I am enjoying this so much you don't even know.

fanservice, you sell-outs!!

bisonyes.wav

Ho boy, this is gonna be awesome.

:D

Anonymous 2011/11/20(Sun)10:53 No. 45805 ID: f61b94
File 132181521724.png - (70.03KB , 600x600 , andnowatotallypointlessinterludenobodyaskedfor.png )

Onboard the Senerkaharinole (lit. "Long Word")

"...weird energy signature from that planet. But, uh, there's a slight problem, captain."
"What is it, analyst?"
"Oh. Oh dear. Two groups of readings that don't match anything in the archives."
"And you're sure it's not just another two groups of unusual areeni ships again?"
"Yes sir. Oh. These groups are large. Very large."
"Well. On the one hand, first contact with new species is always important to the Alliance. On the other hand, I do like staying alive."
"Run away again, sir?"
"Yes. Run away again."

Vaejra: How many wrecking bars do you have? Those things are awesome. If you haven't figured it out already we think most tozols not in hiding are dead. Diplomats went genocidal.

A summary of your equipment capabilities would help us a lot.

I managed to scroll down just enough to see the Tozol arrival before having to run out the door, hike across London, and spend several hours lifting and moving I-beams, among other things, by hand with only the aid of a tiny dolly (I blame theatre-types and their lack of planning).
My grin managed to last all the bay there and back again. I don't have an appropriate "you're awesome!" imagemacro to convey this.

>>367060
The Astranians demand total control and the submission of all other species. That is SOP for inter-species interaction as shown by their long history of aggressive wars, slavery, and oppression.

Tozols are immune to psionics, and even a squad of Scellor lack the physical capacity to force themselves on a Tozol. These are concerns of no-to-minimal risk.

Lt Vaejra Alhar 2011/11/22(Tue)03:43 No. 45851 ID: b79855
File 132196222613.jpg - (23.23KB , 290x290 , like_bite_does_it.jpg )

>>355619
>Vaejra: How many wrecking bars do you have? Those things are awesome
Eight. Everyone carries one.

>>367105
>Do we have any inflitrator-ey types?
Yes. Eight.
>Or some way to hack into their communications and eavesdrop on what they're doing.
That's my job, and Reya's, but we have many other jobs.

>Please tell me it's the very best kind. >>/questdis/338706
Yes. We call it the Nice Gun.

>>355651
What sorts of weaponry do you have on-hand at the base, and of those which are the most effective at dealing with armored infantry, and out of the eight of you which weapon does each prefer (we already know that Anak prefers his Nice Gun)?

...I feel kinda sad having noticed this, but...

>Specialist Kaselir Vrin was deployed to this planet in a hibernation cocoon packed inside her tank destroyer, part of a rushed package to let the squad dig in for the long haul. Not being part of the original unit of pathfinders, she considers herself something of an outsider, even after all these years.
>A Tank Destroyer. Kaselir nicknamed it Syel, after some old girlfriend. It's meant to have a crew of two, but can be operated by one. With so few tozols, it's Kaselir's alone, though Thaen knows how to drive it.

> inside her tank destroyer
> Kaselir nicknamed it Syel, after some old girlfriend.

> her
> girlfriend


Nice to see that space weasels don't have a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. *inb4 she gets ALL the fanart*

Tozols were created to be ultrasoldiers, weren't they? That would affect their combat readiness negatively.

>>355651
Why are there only eight of you after 20 years? Shouldn't you be breeding to bolster your forces even on guard duty?

Or were there four of you initially?

>>355687
Well, Baj was born on-world, and Kaselir was apparently a later addition to the squad, but that still leaves six.

>>355682
You don't need to know your fellow soldiers sexual orientation to be combat ready. Unless gays have poor night vision or something, in which case it might be useful to know.

Anonymous 2011/11/23(Wed)04:16 No. 45894 ID: 1444d5
File 132205060494.png - (101.85KB , 1450x1400 , heightmap.png )

So, it turns out creating a heightmap & texture is far easier than simply persuading one of many programs to just apply both to a plane and render it. One of you may have better luck.

Anonymous 2011/11/23(Wed)04:17 No. 45895 ID: 1444d5
File 132205063298.png - (154.38KB , 1450x1400 , nokey.png )

>>355694

>>355692
Actually it's the ones that haven't been pairing off that are suffering vision problems after 20 years of deployment.

Anonymous 2011/11/23(Wed)13:43 No. 45910 ID: 2563d4
File 132208462493.png - (31.13KB , 640x480 , tozols-are-no-strangers-to-love.png )

>>/quest/367515
>>>what're the natural abilities of a fully capable tozol?
>...see infrared, ultraviolet, and energy signatures, hear and analyze radio...

"An antique field transmitter and a copy of Pop Hits of the '80s? What the hell are you---"
"Psyops. Very advanced."

"Will you cut it out with them negative waves?!"

>>355710
now i wont be able to read this quest without the GTA Vice City soundtrack playing in the back of my head.

Just as long as you don't start associating that soundtrack with the whole race. Flashback FM perhaps isn't the best accompaniment to Penji's adventu---

She's on fire
And she burns through the night at the speed of light
She's on fire
With the heat of the beat right beneath her feet

Trooper Thaen Sinh 2011/11/25(Fri)00:22 No. 45982 ID: 6f1d54
File 132220935431.png - (116.62KB , 500x497 , ThaenSexEdTalk.png )

>>355687
I'll field that one.

Without going into too much detail on our reproductive processes (I'd need a partner to demonstrate), we simply don't have enough stock for a full-scale breeding program. Normally, a female obtaining the proper nutrients and materials can bring a squealer to term in three months time. However without the best exotics, that time-span can lengthen greatly, as she's forced to synthesize materials from what's available. And on this planet, acquiring even sub-optimal materials is impossible. That's with just the eight of us, mind. We'd need more tozols to make more tozols.

We did however bring along some nutrient rations (Or else Baj wouldn't even be here) and while we probably could have produced another two tozols, that would have completely consumed our reserves. In the event of grievous injuries, or even a centuries-long deployment scenario, we'd be proper fucked.

So, in summary, we we just don't have the necessary resources.

>>355657
While I can't speak for the others, my preferred weapon of choice is a modified repeating plasma rifle I picked up on Malendira. Shame I wasn't able to bring it with me when I was shipped out here.

I imagine producing terrible, half-assed tozols with grisly birth defects like humans sans folic acid is right out.

Why are tozols so reliant on rare substances to fix themselves and make new ones? Were they created by a civilization at the height of luxury and interstellar mining dominance?

>>355817
Maybe said creators wanted to be able to easily control production?

>>355817
Probably just simply functionality. If you want to design a creature that can sprint 150kph, you're not going to design bones made of something silly lime Calcium, right?

We can totally make a creature with impossible superhuman biology and a natural hyperspatial interdiction field out of everyday matter. No problem. :V

>>355817
Also, yes, yes they were.

>>356218
what are a cheetah's bones made of? cobalt?

>>356224
And they can run at 90km/h all day, all day.

Specific, exotic requirements basically means "I need a supply chain for this".

I suppose the whole Diplomat thing means that the normal intermission resupply opportunity no longer exists, though.

It doesn't exclusively mean you need a supply chain. They can also be hypothetically obtained by raiding enemy supplies, looting local materials, or recycling a giant pile of RayTech equipment and dead Scellor...

A longer term solution might be to land enough guys (who don't all have to be tozols) to build up local mining and processing infrastructure.

Anonymous 2011/11/27(Sun)13:38 No. 46448 ID: 1444d5
File 132242990532.png - (921.59KB , 1920x1080 , rend.png )

>>355694
>>355695
Not really worth it.

So hey, question about the actual quest.

What exactly determines when we shift focus onto a different faction?

>>356248
Sorry I didn't make the elevation more interesting. I questioned both the need and my ability. (Hay let's make a contour map in SAI Painter what a great plan) Does anyone know a good (cheap or free) program I could use for this sort of thing in the future?

>>356250
I remember I used Autodesk Revit in my architecture class in high school to plot the topography of a build site, and i remember he gave out a site where you could download it for free, although I forget the URL. Also i'm not sure If it can cover the same area without scaling it down.

>>356250
>Sorry I didn't make the elevation more interesting
Ah, that's not what I meant, just that I failed to consider beforehand whether making a 3D version would really serve any purpose. Turns out it's easier to read the 2D version (hence why maps were invented in the first place. Herp-a-derp on my part).

Besides, 'create a heightmap' really meant 'flood-fill the contour lines with shades of grey and hit it a million times with the blur filter', which is why the isolines ended up not actually being iso-.
>Does anyone know a good (cheap or free) program I could use for this sort of thing in the future?
You could try Terragen Classic (http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/16/28/), Height Map Editor (http://hme.sourceforge.net/), or Gesesis/Landformer (http://www.geomantics.com/index.htm).
If you're just working in 2D, then drawing the contours by hand is more than sufficient and far, far easier.

>other than as mildly useful weather control device
>mildly useful weather control device
>weather control device
>water-susceptible Raytech
Oops. Opportunity 1 for tozols missed.

>>356392
The tozols don't know about the water thing. (I don't know if the Scellor know about it.)

>>356393
I thought astranian shields protected them from that, as long as they were up?

>>356392
I think the whole area is supposed to be some degree of blizzard/snowstorm anyway; it just hasn't entirely come across in the art.

>>356402
Yeah, I pretty much cocked that up due to not having an easy way to draw snow blowing around.

You'd think drawing white tozols fighting mice in a snowstorm would be easier!

  If I were allowed to vote on whether or not to do the psychic attack, I would post this.

>>/quest/370379
It was in fact an entirely (*cough*) serious suggestion, since I can't think of anything that'd cause a puffed-up Astranian to fly into an indignant rage faster than HONK.

breast honking is very serious business

>>356586
EXTREMELY.

Also, very Scellor.

I don't really have time to suggest proper, but:
>she is also embarrassed and humiliated - emotions which are alien to scellor within this context
So while having the undermind all stare judgementally might be funny, it's actually unhelpful.

Likewise for remove clothes (I see where you're going with this, etc.) to some extent, plus I'm not sure---metaphors and all---if such an extensive physical action is possible without her just beating Piyerra back. (Which would be catharsic, i.e. undo our work so far!)

>What should be obvious is that not everyone actually WANTS the scellor to win, so people suggesting things that'd put the astranian's back up is to be expected. That said, continue honking them boobs.

Yeah uh... Pot calling the kettle black (and having since deleted my own post) but I think we shouldn't put votes in for factions we don't like trying to screw them up. I honestly thought my own post was going to be one in a sea of "strip her clothes off" even though I thought it was an awful idea, and while I was right, it doesn't make it right for me to post something seconding or thirding (Or Seventhing or whatever in this case) someone else's idea that I think will get the side I don't like in deep shit, or the idea that I personally hope will get them stabbed in the eye. For some reason I thought I'd be the only one to do it, and then I saw Z's post which seemed to suggest otherwise and made me realize "Oh shit, this ain't kosher."

So if you did make a vote intentionally trying to screw over the scellor, please delete it. If you made a vote trying to have fun and be kinda goofy, which the scellor are pretty good at, keep it there. Let's not try to intentionally sabotage opposing sides, it just ruins the fun of this quest.

Quite possibly the "you suggested something different from me, therefore you're trying to sabotage the quest" whining is worse than any attempts at actual sabotage, which at least has a chance to be ignored to death by the authors unless it somehow gets a majority.

Also:
>>/quest/370896
"You should ignore other people's suggestions because they're dumb" is pretty fucking low down on the list of shitty behaviours you can display in a quest thread (along with posting two suggestions to an update in the first place).

Try to at least keep the mad in /dis/ and not shit up the quest thread with 500 posts of hurr before the Astranians even get a turn.

>>356676
I'm just saying if someone did that, like I did, they should probably delete their posts, as it's not cool. I'm not proposing we organize a witch-hunt or anything, the suggestors should be able to moderate themselves on this.

oh for fucks sake

we just wanna see psychic titties

this isn't people wanting their favourite fursona space race to win because its their favourite fursona space race, it's just plain "oh man inquest nudity". That's it. Yeeesh. You'd think an experience in Questing would tell you that instead of leaping to the conclusion that there's a god damn conspiracy or some shit.

I'm pretty much agreed that it's standard Quest horniness at work. Eh. Gotta adjust and filter for that as it suits you.

Agreed. HornyQuester is DumbQuester. I too have succumbed to this foolishness. Standard ops.

I'm beginning to wonder if people are so desperate to go "tgchan just horny" (you'd never hear me say such a thing etc.) that they've managed to make themselves forget that honking actually worked pretty well. You are controlling a space-slut in the mind of a militant space-nun, and want to establish dominance and piss them off. What, do you think a philosophical debate with cast-iron arguments is going to be the most effective path here?

>>356695
>honking worked pretty well
>The telepathic link remains at its relatively low level.
It was just a sort of meh move. Not a bad move, as it asserted some dominance didn't forfeit the initiative (she's still "disorientated"), but not a very good one either.

>>356695
It only worked at all due to the surprise. Now that we announced our presence, we will no longer have surprise.

>>355782
Can Tozols eat their dead to recover rare elements that they would need to reproduce?

What about mining operations?

>>356716
man, that's a really grim idea, but that seems like it would work.

>>356717
It seems reasonable that eating your fallen would work, but I doubt that it would be of much good to reproduce right now. The preggers female would still be a normal soldier up until at least a few months into it, but that's not exactly going to help in the current conflict.

>>356699
Yes, because talking would have worked so much better with the element of surprise.

>>356697
>Net positive result
>Meh

Also:
>Removing cloak (as well as snatching knives) increases dominance, strengthens link, and gets us some preliminary intel*

I don't think you lot are just mad because quest are trying to get characters naked. I think you're getting madder because as a strategy it's working.

* ...which, admittedly, we will get in full just as soon as Astranians get a turn :V

I'd point out that none of the suggestions said anything about using hostility against her, and that seems like an amazingly flimsy excuse to sort of force the scellor to succeed right here after all those suggestions.

Sure, some said to take the knife, but Piyerra wasn't in any position to do that last update, and how the hell does self hostility strengthen the link when that is a much stronger astranian attribute than scellor?

I mean seriously now, that felt like we were forced into winning based on a loose interpretation of a minority suggestion at best. While stripping her wasn't the best idea, the others wanted to insult her, which she didn't do in favor of going for the knife... which really should have gotten HER cut anyway.

>>356733
Using HER hostility/hostility towards herself, rather.

>>356733
>I'd point out that none of the suggestions said anything about using hostility against her
You would, but you'd be wrong~
>>/quest/370675
>the knives or swords would be a great place to start, take them and use them against her. would have her own psyche be attacking her essentially.

>and how the hell does self hostility strengthen the link when that is a much stronger astranian attribute than scellor?
Two things:
1. Piyerra constantly argues with Raddle and is annoyed by his impulsiveness and smugness, which are traditional Scellor traits
2. The Undermind itself (the suggesters) had a massive argument about what to do, with large chunks raging at other parts of itself

>>356739
This seems to be degenerating into emotions that aren't stereotypical rather than emotions/concepts that are alien to either side.

>>356741
I don't get what you are saying. I think it would make sense that the psychic profiles are based mostly on the individuals who are directly involved in the fight.

>Situation states that in order for the scellor to succeed, they need to get the commander to start thinking like a scellor and less like an astranian
>Astranian forced to feel self-loathing, something completely alien to scellor
>Scellor gain the advantage

Sure isn't rigged for jukashi's mary sues to prevail

>>356745
you do know jukashi and lonelyworld talk to eachother about what could happen. they aren't making things up.

>>356745
I didn't want to say anything but... Yeah. That's certainly a thing.

Jukashi!!WzMJSzZzWx 2011/12/10(Sat)13:45 No. 46954 ID: d94b60
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>>356745

The joke, see, is that the common conception of the scellor has them think of themselves as the bee's knees. So of course self-loathing is "alien". Why wouldn't it be?

This idea is of course entirely true and no scellor would ever have reason to see their species as flawed, especially not a telepath whose job is to deal with non-scellor all the time. Such a scellor definitely wouldn't ever have reason to be annoyed at their own species' lack of regard for how other species behave or think, and they would love the eternal outward cycle of expansion their species engages in to preserve the status quo of easy life for the sentient upper class. The way most scellor deal with their biggest problems by not thinking about them and expecting everything to be all right eventually is an incredible virtue for any species. And it's not like the scellor in their history of aggressive colonialism could ever have done anything bad. Nothing that would be worth remembering or feeling any guilt or shame about, anyway!

>>356745
>Jukashi's mary sues
I must have missed the update where the Space Doobies made planetfall.

>>356759
Of course you missed them. They are just that sneaky.

  Radde_Calls_Ekia.avi

>>356716
The Scellor are in a bit of the same boat as the Tozols; Their populations are both limited by access to rare resources. How much relative to each other we don't know.
We know psykonium can't be created, or at least the way it is isn't known. So recovering what's left of the Scellor dead, and any Scellor gear containing psykonium, would be an important after-action job.
What goes into getting the preferred, or even the substandard, materials that make a tozol are unknown. Undoubtedly it's a very long process of harvesting, mining, refining, processing, and manufacturing, involving rare materials to start with, to make the preferred super-exotics. So scouring the battlefield for tozol bits and bodies to be processed would definitely be easier. Grisly, but easier.

Tozols are definitely not limited in the same way Scellor are. They're not going to need to invade other species because they've depleted entire solar systems of a special gotta-have-it material.

It's more akin to having a gadget that runs on electricity but being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no electricity. You don't need to align the twelve stones of vorba after retrieving them from annoying element-themed dungeons. You just need an outlet. But you don't have one.

If, say, 100 tozols had landed, instead of 7, with the proper technical skills, they'd have probably set up enough infrastructure by now to get them everything they need to start churning out babies.

sort of a "rare"-earth metal thing where, while not really uncommon, you don't get concentrated deposits?

Pretty much. Plus there's also sci-fi tech synthesizing stuff.

How's this for paranoid?
What little information Piyerra gets out of the Astranian is suspiciously vague, as if she doesn't know her own forces. Seemingly impossible for her to not know. Piyerra remarks that queen bat-bitch might be better at this than she thinks. At the same time, the link gets stronger for no apparent reason.
It's a trap. The astranian commander, Ekia, is no fool. Raddel practically told her that the scellor were going to assault her and prepared for it. That may well be the plan she was discussing when Piyerra arrived. The Astranian that Piyerra's fighting isn't really her. It's a decoy. The information is vague because it's planted there. The link is getting stronger because the real Ekia is strengthening it from psychic concealment, in preparation for her own attack.
Piyerra is expected to come in overconfident, waste her power on a decoy, and then be vulnerable to Ekia's counterstrike.
Someone tell me how I'm wrong, will you?

>>356784
How I wish that were true...

I'm just hoping that trying to shake her faith by trying to take the necklace makes her super duper offended, repel Piyerra and probably injure her somehow.

>>356784
The link increased for a moment, but went back to its previous level when Ekia retaliated with the cloak. Ekia might be a strong psychic, but I don't think she is powerful enough for a mere decoy of hers to be able to hold its own in a fight against a group of linked Scellor.
The false information part might be true though.

also the way the psychic connection works is it locked onto HER. to make a decoy would require some INSANE skills and probably another psychic.

>>356786
>The false information part might be true though.
Or it might just be usual Astranian leadership incompetence, and plain old disbelief that they could be that ignorant and indifferent about their forces.

>>356784
>Signal got stronger for no reason.

>>/quest/371035
>Of course, a sense of racial shame is utterly alien to scellor, so... oh, hold on. The connection has increased. Huh.

I think the joke might be that Radde is so insufferable he's managed to make Piyerra slightly ashamed of the Scellor.

Anonymous 2011/12/11(Sun)14:44 No. 47001 ID: 5aae31
File 132364349433.jpg - (79.76KB , 500x500 , laughing astranians.jpg )

>They thought taking the necklace was a good idea!

(Asking because it is a thing we might know as the Undermind):
Can positive emotions strengthen the link as well, or is it only things like anger that work? This seems like a great opportunity to make our commander feel smug, a traditional Scellor emotion.

Due to the nature of this quest, there are going to be some suggestions that are... counter-productive. Trolling or not, they are legitimate suggestions and will not be deleted.

Have some faith in Jukashi, Testpattern, and LonelyWorld. They'll know which suggestions are serious and which are obvious attempts to help the other side.

So please don't report counter-productive suggestions as trolling. However, do report any and all hostility towards suggesters. I want to ensure this quest remains as friendly as possible.

>>356847

Shared positive emotions would make the connection stronger.

>>356937
>Have some faith in Jukashi, Testpattern, and LonelyWorld.
I don't know, man. They're kinda excessively behind the boob quota. There's only 16 days left in the month, and at this pace... Man, it doesn't look too good.
What if they don't meet the quota? It'll be horrible! You know what happens if they don't! I don't think anyone wants to see that.

>>356937
So, wait, the official position on this is "don't report obviously counter-productive suggestions that you are tacitly advising the authors to just ignore instead?"

>>356938
and shared negative emotions?

Well, if raytech is as water-vulnerable as it was made out to be in crashquest...

also, anti-Astranian, pro-scellor/tozol. allied victory?

Big Possibly Not That Dumb Argument moved to the BDA thread.

Please try to be more civil in here. This quest is going to cause some heated discussions, but we can still try to get along a little bit.

In case there was any confusion: Metagaming and sabotage are not allowed.

OOC sabotaging via bad suggestions, I mean. Sabotaging things in the quest with explosives and stuff is okay.

>>356983
Nice unenforceable rules you have there. Shame if anything should happen to them.