Lancer Tactics

[minor trench]

It does make me wonder which one is easier to code for.

[alpine sorrel]

Tiles are easier by far!

[lone cliff]

Ill have to say go with squares

Even though ive only played lancer with hexes

Hexes are really only useful if unit facing is important

[fickle pecan]

even just an isometric grid adds a fair bit of complexity

[mild jay]

Much as I like hexes for lancer, squares seem a lot easier for 2d raster graphics

Equilateral hexes don’t like pixels

[weak hemlock]

Hexes are cool, but squares seem much easier

Love myself some hexes to. Swear by em. Bur with how much work is going into this game already, squares just seem like the much easier route

[tepid temple]

Is there something special about hexes that makes them hard or is it just "Squares are the default and every tool and tip is meant to help you with them and not anything else"?

[mild jay]

It comes down to math, basically

[lone cliff]

They require more logic for grid stuff

Its easier to make a 2x2 grid than figuring out how to connect 6 sides of hexes

[alpine sorrel]

Functionally, every time any dev puts hexes in a game it means they've had to visit this page and copy-paste the right bits of code: https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/

[lone cliff]

Oh thisll be useful for me

[alpine sorrel]

it's a masterpiece

[mild jay]

That’s a very good resource

[radiant spade]

Only 5k to go???

[copper tangle]

https://tenor.com/view/invader-zim-mighty-need-i-have-a-mighty-need-need-want-gif-5157692

[flint portal]

My perspective as a guy who worked on official maps for Solstice Rain (still wild i can say that) is that when it comes to actually making custom maps for different occasions, squares have been my go to, they make for clear map dynamics cause generally you have less "directions" to take into account for stuff like chokepoints and whatnot

Hexes are alright but they’re honestly a bit of a pain to make maps for

[weak hemlock]

has done a whole Lancer ll0-12 I can hard agree with that

[sullen berry]

and I still thank you for answering all my questions about those map drafts eld. I know you only did the layout not the art, but that is still some of the most fun layouts I've used and cannot replicate

[flint portal]

😎 👍

[minor trench]

already less than $4300USD to go 👀

[topaz agate]

Gonna up my pledge once I'm back from work, we can do this!

[nova nebula]

Ooooooooh

[gaunt shuttle]

3 days get to 150k let’s goooooooo

[wraith cradle]

We deffo got 150k, the real question is by how much imo.

[forest obsidian]

It's just social inertia at this point. Squares are dnd, hexes are battletech. So all giant robot games are hex grids

[frigid shale]

Said it before and I'll say it again: Here's hoping we go above and beyond; I want Olive and Hericus comfortable while working on this lol

[alpine sorrel]

I'm expecting to hit 150k today and then have the last 48 hours to rebuild my buffer that got eaten by ads, so I think we're in good shape

And as a note, Mark = @wintry egret (art director, primary partner on this), @flint idol = Henry (irl friend & player, made the trailer and other promo graphics)

[flint idol]

(I'm just heavily invested and excited about the project 😅)

[sand goblet]

hello both!

[radiant spade]

That's crazy, I never thought this KS would get to 150k

Can't wait to play the demo!

With new mechs in the patch notes hnngfhhhh

[weak hemlock]

Funny numbers go brrrr

[naive yacht]

we're not Leet

we're EEEE

[livid fractal]

Reading through this today feels like walking into a banging party. I'm so excited and happy for thiis success! Echoing @frigid shale, we have a secret bonus stretch goal of ~$170k which is "Olive doesn't stress out of her mind," lol

[void hearth]

Oh hey I know that song

[sand goblet]

So close now!

[final onyx]

I think we might make it to $20,000 guys

[stuck falcon]

hot diggity shit this is good

[void hornet]

i love that this is the universal "so you wanna make hex grids" page

its just so good

[alpine sorrel]

It's like making a pilgrimage to a holy hex site

[void hornet]

it is

[void hornet]

also as far as a stream, streaming some of the game while doing a chill ama sounds cool?

[crisp pelican]

2500 to go

[rain cipher]

With the way things are going I might recommend making it a real Stretch goal, give something to work towards for the final days since 150k seems pretty in the bag?

[crisp pelican]

She made it very clear, 150k is the final stretch

[rain cipher]

Yeah, for Deliverables. This wouldn't have anything attached to it

[livid fractal]

Yeah, the secret stretch goal is like - balancing out ads and stuff I don't think I've ever seen a stretch goal that's basically "Backfilled ads" or whatever

My comment was mainly made as a joke anyway, lol

[rain cipher]

Aside from making it's purpose of completely covering marketing costs clear

[tepid temple]

$170,000 stretch girl: catgirls are canon in Lancer Tactics

[stuck falcon]

pretty sure that's a $0 stretch goal

[torn kite]

But do we wanna anger tom.lancer

[rain cipher]

My reasoning being that some people might hold off til release if they see funding is "completed", but might contribute if they see its needed still

[worldly violet]

If Tom didn't want catgirls in Lancer he should've put it in the licensing stipulation

[sand goblet]

the problem is the license violation punishment is this: https://twitter.com/Orbitaldropkick/status/1611433375864131609

ABBADON (@Orbitaldropkick)

@TheRinric @Lancer_RPG a 10 ft woman comes to your house and kills you (sexy)

Likes

514

Twitter · Jan 6, 2023, 6:43 PM

[flint idol]

I hope the logo is cool enough we spent a lot of time on it 😂

[copper tangle]

Think something is wrong with my browser

[forest obsidian]

Sodium Nitride?

No, nitrate I think? i dunno I'm not good with chemistry

[copper tangle]

it's "not a number" 😂

[forest obsidian]

Look I don't need your real life answers getting in to my terrible chemistry jokes okay!! 😄

[naive yacht]

"I donate Blue"

"I have given a Cucumber to the cause"

barter based kickstarters

[alpine sorrel]

I love that

[copper tangle]

I think the future is trying to tell us something

[radiant spade]

might violate the license now

also 2.5k to go!

[little jetty]

I was reading top to bottom and got really confused

[flint idol]

Don't Dead Open Inside

[snow loom]

I'm beginning a Notion for my rpg writing

SO excited

Btw is there any ressources on side quests to get licences ?

I'd like licences obtention to be more than "you have unlocked this frame"

Like "okay you have contacted/ been contacted by this entity to get a licence, how does it goes ?"

[alpine sorrel]

Nothing along those lines in the video game lancer tactics (this channel), but you may have some luck in either #gm-corner or #lore-and-worldbuilding 🙂

[snow loom]

Oh sorry wrong chan ??

Dunno how I

Got confused

my bad

fumb me

dumb me*

[alpine sorrel]

All good!

[snow loom]

sorry

I'm a huge fan of your work

haveanicedaybye

[little juniper]

Yoo!

how are we doing on the tactics of lancer

[ripe radish]

just $1,688 to go

[little juniper]

if we hit 150,000, I'll learn to sprite to make homebrew sprites

[unreal hatch]

it's more of a "when" than an "if" with how it's looking out rn

[tepid temple]

Sproterman evolving into Spriterman

[flint idol]

yeah I would not be surprised if we hit it tonight

[weak hemlock]

watching this like a hawk

Wanna see when it hits

[subtle sandal]

me constantly flipping between this and the Legionnaire thread for updates

[weak hemlock]

Lots of excitement today!

[little juniper]

okay

i'm scared

there's so many good homebrew

[livid fractal]

me but for Golden Flame, lol

[frigid shale]

me but all of the above lmao

[tepid temple]

The end of this campaign is coinciding with my flight to see my gf lol

[weak hemlock]

excited Lancer noises its closer

$1028 left

[plucky helm]

I know I'm late to the party- life has been a catastrophe for a few months and I haven't been on PilotNET at all- but holy shit am I thrilled for this. I got a targeted add on facebook, I think. I backed the project a few days ago.

@alpine sorrel , the stuff you've already made for this community is extraordinary, and this looks to be an absolute game changer. The demo is incredible as-is. Just... thank you. You rock.

[alpine sorrel]

✨ i thrive on external validation so thank you for the kind words! I feel like we've just completely lucked into being able to plug into an amazing community.

I hope things get less catastrophic for you! ❤️

[neon swift]

HOLY MOLY

[alpine sorrel]

I'm sitting in a parking structure refreshing, let's see where it is when I get back home.

[worldly mountain]

We will all keep watch dont worry

[tepid temple]

The total is being perceived 👁️

[plucky helm]

This community IS pretty damn extraordinary. I've missed hanging out in this discord. But your contributions are definitely a part of why it rocks so much in here.

[weak hemlock]

LESS THAN A THOUSAND

[minor trench]

I still wonder how easy the Godot engine would be for modding.

The very possibility of core complete content makes me hopeful that it'd be flexible enough for some modding.

[worldly mountain]

I have seen some godot games without modding have some basic changes

[worldly violet]

Idk if this has been asked before, so apologies in advance if its a common occurrence: Are there plans to make a module maker? I know that a sit-rep and map maker is in the works, but will there be the tools to link multiple sit-reps together, action triggers for maps, etc.?

[final onyx]

All this before the 48 hour boost, nice

[boreal dust]

just pledged :))

[worldly violet]

3 of my players bout to snatch a squad tier too 🙂

[plucky helm]

Just made posts to a few of the queer/left rpg facebook groups I'm a part of. Here's hoping.

[copper tangle]

You’re safe knowing that I’m away from my computer and therefore unable to Inspect Element to $150k 😂

[radiant spade]

OOP

[frigid shale]

Yeah, some Object Oriented Programming is probably involved

[worldly violet]

$600

[weak hemlock]

https://tenor.com/view/4242-greenbed-steven-universe-peridot-refresh-gif-23491519

[neon swift]

433 now holy shrimp

[radiant spade]

so close i can taste it...

[alpine sorrel]

refreshing like it's early 2000s email

[tropic fractal]

freakin love the soundtrack!

[torn kite]

AIM style-PING, you got mail

[radiant spade]

350 to go!

[worldly mountain]

349 on my end

Oh nevermind in the time between checking it dropped

329

[radiant spade]

sooo cited

[weak hemlock]

watches number go up in real time

[plucky helm]

Soooo clooosssee

[radiant spade]

it's all me btw, the 20 dollars i pledged made the kickstarter go to 150k

haters will say it's fake

[weak hemlock]

UP AND UP IT GOES

[alpine sorrel]

233

bounce bounce bounce

[mild jay]

https://tenor.com/view/soon-hamster-gif-4508050

[flint idol]

Y'all are invited to a pizza party at my place when we hit 150

[boreal dust]

[radiant spade]

91

[worldly mountain]

We already hit 150 that was like 5 minutes in

[weak hemlock]

SOOOOOON

[crisp pelican]

[alpine sorrel]

91

ahhhh

[minor trench]

You've really hit something here.

[plucky helm]

AAAAAAH SO CLOSE

[crisp pelican]

What’s going to be the most annoying mech to program?

[forest obsidian]

Probably All Of HORUS

[boreal dust]

my guess would be mimic gun

[minor trench]

I was going to say Lich then I remember it's only core content. 😔

[radiant spade]

my guess is gorgon

[minor trench]

Would've been fun to see that implemented.

[alpine sorrel]

I'll save my answer for the AMA :p

[plucky helm]

I'm furiously telling everyone I know that might be a little interested.

[radiant spade]

||make lich a secret mech that the community unlocks through an ARG||

[forest obsidian]

When you Provoke the mimic gun a little speach bubble should pop out of your mech with some kind of insult in it. "Your mother was a Taurus and your father smelt of elderberries"

[final onyx]

149,909

[weak hemlock]

[plucky helm]

I'm trying to get friends on board so I can upgrade to squad and put it over right now.

Fuck it. I'm doing it. Gifts for the group.

[alpine sorrel]

EYYYYY

I SAW IT GO UP

[weak hemlock]

$150,000 LETS GO 🔥 🥳🥳🥳🥳

[radiant spade]

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[boreal dust]

congrats

[final onyx]

150,043

[plucky helm]

DING DING DING

[final onyx]

HAHA GET PRANKED OLIVE (jokes)

[subtle sandal]

WOO

[radiant spade]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1064603500710993920/1090411824211570848/rivvy.gif

[tropic fractal]

I WAS HERE!!

[forest obsidian]

heyoooooo

[tropic fractal]

🥳

[radiant spade]

witnessed

[shut horizon]

Woo!

[worldly mountain]

Nice!

[flint idol]

https://tenor.com/view/excited-mech-oh-boy-jumping-front-mission-gif-4939368

[pastel flax]

oh Dang!

well done.

[radiant spade]

yipee!

https://tenor.com/view/yippee-happy-celebration-joy-confetti-gif-25557730

[pastel flax]

not to be too unrelated is that a split keyboard?

[boreal dust]

https://i.gyazo.com/cb5b3f9010aeadb21d3decc5ec4d72a4.gif

[final onyx]

[alpine sorrel]

KS update sent

[weak hemlock]

😄

[alpine sorrel]

Hey, guess what? Surprise bonus sticker!

[plucky helm]

YESSSSS

[forest obsidian]

Very pretty

[final onyx]

That's so good

The dna strands blend in really well

[radiant spade]

YOOOOOOOO

GAMER

[minor trench]

Congrats!

[mild jay]

Ooh that’s a pretty sweet sticker

[worldly violet]

I am currently feral

[mild jay]

Also heck yeah congrats!

[stuck falcon]

Congrats!!

I hope you make enough to cover the ad campaign and then some

[final onyx]

With the final KS push and such we should be good

[weak hemlock]

Y O

THAY DESIGN IS BOSS

I can't wait to have it

[radiant spade]

now what

[flint idol]

Good question

It's all over now, right? no more work to do?

[final onyx]

We invest in crypto to double the money of course

[neon swift]

HOLY MOLY

[torn kite]

Yeah!!!!

[radiant spade]

real

[sand goblet]

Congratulations 🙂

[radiant spade]

lancer tactics nfts

[final onyx]

I heard a hot tip about this dodge coin

[radiant spade]

can't wait

maybe the investment will pay off in 15005u

[neon swift]

https://tenor.com/view/yippee-happy-celebration-joy-confetti-gif-25557730

[radiant spade]

yipee!

[neon swift]

you're literally me

[radiant spade]

real recognize real

[alpine sorrel]

idk just going through my mech memes folder

[neon swift]

is that a thing i can make in battletech

a little guy with an ac/20

[torn kite]

Yes

[neon swift]

holy moly

[torn kite]

It is a base model of the urbie actually

A common variant

[neon swift]

i would play battletech cause i got the physical game but there's no one around here to play it with 😭

[alpine sorrel]

it has almost nothing else going for it, but an ac/20 is a lot to have going for it

[torn kite]

Not speed for sure

But an ac20 will wreck a lot of things

Including fellow lights

[alpine sorrel]

my playlist right now https://open.spotify.com/track/1OYEOBFX3VxrTcK7vmVagH?si=96ee542f3a3644d5

[subtle sandal]

[plucky helm]

love this. Thank you for the playlist.

[forest obsidian]

https://tenor.com/view/urbanmech-mechwarrior-battletech-mech-missile-gif-21451876

[final onyx]

https://tenor.com/view/full-metal-panic-anime-fumoffu-gif-13091153

Most powerful size 1/2 mech

[warm magnet]

It's probably too much for the text on this one to be "the power of god and anime", isn't it

[forest obsidian]

It's SSC, the text should just be "toes" over and over

[little juniper]

y//yyyyesssssssssssssssssssssss'

time to learn to sprite new style

[alpine sorrel]

I mean, this was 1.0 for the ssc design. alas, it was not to be 😔

[weak hemlock]

Tbh that ssc sticker can stand on its own

No need for text

[little juniper]

i can explain a lot of lancer memes to my family

but I can't explain that

[weak hemlock]

Feels like something ssc would do ngl

A brand so luxurious and famous it needs no words

[alpine sorrel]

I was considering hiding a message somehow in the DNA strands

but couldn't figure out how

[torn kite]

toe-related bloatware in every SSC mech, get rid of 'em, get free SP.

[alpine sorrel]

morse code? slight colors representing different codons?

[forest obsidian]

Break some of the cross bars and do it in morse code

[mild jay]

The thought I just had was how a lot of my textbooks in high school showed the pairs as cylinders with different shapes plugging into each other

[little juniper]

make it a palindrome.

[alpine sorrel]

morse code feels more like ipsn's kind of thing

[crisp pelican]

do you control the SSC toes via a toe-interface?

[mild jay]

But that’d be a tiny detail here

Also I don’t know how you’d translate gtca to letters

Well, more letters

[forest obsidian]

quaternary numbering system -> hex ->ascii letter

[pine anchor]

Mourning Cloak beans need representation too LOL

[radiant spade]

and gorgon toes

[plucky helm]

I mean... DNA is already in a weird quaternary (or binary, depending on how you look at it) so if you demarcate the nucleic acid sequence in some subtle way you can do a simple base-4 or binary substitution cipher. It's have to be a short message, though.

(sorry. ARG design brain)

[forest obsidian]

Or any intermediate system really.

G = 0
T = 1
C = 2
A = 3

b = 01100010
01100010 = 1202 (tcgc)

[plucky helm]

Yup.

[forest obsidian]

Although iirc the gtca setup always comes in pairs so binary would be more legit, you get a lot more information density just using the gtca letters as colors idea.

[pure lynx]

congrats on the final milestone! I was wanting to ask if you planned to stick with the diagonals-are-2 metric and if so how you intended to implement cones; I've designed a good algorithm for good fair diagonals-1 cones that I'd be glad to offer/explain but cones seem tricky on a diagonals-2 grid. I can try putting it into the algorithm (it can be generalized to any grid metric) and see if it makes any sense on diagonals-2 though if you're intending to stick with it.

[mild jay]

Gtca comes in pairs but the cell reads only one half of the strand so it’s still quaternary

[forest obsidian]

oh right! Thanks.

[plucky helm]

Yup.

[alpine sorrel]

(except in cases where some genes can be read either way and still make a functional protein 😵‍💫 )

biology knows no law

[plucky helm]

Which might be fun... a sequence that can be read differently from either side...

Really damn hard to do, but doable.

[alpine sorrel]

goes back to the palindrome idea

[plucky helm]

yup!

[warm magnet]

Just so my dumb brain can stop turning the idea over, let me throw out one more idea (or one real idea, even) for the SSC sticker

[forest obsidian]

That does mean you get twice as much information out of the dna fillagre on the image because you can do each bar as two colors and then codify both sides

[warm magnet]

Just one word: "iconic"

[mild jay]

The pairing’s main function is just replication but yeah sometimes weird things happen

[alpine sorrel]

(oh neat! I am technically already using a cone for knockback, but I'd be happy to see your algo. DM me?)

[flat steppe]

Biology doesn't know your laws.

It makes perfect sense if your the aggregate interactions of self-propagating chemical systems.

[mild jay]

I almost studied biology but then I went to art school instead

It’s deeper secrets elude and terrify me

[warm magnet]

Oh wait, wait, i thought of an even more SSC way to do it. Find someone who does calligraphy to write the word 'iconic' (and then scan it instead of having them handwrite every sticker, you're not really SSC)

[little jetty]

Omg are we talking about the 6 ways the same DNA strand can be read

Also each protein has an alphabet notation, like M for Methionine, which gives you more control over what the message is coding
https://meme-suite.org/meme/doc/alphabets.html

[alpine sorrel]

Yoo that might be the way to do it! Codons ftw

[alpine sorrel]

wait, what? what... what are the other two forbidden ways

I can only think of four

[nova nebula]

God, genetics is a beautiful circus.

[mild jay]

Like I said before, dark, terrifying secrets

[radiant spade]

151k

[little jetty]

There's 3 ways to read per side and there are two sides! I think they were called open reading frames (or orf)
But if you can think of four, maybe you knew about this part already

Wait you do neuroscience or something, you probably know more than me lmao

[alpine sorrel]

I was only thinking of the two for each side! (Backwards and forwards) what's #3?

I took some good genetics courses but it was never my strong suit

[little jetty]

Real short version is that DNA doesn't tell you where to start, just to read it in groups of 3

Longer version is that it does tell you where to start but only some of the open frames will make sense

Even longer version is something I feel like I'm not knowledgeable enough to explain, go take a genetics course :P

[alpine sorrel]

OH RIGHT

God, I love biology

[little jetty]

What were the four ways you were thinking of?

[alpine sorrel]

It's a little murky, but I have a recollection of learning about an RNA virus that codes two proteins with the same gene not with a frame shift like you included, but by reading the strand backwards.

So if it's possible for an rna strand to be read both backwards and forwards like that, it should also be possible to read each stand on DNA backwards and forwards too? Hence four

[little jetty]

Is it maybe a retrovirus that turns its RNA into DNA and put it into the host? I've never heard of any nucleic acid chains that can be read both ways (as in both 3-5 and 5-3)

but also I haven't taken a bio class in forever

[alpine sorrel]

On reflection I'd be shocked if dna was actually ever read like this, it might just be rna

Since viruses are under a lot more selection pressure for small genomes so come up with compression tricks like this

[little jetty]

https://news.mit.edu/2013/reading-dna-backward-and-forward-0623
okay apparently there is such a thing as reading in a non-coding direction

[deft rapids]

saw that tactics hit full funding for the final stretch goal

congrats!

[nova nebula]

Yes, big congrats!

[shell pagoda]

def congrats on funding!

[fickle pecan]

Wooo!!!!

[crisp pelican]

Now it’s just down to mitigating the cut Backerkit/Zuck/etc take

[ripe radish]

wait, how does Zuckerberg take a cut? is kickstarter part of Meta?

[frigid shale]

They’re referring to the Instagram ads

[alpine sorrel]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wickworks/lancer-tactics/posts/3759869

We took the devil's bargain of paying them to get fractionally more out, but the consequence is that the funding level is no longer 1:1 with how much money we'll get for the project (e.g. we might pay 10k, get 20k out — but that means if we ended at 150k, we need to pay back that 10k and we actually end up under the final by that much adspend)

[pastel flax]

Amazing you got all of the goals

[pastel flax]

Makes sense

[worldly violet]

on the bright side, we're nearly 5k over 150k now, so at least some of that will be recouped

[alpine sorrel]

BK has pretty significantly ramped up adspend for the last few days because it doesn't make sense to slow it down now, but the adspend has gotten pretty up there; we're currently sitting at a total cost-of-ads-and-associated-obligations of like $18k$14k. We're on track to make that so I'm not worried, for once.

the math is brutal tho EDIT: Oops, this pretty massively overestimates the fulfillment costs. The last three cells should be $526 / $552 / $7937, which is WAY better

[broken lily]

That's some brutal pricing.

Still though, it was worth it.

[deft moon]

Does the goblin's reactive code not work? it seems to freeze up my game whenever I use it

[flint idol]

Just got access to Bard... had to ask 👀

[flint idol]

Make sure you're using the downloadable version, not the browser version

The browser one hasn't been updated in a while due to Godot version stuff

[deft moon]

I was using the browser version

gotcha

ty!

[flint idol]

sure 🙂

[alpine sorrel]

Lol, I was all prepped to do a final-48-hours post on reddit but got scooped

https://www.reddit.com/r/LancerRPG/comments/126qaip/its_the_final_36_hours_to_back_lancer_tactics_the/

[fossil schooner]

i have added 36 bucks to the pool

[alpine sorrel]

thank you for your service

[fossil schooner]

[forest obsidian]

[crisp pelican]

[topaz agate]

Damn, countdown's gonna end at 4AM for me

That'll be a long night

[crisp pelican]

Set an alarm 15 mins before

[alpine sorrel]

😫 I'm sorry I didn't think through the time zones before I set the time! Please only stay up if it feels healthy to you.

[mild jay]

Oh wow getting real close to 170k

[tepid temple]

The greatest stretch goal: peace of mind

[final onyx]

Sadly no amount of money can do that 😦

Piece of mind however

I have a friend at the brain bank

[ripe radish]

What about pisces of mind?

[mild jay]

If you have psychic fish invading your mind, you need to see a specialist

[forest obsidian]

Nah, that's just how I understand alien languages.

[topaz agate]

haha no worries 😄 it's impossible to account for all timezones in existence

[boreal dust]

are you breathing easier with the amount at 166?

[alpine sorrel]

oh yeah!

last I checked our payback for ads was around there

so I think we're officially in "build out more of a buffer for the fact that games are always more expensive than you expect" zone

which is frankly a fantastic place to be, a nice change of piece

*pace

[void hornet]

looks on track to maybe hit 170k by the end of it

glad youre getting some breathing room above the 150k

[alpine sorrel]

it's so absurd to me that I ended up any amount of stress about whether we'd have enough funding for anything when the whole thing is like 800% funded

the fact that I can honestly tell my brain right now "no, really, we're solid. everything's ok" is returning with a ??? status code

its like it's only happy when something's wrong

[little jetty]

Please don't go on a self destructive sabotage to make sure there's something wrong
(Definitely not speaking out of experience)

[mild jay]

Warning: found “none” trying to access “AnxietySources”, using default value

[little jetty]

(I lied about not speaking out of experience)

[mild jay]

Brains are funny. And by funny I mean they can be a real pain when they’re not being incredible

[pastel flax]

Something wrong is something to solve

and since you've been running around doing things it's kinda lost i suppose

[alpine sorrel]

yeah that's it exactly!

[naive yacht]

went from "this is a tentative evaluation of the bare minimum I need" to the community slam DUNKING funding into the funding box, possibly doing a 360 and a somersault at the same time

and shattering the backboard

[alpine sorrel]

this, this is a true description

objective account for the historians

[pastel flax]

I wonder how other people manage it

imagine there's some form of tricking yourself

"Well the kickstarter is now done but we're waiting on processing"

[alpine sorrel]

brains: making things up to be worried about since ___

[naive yacht]

You be like "Man, I'm not worried at all today"
Brain be like "Ok. Why?"
Leading to:

[sand goblet]

this absolutely happens 😰

[lone cliff]

Its cause when we were living in the wild we had very valid reasons to be worried about most everything

Which is why a weird brainhack when youre feeling anxious is to do a fullbody clench for several seconds then relax

Because it tricks your brain into thinking it just got over some immediate fear like a tiger attack

[plucky helm]

I love the "slow tigers" analogy of modern work/social stress. Like... fear is fear, and our bodies don't distinguish an awful lot between "I'll lose my job if I don't do this thing" and "a tiger is literally about to eat me". So we go through our lives in tiny amounts of mortal terror pretty much constantly, rather than having big moments of it followed by relative peace. We're all being chased by very slow tigers.

[jade reef]

Drinking deep and decending with some friends. Looking forward to see all your hard work come together!!

[nova nebula]

all this reminds me of the way that Hank Green wrote about fame, social media, etc. in An Absolutely Remarkable Thing like, we are in no way built to handle it, especially on the levels that we can get to with it today.

[crisp pelican]

$169,482, 25 hours to go pog

[tepid temple]

Oh hey, we hit 170,000

[alpine sorrel]

I finally got it in my head to blaze a post on tumblr

it, ah, has been doing some heavy lifting today

but I made a critical blunder and messed up the referral code so I don't know exactly how heavy. All I know is that today as been the biggest jump since launch

[wraith cradle]

Looks like you're employed for the next year regardless!

[weak hemlock]

YO I LOVE THIS AD

Look at all the designs!

The pixel mechs!

Everyone is vibing

[alpine sorrel]

Haha that's great to hear, I was like "I literally have no ideas left, let's just throw all the assets into a blender and see what comes out"

blobertson's pixel mechs really are just fantastic

[ripe radish]

Fun fact, SSC is the only manufacturer without a non CRB mech in that add

IPS-N has calaban and Zheng, HA has Sunzi, and Horus has the right 10th of a lich

[little jetty]

I think there's the feet from white witch?

[alpine sorrel]

Ding ding ding!

[ripe radish]

Nope, you’re right

[little jetty]

feet meme

[ripe radish]

this means that all of these mechs are legally obligated to be in the full game

[alpine sorrel]

I was thinking that while making it, "is this false advertising"

[little jetty]

you know, if custom sprite is allowed in the game...

[ripe radish]

But to be serious, DLC is an option

[little jetty]

technically not false advertisement and also pretty cool, though idk how reasonable ask that would be

[ripe radish]

But I wouldn’t want to program the Sunzi into the base game. That seems hard

[lone cliff]

very comfortable 171k usd

[alpine sorrel]

I was about to say, if our mod plans go according to plan it's basically guaranteed that they'll be done somehow someday

[little jetty]

mod support sounds amazing

[tepid temple]

Call it a teaser

[void hearth]

I feel like the SSC sticker still wants for text, but since I have no idea what you'd put there I can't blame you for not having any

[little jetty]

https://wissen.science-and-fun.de/chemistry/biochemistry/iupac-one-letter-codes-for-bioinformatics/
Using this, you could hide a message in there if you wanted to. The characters are kinda limiting though

You get ACDEFGHIKLMNPQRSTVWY, so no BJOUX

TERASHIMA is a message you could write, and the nucleotides would be ACNGARMGNGCNWSNCAYATHATGGCN (anything other than ATCG represent multiple available options, since there's some redundancies)

[wanton willow]

Mod Support would basically make Lancer Tactics the PERFECT place to test mech ideas

[void hornet]

if tactics gets mod support that would be lovely

idk how hard it is in godot

[warped flume]

the callsigns will be asked for later right? just dont wanna miss it and couldnt find when that will be asked for

[alpine sorrel]

Yep, we'll ask for callsigns in the backer survey a few weeks after campaign close.

[warped flume]

thank you, and congrats on 177k! here's to 180!

[alpine sorrel]

Wait it's at what now

Huh

It had a big night

[final onyx]

taking bets on final numbers

I'm gonna say 182

[warped flume]

I have faith in the communities ability to procrastinate so ill say 185

[alpine sorrel]

yesterday I said we'd be very lucky to break 180 😅

[boreal dust]

i think were on track to break 180 for sure

[warped flume]

We should make a thread to coordinate callsigns
I'll be sad if there isn't a full set of x mcXface for each type of play style
Smashy, hacky, helpy, warpy, the list goes on 👀

[alpine sorrel]

Neon White and the seven NPCs

[warped flume]

Now i want to run a mini campaign with neon white and her 7 size 1/2 lieutenants 😂

[flint idol]

I knew that couldn't be right 😛

[glad lotus]

There's some gold right there

[void hearth]

As a side note

I know you said you weren't doing alt coin designs, but if at any point you felt like doing another run of them, I think the SSC sticker would look dope as one

[warped flume]

[alpine sorrel]

ey you just beat me to it 😁

lol

[mild jay]

How will you breathe under all that money

[ripe radish]

snorkel

[frigid shale]

it's like a weighted blanket clearly /j

[alpine sorrel]

by spending it all immediately this year so I don't get taxed on it

[tepid temple]

Gold-plating the Horus coin for a tax write-off

[mild jay]

I was imagining a Scrooge mc duck situation, I forgot all about taxes

[alpine sorrel]

actually though??

[void hearth]

Wait do you get to write off money you spend on taxes?

[alpine sorrel]

no, whatever money I don't spend on biz expenses (like horus coins) gets taxed

so the goal will be (financial hat on) is to pay our contractors as much as we can this year and look into somehow deferring the full-time-year for myself to a year where I'm not also dayjobbing

[flint portal]

now's the time to spend all of this cash on a 1:1 Nelson mech and run with the money

[final onyx]

How are they gonna stop you, you're in a mech

[flint portal]

think about it, people can't catch a nelson

exactly

[flint idol]

You just beat me to it 😂

[mild jay]

Make it a mourning cloak and just disappear from reality

[alpine sorrel]

what I'm hearing is that I could get two forklifts and have them fight

[little jetty]

I think you could do a separate Kickstarter for this project

[ripe radish]

but if you spend all the money on a Nelson, what do you have left to run with?

[boreal dust]

also mechs are cool so

[mild jay]

Money you stole using the mech?

[flint idol]

It's apparent at this point the Lancer community would pay you to have a mech, so...

[little jetty]

It was literally in the ad. Be gay, do giant robot crimes

[boreal dust]

yeah not false advertising

[mild jay]

We only need the one mech, then the floodgates are opened

[little jetty]

Honestly if you just took that 180k and built a Nelson, I would be a little bit disappointed but overall pretty happy

[mild jay]

Only a matter of time before we all have mechs

[frigid shale]

if you took 180k and managed to build a working Nelson with it I would be shocked, impressed, and frankly horrified

at that point we'd have bigger issues than "no Lancer Tactics :(" lol

[little jetty]

if you wanted to build a Nelson you could probably get funding from department of defense, which means we still have enough funding for Lancer Tactics

[alpine sorrel]

Haha, mid-me-writing "there's nothing to worry about" for today's update, there was a loud bang from the transformer across our street and the power + internet went out.

[tepid temple]

Amazing

[alpine sorrel]

The universe has incredible comedic timing sometimes

[frigid shale]

well that may put a damper on the stream plans 😅 still a lot of the day left though, so it may get fixed before then

[alpine sorrel]

Not gonna risk it, I'm packing up to drive out to my folks' place out of town and can just set up there.

I was thinking of doing that anyway

[frigid shale]

good contingency planning then 😄

[glad lotus]

Yeah, you need another 2 or 3 zeroes to start approaching a machine that moves, lol.

$180k could probably get you a 1:1 replica carved out of styrofoam, hard-coated, and painted, though.

[agile raven]

$36 tithe submitted

[fossil schooner]

[alpine sorrel]

[warped flume]

Its going up so fast
Think i lost the 185
Gonna blast past it

[little jetty]

With the stream, maybe we can get some more? 200?

[tepid temple]

Can we get much higher?

[final onyx]

Well there goes my bet

[sand goblet]

Please... my son... he is very sick

[severe otter]

One step further

[flint idol]

Damn, y'all

we are at $190k 🤯

[little jetty]

200K! 200K!

[alpine sorrel]

That is... wow.

[crisp pelican]

That’s a lot of manna

[final onyx]

Remember, the extra money doesn't mean extra obligation

It's just an indicator of interest

Shows you got a good idea on ya hands 😛

[unreal hatch]

Or that Lamcer nerds want more Lamcer nerds to Lamce with

[torn kite]

I am suffering last minute kickstarter thoughts of maybe I wanna stickers. 😮

[flint idol]

shinyyyyy

[torn kite]

oh I can't afford coin for sure

[flint idol]

that's okay 💖 every bit helps! 🙂

[torn kite]

Yeah I backed at Lancer and I was pondering all month if I go up to Veteran for stickers or not, but gosh the canadian to US conversion rate is rough right now.

[void hornet]

A whole 200% of the original goal over the stretch goal of 150k
Congrats @alpine sorrel

[alpine sorrel]

Thank you ❤️

[pastel flax]

That's a wrap?

3 hours

Well done olive

[flint idol]

In case you missed it, we're gonna have a livestream in a little over an hour to wrap this whole thing up and have a little AMA 🙂 twitch.tv/wickworks

[pastel flax]

I am hopefully going to be unconscious

[flint idol]

totally understandable

[forest obsidian]

Is the stream happening?

oh I see it

[void hornet]

i could resist and went for the coin

coins good

[void hornet]

👀

[alpine sorrel]

Stream is set to live, starting in about ten:
https://www.twitch.tv/wickworks

[minor trench]

Did the stream go down?

[nova nebula]

stream down? or is my internet bugged?

[flint idol]

Hey y'all, Olive's computer just crashed - give us a moment 🙂

[nova nebula]

ah, back up

[warped flume]

final number, cant wait for this game!

[alpine sorrel]

WILD

[mild jay]

Just a teeny bit shy of 200k

[flint idol]

Thank you all!!

[fickle pecan]

195k!!!!

congrats!!!

[torn kite]

success!

[sweet zinc]

[unreal hatch]

That's most certainly a Big McLarge Huge number

[shrewd anvil]

Average donation of $41

Which makes sense. I think most people wanted the $36 tier and a few wanted higher tiers

[alpine sorrel]

It was interesting to see that average change over time. It was at like $50 a week ago, but the vast majority of the later pledges were at the $20 tier

[frigid shale]

Xiong Xiaoli is an outlier that could warp the average too

[worldly mountain]

yeah, as it reached further beyond the big lancer community i have to imagine you got more people who were interested but not completely sold

[alpine sorrel]

That was my read too

Plus yknow all the high tiers were taken so even if they were interested there wasn't an opportunity to show that

[deft rapids]

Im eagerly awaiting the answer to what homebrew license the game gets

[tepid temple]

Gonna be honest, it's a lil weird not being able to tab into the kickstarter and see how much its progressed now

[shrewd anvil]

I forget if I pledged 20 or 36

[little jetty]

How was the stream? I missed it bc work :(

[flint idol]

There's a VOD 🙂 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1781370363

But it was a lot of fun! I think we had about 50 people on for most of it

[alpine sorrel]

Looking into hexes vs square vs elevation vs diagonal adjacency today. I was expecting adding diagonals to be super tricky, but it literally took longer to make the gif than to tweak the demo for diagonal adjacency.

[torn kite]

haha

[tepid temple]

You love to hear it

[minor trench]

siiick

now that's great

[crisp pelican]

Aaaand all my complaints or worries about Squares Vs. Hexagons are completely gone

[pastel flax]

Pardon, what's this in reference to?

[alpine sorrel]

Generally, to give a small update about how we're thinking through what the maps are gonna look like in LT? dunno if I understand the question

[pastel flax]

The bit about grid type vs elevation and diagonal

[alpine sorrel]

those are decisions we gotta make for the full game, so we're trying to hash them out early

and today was just our first meeting about it

[nova nebula]

[little jetty]

I forgot to mention but I love how prone is represented in the demo

just turn it 90 degrees

[worldly violet]

I mean that's what I do both in real tabletop and foundry lmao

It just works™️

[little jetty]

I use prone condition marker so I thought this was really cool

[ripe radish]

Jammed should cover the mech in jam

[unreal hatch]

what kind of Jam though?

[little jetty]

if flavor is free, why is it so hard to inflict jammed

[unreal hatch]

because the jammed jam is filled with hatred

[fathom saffron]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rGvblGCD7qM

[ripe radish]

Salmonberry

[alpine sorrel]

The thought here is that sticking to single frames and showing statuses and animations by rotating and bumping it around will make modding someday way easier; to add a new mech you won't have to do a whole sprite sheet. We considered reducing the reso of the sprites to make animations feasible but dropped the idea in favor of this future-extendability.

[unreal hatch]

future-proofing veri gud

[tepid temple]

This is how imagine the game is made https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/12hl37d/god_why_is_coding_chess_so_hard/

[mild jay]

I think that’s how a game doesn’t get made

That’s some psychic damage right there

[severe otter]

I would probably be dead after trying to code that

[worldly violet]

Considering there's significantly more states of chess than atoms in the universe... see you at the end of time.

[severe otter]

This code also wouldn't work past the first turn unless it's able to read the board state somehow and seeing as it's just a few print statements I don't think it can 🤣

[void hearth]

really? That seems... IDK, lowballing the number of atoms

[worldly violet]

Cursory googling puts atoms in the universe at 10^80 and states of chess as >=10^111!

Ok, theres actually a lot of debate, im also seeing 10^71 for chess, which is less - regardless its truly absurd

[sand goblet]

presumably the amount of game states that would be reachable in normal play is a bit lower, just throw an error on the uncommon ones and make your front end dev deal with it :kappa:

[alpine sorrel]

Semi relevant xkcd

[shut seal]

I missed the kickstarter, but am definitely hoping to pick up Lancer Tactics on release, any word on what the final pricepoint is likely to be like?

[alpine sorrel]

$20, unless something changes! I'm also in the process of setting up Backerkit to be able to accept late pledges for up until we start shipping rewards.

[shut seal]

just played the demo, it was pretty nice

[alpine sorrel]

How'd you like those berserkers?

[little jetty]

Tbh on my first time, I was confused about where the resistance was coming from

[shut seal]

I thought the Blackbeard would want to get in close, but those berserkers structured it twice in like one turn the first time I tried

[alpine sorrel]

Blackbeard wants to be close, but berserkers want to be closer

We're looking at making a combat log to make stuff like where resistance comes from more clear.

[fresh dagger]

a combat log would be a godsend, i lost focus several times during the end-of-round cramming enemy turns and missed what happened

[little jetty]

Is there a way to scan enemies in the demo? Or like look up information in some way?

[ripe radish]

You mean other than the CRB? I don't think so

[smoky glacier]

You can view their statblock by clicking on the role icon next to their name

[little jetty]

Ooh neat I'll check it out

[livid fractal]

https://tenor.com/view/jojo-jjba-gif-19539293

[alpine sorrel]

cleaned up my notes into an infographic-style map for the Shore

(notes mostly taken from Battlegroup)

[flint portal]

yooooo this slaps

[unreal hatch]

oh that's pretty

[plucky helm]

This is SO HELPFUL.

[crisp pelican]

is this map canon information

[tepid temple]

This is collated canon info, yeah

[alpine sorrel]

Everything besides the LT mention is paraphrased from battlegroup/core book/long rim. The karrakin green is color-picked from a cape from somewhere in the KTB field guide

space background is from https://deep-fold.itch.io/space-background-generator

[tepid temple]

I did a collection of canon material on the dawnline shore myself and some of it is a... lil contradictory

@alpine sorrel Oh! On that note, you actually missed a lil something

[alpine sorrel]

haha, did you also run into the "when did people actually show up?" problem?

I've read a few different things and choose to believe it's the various factions rewriting history to support their land claims

[tepid temple]

Oh yeah, the stuff on Long Rim sounds off from the other description

[alpine sorrel]

oh? do tell! I've made a few other small additions since as well

[tepid temple]

Anyway, there is actually one smidge of writing on Crossland in the KTB book, page 49: "The House of Remembrance, seeking new territory, has relocated many of its younger minor houses and eager populations to its holding in the Dawnline Shore: DS10, or as Remembrance calls it, Crossland. Arrudye is blanketed with propaganda urging ignobles and unlanded nobles to seek a new life on the new world; the population has responded with vigor and enthusiasm, and now colonial land-charter services and work placement programs are just as busy shipping eager new colonists to Crossland as the facilities on Crossland are to receive them."

[alpine sorrel]

Oh sick!!!

Thank you!

Does the House of Remembrance have holdings on both DS11 and DS10 then? I guess so

[tepid temple]

"Lil contradictory"!

[alpine sorrel]

Here's an updated one w/ crossland

[nova nebula]

I'm only now realising that I'm gonna have to come up with a good call sign to submit. Where have all my "that's be a good band name" thoughts go?

[void hornet]

Just visit #strategy-club and steal a nebulous ship name from someone

[livid fractal]

I know you landed on the final design after a lot of trial-and-error, but seeing the Hi-Res IPS-N sticker really highlights just how fantastic the final design is. It's so pleasing to just look at

[alpine sorrel]

^_^

It was definitely the most difficult of the four

I'm very excited to see it in-person, I ordered the proofs last friday.

[livid fractal]

Same. I am going to be stuck in decision paralysis for so long, deciding where to put these little treasures

[boreal dust]

im most likely gonna stick them on my laptop

[weak hemlock]

Excited that i finally got to do the enemy name/callsign!

Tiny steps towards completion XD

[void hearth]

is there any like, expected margin for when I should be looking for the backerkit email?

[alpine sorrel]

Today I sent out the "smoke test" which is the survey to 5% of people. As soon as we confirm that it worked with no problems we'll send out the rest of them — so could be as soon as tomorrow to as late as the end of this week, depending on whether we need to fix anything.

[alpine sorrel]

sending support emails like x_x

[alpine sorrel]

but just sent the remaining surveys, they should all be on their way shortly

[final onyx]

Got mine

I dunno what callsign to do though 😦

Wait I have the perfect one

Dysnomia

[alpine sorrel]

Ooo that's a fun word

[final onyx]

It's both a mix of: I always give my pilots callsigns after things in our Solar System and I couldn't think of a word

[frigid shale]

I'm using a pilot I made previously because I like the callsign: Volition

[naive yacht]

I'm bringing in my MSMC scraggly man Wardrummer

got mine!, not that you need confirmation here from everyone

[deft rapids]

And survey in

I look forward to seeing Ted get his shit kicked in even more

[naive yacht]

picked any for wardrummer, like to imagine he's going Fill and keeps getting wrecked

[deft rapids]

I picked striker for mine because he's a recurring Ronin in my first lancer gamr

[crisp pelican]

Using my current callsign. Backstory is Mecenary so idk maybe he did some gigs in the Shore he isn't so proud of

[minor trench]

Is there a length limit to the callsigns?

[forest obsidian]

Oh god for some erason I hadn't already thought of pilot name/callsign for the kickstarter backing benefits and now i'm like a deer in the headlights!

Names are always the hardest part of making a character.

[void hearth]

NGL I just made something up on the spot

[worldly mountain]

Anytime names come up i always remember this post: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/85325/can-i-legally-include-a-line-break-in-my-childs-name

[crisp pelican]

edited my submission. Forgot my PC's middle initial

[alpine sorrel]

backerkit editable surveys pulling their weight 👍

[alpine sorrel]

Haha, I want to say "no limit" just to see what happens. Unreasonably long ones may be cut off at unpredictable points!

But if you stick to one or two words you should be fine

a short phrase, even

if that's the way you roll

[minor trench]

Admittedly I wanted to go for one of those phrase callsigns.

[alpine sorrel]

a callsign like a news ticker

[naive yacht]

Callsign: A New Enemy Approaches

lol

(no what I went with)

[alpine sorrel]

'); DROP TABLE Mechs;--

[naive yacht]

Wait I'm Friendly!

[subtle sandal]

Shit I should change it to "A Problem" later

[minor trench]

The-One-Who-Is-Steadfast-As-A-Fierce-Capybara-Soul

[crisp pelican]

just HORUS pilot things

[naive yacht]

Alexa Play Despacito

[alpine sorrel]

I'm so excited to read through these

[naive yacht]

I Don't Notate My Code

or maybe My Code Has No Line Breaks

[weak hemlock]

I named mine after the big bad in my campaign

[nimble pine]

Just checking, how does the survey work for the squad tier?

[alpine sorrel]

clunkily

[crisp pelican]

What year is it in the game? Not that I really care about this level of consistency, but I want to see how much time would be passing between the game and my current campaign. I think my guy's backstory says he did unsavory jobs. Being a bad guy mook in the game could count for that.

[alpine sorrel]

backerkit wasn't really set up for this, so I'm gonna have to do a bunch of data gardening after the fact to get it all organized

[naive yacht]

I'm guessing callsigns can't be like... copyrighted brands right? Can't do like Coca Cola or Mcdonalds the Pilot

[alpine sorrel]

correct

[nimble pine]

Got it, I'll get that filled out once the rest of my group gets online.

[crisp pelican]

Massif Press CEO Tom Parkinson-Morgan

[minor trench]

How about mythological/religious references?

[alpine sorrel]

That should be fine? NHPs are already doing it.

[naive yacht]

Don't think those have any legal issues

[shrewd anvil]

Question: its asking for both name and callsign. Is it going to show up like
John Doe
"Maverick"
or
John "Maverick" Doe
or
MAVERICK
John Doe

[alpine sorrel]

The last one, I think.

[shrewd anvil]

Or just MAVERICK

Nice

Ty

I submitted mine. I prefer the name to the callsign, it's an old battletech character of mine

[naive yacht]

I'm A Paid Actor For
John Doe

[alpine sorrel]

We're currently aiming for the lancer narrative present (or a bit before). It's basically the antebellum period before conflict erupting across the shore as presented in the Battlegroup book.

[crisp pelican]

I'm NASTYMAN
aka Iggy J. Doyle

[tepid temple]

"Things are OK for now but there's war on the horizon" would honestly be a pretty cool note for a campaign to end on

[boreal dust]

how long will the shipping take?

[alpine sorrel]

We're aiming for before the end of the year. I have meetings on the books next week to talk to both some shipping and coin manufacturers and should have a better estimate after those.

[sand goblet]

Submitted the Apex Operator herself! I'm interested in how the stats break down on submitted pilot roles

Wondering how much it'll skew towards Strikers

[naive yacht]

I'd be curious too tbh, I feel like erryone skews towards striker

[frigid shale]

I went for a Controller 😌

[naive yacht]

Ol Wardrummer is an Any pilot, jack of trades type character

[sand goblet]

I actually changed which pilot I submitted when I realised it was breaking down by role

[crisp pelican]

Any. Iggy eats printerloaf he's not picky.

[naive yacht]

very excited to hear the first time a player encounters wardrummer and just deletes him in one round

[subtle sandal]

I wanted to submit one of my OCs but I realized none of them would work for the KTB in this context lmao.

[nova nebula]

God thinking of other mecha reference call signs and thought up "Undefeated of the East" Billy Bob, the IPSN trucker. Who I guess I have to play now as a character in a game

[minor trench]

Submitted!

I went for 'Any'.

I also went for a phrase name so hopefully it isn't too long 👀

[worldly violet]

Corius "Blood Hawk" James is going to get his striker ass beat forever
Poor idiot's been a recurring villain in more than a few of my games and now the jerk will get clowned on by the greater Lancer community

[heady dragon]

haven't poked my head back in in a while

saw the backerkit survey

for those who provide names, do we know what happens if multiple ppl suggest the same name?

or like, in case same callsign different pilot name/role or something

... second thought, i guess as long as the generator checks to not have duplicate callsigns when assigning names to NPCs this probably is not a problem

[cedar torrent]

I'm new to the setting, just played through the demo 😄 I was gonna name myself in the callsign/name, but it occurs to me these are enemy pilots aka imperial assbutts, yeah?

In the example given, SMASHY MCSMASHFACE is the callsign and Mr. Boats is the name, yeah?

[heady dragon]

pretty much yeah

[cedar torrent]

I'm sorely tempted to throw some Ashnikko lyrics in there, but might that be no good?

fuck it I'm going for it, it's too good to not use

I was like "where can I find a book explaining the setting" oh right it's an RPG, they, uh, they sell the book lol

[jade reef]

Do you think "Harbinger of a Crimson Sky" is too long for a callsign? 🤔

[rain cipher]

The purpose of a callsign as I understand it is a) protecting identity and b) having something short and recognisable to call you over the radio during combat. If it's too long it's just going to get shortened anyway, no-one's going to say "Harbinger of a Crimson Sky, watch out!"

So being realistic anything over like 3 syllables is too long, but people are having fun with it and with an example like Smashy McSmashface, might as well go nuts lol

[cedar torrent]

They've already got She Who Somethings The Heavens

I'm so surprised looking through this at how straightforward the combat rules are compared to something like Advance Wars, I kinda forgot it was based on a tabletop system lol

so, no secret formulas for hitting or damage

[minor trench]

I always imagine them as being said in a language that sums up the whole thing in a few syllables and we're just reading the literal translation in English.

[rain cipher]

Doesn't work as well when other players are addressing you in English lol, but that doesn't apply here and that's a cool interpretation 😮

[idle void]

So torn between:

• a (non-IP infringing) reference to my favorite podcast
• something that sounds like a powermetal song title / K6BD name
• just calling them "Printloaf" (could you ever live down getting structured by an NPC named Printloaf?)

[minor trench]

I ended up making something that sounds like a K6BD name in a subtle reference to touhou.

"The Scarlet Rainbow Rains Hellfire on Heaven" 😛

[cedar torrent]

never heard of K6BD, what is it?

[minor trench]

It's Tom's webcomic, and it's fabulous

[naive yacht]

its a fun read, very vibrant and colourful too

[minor trench]

Basically supernatural martial art with a strong base in Hinduism.

That putting it as mildly as I can

[cedar torrent]

I just got into and somewhat out of Touhou a few months ago, never got to the extra boss in Touhou 6 FLANDRE 😠 😂

[naive yacht]

its a good one sentence synposis

[smoky glacier]

since nobody actually explained the acronym 😛 :
Kill Six Billion Demons

[cedar torrent]

and, um. Who is Tom 😅

[minor trench]

One of the makers of Lancer.

And also making ICON, another TTRPG

[idle void]

This made me wonder if there was a character limit on the callsign submission box, and turns out...

[minor trench]

I'll love it if the whole thing made it in.

[cedar torrent]

god I would drop everything currently going on just to fight and kill whatever had that name lmao

[idle void]

I'm assuming that all the names are going to go in a spreadsheet or something first, but the sumbission box also accepts this.

[alpine sorrel]

Looool. I have some fun ideas for how to handle long callsigns, but I very much doubt we can handle complex diacritics. Maybe just apply that comp/con shaky Horus text effect?

[warm magnet]

Can we edit pledges? Because if you don't take Printloaf, and we can, i will go back and rectify this

[alpine sorrel]

You can indeed edit your survey answers, should be the same link as when you filled it out.

[little jetty]

Is that what those are? I didn't realize these things were just very complex diacritics lmaoo

[crisp pelican]

yeah it turns unicode has no limit to how many diacritics you can put, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalgo_text

[little jetty]

I think these are supposed to be randomly mixed right

[cedar torrent]

I asked for it to be only on Controllers, seemed appropriate

I figured the call signs and names would be paired

I'm kinda going for Kiyora from Robotech: Battlecry vibes

[little jetty]

It would be funny to see things like "Drink deep and descend/like a little rotten fruit"

But yeah maybe they show up as pairs

[cedar torrent]

What is up with Drink Deep and Descend? Just, the most HORUS phrase to ever HORUS?

[tepid temple]

It's from the Lich's fluff

[void hearth]

Wait the surveys are editable after the fact?

[orchid pendant]

From Unhinge Chronology.

[tepid temple]

It also doubles as a Twin Peaks reference

[quiet sparrow]

Went simple, Structure Crimes for arty mechs

[forest obsidian]

Sgt Chowdown is where I went.

[alpine sorrel]

Manually verifying the first batch of submissions. Current impressions:

• these names all rule, y'all rule
• I kind of wish I'd added a "mech name" field, lots of these callsigns are stylistically playing more in that field.
• I'm like halfway through (>1000) and haven't run into a single obviously problematic name yet! That's incredible for user-generated input! 😮

[flint portal]

I put in the name of a beloved npc in a campaign of mine 🙂

[alpine sorrel]

• some squad tiers are doing squad-themed names, so should really all spawn together. Not something I planned on but it's rad

[flint portal]

so if my players play this game, they have a random chance to be able to shoot her 😎

[alpine sorrel]

oh noooo lol

[alpine sorrel]

love to see 'em

[naive yacht]

What in the heck lol, that's great

[alpine sorrel]

like 95% of submissions are sincere and in-character rather than memey like these, which I think is a great proportion

[naive yacht]

I'm surprised no one callsign is 1998 Toyota Corolla

And they pick defender

[alpine sorrel]

Deffo a trademark problem for that one 😅 but that's a good mech name

[naive yacht]

Followed by... actually I don't remember Nokias phone name

Only that they were indestructible

[deft rapids]

I think I had a Nokia 3310? A name as original as the phone was invincible

[naive yacht]

oh that'd be great

Defender Ultra named 3310

Pilot name Nohkya

how would one corrupt Toyota..

Toiote Kurrolah

[deft rapids]

Thoi Odak-Orohlah

[naive yacht]

excellent

We can leave the 1998, might be too on the nose

[neon swift]

Ea-nasir is a bitch ass motherfucker, he sold me inferior quality copper

[weak hemlock]

XD

[nova nebula]

Legally destiny göögle

[alpine sorrel]

Is there a homebrew frame called the EA-NASIR yet?

[shrewd anvil]

If someone wants to have a Nokia reference, you could name the pilot something like Nona Kia

Callsign ENGAGE

I'm gonna guess that the most requested frames are striker and defender for the contributor callsigns?

[naive yacht]

Eyy fill is winning by a bit

[ripe radish]

I'm glad I'm doing my part by choosing a support.

[nova nebula]

Such a queer server and it's not like 80% support I'm shocked

[frigid shale]

You and I know very different people lol

[nova nebula]

Every single other queer person I know is like, either dedicated to supporting community, their chosen family, or extremely burnt out(and somehow end up supporting folks anyway, just less and grumpily)

But then again I've been in activist-y circles for a long time

So my friend groups probably skew

[little jetty]

Being supportive of others doesn't necessarily map onto playing supports in a game I think

And the implications on what that might mean for striker and artillery players...

[sand goblet]

tag urself i'm a controller queer

[little jetty]

(It is kinda funny to imagine that controller players are the embodiment of gatekeep gaslight girlboss, however)

[frigid shale]

I know many LGBTQ+ people from my dnd tables that wake up and choose violence every day hahahaha

[naive yacht]

That's my experience as well

[radiant spade]

I am the token straight of my table

[frigid shale]

I’m one of the token straights and I love playing non-striker roles hahahaha

[nova nebula]

Oh yeah for sure I know queer folks are more diverse. I suppose I should have flagged mild sarcasm lol

[deft rapids]

my allies won't need me to help them out if the enemies are all dead

[flint portal]

I should have submitted a joke one instead of a real one smh

should have used a mech name one of my players had at some point

This one

(I wouldn't actually submit this one)

[ripe radish]

I want to construct a lancer mission where that line feels natural to say

maybe the players break into a SSC lab to liberate a bunch of chimps they were going to experiment on.

[neon swift]

all my apes
gone

[novel ivy]

Very excited to see my OC on screen as an enemy and have her die gloriously

[sand goblet]

speaking of watching NPCs die, are there plans to represent wrecks and pilots for Tactics? like, having the pilots of wrecked mechs hunker down or flee (or if they have a death wish, take potshots) would be a nice narrative touch

I feel like finishing off enemies vs allowing them to escape adds another level of narrative consequences to combat which could be very interesting depending on whether the campaigns utilise that

[alpine sorrel]

Wrecks yes, pilots no. I feel like pilot combat on the mech scale is closer to the narrative side of the game, which I don't feel ready to try and tackle mechanically.

[weak hemlock]

Was about to say that feels a bit much to program needing to have consequences for the legions of mechs we kill

I mean there should be some consequences but needing to layer that would be difficult

I assume like most of my lancer games we just leave the people to taken care of later, with a few (mostly bosses) getting fully wiped in battle

[alpine sorrel]

The demo has a little taste of what the design challenge of this would look like; if you destroy the barricade by shooting it before you mount up in the tutorial, you can end up in the everest fighting its pilot on foot. It doesn't feel great, the hp numbers don't line up with the fantasy of being in a big robot.

[crisp pelican]

“Look out she’s got a gun!”

[sand goblet]

I'm very confused by this, could you explain what you mean about it being close to the narrative side?

[weak hemlock]

If you don't mind an outsider We are mostly here to bash mechs together

Pilots are squishy

Narrative tends to take over when it involves the humans outside the mechs

[sand goblet]

Not really

[weak hemlock]

Either that or every me h combat adds even more combantants and layers of programming

[sand goblet]

I'm not really asking Olive to justify scoping her own project, I'm asking because I'm confused, what she means about it being "narrative"

[shrewd anvil]

Stomping on humans with your giant robot is a very specific vibe and I dont think it's a vibe Olive is going for

[weak hemlock]

And usually in my hames when the humans get involed its Narrative rather than tactical. Talking, triggers etc

Least

[sand goblet]

Explicitly not, in this case

[alpine sorrel]

For sure! Yeah pilot combat is literally not in the capital-N Narrative side of the rules, but the most interesting things that can happen with them require a GM to figure out what a human would do in their situation and how to handle the consequences of player actions. I could throw in some standard fight/flee/surrender AI routines, but I'm certain this will generate unintentional situations that make bad lower-case-n narrative events e.g. PCs swarmed by pilots on foot who are suicidally combative are forced to have a giant robot fire into crowds of unarmored people.

Players gravitate towards the more mechanically advantageous choice, so even opening up the possibility of a "spare/kill" choice will result in us making a people-squishing simulator. The original Bioshock had this as its central conceit, put all the narrative weight it could muster on making it an explicit feel-bad choice to kill a defenseless character, and people still overwhelmingly chose to do over time so for the in-game currency. Giving someone an implicit not-called-out choice whether to kill someone previously marked as your enemy would not stand a chance.

[lone cliff]

yeah and undertale went even harder around the "spare/kill" choices

[flint portal]

I totally get it

[lone cliff]

the primary reason it worked was because there was way more "reward" for sparing (good fun story and character stuff) while the pure kill route is more grindy and unfun

and even then it has a fuckload of inbetween neutral states

[flint portal]

So basically what you’re saying is you want to know this type of stuff will be "treated right" and the only way to really do that with pilots on the field is to have a gm who’s able to oversee it all right ?

[alpine sorrel]

Yes, exactly.

Or pre-written with narrow outcomes in place — I could see adding that kind of thing to the tutorial where there's a lot fewer variables in play

[flint portal]

I know the way I tend to do it is like

at least at my tables

[crisp pelican]

(Didn’t people choose to spare the sisters because you literally wind up with more resources for doing so? Like you get almost as much ADAM from Tenenbaum presents, and also otherwise inaccessible plasmids)

[flint portal]

the default assumption is pilots stay in their mech, and there's some understanding that if people stay in those mechs and don't do anything else, then no one can really shoot them or do anything to them

[tepid temple]

This all in reference to NPCs or do you not feel like PC pilot dismounts are worth doing either?

[frigid shale]

the question is also "how visible/transparent is this to the player" because if (for example) they don't know about Tenenbaum presents a priori, why wouldn't they do a thing that rewards them harder?

[alpine sorrel]

Hm, I thought that I'd read that like 90% of players chose to kill, but I can't find that stat anymore so I may have misremembered.

[flint portal]

You could probably get away with doing this as a purely "after the fight" narrative thing

[frigid shale]

I think simply not presenting the option to explicitly kill humans on foot is fine and valid tbh EDIT: At least in the actual fight, I like the "post-mortem" approach Eld suggests

[flint portal]

The shadowrun games kinda do this, where no one really surrenders in a fight but downing them doesn't actually mean they "die" and you can usually talk to them after fights, if I remember right

the moment you introduce like "surrender mechanics" or other stuff, you end up with strange emergent behavior

tbh

the moment you make something a mechanic you basically end up with having to come to terms with people finding ways to abuse those/use them for their own benefits, so sometimes not making something a mechanic is fine

[alpine sorrel]

Mostly in reference to NPCs! PC pilots would be an easier thing to add — they're statted out like player characters by having relatively a lot of HP (a single pilot can have as much health as an entire Squad) so it would feel more balanced. However, my understanding of why pilots on the tactical board a thing at all is to give PCs who have their mech downed something to still do that can influence the battle/have cool moments. This is less of a concern for us making a primarily single-player game where they still control the other mechs in the party.

So it would only really make sense to look into adding this if we did something like local multiplayer.

[alpine sorrel]

A Law Of Game Design I've learned is "the more you simulate, the less control you have over the experience". This is why the designers of the Civ franchise cannot for the life of them get their endgame under control — there's just too many things that were simulated up to that point to be able to match the emergent mechanics to the fantasy. There's ways you can solve this — end the game earlier like Old World does, or have periodic mechanical resets like Spore does with its different stages — but it's near impossible outright defy this law.

[flint portal]

I'm thinking also about how like

Icon USED to have a surrender mechanic

for players

but no matter how much it was tinkered with

Tom ended up removing it

simply because you had moments where you could use it to "cheese out attacks"

(it made you immune to attacks when you declared it)

But yeah

[alpine sorrel]

oh that's interesting!

I see the appeal. Let's have more outcomes to combat besides victory-or-death

[flint portal]

Yeah, in exchange for removing it tho he's made it so going down isn't like

"you're dead"

its just "you're defeated"

but yeah the problem was that people basically didn't actually use it to like, surrender, they used it to cheese out some fights, basically

[alpine sorrel]

I should really take a closer look at Icon, I feel like there's a lot of extremely relevant design work being done over there lol

[tepid temple]

There was a big thread on LOS in the feedback channel if you want a looksie

[alpine sorrel]

ooo yes please, we've been trying to figure out how we want to handle it re: elevation

[sand goblet]

Am I wrong in understanding that wrecks don't provide immunity to targeting like mechs do, just hard cover? I think a lot of the time we skip over there being a pilot inside that becomes squishable because we don't want to play with that in our games, but I don't think this is actually true in the rules

[sand goblet]

Thanks, this makes sense to me 🙂

[crisp pelican]

all this ethics aside, one day, in tabletop or video game form, I still want to play a Caliban vs. a ship full of squishy dudes

[flint portal]

you're not wrong, but at my table we mostly don't bother with npc mech pilots

[sand goblet]

yeah, reasonable, neither do we

[tepid temple]

RAW, can't only mechs with the Veteran template dismount?

[sand goblet]

yes, but Dismounting is something you do from a mech (rather than clutter the thread I guess discussion about this should go in the rules channel)

[crisp pelican]

Olive, have you finished unofficially gauging all the mechs by how much of a pain it'll be to put them in? You discussed it in the kickstarter stream but IIRC stopped before the Horus ones

[deft rapids]

The three most painful mechs to put in will be vlad, balor, and tokugawa.

[crisp pelican]

why Balor? It just regens

[deft rapids]

There’s no flat surfaces to push on with vlad, bslor’s manifest are going to be actively biting her hands as she tries to jimmy it in, and tokugawa runs so hot she’ll want lots of oven mitts. /j

[crisp pelican]

I recall she said something to the effect of "lol no" at Calendula, but fortunately that isn't core book

[void hearth]

RIP Spooky Dave

[little jetty]

I think it would be cool to see pilots eject and escape when their mech gets destroyed, just as a little animation

[naive yacht]

Metal Slug style

[tepid temple]

Consider:

[naive yacht]

doing a sextuple somersault into a parachute and a thumbs up before scurrying off screen

[tepid temple]

Olive thought they were free from having to program Intangible, little did she know

[deft rapids]

It’s much easier with a one and done system than calendula’s entire everything I imagine

[little jetty]

I'm curious about how sisyphus nhp is going to get translated

[deft rapids]

Fade cloak is just “quick action, untargetable, unaffected by things”

[little jetty]

Probably feels terrible to press "do nothing" button on basically every action, though the actual programming part might not be very difficult

Or maybe the coding part is hard too idk

[deft rapids]

Full action, choose an ally and an enemy. The ally’s next attack hits. The enemy’s next attack misses

Maybe?

[tepid temple]

The rules text on Fade cloak is condensed but having to program all the (non-)interactions is probably just as laborious either way

[void hearth]

Tbh I'd almost think full Intangible would be easier?

I'm not a code person, granted, so I might just be wrong

[little jetty]

Aren't the benefits of intangible basically flying, hidden, and immune to aoe?

The LT flying not core rulebook flying

[alpine sorrel]

Yeah, Sisyphus is in the same category as swallowtail core and brace. RAW you gotta start making a choice wayyy too often, we may tweak so they only proc in situations that catch 90% of the times you'd want to do it.

E.g. sisyphus only prompting on an enemy hitting or an ally missing, which cuts out 50%

or brace only when you'd otherwise be structured

SW core is more palatable to have prompt more because it's not going to happen every battle.

[ripe radish]

Use a neural net work AI to predict when the player would want to use them.

this will add very little and probably add a year to the dev time, but think of the marketing

[little jetty]

Use neural net to code Sekhmet, it's lore accurate!

[deft rapids]

[forest obsidian]

If you want to simulate an NHP from scratch, first you must invent the universe.

[tepid temple]

Are we sure we need to invent the universe?

[forest obsidian]

Carl Sagan said so.

[weak hemlock]

To simulate an NHP perfectly first we need GALSIM

Then we need it to think a god into existence

Then it'll be perfect

Imagine it. Why did we make Lancer real? Well we wanted lore accurate video game

[subtle sandal]

A Deimos in your GALSIM? It's more likely than you think

[crisp pelican]

(also, lol the suits literally didn't allow Ken Levine to make the moral choices matter mechanically https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/19/12972940/bioshock-little-sisters-adam)

[alpine sorrel]

Huh that's a good retrospective! I have indeed misremembered the respective mechanical rewards.

[crisp pelican]

Yeah nah Tenenbaum handsomely subsidizes not killing children

[deft rapids]

It's a bit more of a decision to make in 2 but they also made the kids significantly less creepy looking

So while it's numerically easier it's empathetically harder

[crisp pelican]

I've heard it argued that's because Delta is conditioned to see them as cute

[sullen berry]

i completely forgot I backed this...

[sullen berry]

anyway I hope my backerkit survey wasn't filled in too late T_T

[alpine sorrel]

You're good! We're at like a 60% response rate right now so you're solidly in the middle of the curve.

[flat steppe]

I wonder how many Names will end up being jokes lol

[nova nebula]

Doing my part to add to the joke names O7
"You Dropped This"
"King"
"Artillary"

[void hearth]

okay that's pretty good

[tepid temple]

https://www.techradar.com/features/armored-core-meets-dungeons-and-dragons-in-this-promising-crowdfunded-indie-game

[feral holly]

#3914 on the survey - first game I've ever backed to the degree to be included in some way. I was always pretty bummed I missed it for Battletech, but this feels more special for sure

[little jetty]

Love that there's an option to be agog about the whole thing

[alpine sorrel]

Good news: the stickers are Very Good in-person!

The rectangle trans flag and HA designs came out a lot bigger than I expected

I am so incredibly excited to do the full order and start mailing them out

[deft rapids]

Oh hell yeah. Time to figure out how to make that HA sticker work as a bumper sticker

[final onyx]

Ngl people are gonna be happy with big trans flag :p

[naive yacht]

oh those stickers are a lot of fun

[fickle pecan]

the ips-n sticker is beautiful

[worldly violet]

major homeworld vibes
quite groovy

[void hearth]

Oh man but what do I put these on?

Once they stick they're stuck!

[alpine sorrel]

I have on several occasions used double-sided tape to stick stickers to things in a commitment-free manner

[shut horizon]

Ooh, that's a good call.

[naive yacht]

Stick em to a magnet or a flat disk with a pin glued on!

[minor trench]

Thanks for the idea!

I sorta wish they're magnets instead of stickers because of how nice they are.

Any chance later down the road we can have a way to do that ourselves if there's no plan to make magnets version?

[alpine sorrel]

Yep! You could do it today. The hi-res digital files are linked at the end of this post, they're free for personal use: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wickworks/lancer-tactics/posts/3791837

[pastel flax]

Oh fantastic

[alpine sorrel]

Figuring out the event resolution system and considering questions like "if a grunt uses an aoe to hit multiple targets and one of them is a vlad within 3, should the other attacks go through or should the whole thing be cancelled because they'll die when the vlad attack starts to resolve?"

The "gm and players get to decide order of resolutions on their respective turns" is a tricky thing to try and automate

[void hearth]

Iirc the whole thing goes through by default

[alpine sorrel]

But a single-targeted attack against the vlad would get cancelled I think?