Techwright

Love the combat views that occur when the camera angle briefly erases the building structure.

Steel Canyon fires: a few questions 1.) What, if anything, can externally affect the performance of the extinguisher backpack? For example, can yellow inspirations reduce the number of misses, or can Hasten speed the interval between spray actions? Anything else that might affect it? 2.) What's probably the best way to solo a fire site, start to finish? Rotate between gangs and fires, or try to eliminate all gangs (to prevent re-ignition of fires) then hopefully have enough time for all the fires? Perhaps another tactic? I ask this because it appears that at some fires I've been able to eliminate all the gangs, and at others, they appear to keep on coming until the end. 3.) What speeds up/slows down the timer until the fatal blast? Does elimination of all the gangs effect this? Do the number of fires do this? I've notice the warning blast goes off at different times, and there seems to be different lengths between it and the final blast, which leads me to believe there are effects on the timer.

First thing I thought of when I read that: the stylish, power-move helmet remove and toss from the movie Free Guy.

Bumping this. I never had the problem myself, due to the choices I made, but I think it was @Easter Bunny that mentioned to me that things get squirrely when dealing with the joints and spaces between rooms. I gather some have chosen to fill in everything and build on top of the "normal" base, which I can tell you from hard experience can solve some other issues as well. I mentioned the City of Base Builders Discord group on another thread. You'll likely find the best help you need there.

The vids you've been watching may have already explained it, but the lights don't have to be hung on something visible like a ceiling or wall. The brighter ones can be embedded, hidden just under the surface of the terrain to provide an ambient light. Stealthnight is right, though. You'll probably get your best responses over at Discord's City of Base Builders.

Plus there's the whole question of "what do we top the Battalion with once we finish them off?" I'm much more into may slow stages leading up to Battalion over a long-game viewpoint. We've got stage one now: the scout force roaming around the ruins of Galaxy City. Once we're fully in control of that, the next wave hits: not the best and brightest of the enemy, but the disposables they can afford to lose. This tests our defenses, our ability to adapt and improve, and begins a wear-down process as we suffer attrition. Even if the volunteer dev team were to release a stage every other year (probably not), that could be 5 stages over a decade, equivalent to the length of the original game. And as I understand it, the game as it stands can continue in perpetuity, so long as NCSoft remains satisfied, and future computers do not advance beyond working with the game engine. Remind me: When Mendor Ramiel sends us to the distant-future, destroyed Oroboros, are we not seeing the destruction immediately after the Battalion has left the area? If that's correct, we should not even be facing the ultimate Battalion force for another 5,000 years, unless something in the time meddling has backfired and shorted the timeframe. I may be forgetting, or unaware of a story where that happens.

Learning the 4 kidnapped victims you have to escort to door in a blue cave mission are a new BFF group comprised of Fusionette, Flambeaux, Amy Jonsson, and Dr. Todd.

Beat me to it by 2 hours. Montague Castanella's arc: I don't know that it is forcing the character to be an idiot, but it is forcing the character, potentially breaking a character's concept. After rescuing Percy, you're asked if you have considered joining the Midnighters. At the end of the arc, you're made a Midnighter without your say so. Roleplay-wise, not every character embraces magic. I'd much have preferred a dialog where the player character is given a choice: become a full Midnighter, or become a member of a non-magic Midnighters' Auxiliary Corp that supports the Midnighters, and therefore has access rights. I realize the "no thank you" option cannot be utilized as that cuts the player off from all related stories, including the Labyrinth and Chimerora, but maybe a third dialog option is that Montague understands your choice, continues to hold you in high regard, and slips you a back door key "just in case".

Or if that fails to deliver an answer, check your ISP. We've had some oddball problems over the years in this house that were fixed when our ISP sent an advanced tech to investigate. He discovered a sloppy wiring job by one of his predecessors was at fault.

I played WoW off and on for 10 years. Loved the game, but felt it had two problems: 1. Your ability in the game is based on the armor and weaponry, and not nearly so much as on your skill. (I've got stories, but this is not the thread focus.) 2. The race to level cap to have the game "begin" (as you pointed out). I only did a couple of raids with my first guild. Mostly I hated them due to the pressures and demands put on someone who was there for the fun and distraction. I knew several people, including a coworker who was the raid off-tank for one of the (supposedly) best guilds in the game, whose whole lives were upturned by the game and the guild scheduling demands, not counting any training or crafting necessary to meet those demands. I reached level cap on multiple characters, but I found so much that was interesting in exploring and questing, that I couldn't believe people would skip it all to get into repeated raiding. For me, the joy was in the journey, not the destination.

That's a great point. I focused the OP on Lovell's Apollo 13 experience, but he was also on Apollo 8, and previous to that, because he was part of Astronaunt Group 2 he was on both Gemini 7 and Gemini 12. Additionally, he'd been a finalist for the Mercury 7 (Astronaut Group 1), but was cut due to a temporary medical issue. Previous to that he'd been trained to be a test pilot like Chuck Yeager, and graduated top of his class, only to have an earth-bound department head pull rank and assign him to electronics and radar testing. By 1960, that role had morphed into "the McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II program manager." (quoting Wikipedia). So yeah, legend.

https://www.nasa.gov/former-astronaut-james-a-lovell/ The term "legend" tends to be overused, but it definitely applies to astronaut Jim Lovell, lead on the near-tragic Apollo 13, arguably the most important Apollo mission after Apollo 11, though unintentionally so. I was just old enough to understand some of the nail-biting fear that was going on as my parents closely followed the news on TV and in print. Twenty-five years later I sat in the best theater in my region as an all-star cast reenacted those terrifying events. ( Come to think about it, that was shown 30 years ago this summer. Interesting timing. ) I went on to listen to an audio book version of Lovell's Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which covered far more detail than the movie. (The audio version appears to be out-of-print now.) I'm still astonished to this day that they survived. It had been my sincere hope that Lovell would have lived long enough to know that a new generation had returned to the moon to continue what he and his team started, but sadly that was not to be. I still have hope that Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 will have that honor, but the clock is ticking. Here's Lovell at Tom Hank's AFI honors ceremony.

"Enemy": singular or group?

I've finished muscling up a electrical/electrical corruptor to 50, not really pausing to consider powers, just grabbing them, and nearly completing columns 1 and 2. I also took the electrical epic set. Now as I enter the endgame, I want to do my characters first respect and start adding enhancement sets. So... those who play either or both power sets, what powers would you absolutely drop, and what powers from column 3 would you substitute? The way I've been looking at it, so far, I'm doing reasonably well draining end from opponents, but I rarely see opponents without at least enough end to trigger one power of theirs, so I'm not really looking to overwhelm them on end drain. I'd rather beef up damage, accuracy, and defense. I've already done some reading, mostly on stuff dated 3 or more years ago. I see something of a dislike for Tesla Cage and Defib, but I seem to have had better success with Tesla Cage than those from the past. Defib I've already had several occasions to use to aid teammates, so I'm thinking of keeping that, but am open to considering alternatives. What I don't like is Shock. The only true negative effect on opponents that I see consistently is -End, but as I said, I'm doing well without using Shock. This creates a puzzle for me, as I've seen some Mids builds that 6-slot Shock, with a full enhancement set. I look forward to reading other viewpoints.

This feels like a bug. I've got a Beam Rifle Sentinel on Excelsior (The Walking Red) that has something weird happening with 2 of his 5 identical costumes: They are both being charged on the coloration page for the beam rifle for ORIGINAL settings. This despite the fact that I've just gone into the tailor screen and have made zero changes. I checked all duplicate costumes, only two are trying to levy these charges, one of which is the primary costume. These did not have any customization that's being reversed. I've also attempted to re-load the saved coloration file for the character, and the charges still show. I've repeatedly logged off the character and back on. On one occasion I logged into another character altogether, then revered back to the beam rife sentinel. I've also exited the game and gone back in. The attempted charges remain. I can pay these, no problem. It's the principle of the thing, not to mention I'm concerned it might return on a future visit, or that the files are corrupted somehow.

Chasing balance be like Which reminds me: we could use a kiddie park somewhere in the city.

Hobie of the Spider-verse animation franchise is going to get his own animated movie apparently. I'm thinking this is going to be a challenge. The character has been around for a relatively short time of 10 years. If I'm reading internet info right, he's been more of a supporting character, than a deeply fleshed-out character. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Batman Beyond was successful (at least as a well-received cult following) where everything was created as the show progressed. But...Hobie was treated as a support character in the Spider-verse movies as well, and kind of a one-trick pony as it were, playing up the anti-establishment chatter to a high crescendo. It was entertaining, even hilarious, but I wonder if they can take a narrow focus like that and make a character that people will relate to for a full film and possibly beyond. My personal thought is that the way to achieve this is to show the anti-establishment shtick as a veneer, one covering the real Hobie, the one with a big heart and a bit of a mentor's nature, both hinted at in the last Spider-verse movie.

Rory McCann is one of those whose work is known to others but almost unknown to me. Fortunately, I saw him as the villain Jurgen in the Jumanji franchise, though that didn't give me a lot to go on for weighing his potential for anything other than a snarling villain. I apparently also saw him in an episode of Monarch of the Glen, but it's been so long ago I've no memory of any specific episode. I read Rory has 3 inches in height over what Ray had. That's impressive, as Ray had a COMMANDING presence. Now, had I been picking, I'd have picked Liev Schreiber. Almost identical height to Ray, slighter build, perhaps, but he can take a page from the Christopher Reeve manual for bulking up. Most especially, Schreiber can portray gravitas well, which will be essential in marrying up any future performance of Baylon Skoll with the work Ray laid down. But as long as Dave Filoni had the final say in who takes over the role, I'll be fine with the choice.

On the back side: Federation Ambassador to Quonos, Slayer of Weyoun They did put in a shot of prune juice, yes? He gets testy when they forget.

Action Figures SG Base: The counter-argument to "I can't build a good base in this game". If you've ever said anything like that, read on. I'd like to encourage you with my before & after improvements in hopes that you also will set aside fears and started on the road to a great new base. Please feel free to drop by anytime to visit, take notes, swipe ideas, and send me questions. I'll try to answer anything asked. You're also welcome to use the base as a transportation hub. It has everything needed for a non-SG member: trainer, vendors, costume agent, personal vault, rewards vendor, temporary enhancements vendor, fire & ice pillar, and mission boards. Location: Excelsior Access code: OPENTHEBOX-11976 Recommended best viewing: type /visscale 5 in your chat line and hit <enter> For guests: Please see the last picture. For fun, the base offers a rubber duck hunt, with clues posted on the entrance wall. I avoided building any substantial base in Homecoming for years because of various fears, most notably the fear that I couldn't work with the dated base-building control system. I'd dabble with a few things, with limited success, notably my zone portals, but that was it. Mostly, I just placed pre-fabricated essentials and called it quits, until... The base as it originally looked: (starring Vincent Poe) Last spring's base competition got me to make an an overhaul of the base in an effort to overcome those fears. Following are snapshots of the results of about 6 to 7 weeks of work, much of that spent just experimenting to see what the control system would allow. Check out the pictures and ask yourself, what kind of nice base might you have if you'd give 6 weeks to learning and trying? It doesn't have to be this big. I wasn't even a competition winner, just a guy who is very happy to have a nicer base. I worked with one central idea: I would not sacrifice the functionality of my base's "everything important in reach" design. So every interactable is in the main room, and is built within reach of the base teleporter. It is very practical for rapid work during a Task Force, for example. Second floor crossview of the main room with zone portals visible. The full base. Only the interior is accessible at this time. The exterior was designed for show via the large picture windows. This shot was taken by my designer toon. First floor crossview of the main room, showing skylight and roof Super group lore characters with kinetic effects (starring Glow Wyrm) Every essential within steps of the centralized base teleporter New Medical teleporter design: (starring Loony Lid) Disguised crafting tables and enhancement storage (starring Glow Wyrm) Disguised Inspiration Storage (starring Vincent Poe) Disguised rewards and temporary enhancements stations (starring Vincent Poe) Decorative: coffee vendor for base personnel (starring War Feather) Decorative: Base archives (starring War Feather) Base power plant. Notice the mini story elements: the observers window, a maintenance robot being repaired, a small generator being repaired, maintenance robots working on the main "Tower of Power", etc. (starring M.A.A.D. Scientist) Role-playing: On-call team's living quarters (starring Polar Cola Man) Role-playing: On-call team's kitchen (picture 1) (starring Heat Hitter) Role-playing: On-call team's kitchen (picture 2) (starring Heat Hitter) Game hunt for visitors: find the hidden rubber ducks throughout the walkable parts of the base

Right. That was what fueled my OP. However, Scout's dialog was not included in the wiki, which is why I had to run the TF again to snag the dialog.

As an incursion to Earth Prime, or as a taking back of Praetorian Earth? I'm a little nebulous on the "current" moment in the Praetorian lore.

Oh, bother. That's frustrating to me, because I'd asked about that years ago, was given the answer, and now I cannot remember it, nor find the discussion. I thought at first it was a costume with obsolete components, but I went to a character I have with such an issue, and there were no shield icons.

Does Old Posi count for the accolade? I know Sister Psyche TF does, but it's also listed in the Badge Accomplishments column, and the Old Posi TF isn't, which got me to wondering.

That's what he wants you to think.