaker for the voice of the person in the bubble.

I'm going to give you even more feedback than an All Or Nothing choice. Overall, I vote for B ... but there are parts and pieces from choices A and C that I think would be superior to have grafted onto B.

#1 ... I *want* that Glow you've got scheduled for option B! That Glow was the deciding factor in my vote. For the rest, I'll just break things dow according to how the Costume Creator organizes stuff.



Chest, Bottoms and Sleeves
I have a strong preference for the "Stealth Suit like" flexible fabric regions shown in Design B. Those are the most "sensible" and also offer the greatest opportunity for Two Tone Regions of the three available choices. My only regret with Design B is the front facing zipper. Zippers like that are hardly pressure proof, making this less of a "space" suit (of the vacuum protection variety) than options A and C. For the record, I don't care too much for the buttons/studs along the edges of Design B ... although if they were pre-tinted Brass, that would be totally Retro Sci-Fi.

Chest Detail
I *very much* like the choice of Design A for having a Chest Detail plate with Das Blinken Lighten on it.

Shoulders
This is a harder pick, since none of the shoulders really "reach out and grab me" as the obviously most superior choice. Of the three though, I'd say that the shoulders on Design A are the most Retro Sci-Fi in my view. To be honest though, I'd rather use something like the original Smooth Shoulders piece as a hard shoulder plate than any of the options given here. Taking the original Smooth Shoulders costume part, and giving it glowing edges would work quite well, I'm thinking.

Gloves
I like Design B's gloves best of all since they're "work gloves" in appearance. However, a case could easily be made for Design A's gloves to be included also as a Light/Heavy option, like we see with other costume sets (such as Vanguard Light/Heavy Gloves). So if possible, I'd want both A and B Gloves to be made available with this set.

Belt
Nothing really special here, since the Belt on Design B is essentially a stock and standard Office Worker belt that already exists in the game. Now ... if this were a hip holster for a ray gun pistol (or two, see already existing Official Belt with police nightstick and radios for comparison) ... that would be different.
Another option would be to take the example of Design A's Chest Detail and give us a Sci-Fi Tech Belt that has control panels with Das Blinken Lighten on it too.

Boots
Of the various Boot choices, for me the hands down favorite is Design B. One thing that I do want to specify is that just looking at the picture, I see the knee protection in Design B as being something that is a part of the Tucked In Bottoms, rather than as something that is a geometry projection from the Boot itself. So the knee protectors in Design B are cloth on the legs, rather than plates on the boots. I also strongly prefer the boot treads on Design B to either A or C.

Backpack
Notably absent from all three designs is any sort of Backpack option. I'm thinking Apollo Era styled EVA backpack used for environmental support would be the way to go here, although perhaps not scaled quite so large. You could also repurpose the Holiday Jingle Jet and/or Longbow Eagle Jetpack here as a way to give an appropriately Retro Sci-Fi look to the entire costume set.



About Design C ...
When I look at Design C, I don't see a Sci-Fi "space suit" so much as I see a Space 1899 Knight In Plate Mail Armor. It looks like something more fit for robotics than humans, and makes for a much better ARMORED look than either A or B. I'd even go so far as to say that Design C would make a good start for a Medieval Costume Set (minus the Sci-Fi bits on the Gloves and Boots). I just look at Design C and think "metal plates" for some reason.

Suffice to say ... that's not the foundation for a build I'd want to be playing ...

This is one of the problems I find with "laundry lists" like this, where individually the recommendations are good ... but in aggregate they just don't "add up" into a viable build that would be fun to play (imho).

No, it's not ... but then, that's exactly what I get out of the intercutting scene with Marcus and Monica and Statesman is not only having his life burned away out of him, but also his powers stolen. There's a realization on Statesman's part that not only has he been PLAYED, he's also overmatched. He's given an opportunity for his "Final Last Words" and to the end, he plays The Hero ... insisting that even if he should fall, Darrin will never succeed ... which sounds trite (as Darrin scoffs) but is also the true core of Statesman's identity.

In the end, he faced death the same way he faced life ... WITHOUT HATRED.



There is a tangential point to all of SSA 5 that I'd like to point out. It's pretty clearly stated that "The Trap" used on Statesman is the same one which destroyed BOTH Imperious and Romulus in Cimeroran Times. Yet here, it's only being used to take out Statesman. There is no implication of any kind that Lord Recluse is simultaneously affected here ... meaning that once word gets out (because the player was THERE), old Lord Recluse will NOT be falling for the same trap!

Because out of all of the Incarnates that we know about, Lord Recluse is the only one who FIGHTS the Well of the Furies! Even though he walks "the dark path" he is not about to let the Well "forever dominate your destiny, consume you it will!" ... as it did Tyrant (and his apprentices). Make no mistake ... he wants the *POWER* that the Well gives him, but he very much doesn't want the Strings Attached that comes with that.

And Lord Recluse did build THE WEB ... which is the whole focus of the Statesman Task Force. Kinda makes you wonder what sort of trap Lord Recluse would lay for the man who slew his (former) Best Friend (and brother-in-law).



And then there's the Well of the Furies itself. Will it "allow" Darrin Wade to summon/merge with Rularuu and consume/destroy the entirety of the human race, throughout the dimensions (since Primal is the nexus, and has Portal Corp operational)? After all, if humanity is no more ... will the Well ... dry up? That would ironically put the Well of the Furies in a position of being motivated to "stop" Darrin Wade from succeeding in his plan ... which could get ... interesting. Because absolutely NOTHING that has been revealed so far indicates that Darrin Wade knows, or understands, that the Well of the Furies is a Force to be reckoned with in its own right. He may have been able to "game out" the motivations and actions of the Freedom Phalanx so as to anticipate (and force!) their every move ... but I don't see him knowing about, or how to deal with, the Well of the Furies. That then leads to a Wild Card circumstance, where the Well itself could "choose" in a way that Darrin Wade never foresaw or anticipated ... leaving YOU there to enforce/support the Will of the Well of the Furies.



Darrin Wade: "Mighty Rularuu, JOIN WITH ME!"

Well of the Furies: "Hmm, you seem to have violated the terms of your End User License Agreement for being Zeus. Your powers are hereby revoked and rendered Null and Void. Have a nice day."

Well of the Furies has Debilitated Darrin Wade.

Darrin Wade: "Wait ... what?"

Rularuu snacks on the offering of a Distracted (and extremely mortal) Darrin Wade.

Darrin Wade has been Defeated by Rularuu.
The "hospital" Darrin Wade goes to is NOT A NICE PLACE.

$Character: "Okay Portal Corp, do your thing and seal that Rift!"

(the rest of the cutscene involves a lot of flashpots and really big spinning MAGNETS resulting in a blinding whiteout flash of light)

That would be Dimension Shift failing to fill this role in an acceptable way that doesn't REWARD hostiles with time to Regenerate, Recover and Recharge their powers.

There are some Unlockable Contacts over on Redside that you can't "get to" through the Flashback system, because completing the arc of the pre-req Contact(s) doesn't get you an "introduction" to the Unlock Contact. The Radio in Port Oakes is the most obvious example of this (but by no means the only one).

Another example of expanded Flashback functionality would be enabling the ability to go back and run Newspaper/Police Scanner missions in particular level ranges so as to get the corresponding Bank/Mayhem missions via Flashback.

Gun Drone (Devices) and Phantasm (Illusion Control) don't have a Brawl attack. Guess what? They rush up into melee range to get clobbered for no good reason too ...

Part of the reason why I committed the SACRILEGE of slotting Gravitic Emanation with Kinetic Crash(!) on my Warshade. Bumps the KB up to 24.69 Mag(!) ... which is enough to send just about anyone short of an AV flying, even if they've got KB Protection (I'm looking at you, Cimeroran Traitors...). Stun duration is 13.41 seconds, but the recharge (in the context of my build) is 16.17 seconds ... and it's actually pretty rare for me to need to Gravitic Emanation the same group of Mobs twice, so it's not as if a dramatically increased Stun Duration is a tremendous advantage (to me).

Sure you can. Their (hell)fireworks just shoot down, instead of up.

Unless if you're a Peacebringer, in which case the unhelpful knockBACK is a "feature" rather than a self-defeating annoyance.

Discuss.

Over this past weekend, I sent a PM to Arbiter Hawk asking him a Feasibility Question for an idea I had for Kheldians ... since I had no idea if it was possible to do or not (without breaking the game in the process). And wonder of wonders, I got a response from him!

Turns out the idea I had is something they've kicked around internally already before I asked (ie. Great Minds Think Alike) ... and is currently Not Possible.



My query had absolutely nothing to do with this thread specifically or the issues raised in it ... but if people are looking for Data Points on whether or not Arbiter Hawk answers questions, I've gotten a response that says he does (when you ask the right sorts of questions). Mind you, the question I asked was basically a (Y/N) sort of query for "can THIS be done?" which makes it easier for Arbiter Hawk to answer without needing to write a dissertation that will eat into his work schedule (ie. The Second Measure Is Watching You...). Needless to say, I'm looking forward to talking with him again at the next Player Summit, when we can "conversate" a bit more conveniently (again).



As far as communicating with the Kheldian Community at this time is concerned, I'm thinking it would be very helpful if someone from the Powers Team or Community Team dropped by the Kheldian Forum here and let everyone know where in the development process cycle any further changes are for Kheldians, post Issue-21.5. Rather than a "where are we going?" sort of thing, giving us an update of "this is the ground we've covered" would be very good to know. Stuff like ... datamining phase is ongoing/complete ... analysis of datamining is yet to be scheduled/is ongoing/is complete ... decisions on what to do with results of analysis is (yaddee yaddie yaddah). Note that such information doesn't give us any sort of deadline for results ... nor does it tell what they're thinking ... but it DOES tell us "where in the cycle" matters stand for DOING things (if any).

Also don't forget that the work of the Powers Team doesn't exactly follow the Civilization Game Research model, of simply needing to pour enough resources into Tech Research, and eventually the next advance pops out (unfailingly). I'm sure they run into ... limitations ... of the game tech/engine all the time, where they have really great ideas for doing cool things, that just simply aren't supported by the underlying coding of how the game "works" behind the scenes. My point being that "development" of powers and abilities isn't necessarily a 100% guaranteed result ... by which I mean there are probably a lot of "blind alleys and dead ends" that the Powers Team either needs to avoid or not blunder into when they are extending the functionality of what Can Be Done, and that avoidance rate isn't necessarily 100% either. And sometimes you just don't know if an idea or approach is going to pan out or dead end until you sink some resources (I'm thinking Scheduling here) to investigate the possibilities ... which can make results feel like they're Hit Or Miss sometimes (which is generally unacceptable to a playerbase, who expect everything to just WORK).



My point here being that I'm perfectly willing to be understanding and accomodating of the Power Team's Work Cycle dynamics (as opposed to inputs, outputs, results and expectations) ... but it's really hard to be supportive when there's nothing to go on or even make inferences from. That's why I personally think that asking the question of "How far have you gotten?" is something fair to ask someone like Arbiter Hawk, with respect to Kheldian Issues ... as opposed to something like "Where do you want to go from here?" which is an entirely different line of questioning with answers that rightfully should not be revealed (for various reasons). It's the difference between looking into the Past, or looking into the Future.

In other words ... ask the right questions, and the Magic 8-ball will answer you (in 140 characters or less).

I'm still trying to get over the fact that every time I see Statesman "flop up into the air" as Wade tightens the final thumbscrews that will faceplant ol' Marcus ... HE SCREAMS OUT OF HIS BUTT FIRST before getting flipped over and lighting up from the inside out while spastically writhing in agony as his life force is burned away and his powers stolen!

No seriously! Watch the cutscene again, and pay especial attention to when Statesman first screams "AAAUUGH!" and where the word balloon is pointing at before he flips over and continues screaming (and then goes into his "This Was Your Life" sequence, which actually WAS done very well!). I'm telling you, the timing on the appearance of that word balloon ... and its placement on screen is ... most unfortunate.

I even took the case to Arbiter Hawk, in person, at the Player Summit and tried to engage him to lay out his (and the Power Team's) point of view on the issues (plural) facing Peacebringers in terms of poor power synergies hampering them in ways that are most decidedly NOT present for Warshades. At this juncture, I have no way of knowing what (or even if!) any impression was made on Arbiter Hawk by that conversation. Then again, he does play his cards much closer to the chest in these matters than other Devs. By his own admission, he lurks the forums "a lot" but almost NEVER posts anything.