07-19-2015, 06:33 PM
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07-19-2015, 07:06 PM
I'm listening to a bunch of rednecks practice death metal in a garage. 
07-19-2015, 07:07 PM
And so I sink back into the valley of the 90s, where there is no Wi-Fi or cell service, pest control is more of an idea than practice, and the insects have been running wild crossbreeding programs.
07-19-2015, 07:16 PM
possible upcomming vector thrust update,
![[Image: 7F927FABEB18D71320C38B9CC7F028BE4962AC5B]](http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/445079220309951651/7F927FABEB18D71320C38B9CC7F028BE4962AC5B/)
dem SP weapon internal bay.
dem SP weapon internal bay.
07-19-2015, 07:41 PM
Someone in the last few pages decided PA was better than SupCom.
I have played both, and you're absolutely wrong.
First off, PA has only one faction. While this does make balancing easy, strategy suffers as a result. It means there are only a handful of counters to a handful of tactics. Meanwhile, SupCom has three factions (four in Forged Alliance), each with a encapsulating theme: UEF is based around defense, being heavily armored and with superior range on their weapons for maximum base-turtle-ing. The Cybrans have weak units but make up for it with special technology, like cheap stealth and odd weapons. The Aeon go big, and deal large amounts of damage but suffer from weak armor and average speed. The Seraphim simply make tier units .5 up from the rest, costing more for a bigger package in all stats, but suffer from generalized units that lack the ability to deal with some strategies efficiently.
PA strategy boils down to which one of the generic units you want to use today. Fun. SupCom even has some units with more than one purpose!
SupCom's campaign is big, even though each faction has six missions in the original, these missions can take a while if you don't know what you're doing, even on easy mode. Some parts of the campaign even sync up with other factions.
Tiers and upgrading are different. The way PA does tiers is weird, by instead of upgrading your factories (and requiring you have defenses up beforehand, as it means the factory can't produce), you simply place down a larger factory while your original T1 is still pumping out. SupCom has 3 tiers, each with a focus: T1 is basic, T2 is tactical, T3 is strategical, and you even got fun experimentals if you want to rub your victory in your opponent's face. PA simply dumps all the cool stuff in T2 and declares it done.
SupCom's grid system meant each building fits, PA's free building means you have to wiggle around to fit it in.
And while infinite units was a good idea on paper, when adding up with cheap units it means swarming is a legitimate tactic, while in SupCom it was simply desperate when faced with a impenetrable defense that defies strategy, costing you tons of mass, time and a good chunk of your unit cap just to shut down a single torpedo tower next to AA that can only be taken out by your boats.
And while PA has big, solar systems of planets, the terrain was more noticeable, diverse in SupCom, which meant sometimes your defense for half of your base boiled down to the huge mountain that blocked tactical missiles. SupCom meant you had to work with the map you have to deal with problem you have at hand, in PA you can simply go around or even fuck off to another planet where you won't be bothered.
PA has ideas that sounded amazing on paper, but in practice it's worse.
I have played both, and you're absolutely wrong.
First off, PA has only one faction. While this does make balancing easy, strategy suffers as a result. It means there are only a handful of counters to a handful of tactics. Meanwhile, SupCom has three factions (four in Forged Alliance), each with a encapsulating theme: UEF is based around defense, being heavily armored and with superior range on their weapons for maximum base-turtle-ing. The Cybrans have weak units but make up for it with special technology, like cheap stealth and odd weapons. The Aeon go big, and deal large amounts of damage but suffer from weak armor and average speed. The Seraphim simply make tier units .5 up from the rest, costing more for a bigger package in all stats, but suffer from generalized units that lack the ability to deal with some strategies efficiently.
PA strategy boils down to which one of the generic units you want to use today. Fun. SupCom even has some units with more than one purpose!
SupCom's campaign is big, even though each faction has six missions in the original, these missions can take a while if you don't know what you're doing, even on easy mode. Some parts of the campaign even sync up with other factions.
Tiers and upgrading are different. The way PA does tiers is weird, by instead of upgrading your factories (and requiring you have defenses up beforehand, as it means the factory can't produce), you simply place down a larger factory while your original T1 is still pumping out. SupCom has 3 tiers, each with a focus: T1 is basic, T2 is tactical, T3 is strategical, and you even got fun experimentals if you want to rub your victory in your opponent's face. PA simply dumps all the cool stuff in T2 and declares it done.
SupCom's grid system meant each building fits, PA's free building means you have to wiggle around to fit it in.
And while infinite units was a good idea on paper, when adding up with cheap units it means swarming is a legitimate tactic, while in SupCom it was simply desperate when faced with a impenetrable defense that defies strategy, costing you tons of mass, time and a good chunk of your unit cap just to shut down a single torpedo tower next to AA that can only be taken out by your boats.
And while PA has big, solar systems of planets, the terrain was more noticeable, diverse in SupCom, which meant sometimes your defense for half of your base boiled down to the huge mountain that blocked tactical missiles. SupCom meant you had to work with the map you have to deal with problem you have at hand, in PA you can simply go around or even fuck off to another planet where you won't be bothered.
PA has ideas that sounded amazing on paper, but in practice it's worse.
07-19-2015, 07:43 PM
(07-19-2015, 07:41 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Someone in the last few pages decided PA was better than SupCom.Exactly this.
I have played both, and you're absolutely wrong.
First off, PA has only one faction. While this does make balancing easy, strategy suffers as a result. It means there are only a handful of counters to a handful of tactics. Meanwhile, SupCom has three factions (four in Forged Alliance), each with a encapsulating theme: UEF is based around defense, being heavily armored and with superior range on their weapons for maximum base-turtle-ing. The Cybrans have weak units but make up for it with special technology, like cheap stealth and odd weapons. The Aeon go big, and deal large amounts of damage but suffer from weak armor and average speed. The Seraphim simply make tier units .5 up from the rest, costing more for a bigger package in all stats, but suffer from generalized units that lack the ability to deal with some strategies efficiently.
PA strategy boils down to which one of the generic units you want to use today. Fun. SupCom even has some units with more than one purpose!
SupCom's campaign is big, even though each faction has six missions in the original, these missions can take a while if you don't know what you're doing, even on easy mode. Some parts of the campaign even sync up with other factions.
Tiers and upgrading are different. The way PA does tiers is weird, by instead of upgrading your factories (and requiring you have defenses up beforehand, as it means the factory can't produce), you simply place down a larger factory while your original T1 is still pumping out. SupCom has 3 tiers, each with a focus: T1 is basic, T2 is tactical, T3 is strategical, and you even got fun experimentals if you want to rub your victory in your opponent's face. PA simply dumps all the cool stuff in T2 and declares it done.
SupCom's grid system meant each building fits, PA's free building means you have to wiggle around to fit it in.
And while infinite units was a good idea on paper, when adding up with cheap units it means swarming is a legitimate tactic, while in SupCom it was simply desperate when faced with a impenetrable defense that defies strategy, costing you tons of mass, time and a good chunk of your unit cap just to shut down a single torpedo tower next to AA that can only be taken out by your boats.
And while PA has big, solar systems of planets, the terrain was more noticeable, diverse in SupCom, which meant sometimes your defense for half of your base boiled down to the huge mountain that blocked tactical missiles. SupCom meant you had to work with the map you have to deal with problem you have at hand, in PA you can simply go around or even fuck off to another planet where you won't be bothered.
PA has ideas that sounded amazing on paper, but in practice it's worse.
PA is a nothing more than dumbed down SupCom with prettier explosions and a bigger map.
07-19-2015, 07:51 PM
(07-19-2015, 05:02 PM)Battle Bee Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 04:57 PM)UnamusedAvali Wrote: [ -> ]Shhhh, 'flawless' logic.
That's your opinion.
It has only one faction, atrocious performance problems and no actual campaign.
These aren't opinions.
(07-19-2015, 07:41 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Someone in the last few pages decided PA was better than SupCom.
I have played both, and you're absolutely wrong.
First off, PA has only one faction. While this does make balancing easy, strategy suffers as a result. It means there are only a handful of counters to a handful of tactics. Meanwhile, SupCom has three factions (four in Forged Alliance), each with a encapsulating theme: UEF is based around defense, being heavily armored and with superior range on their weapons for maximum base-turtle-ing. The Cybrans have weak units but make up for it with special technology, like cheap stealth and odd weapons. The Aeon go big, and deal large amounts of damage but suffer from weak armor and average speed. The Seraphim simply make tier units .5 up from the rest, costing more for a bigger package in all stats, but suffer from generalized units that lack the ability to deal with some strategies efficiently.
PA strategy boils down to which one of the generic units you want to use today. Fun. SupCom even has some units with more than one purpose!
SupCom's campaign is big, even though each faction has six missions in the original, these missions can take a while if you don't know what you're doing, even on easy mode. Some parts of the campaign even sync up with other factions.
Tiers and upgrading are different. The way PA does tiers is weird, by instead of upgrading your factories (and requiring you have defenses up beforehand, as it means the factory can't produce), you simply place down a larger factory while your original T1 is still pumping out. SupCom has 3 tiers, each with a focus: T1 is basic, T2 is tactical, T3 is strategical, and you even got fun experimentals if you want to rub your victory in your opponent's face. PA simply dumps all the cool stuff in T2 and declares it done.
SupCom's grid system meant each building fits, PA's free building means you have to wiggle around to fit it in.
And while infinite units was a good idea on paper, when adding up with cheap units it means swarming is a legitimate tactic, while in SupCom it was simply desperate when faced with a impenetrable defense that defies strategy, costing you tons of mass, time and a good chunk of your unit cap just to shut down a single torpedo tower next to AA that can only be taken out by your boats.
And while PA has big, solar systems of planets, the terrain was more noticeable, diverse in SupCom, which meant sometimes your defense for half of your base boiled down to the huge mountain that blocked tactical missiles. SupCom meant you had to work with the map you have to deal with problem you have at hand, in PA you can simply go around or even fuck off to another planet where you won't be bothered.
PA has ideas that sounded amazing on paper, but in practice it's worse.
(07-19-2015, 07:43 PM)Battle Bee Wrote: [ -> ]Yeeees!(07-19-2015, 07:41 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Someone in the last few pages decided PA was better than SupCom.Exactly this.
I have played both, and you're absolutely wrong.
First off, PA has only one faction. While this does make balancing easy, strategy suffers as a result. It means there are only a handful of counters to a handful of tactics. Meanwhile, SupCom has three factions (four in Forged Alliance), each with a encapsulating theme: UEF is based around defense, being heavily armored and with superior range on their weapons for maximum base-turtle-ing. The Cybrans have weak units but make up for it with special technology, like cheap stealth and odd weapons. The Aeon go big, and deal large amounts of damage but suffer from weak armor and average speed. The Seraphim simply make tier units .5 up from the rest, costing more for a bigger package in all stats, but suffer from generalized units that lack the ability to deal with some strategies efficiently.
PA strategy boils down to which one of the generic units you want to use today. Fun. SupCom even has some units with more than one purpose!
SupCom's campaign is big, even though each faction has six missions in the original, these missions can take a while if you don't know what you're doing, even on easy mode. Some parts of the campaign even sync up with other factions.
Tiers and upgrading are different. The way PA does tiers is weird, by instead of upgrading your factories (and requiring you have defenses up beforehand, as it means the factory can't produce), you simply place down a larger factory while your original T1 is still pumping out. SupCom has 3 tiers, each with a focus: T1 is basic, T2 is tactical, T3 is strategical, and you even got fun experimentals if you want to rub your victory in your opponent's face. PA simply dumps all the cool stuff in T2 and declares it done.
SupCom's grid system meant each building fits, PA's free building means you have to wiggle around to fit it in.
And while infinite units was a good idea on paper, when adding up with cheap units it means swarming is a legitimate tactic, while in SupCom it was simply desperate when faced with a impenetrable defense that defies strategy, costing you tons of mass, time and a good chunk of your unit cap just to shut down a single torpedo tower next to AA that can only be taken out by your boats.
And while PA has big, solar systems of planets, the terrain was more noticeable, diverse in SupCom, which meant sometimes your defense for half of your base boiled down to the huge mountain that blocked tactical missiles. SupCom meant you had to work with the map you have to deal with problem you have at hand, in PA you can simply go around or even fuck off to another planet where you won't be bothered.
PA has ideas that sounded amazing on paper, but in practice it's worse.
PA is a nothing more than dumbed down SupCom with prettier explosions and a bigger map.
07-19-2015, 08:01 PM
(07-19-2015, 07:41 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Someone in the last few pages decided PA was better than SupCom.
I have played both, and you're absolutely wrong.
First off, PA has only one faction. While this does make balancing easy, strategy suffers as a result. It means there are only a handful of counters to a handful of tactics. Meanwhile, SupCom has three factions (four in Forged Alliance), each with a encapsulating theme: UEF is based around defense, being heavily armored and with superior range on their weapons for maximum base-turtle-ing. The Cybrans have weak units but make up for it with special technology, like cheap stealth and odd weapons. The Aeon go big, and deal large amounts of damage but suffer from weak armor and average speed. The Seraphim simply make tier units .5 up from the rest, costing more for a bigger package in all stats, but suffer from generalized units that lack the ability to deal with some strategies efficiently.
PA strategy boils down to which one of the generic units you want to use today. Fun. SupCom even has some units with more than one purpose!
SupCom's campaign is big, even though each faction has six missions in the original, these missions can take a while if you don't know what you're doing, even on easy mode. Some parts of the campaign even sync up with other factions.
Tiers and upgrading are different. The way PA does tiers is weird, by instead of upgrading your factories (and requiring you have defenses up beforehand, as it means the factory can't produce), you simply place down a larger factory while your original T1 is still pumping out. SupCom has 3 tiers, each with a focus: T1 is basic, T2 is tactical, T3 is strategical, and you even got fun experimentals if you want to rub your victory in your opponent's face. PA simply dumps all the cool stuff in T2 and declares it done.
SupCom's grid system meant each building fits, PA's free building means you have to wiggle around to fit it in.
And while infinite units was a good idea on paper, when adding up with cheap units it means swarming is a legitimate tactic, while in SupCom it was simply desperate when faced with a impenetrable defense that defies strategy, costing you tons of mass, time and a good chunk of your unit cap just to shut down a single torpedo tower next to AA that can only be taken out by your boats.
And while PA has big, solar systems of planets, the terrain was more noticeable, diverse in SupCom, which meant sometimes your defense for half of your base boiled down to the huge mountain that blocked tactical missiles. SupCom meant you had to work with the map you have to deal with problem you have at hand, in PA you can simply go around or even fuck off to another planet where you won't be bothered.
PA has ideas that sounded amazing on paper, but in practice it's worse.
Oh and let's not forget the game was launched incomplete, has a microtransactions store in a non F2P game, an orbital layer that's absolutely unsatisfying to play with once you've finally gotten there and overall most of the game feels more like a chore. The cardinal sin for any piece of entertainment is to be boring, and boredom is what PA provides in spades.
I'll be sitting in the corner with my copies of Forged Alliance and Total Annihilation kaythanks.
07-19-2015, 08:13 PM
Humanity's Debt
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler
Always has humanity been on the front lines of war. Not with their soldiers, nor armadas. Humanity had long ago decided that they would only wage defensive wars, they would only commit troops to conflicts that were righteous in nature. They never conquered, they refused to join in expansionist wars. But on every front line, in every army, humans were always there.
It began when the human organization known as the Red Cross met the intergalactic agency called Hands for Hearts. They were found most often in the slums of megalopolises, the derelict space stations, serving the poor. When Mt. Rainier on the continent of North America finally erupted, the devastation wrecked on Sol-3 was incredible. Three billion humans died in a matter of days. Even counting every colony and every human traveling outside of the United Human Confederacy, humanity lost a tenth of their population. The Red Cross, and its sister organizations the Red Crescent, Red Crystal, and Red Lotus, could not together handle a fraction of the catastrophe.
When Hands for Hearts dropped out of FTL above the skies of Earth, they appeared in numbers so vast the humans’ scanners glowed to the point that one tech nearly went blind. The UHC military went to Defence Condition Omega, nearly firing on the organization. Luckily, a human that had been volunteering for the organization was able to get to a communications center to ease the situation.
Then they landed.
They brought atmospheric scrubbers to prevent an ash winter, firefighting vessels that could drop millions of gallons of water at a time to extinguish forest fires, housing units that could be emplaced in minutes with the capacity to hold hundreds of families, agricultural equipment that tilled acres upon acres of land a day to reestablish sustenance production, cloning systems to reestablish both domestic livestock and wild fauna. They carried the capacity to essentially re-terraform an entire continent.
It all came without cost, without expectation of recompense, without any strings attached. Millions of scientists, engineers, technicians, and workers volunteered four Earth months of their lives for a species that was not their own, to rebuild an ecosystem and a peoples on a planet that was not within their realms, all funded by donations, the wages of the labors of a hundred different species and a trillion different souls who could have used those credits for their own luxury.
Humanity was grateful. The entire species, which had not conducted a single major operation of any sort on an interstellar scale, came together with a singular focus: repaying a debt that none ever asked to be repaid.
It took three years for humanity to recover, far less time than any human had expected when the news broke of the Rainier eruption. By the end of the fourth year, the Io shipyard had launched the new Tabib-class carrier-support ship, the UHS Hippocrates. It came armed not with rail guns or missile pods or energy weapons but with a fleet of Vrach-class landing ships equipped with a full medical staff and enough rooms to hold a hundred patients as they recuperate. Within seven months, a half dozen more were patrolling the human sector, landing in distant colonies to provide medical assistance, improve the health of the residents, and overall healing the colonists before taking off and flying to the next colony.
Then the war started. Two members of the Imperium, the coalition of nearly forty percent of the many species of the Milky Way, began a territorial dispute that quickly turned violent. Worlds were attacked, cities razed, continents burned. As soon as the military that conducted left, a human fleet dropped out of FTL.
At first the residents of Choktar thought the military fleet had returned to finish the devastation. Then, they saw the markings. The first ship, Borzuya, landed near the rubble that was one the largest city in the planet’s western hemisphere. It was gargantuan, fully four miles long, larger than most species’ capital ships and carriers. On her hull showed a massive white field, centered in which was a red crescent moon. From within came hundreds of vessels of various types: half a dozen hospital-sized recovery wards with their own flight capabilities, dozens of air ambulances, *scores* of emergency medical landing teams. The sheer scope of the one craft put most militaries to shame, and the humans landed nearly thirty in a single day. In fourteen hours, a quarter of the surviving population had at least spoken to a medic or nurse or doctor. They spent days upon end reattaching lost limbs, sewing plasma wounds shut, reconnecting torn ligaments, performing more medical treatments than can be counted. Their doctors were more fluent in xenobiology than most other species were in their own native bodies. When all was complete three weeks later, the population was twice as large as would have been expected thanks to the Interstellar Red Cross Society.
The most revealing thing about humanity happened when the UHS Memorial landed, carrying digging teams, priests of every human religion, and coffins. So many coffins. They immediately found religious representatives from the planet and arranged funerary rights for every lost soul. The humans moved mountains upon mountains of rubble, finding every body, limb, hair, every bit of the people who had died during the attack. They had to dig mass graves the size of canyons just to bury the dead, they numbered so many. And they watched. They watched as High Priest To’urn sang the Song of Mourning in front of the memorial grave marker, and they wept. They wept in a way that no other could. They wept not from sympathy, nor empathy. They wept from memory. They had felt the loss that the Choktari were feeling now, of the knowledge that loved ones were gone forever, of the lonely beds and the empty cradles. Of schools abandoned because there were no teachers to teach and no students to learn. Of the derelict cities because there were no residents to inhabit them.
By the time Hands for Hearts had dropped in, all that was left was the economic rebuilding. The bodies were healed, but more importantly, the souls were healed. Humanity left the Choktari to let Hands for Hearts do their work. Humanity had more work to do.
The war continued for months. The humans pushed closer and closer to the front lines, evacuating civilians, treating wounds, anything they could do to alleviate the pains. Eventually they began receiving the wounded soldiers from the armies, and humanity did what they do best. They healed them. They sent teams directly to the combat units, medics and priests with scant more than band-aids and bibles to face the horrors of war. They healed, and sometimes, they died, caught in the crossfire of armies. Humans appeared on every front line, healing both armies’ soldiers without question, without complaint. They were sentients, and all sentients had a right to live. They patched up those they could, evacuated the rest. They became a staple of every army. To have a human medic near you was to know in your heart that you would see your family again.
That is how humanity repaid the debt no one asked them to. That is how the humans stopped needing any military force outside of to police their own people and stop piracy. The humans never needed any military, because they had everyone else’s. The sole time humanity was attacked, a thousand ships from nearly a hundred species appeared and obliterated the offenders. It was not out of any need to remain in the humans favor, nor fear that the humans may recall their medical support. It was because the humans had earned their place among the stars.
Now, there in one title that is held above all others in the UHC. When a human walks in bearing a "Sestra" tab on their sleeves, generals stand and salute. They are welcome in any space, given authorization to land on any planet. They are our healers, our nurses and doctors and combat medics and hospice caretakers. They devote their lives to serving others.
They bleed so others don't have to.
http://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/2b1vqr/oc_humanitys_debt/
It began when the human organization known as the Red Cross met the intergalactic agency called Hands for Hearts. They were found most often in the slums of megalopolises, the derelict space stations, serving the poor. When Mt. Rainier on the continent of North America finally erupted, the devastation wrecked on Sol-3 was incredible. Three billion humans died in a matter of days. Even counting every colony and every human traveling outside of the United Human Confederacy, humanity lost a tenth of their population. The Red Cross, and its sister organizations the Red Crescent, Red Crystal, and Red Lotus, could not together handle a fraction of the catastrophe.
When Hands for Hearts dropped out of FTL above the skies of Earth, they appeared in numbers so vast the humans’ scanners glowed to the point that one tech nearly went blind. The UHC military went to Defence Condition Omega, nearly firing on the organization. Luckily, a human that had been volunteering for the organization was able to get to a communications center to ease the situation.
Then they landed.
They brought atmospheric scrubbers to prevent an ash winter, firefighting vessels that could drop millions of gallons of water at a time to extinguish forest fires, housing units that could be emplaced in minutes with the capacity to hold hundreds of families, agricultural equipment that tilled acres upon acres of land a day to reestablish sustenance production, cloning systems to reestablish both domestic livestock and wild fauna. They carried the capacity to essentially re-terraform an entire continent.
It all came without cost, without expectation of recompense, without any strings attached. Millions of scientists, engineers, technicians, and workers volunteered four Earth months of their lives for a species that was not their own, to rebuild an ecosystem and a peoples on a planet that was not within their realms, all funded by donations, the wages of the labors of a hundred different species and a trillion different souls who could have used those credits for their own luxury.
Humanity was grateful. The entire species, which had not conducted a single major operation of any sort on an interstellar scale, came together with a singular focus: repaying a debt that none ever asked to be repaid.
It took three years for humanity to recover, far less time than any human had expected when the news broke of the Rainier eruption. By the end of the fourth year, the Io shipyard had launched the new Tabib-class carrier-support ship, the UHS Hippocrates. It came armed not with rail guns or missile pods or energy weapons but with a fleet of Vrach-class landing ships equipped with a full medical staff and enough rooms to hold a hundred patients as they recuperate. Within seven months, a half dozen more were patrolling the human sector, landing in distant colonies to provide medical assistance, improve the health of the residents, and overall healing the colonists before taking off and flying to the next colony.
Then the war started. Two members of the Imperium, the coalition of nearly forty percent of the many species of the Milky Way, began a territorial dispute that quickly turned violent. Worlds were attacked, cities razed, continents burned. As soon as the military that conducted left, a human fleet dropped out of FTL.
At first the residents of Choktar thought the military fleet had returned to finish the devastation. Then, they saw the markings. The first ship, Borzuya, landed near the rubble that was one the largest city in the planet’s western hemisphere. It was gargantuan, fully four miles long, larger than most species’ capital ships and carriers. On her hull showed a massive white field, centered in which was a red crescent moon. From within came hundreds of vessels of various types: half a dozen hospital-sized recovery wards with their own flight capabilities, dozens of air ambulances, *scores* of emergency medical landing teams. The sheer scope of the one craft put most militaries to shame, and the humans landed nearly thirty in a single day. In fourteen hours, a quarter of the surviving population had at least spoken to a medic or nurse or doctor. They spent days upon end reattaching lost limbs, sewing plasma wounds shut, reconnecting torn ligaments, performing more medical treatments than can be counted. Their doctors were more fluent in xenobiology than most other species were in their own native bodies. When all was complete three weeks later, the population was twice as large as would have been expected thanks to the Interstellar Red Cross Society.
The most revealing thing about humanity happened when the UHS Memorial landed, carrying digging teams, priests of every human religion, and coffins. So many coffins. They immediately found religious representatives from the planet and arranged funerary rights for every lost soul. The humans moved mountains upon mountains of rubble, finding every body, limb, hair, every bit of the people who had died during the attack. They had to dig mass graves the size of canyons just to bury the dead, they numbered so many. And they watched. They watched as High Priest To’urn sang the Song of Mourning in front of the memorial grave marker, and they wept. They wept in a way that no other could. They wept not from sympathy, nor empathy. They wept from memory. They had felt the loss that the Choktari were feeling now, of the knowledge that loved ones were gone forever, of the lonely beds and the empty cradles. Of schools abandoned because there were no teachers to teach and no students to learn. Of the derelict cities because there were no residents to inhabit them.
By the time Hands for Hearts had dropped in, all that was left was the economic rebuilding. The bodies were healed, but more importantly, the souls were healed. Humanity left the Choktari to let Hands for Hearts do their work. Humanity had more work to do.
The war continued for months. The humans pushed closer and closer to the front lines, evacuating civilians, treating wounds, anything they could do to alleviate the pains. Eventually they began receiving the wounded soldiers from the armies, and humanity did what they do best. They healed them. They sent teams directly to the combat units, medics and priests with scant more than band-aids and bibles to face the horrors of war. They healed, and sometimes, they died, caught in the crossfire of armies. Humans appeared on every front line, healing both armies’ soldiers without question, without complaint. They were sentients, and all sentients had a right to live. They patched up those they could, evacuated the rest. They became a staple of every army. To have a human medic near you was to know in your heart that you would see your family again.
That is how humanity repaid the debt no one asked them to. That is how the humans stopped needing any military force outside of to police their own people and stop piracy. The humans never needed any military, because they had everyone else’s. The sole time humanity was attacked, a thousand ships from nearly a hundred species appeared and obliterated the offenders. It was not out of any need to remain in the humans favor, nor fear that the humans may recall their medical support. It was because the humans had earned their place among the stars.
Now, there in one title that is held above all others in the UHC. When a human walks in bearing a "Sestra" tab on their sleeves, generals stand and salute. They are welcome in any space, given authorization to land on any planet. They are our healers, our nurses and doctors and combat medics and hospice caretakers. They devote their lives to serving others.
They bleed so others don't have to.
http://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/2b1vqr/oc_humanitys_debt/
07-19-2015, 08:16 PM
(07-19-2015, 08:01 PM)Ippikos Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 07:41 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]-rantsnip-
Oh and let's not forget the game was launched incomplete, has a microtransactions store in a non F2P game, an orbital layer that's absolutely unsatisfying to play with once you've finally gotten there and overall most of the game feels more like a chore. The cardinal sin for any piece of entertainment is to be boring, and boredom is what PA provides in spades.
I'll be sitting in the corner with my copies of Forged Alliance and Total Annihilation kaythanks.
Oh yes, and let's not forget multiplayer mechanics and strategy.
When you overflow on energy and mass, it goes to the other players. Seriously. This means one guy can reclaim a ton of wreckage and boost his allies.
And the limits of the map means there's a guy who is basically "in the back", who needs very little defenses and usually goes straight to Air. Players can work together rather than all just being individuals with a common goal, as it seems to be with PA.
Oh, and commanders can be upgraded, you can call in support Commanders who can also be upgraded (RamboCom goooooo), you can choose winning conditions, whether civilians are on the map, what happens when a player dies and he still has allies...
SupCom launched incomplete too, but it was only missing map tools, and I think proper modding, as opposed to PA which basically is still in Beta.
07-19-2015, 08:23 PM
(07-19-2015, 08:16 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Oh yes, and let's not forget multiplayer mechanics and strategy.
When you overflow on energy and mass, it goes to the other players. Seriously. This means one guy can reclaim a ton of wreckage and boost his allies.
And the limits of the map means there's a guy who is basically "in the back", who needs very little defenses and usually goes straight to Air. Players can work together rather than all just being individuals with a common goal, as it seems to be with PA.
Oh, and commanders can be upgraded, you can call in support Commanders who can also be upgraded (RamboCom goooooo), you can choose winning conditions, whether civilians are on the map, what happens when a player dies and he still has allies...
SupCom launched incomplete too, but it was only missing map tools, and I think proper modding, as opposed to PA which basically is still in Beta.
Admittedly, I couldn't tell with SupCom because it still felt like a finished and polished product. PA by contrast has half the promised units missing - looking
at you, Unit Cannon (a unit promised that was delayed for months and was only added some time after PA left Early Access on Steam).
And then there's also the Glitches. From personal experiance, I've had Sub-Commanders glitch out and sit there twiddling their thumbs because I deleted tech I didn't need. A friend of mine also had one rather...colorful encounter. To quote him:
Quote:The first and most common one for me started with me spawning in my Commander in Galactic War, building my base and my first few unit factories and sending off scout units to gather intel, only to find… absolutely nothing. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING!! The game derped so badly that it forgot to spawn in the enemy Commander. It had essentially left me there on an abandoned dustball in the middle of the Fuck-Alll quadrant of the galaxy doing nothing but sitting there ordering units to drive around in circles like lunatics.
07-19-2015, 08:34 PM
(07-19-2015, 08:23 PM)Ippikos Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 08:16 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Oh yes, and let's not forget multiplayer mechanics and strategy.
When you overflow on energy and mass, it goes to the other players. Seriously. This means one guy can reclaim a ton of wreckage and boost his allies.
And the limits of the map means there's a guy who is basically "in the back", who needs very little defenses and usually goes straight to Air. Players can work together rather than all just being individuals with a common goal, as it seems to be with PA.
Oh, and commanders can be upgraded, you can call in support Commanders who can also be upgraded (RamboCom goooooo), you can choose winning conditions, whether civilians are on the map, what happens when a player dies and he still has allies...
SupCom launched incomplete too, but it was only missing map tools, and I think proper modding, as opposed to PA which basically is still in Beta.
Admittedly, I couldn't tell with SupCom because it still felt like a finished and polished product. PA by contrast has half the promised units missing - looking
at you, Unit Cannon (a unit promised that was delayed for months and was only added some time after PA left Early Access on Steam).
And then there's also the Glitches. From personal experiance, I've had Sub-Commanders glitch out and sit there twiddling their thumbs because I deleted tech I didn't need. A friend of mine also had one rather...colorful encounter. To quote him:
Quote:The first and most common one for me started with me spawning in my Commander in Galactic War, building my base and my first few unit factories and sending off scout units to gather intel, only to find… absolutely nothing. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING!! The game derped so badly that it forgot to spawn in the enemy Commander. It had essentially left me there on an abandoned dustball in the middle of the Fuck-Alll quadrant of the galaxy doing nothing but sitting there ordering units to drive around in circles like lunatics.
Overall, SupCom is a tighter game: it requires immediate attention, and will wipe the floor with you if you're incompetent. If you can't handle what the game has in front of you right now, you will fail. PA is terribly forgiving, requiring little attention or strategy to effectively use one's units. Seriously, you can just order units in PA to randomly patrol a given area, making normal, careful patrols useless.
07-19-2015, 08:39 PM
(07-19-2015, 06:13 PM)Battle Bee Wrote: [ -> ]TFW Keen Software adds faster than light travel to Space Engineers but refuses to add laser weapons and energy shields because they're not realistic.
I think they're loosening up on those ideals, hence the FTL drive. Let's face it, gravity generators aren't realistic either and neither is artificial mass or cryo-chambers that don't kill you.
Besides, there's mods that add practically everything now so there's that.
07-19-2015, 08:40 PM
(07-19-2015, 08:34 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Overall, SupCom is a tighter game: it requires immediate attention, and will wipe the floor with you if you're incompetent. If you can't handle what the game has in front of you right now, you will fail. PA is terribly forgiving, requiring little attention or strategy to effectively use one's units. Seriously, you can just order units in PA to randomly patrol a given area, making normal, careful patrols useless.
Quite. Or you can - y'know - spend years dicking around with Skirmish and the Single Player Campaign and never really touch the Multiplayer. Also Experimental Units are hilarious.
Quick Edit - I can attest to this as someone who can usually be rather slow to deploy forces or mount any kind of offence.
07-19-2015, 08:56 PM
(07-19-2015, 08:34 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]-words-(Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst.)
07-19-2015, 09:05 PM
(07-19-2015, 08:40 PM)Ippikos Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 08:34 PM)SilverOtter Wrote: [ -> ]Overall, SupCom is a tighter game: it requires immediate attention, and will wipe the floor with you if you're incompetent. If you can't handle what the game has in front of you right now, you will fail. PA is terribly forgiving, requiring little attention or strategy to effectively use one's units. Seriously, you can just order units in PA to randomly patrol a given area, making normal, careful patrols useless.
Quite. Or you can - y'know - spend years dicking around with Skirmish and the Single Player Campaign and never really touch the Multiplayer. Also Experimental Units are hilarious.
Quick Edit - I can attest to this as someone who can usually be rather slow to deploy forces or mount any kind of offence.
Oh yes... Oooh yes~!
I had fun not too long ago with setting up on a small 8 player FFA with all the enemy AI set to be as powerful as possible, have ground based tactics and then ban the use of everything that isn't a either a ground unit, factory, point defense or ground experimental every started with all tech unlocked. And with randomized factions too.
Ooooh man... It was fun as hell to see 8 king kryptors duke it out against an assortment of other ground units all on a tiny little bridge.
07-19-2015, 09:05 PM
I'm back after a busy weekend.
Did I miss anything?
Did I miss anything?
07-19-2015, 09:08 PM
(07-19-2015, 09:05 PM)Gonzogonz Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 08:40 PM)Ippikos Wrote: [ -> ]Quite. Or you can - y'know - spend years dicking around with Skirmish and the Single Player Campaign and never really touch the Multiplayer. Also Experimental Units are hilarious.
Quick Edit - I can attest to this as someone who can usually be rather slow to deploy forces or mount any kind of offence.
Oh yes... Oooh yes~!
I had fun not too long ago with setting up on a small 8 player FFA with all the enemy AI set to be as powerful as possible, have ground based tactics and then ban the use of everything that isn't a either a ground unit, factory, point defense or ground experimental every started with all tech unlocked. And with randomized factions too.
Ooooh man... It was fun as hell to see 8 king kryptors duke it out against an assortment of other ground units all on a tiny little bridge.
Psst...that's SupCom 2 ^^;
07-19-2015, 09:15 PM
(07-19-2015, 09:08 PM)Ippikos Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 09:05 PM)Gonzogonz Wrote: [ -> ]Oh yes... Oooh yes~!
I had fun not too long ago with setting up on a small 8 player FFA with all the enemy AI set to be as powerful as possible, have ground based tactics and then ban the use of everything that isn't a either a ground unit, factory, point defense or ground experimental every started with all tech unlocked. And with randomized factions too.
Ooooh man... It was fun as hell to see 8 king kryptors duke it out against an assortment of other ground units all on a tiny little bridge.
Psst...that's SupCom 2 ^^;
Yes indeed it is. SupCom 2 is a pretty great game too, and personally I prefer it to the original SupCom, but that due to silly things like ground unit AI, the unit design, and the slower build rates. The over all feel of the game is a little different, and on the finer details I prefer SupCom 2.
07-19-2015, 09:20 PM
(07-19-2015, 09:15 PM)Gonzogonz Wrote: [ -> ](07-19-2015, 09:08 PM)Ippikos Wrote: [ -> ]Psst...that's SupCom 2 ^^;
Yes indeed it is. SupCom 2 is a pretty great game too, and personally I prefer it to the original SupCom, but that due to silly things like ground unit AI, the unit design, and the slower build rates. The over all feel of the game is a little different, and on the finer details I prefer SupCom 2.
SupCom 2 is downgraded to the tactical level. It plays out more like -craft style RTSes, at least in the campaign. It's a good game, it's just not SupCom. There would have been less backlash if it had a different IP attached to it.
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