Luminara

That's not how it went down. Burke sent a request to the colony, asking them to investigate a coordinate. That was, initially, all he did. He wanted firm confirmation or denial of Ripley's reported "derelict alien ship". If she was lying to The Company, he lost nothing, but if she were telling them the truth, he saw it as an opportunity to acquire control over the evaluation, research and development of the site and potential contents. The Wildcatter, Newt's father, had the same general idea. All he'd been ordered to do was find out if anything was there. His greed drove him to enter the ship, subsequently leading to his ensnarement by the Facehugger. Events ensue, colony goes silent, etc. Burke, either realizing or strongly suspecting that Ripley had been honest, concluded that he had to go to the colony and secure whatever he could. Remember, at this point, only Ripley really comprehends how bad it could be, and Burke sees only percentages and exclusivity. It's likely that he already had Gorman on standby, someone with little field experience, looking to make his career or find a comfortable niche to sit in until retirement. Alternatively, he may have asked for Gorman based on that same psychological profile (inexperienced, easily manipulated). He did have access to Ripley's psychological evaluation records, which implies he could obtain records for others. Burke doesn't order the Marines to drop their ammo. Ripley suggests that shooting around the reactor might not be the best idea, and Burke reinforces her, but it's at Ripley's urging that Gorman gives the order. Later, when the survivors are shoring up defenses, Ripley confronts Burke about being responsible for the situation, as he was the one who asked for the "grid reference" to be checked, and tells him that she intends to inform The Company. Then Burke goes all in. He decides to infect Ripley and Newt. Whether he would've sabotaged the Marines' sleep pods as well, or expected to buy Gorman off, or had another plan, is all speculation. Also, there was no distress signal. "Ripley, we need to talk. We've lost contact with the colony on LV 426." He did protest to "nuking the place from orbit" because he couldn't be certain he'd manage to smuggle a specimen back with him, but once the reactor's cooling system was breached, that was moot. Regarding the reactor, it was a fusion reactor. Fusion reactors use hydrogen for fuel, not enriched uranium. The entire complex was a multi-use facility, providing energy via the fusion reactor (as well as water, likely), fulfilling the purpose of terraforming LV 426, and housing the colonists, manufacturing workshops and hydroponics gardens. Regarding the likelihood of an explosion "the size of Nebraska", that part is Hollywood fiction. But reactors can explode, both fission and fusion. Fission reactors can vaporize water in a few milliseconds, creating enormous pressure and blowing apart containment vessels, pipes, etc. It's happened a few times in reality. Fissile material can cause an explosion even if it's not in a containment vessel, under certain conditions (Japan had one criticality event which blew out windows when a mixing machine was switched on). A fusion reactor, being reliant on hydrogen, would definitely explode without proper cooling if the hydrogen were ignited and safeties were compromised. Given the events portrayed in the film, I consider it plausible that the reactor in the movie would explode, though I couldn't hazard a guess of how much damage it would do. It would depend on the way the reactor was constructed, the types of safety mechanisms and how effective they were, etc. Lastly, addressing Haijinx's comment about weight, that's only applicable when a ship is entering or exiting the gravity well of a large body, and given the accomplishments of civilization in the film, namely, the capability to create and maintain large space stations, it's irrelevant. The question you should be asking is, why was there a queen? "Cain... the crew member who went onto that ship, Cain, he said he saw thousands of those eggs."

Slept with Arachnos, got crabs... Have you spoken with a physician?

But in a very real way, you are. IOs are the end game. One of the most basic design principles shared by nearly all MMORPGs is the stat chase. Incremental improvements keep players logging in and playing. Other games do it with shoulder pads the size of skyscrapers and Doom Sombreros™, Co* does it with IOs. That ability to improve your durability by 1.4%, or the damage output of a power by 3 DPA, or add a supplementary effect to a power, that's the end game. Content has never been the end game in MMORPGs. It can't be because players consume it at such a rapid pace, it's impossible for any development team to keep up. And all stories end, eventually... except the one(s) you're keeping alive by playing your character(s). The stat chase is perpetual, even when development has stopped, even when you may not be chasing stats on a particular character (you're still making alts, buying and selling at the AH, etc). You are as trapped in that end game as anyone else in any MMORPG. But, realistically, as end games go, Co* has the best. The flexibility of IOs opens up so many potential avenues, permits such a vast array of concepts to work, whereas other games confine you in ways you can't begin to comprehend unless and until you've experienced what Co* has to offer.

I wonder how much power leveling being done is due to the uncertainty of the future existence of this incarnation of the game. All of those characters people intended to make, all of those beautiful dreams they wanted to bring to life... I don't doubt that the majority of it is simply impatience or entitlement, but there have to be more than a few who are frantic to make the things they wanted to make years ago, and anxious over the possibility of this iteration of the game being killed, too.

Except, the modifier is the reason. More specifically, all of the applicable modifiers are the reason. You aren't playing a defender with fewer offensive options when you're playing a petless mastermind, you're playing a defender-lite with fewer offensive options. Mastermind scales are lower than defender scales across the board. Buffs, debuffs, heals, damage, everything. Attacks can be replaced with pool powers, as I proved back in 2006, so only having access to three of your primary set isn't actually relevant in this context. What's relevant is that you're not only working with a base 0.55 damage scale, you're also working with lower base scale values on all of your buffs, debuffs, heals, everything. And that's why the vast majority of players do not choose to play petless masterminds. It's not just because the pets are the primary mode of damage dealing for masterminds, it's also because mastermind secondaries are significantly weaker than their corruptor and defender versions. Playable, yes, for the right people, but not most. The point, though, was not about petless masterminds. The ATs share a scale value, so I used that as a reference people would understand. That could be done, but, speaking from experience, it would still be crap. Not only because the base damage would still be low, but because very few defender primaries have status protection which player can use to his/her own benefit. It's just not a viable option without significantly redesigned sets. Status protections would have to be included, numerous debuffs would have to be reduced in strength and many of the ally-only buffs would have to be replaced with versions which offered some benefit to the defender. That's not a change of 0.55 to 0.65, it's a rework of at least eight defender primaries, possibly all of them, and several months of testing and rebalancing. Because melee attacks typically have higher base values, and defenders have access to the most powerful -Res and +Dam. Defenders are a force multiplier, even in a team of one.

Defender melee uses 0.55 scale. Mastermind use 0.55 for their attacks (the character, not the pets). The generally unfavorable opinion of petless masterminds indicates that proliferating melee sets to defenders would be somewhat less than enthusiastically embraced by the majority. And without reworking some of the melee sets to include status protection, they'd only be usable with roughly half the defender primaries. You really would be better served with a new AT for melee/buff.

So... Krypton?

The magnitude factor could be thrown in the trash. The framework for this approach already exists in Resistance. Resistance debuffs are resisted by Resistance. The same thing could be applied to all debuffs, then all status effects removed and replaced by corresponding debuffs which functioned in an appropriate manner. Slows (-RunSpeed, -Recharge) would completely replace holds and scale up to the point of locking down the player character in the same manner, while simultaneously giving players the means of partially abating the effect via +RunSpeed and +Recharge slotting in their powers. Magnitude would be obsolete in this system. But, again, it creates new problems. How, in a game where every player can achieve capped +Recharge, do you really make -Recharge powerful enough without also grossly penalizing those who don't take Hasten and/or build up significant +Recharge from IO set bonuses and Incarnate abilities? How do you make existing status protection powers meaningful again, especially the ones which serve no other purpose, when they are less effective or broadly applicable than simply slotting enhancements, and avoid removing them entirely (which would necessitate multiple powers to be designed and implemented as replacements for the out-dated status protections)? The NPC problems still remain, as well. The current spawn model imposes limits to prevent players from being hit with, for example, three Rikti Mentalists at the same time. If you use the same spawn model, you consequently have to give your mezzer enormous debuffs. A mezzer with small debuffs isn't a threat, at all, because it's never going to survive long enough to stack the debuffs to mez level. And a single, overwhelming debuff that hits mez level right away is no better than the current mez system. The other option is to rework the spawn model and give everything debuffs, but that doesn't actually solve the problem for ranged ATs, it merely shifts the problem to ranged ATs with lower initial damage output. It might work for blasters, but ATs with lower base damage scales and caps are unfairly penalized. In effect, they're "squishier" than they were under the original system. And going back to defenders, corruptors and dominators, what is their purpose in the game under the new debuff-mez system? Do we, then, start redesigning defenders and corruptors to compensate for their reduced effectiveness as primary debuffers, given that controllers are the new debuff kings and queens? Or do we simply reverse the roles, giving defenders and corruptors massive debuff values which automatically jump to mez level, and how do we reposition controllers so they remain unique and relevant? How do we fix the problem of dominators having to survive long enough for their debuffs to flip to mez? What does the new system entail for Kheldians, or masterminds? It would be a very workable and flexible system, if we were creating the game from the ground up. But as an adjustment of existing content, in the existing context of the game, it creates so many problems. But, there's always hope. System Shock 3 is in development, so a Co* 2 is always possible.

That would be dependent on the mass of the planetary body, wouldn't it? A significantly more massive world should have sufficient gravity to "feel" Earth-normal while simultaneously exhibiting a greater rotational velocity.

That's basically it. Can't access pet or pseudo-pet information on it, but the rest of it is there. The complete data package (all info for all powers, including pets) is still available as a download on City of Titans, somewhere (forum post), though, if anyone wants to use it to build a new site.

Everything can be viewed as binary, from a certain perspective. You either have enough health, or you don't. Or endurance. Or damage. Defense is definitely binary, you're either avoiding hits, or being hit. But I grasp your intent. It would be more interesting, from a gameplay perspective, if status effects were more like scaled debuffs. Slows scaling up to immobilizations, immobilizations scaling up to holds, as effects stacked, for instance. The problems, though... In players' hands, it would actually be detrimental to several ATs, as it would essentially change a primary form of immediate damage mitigation to delayed "if you live long enough" mitigation. Controllers, as an entire AT, would become mega-defenders, which would make debuffing defenders and corruptors all but obsolete. Dominators would have a significantly more difficult experience, as they're reliant on the immediacy of their controls. And which soft control debuffs would stack to create which controls, and what do you do with the ones you can't crowbar together? And if debuffs require two or applications to scale up to status effects, is there any purpose to NPCs using them at all? They won't provide any actual threat or require player response. A slow won't prevent a player from generating an enormous upper hand in a fight against NPCs. Neither will an immobilization. So the AI has to be reworked, and NPCs overhauled with more, and more dangerous, ranged attacks, because there has to be some kind of threat mechanic (and i don't mean aggro) to engage the players. I'll even posit that the debuffs applied would have to be reworked, to include other debuffs, just to give them weight. That stacking slow would have to have a massive -recharge attached, for example, or, again, it's simply not worth paying attention to. The inevitable result would be piles of -ToHit, -defense, -recharge, whatever it took to make the stacking debuffs threatening enough to keep players from ignoring them completely... and players would be up in arms over that in short order. The system we have, binary though it may be, is about as good as it can be made without being even more irritating, or less forgiving. It's not the most creative solution Cryptic could have implemented, but it works, in the sense that it poses a sufficient challenge to players to keep them engaged, but can be countered in enough ways to prevent it from being instantly overwhelming.

Unless some significant changes were made when the new servers were started, all "squishie" ATs already had a plethora of options related to being afflicted with status effects. All of the control and buff/debuff primaries and secondaries have status effects, buffs and debuffs, which can be used to pre-emptively prevent mez. Controllers, dominators and masterminds have pets which can soak up status effects, and some defender and blaster pets and pseudo-pets can, too. Blasters can continue firing their tier 1 and 2 blasts while mezzed. And that still doesn't include the buffs, debuffs or controls available in APPs, or IO set bonuses, or Incarnate stuff. Oh, and extreme range with snipes, as well as other high damage attacks which can defeat mezzers before aggro. And isn't there typically only one really threatening critter in each spawn? One sapper, one mezzer, etc. Target, destroy, clean up on Aisle 4.

The day ED went live, I wanted to know just how "bad" a character could possibly be, and defender melee attack values were the lowest possible, so I made a Kin/Elec defender and played without blasts. I used pool melee attacks instead. Leveled her to 50. Went to Hami raids. Engaged in a taunt fight with a tank and actually peeled an AV off of him and tanked it. Twice. Fought Adamastor solo and dropped him to 50% health (didn't die, just took so long to get that far, didn't want to finish, so i left). The people who insist that there are sets which are unplayable, or should be avoided because they're "underpowered", are speaking from one of two perspectives - either an obsession with having the absolute highest stats possible and utter disdain for anything else, in which case their opinions are biased and irrelevant; or the players themselves are so bad at this game that even with set bonuses and Incarnate abilities, they fall flat on their faces when they try to play anything but top performers, and blame the game for their lack of competence. Everything works well. Every set is completely viable. Playing something simply because you find it visually appealing isn't wrong, or masochistic. Enjoy it. That's exactly how the game was designed to work and you're "doin' it right".

Gazebro. And Gazebra. And a base named The Gazoobo, where wild gazebos are kept on public display.

They're outlaws, they have piles of parts and access to warehouses all over the city, and they'd kit themselves out with 5.2L V12s if they could. They're bootleggers, and that's moonshine. One of the hipster Freaks probably made the label.

At level 50, around 55 mph with one extra slot in Hurdle and a few set bonuses. With multiple set bonuses and another slot, 60-62 mph. If I recall correctly, Ninja Run and Beast Run are faster, but I don't have access to the stats. Swift/Sprint are significantly slower, even together, and with maximal slotting and set bonuses. Bunny hopping or using Ninja/Beast Run, those are your options.

Megamind's foe, Metroman, grew weary of being a hero, decided to pursue a life as a musician instead. Megamind took over, became the new defender of Metrocity... sorry, Metro City, after falling in love. Gru learned to care. He was initially quite dastardly, but developed a fondness for his orphan girls and discovered a softer side to himself. Generally, one doesn't find portrayals of villains who are evil for the sake of being evil, partially because there's a fear that fiction can inspire action, which leads to most writers exercising restraint; and partially because delving too deeply into that abyss has deleterious effects on the psyche. So most villains are depicted as campy, incompetent or sympathetic. The ones I mentioned are certainly campy and incompetent, but they're bad guys because they like being bad guys. Especially the Bond villains. Even in the Daniel Craig era films, the bad guys seem to take a particular delight in their villainy.

Megamind. Gru. Gallaxhar. Nearly every Bond film villian (as well as satirical takes on the franchise). Some people... or, um, squid... just want to be evil.

Wait... procs go in slots? ... >.> <.< *spits out procs*

Isn't there already a doppelganger system in place? I'm certain I encountered that years ago, both solo and on a team. That system would be comparatively easy to adapt to a nemesis system. Comparatively. I can also speculate with a high of confidence that the long-term goal of that existing doppelganger system was giving players their own arch-enemies. It was a frequent request on the original forums, and the original development team was always keen to deliver features which the majority of players wanted. So, presuming that living in a magical forest hasn't clouded my memory, the real speed bump here is implementation. With the existing doppelganger system copied, modified and set in place to create a unique arch-enemy for each character, how the system is implemented becomes the crucial factor. Does the nemesis have its own story arc and/or task/strike force(s), or does it merely appear in random missions, replacing standard bosses? Would it appear once per level? Three times per level? Once every five levels? How does the doppelganger spawn, meaning, does it respect the player's difficulty setting, or is it always a boss (or EB, or lieutenant, or AV, or...)? Would the defeat of the arch-enemy be a requirement for progression, or would it be something they could skip? Should this "Surprise, it's your nemesis!" foe appear when players are teamed, or exclusive to solo play? If it spawns when a player is teamed, do all teammates potentially spawn arch-enemies? If it spawns as EB or higher when teamed, does that create a sense of resentment and unwelcomeness for players who opted into the system because it poses the threat of wipes or drastic slowdowns? If it's exclusive to solo missions, and both challenging and as awesome as it could be, how does one prevent players from eschewing all team-oriented content in favor of nemesis content? I suspect that it was questions like these which continually pushed a nemesis feature to the back burner, despite existing code which made it possible. I also suspect that a fully-fledged nemesis system would shift the story focus away from the major NPCs and various zones, more toward a single-player style, which would be less enjoyable and applicable in the existing MMO environment. Simply putting a nemesis system in, that should be possible with the doppelganger code. Creating a 1-50 arc is definitely possible. Beyond that, you're looking at redesigning the core content of the game. And you want to be very, very cautious when you dip your toe in that water.

Nemesis would still be applicable. It would be lowercase in use, which would be sufficient to differentiate it from Lord Nemesis. That said, Nemesis was the goddess of righteous wrath and retribution (Roman, if i recall), so it's never really been appropriate in modern usage. Even her image, that of a blindfolded, sword-wielding maiden, isn't used in the proper context (it's supposed to symbolize justice now). Just a bit of historical trivia.

Fly with every bonus and max slots is still subject to the speed cap of 58.6 mph. Hurdle can exceed that with the addition of one slot and comparable bonuses. The only way to fly faster is to spend two more power selections in Flight, to unlock and acquire Afterburner. One slot, or three powers. As with everything else in this game, it's your choice, but being an opinionated, prejudicial ass to those who don't make the same choice isn't appropriate. Even less so when you're ignorant or misinformed.

Hurdle with three SOs is nearly the same speed as the Fly cap. Hurdle with two level 50 IOs and few very inexpensive and easily obtainable +Jump Speed/Movement bonuses is faster.

Then leaving threads like this one active would positively contribute to the overall health of the forum. Public humiliation can be a versatile social tool, when used properly. Of course, so can gene-spliced carnivorous wasps carrying viral payloads... but public humiliation is cheaper.

Statistically, it is irrelevant on minions, due to the functionality of attack chains coupled with the way it triggers based on target hit point percentage. If Scourge triggers, it's most likely to occur on the final attack of a chain which would have done the job without Scourge. It's not useless or pointless, but it's also not generally applicable for that category of foes.