Luminara

Late 70's or early 80's Chevy Malibu. 4th gen, can't remember the year. It was a long time ago. I drove it from Florida to Missouri in... 1996, I think, and the transmission died a couple of weeks later. Well, all of the forward gears died. I drove it in reverse for about 5 miles to get it home. Called a shop, $200 for a used transmission, installed. The used transmission out-lasted the engine, which finally gave up and died in 2001 or 2002, which was after another long trip, from Missouri to Virginia.

HC is (still) negotiating with NC for licensing. In the interim, we apparently have NC's tacit permission to play, as long as there's no profit being generated. So yes and no. We're in a grey area of legality.

That road is hilarious. I'd say that the guy who painted that had to be the same one who built the Shed of Doom, but I don't see any screws hammered in. Must've been his cousin.

I actually tried to refuse. Twice. They insisted. They're good people. There was also some self-interest motivating them, since there was a concern that my transportation situation might become untenable at some point. That was what convinced me to accepted the offer. A Japanese van that needs a little TLC is infinitely more reliable than a cheap Chinese motorcycle. I don't estimate more than a few hundred dollars to take care of all of the things I listed (i can flush the transmission and replace the drive belt components myself... could do the tires myself, too, but i'm just not going to! i'll pay for that labor). Even if it only makes it to 200,000, that's still several years of use for the investment. If it's still going for another 100,000 miles, it will have outlasted me. Here's to hoping yours lasts as long! 🍻

One of the families I work for gave me a 2004 Honda Odyssey a couple of weeks ago. Just gave it to me. Actually, since they left $0.46 in change in the coin holder, they paid me $0.46 to take it. It has 172,000 miles on it, the transmission warning light is intermittently active, the timing belt has never been changed and two of the tires have slow leaks. The transmission is overfilled by at least 1.5 quarts, and when I took it for a drive in the rain, it didn't give me the warning, so I'm working on the theory that heat is causing the fluid to expand and causing a pressurization sensor to freak out, or the fluid loses viscosity as it expands and triggers another sensor (it's not red any more, so it's definitely old fluid). A flush (drain/refill/drive, repeat twice more, then refill to proper level (the transmission holds 8 quarts, but only drains 3.5, so multiple drains and refills are necessary to circulate all of the old fluid out)) will resolve that problem, either way. Ironically, the potential for transmission failure is why they gave it to me. Apparently, transmissions are expensive now (last time i had to replace a transmission, it was $200), but after going over it, it looks like it just needs some basic maintenance. The timing belt probably doesn't need to be changed, but the linkages and attached components would (they're more likely to fail than the belt is). Can probably get around to that at my leisure (before 200,000 miles). The tires will have to be replaced (pulled a piece of shale the size and shape of a .44 slug out of one and plugged it, but if that could puncture the tire down to the steel cord, it's overdue for replacement). There's a tire shop ten miles away, and they do it cheap, so I can afford that. Everything else is fine. They took care of this van. Slapped Farm Use tags on it (legitimately, since i work at two farms), yanked out the back seats (single, don't need room for 7 people and better gas mileage with less weight) and I'm all set. Still rather have the Corbusian or Geoff. Driving a Jeremy Clarkson original (for the mile it went before exploding) would be awesome. But a free van is okay, too.

You can. Right-click on the map to set a thumbtack. Thumbtacks add a to the map, set a waypoint in the nav window and show the distance to the waypoint in the zone or mission. Right-click on the to remove it.

How in the name of pickled fish nipples did this go from "Here's what the average player population looks like over time" to bickering about names? Y'all motherfuckers crazy.

"I injected Granny Smith apples with a growth serum and ate it, and now I look like Shrek!" is fine. "I was caught in a nuclear explosion that turned me into a giant dude with anger management issues, but I'm taupe and sparkle like @Snarky when he's playing baseball!" is fine. "HULK SMASH!" with a giant green dude is not fine.

There was too much to explain. I summed up.

Sarcasm is more entertaining than telling someone directly that they're an imbecile, a liar, a contemptuous little shit-biscuit, etc. As for fear... a shocking number of people think apostrophes are "sentence seasoning", believe spaces between words are optional and couldn't defeat kindergartners in a spelling bee. What are they going to do, adamantly misspell words? Aggressively fail to punctuate correctly? Vehemently use poor grammar? 🙄

The Corbusian. The Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust, A.K.A. Geoff.

Responsible people who witness criminal acts and behavior monitor the perpetrator while they wait for the authorities in order to ensure that further criminal acts or behavior can be witnessed and reported. It's civic duty, not "cringy". Reporting criminal acts and behavior is a good thing. Or were you under the impression that theft is a good thing to do or have done to you? Stalking implies harassment, intimidation and/or the intent to conduct illegal surveillance. Keeping an eye on someone who has done something illegal, while awaiting authority action, is not stalking. Giving @cranebump shit because he didn't look the other way is ironic, because you're sticking your nose in someone else's business to tell them to mind their own business. Guess you should've followed your own advice.

Aggro limitations were relaxed some time ago. You can aggro everything on a map, and as long as you're within range, all critters beyond the previous aggro limit will use ranged attacks, and move into melee range or become "locked" on you if/when you defeat critters. You can't hold that aggro if someone else is attacking (or if you move out of ranged attack distance (they don't follow)), but you can definitely draw all of the attention you want, and if you're not careful, more than you can handle. Any further aggro limit changes would be pointless without correlating changes to AoE target caps, and that's not happening. Also, your poll sucks the sweat off of dirty yak scrotums. It's a poorly disguised attack aimed at both players and the HC team. Stop being a cunt.

That one Hellion who shows up in City Hall once in a while. Whatever reason prompts him to be there, it's either going to be something more earth-shattering than anything we've seen... or the most hilarious series of fuck-ups imaginable. Fun either way.

You have a parasite. Sit back, relax and enjoy zombification.

Remember to protect your investment!

Remember to title all e-mails, "Spank me, Sugar Daddyata". Also, repay the favor by dropping low level common IOs on him when you see him in Pocket D! HE LOVES THOSE! 😁

Don't know. Never done Penelope's task force. But there is at least one Ascendant Archon, and all boss rank Ascendants (Archons or named) have Detention Field (now... don't remember when that was added, but it wasn't in their repertoire when the game was on the original servers). Dimension Shift allows players to enter the shifted area and continue fighting, so it couldn't have been that power. It's possible that it was a player using Black Hole, but if that had been the case, @Techwright wouldn't have been the only one speaking up, since that tends to piss off teammates en masse. That exhausts the possible options for time-out powers, and between Black Hole and an enemy Detention Field, the evidence points to Detention Field. As to how even a single Ascendant could keep doing it, Detention Field is on a 120s recharge, and Ascendants have that dickbag self-shield+regen+recovery move, so if the battle went on long enough, one Ascendant could use Detention Field several times, once every 2 minutes. Pro tip: mez those fuckers. But it's more likely that there was more than one. Even if they're limited to one per spawn, my read on the situation suggests that there was chaos, multiple spawns pulled or aggroed, and several Ascendants would be possible in that scenario. Our boy was on a melee archetype or sentinel (Energy Aura), so higher aggro modifier (2.5-4), which means more aggro. Wouldn't be all that hard to piss off two or more Ascendants and find oneself playing "Who dropped the soap?" with them. The toggle drop could only have been a result of Super Stunner rez. @Techwright mentioned three Energy Aura powers, so it's a safe assumption that he was comparatively safe from Freakshow ranged attacks which drained endurance. Even if he were doing the task force at native level, those toggles that he listed, by themselves, would've been sufficient to ensure that most of those attacks would've missed. Maybe bad endurance management... but he's been around long enough to know how to take care of his blue bar, so I doubt that was the cause. That leaves only Super Stunners.

Translucency isn't a costume or animation or GFX setting, it's a mechanic. If you look at any stealth power in City of Data, you'll see something like 10% Translucency for X seconds. You don't see entries for changing power colors, or using different animations, but you do see a power def line for Translucency. Here, for example: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.invisibility.stealth&at=blaster +85% Translucency for 0.75s They had to use the Stance system to create two degrees of visibility for Stealth (Concealment). They'd have to do the same for every power with Translucency, or create copies with different Translucencies and hook them in as options when selecting powers (game presents Sneaky A and Sneaky B instead of only Sneaky A, and selecting either locks the other out). Even with workarounds like that, it wouldn't be user-selectable variability, it would be X% or Y%. Related: the lower the percentage of Translucency, the less visible the character. 10% Translucency is nearly invisible, 85% Translucency is only faintly transparent. Also related: Translucency seems to be a direct call to the OpenGL Blending setting, and is applied to the character hit box, not individual costume pieces or graphical effects.

Council Attendant Detention Field followed by Super Stunner rez endurance drain.

Which task force?