9962 réponses à ce sujet

[lillitheris]

Drussius wrote...

Show up with a group of 12 and you're likely to draw an armed response from the entire military force in a location. Show up with a group of 3 and you may get individual squads sent to deal with you, while others hold back to serve as backup.

Now that, no offense intended, sounds like movie logic It’s right up there with the villain blathering on rather than shooting the hero. (Edit: if you have a breach, you deal with it immediately rather than sending in a little fodder…the only balancing concern is whether the attack is a diversion, which might force your hand with reserves.)

Small teams are only really useful if they’re not detected at all. They may also be able to retreat better if spotted, but that’s what they’ll do.

Modifié par lillitheris, 10 août 2012 - 02:58 .

[Dark Satris]

need help again. Whats the name of the alliance fighters? (the type you see star-brat playing with at the beginning of the campaign)

Modifié par Dark Satris, 10 août 2012 - 03:19 .

[Dark Satris]

D'oh, hit quote instead of edit

Modifié par Dark Satris, 10 août 2012 - 03:18 .

[Drussius]

lillitheris wrote...

Drussius wrote...

Show up with a group of 12 and you're likely to draw an armed response from the entire military force in a location. Show up with a group of 3 and you may get individual squads sent to deal with you, while others hold back to serve as backup.

Now that, no offense intended, sounds like movie logic It’s right up there with the villain blathering on rather than shooting the hero. (Edit: if you have a breach, you deal with it immediately rather than sending in a little fodder…the only balancing concern is whether the attack is a diversion, which might force your hand with reserves.)

Small teams are only really useful if they’re not detected at all. They may also be able to retreat better if spotted, but that’s what they’ll do.

I did preface the statement by saying that my answer was based on the game and hundreds of military and spy movies

Seriously though, I think the logic is sound. Military special ops teams in the real world use more than three members of course, but I can't imagine them numbering more than 6-8 members (again, I'm not military, this is just me thinking about the situation as objectively as I can). I think there's a point at which a group becomes too large to move without attracting attention.

And speaking for the enemy: Like you said, there is always the possibility that the enemy is creating a diversion or that their forces are split, so I doubt any trained garrison would respond with a significant portion of their forces at first. My personal logic would be to send a squad or two to scout out the problem (not to actually deal with it) and report the situation, then lay down some fire to slow the enemy's advance before you commit your forces. I'd probably also send squads to other areas to scout for signs of secondary/tertiary teams.

But all that aside, what I said about my personal choices if I was writing the Normandy crew stands. I would vary the squad composition/makeup depending on the mission. Taking the entire crew seems like too much for some of the missions in the game. At best, the majority would bunker down at the extraction point while a smaller group goes in. In others, taking most or all of the team and splitting up would seem to be the best strategic option. In fiction you aren't constrained by maintaining a balance of difficulty for programming. You can adapt the squad makeup to match what seems most appropriate for the mission.

Edited: For clarification.

Modifié par Drussius, 10 août 2012 - 03:39 .

[Drussius]

Dark Satris wrote...

need help again. Whats the name of the alliance fighters? (the type you see star-brat playing with at the beginning of the campaign)

Now this may be incorrect... I haven't looked it up. But in ME2, wasn't "Alliance Corsair" a name of a fighter sim game mentioned at a store on the citadel? Perhaps the fighters are called Corsairs?



Unrelated note: I have no idea where the concentration of muses holding a convention in my work room came from, but I live in constant fear that they'll leave. I've been tearing through my writing at a fever pitch of late, and I don't want the creative streak to end!

[hot_heart]

Dark Satris wrote...
need help again. Whats the name of the alliance fighters? (the type you see star-brat playing with at the beginning of the campaign)

I'm not sure if they have an official name or are just known as fighters. Apparently, Miranda got hold of a class-F private Fighter, but that may be something different.

The War Assets picture here shows an SX3 designation.

Drussius wrote...
Now this may be incorrect... I haven't looked it up. But in ME2, wasn't "Alliance Corsair" a name of a fighter
sim game mentioned at a store on the citadel? Perhaps the fighters are called Corsairs?

Jacob was part of the Corsairs, which was a group of independent starships doing Alliance work outside their jurisdiction. I guess the game could be some sort of play on 'Rogue Squadron'.

Modifié par hot_heart, 10 août 2012 - 05:11 .

[lillitheris]

Drussius wrote...

Seriously though, I think the logic is sound. Military special ops teams in the real world use more than three members of course, but I can't imagine them numbering more than 6-8 members (again, I'm not military, this is just me thinking about the situation as objectively as I can). I think there's a point at which a group becomes too large to move without attracting attention.

Yes, but that advantage is lost when the attention is attracted. 1-4 people is a strictly non-engaging quietly-in-and-out team. A high-security facility, the kind with an actual (para)military force guarding it, will have a proper defense plan, sectored and with tactical choke and fallback points. They won’t go wandering around looking for the enemy when one’s detected—they’re going to wait for the enemy to come to them. They don’t need to go anywhere, the intruders do.

If you’re attacking some random industrial compound with a couple private security guards, there’s no opposition for any number of people.

[Lilivati]

Didn't Cortez fly a fighter called a Trident? No idea if the kid's ship is that model.

[Sweawm]

Lilivati wrote...

Didn't Cortez fly a fighter called a Trident? No idea if the kid's ship is that model.

Yes, I do believe that the fighter is the Trident model. I think there is a sort of Interceptor that we've never seen before, but mentioned in the Codex under a different title. 

[Seracen]

I always figure we have to leave a few people on the Normandy, to keep it safe, as the crew is busy being the crew.

On the other hand, I've got so many irons in the fire, everyone's busy doing SOMETHING.

[Sweawm]

 Just finished writing the end to my greatest fic so far; ending on chapter 39, and I couldn't decide on just what ending to give a reader, so I plan to give them bothB)

I havn't gone ahead and published yet, but do you think this is a good idea? Both I believe have significant emotional weight in them, but they each have seperate values in terms of closure and climax. 

Should I offer only one? Do you think readers with feel less about the story if I offer them both?
I'm a bit conflicted here 

[lillitheris]

That’s an interesting question, Sweawm. I think the best way to make it work might be to do a ‘choose your own adventure’, where the reader gets to actually pick based on some personal decision—no matter how small the choice, so long as there‘s something tangible. Then it‘s their ending, at least in a small capacity… If you just throw them both out there and tell them to pick whichever they like best, there might be a risk that they’d feel it cheapened.

…

*sigh* This one scene is much harder to write than I thought it would be…it was meant to be the bulk of this chapter, with another ‘side’ scene…but that one turned out to flow really nicely (about 2 k words) and this one is just like pulling krogan teeth.

Modifié par lillitheris, 11 août 2012 - 01:41 .

[Spiritwolf1]

I think it's actually not a bad idea. A lot of good movies have done this in the past I remember Clue had four endings. I think just the main one would be the one you prefer and then make the last chapter an alternate ending and the readers can either read it or not.

[hot_heart]

Without reading the story, I'm not sure how both could carry some emotional weight (though I won't trot out that 'a good story only has one ending' spiel). As lilli said, does it hinge on some decision? If there's a way to make it so a reader gets an ending reliant on how they feel about a certain 'element' in the story that could tie-in to a relevant and satisfying conclusion.

Not sure what else I can suggest beyond trying to combine the two.

[lillitheris]

lillitheris wrote...

*sigh* This one scene is much harder to write than I thought it would be…it was meant to be the bulk of this chapter, with another ‘side’ scene…but that one turned out to flow really nicely (about 2 k words) and this one is just like pulling krogan teeth.

…And having said that, I found the voice for that scene. It’s still shorter than what I had envisioned, but it works better.

[Drussius]

lillitheris wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

*sigh* This one scene is much harder to write than I thought it would be…it was meant to be the bulk of this chapter, with another ‘side’ scene…but that one turned out to flow really nicely (about 2 k words) and this one is just like pulling krogan teeth.

…And having said that, I found the voice for that scene. It’s still shorter than what I had envisioned, but it works better.

I have been here. Recently, in fact. While it wasn't difficult to flow through writing the scene in question, when I was done, I really didn't like it. So I rewrote it in a second document to see if I could improve it. And hated that too. So I did it again, and was moderately satisfied. And in the end I ended up with all three documents side-by-side, combining the various bits that I liked into a final draft that I put into the actual chapter. But it was very tough to find the tone I really wanted.

[lillitheris]

^ Yeah. I was definitely just trying to force it into a different direction. Not so much the plot, it was just to include a bit more exposition, but it didn’t work in that dynamic.

…Still wondering if I could actually manage to get myself to write a chapter or two ahead. Seems unlikely.

[Drussius]

^ My lead fell by a chapter a while back. I believe it was when I posted Chapter 4. It had been a while and still wasn't finished with my next chapter, so I went ahead and edited/published a chapter before getting back to work. So I only have a 4-chapter lead now instead of five.

[lillitheris]

‘Only’

[Drussius]

LOL. I respect all of you guys and girls who publish as you go. I could probably do it now, but when I begin a story, I almost always do a fair amount of rearranging and rewriting. The beginning is always my weakest point because ideas are still gelling in my head. For example, if I had published the first chapters of my story as I wrote them, you could basically take out all of the "Above Terra Nova, Now..." sections and just read the "Four weeks earlier..." stuff, and you'd have the original version, which definitely suffered from serious pacing problems... Waiting and giving myself the chance to choose a later point in the story and insert it in-between the exposition sections was the best thing I could have done. I think it is much better this way.

Holding back, at least at the beginning, is really essential for the way I write. Not so much now, since I know where the story is headed and am flowing well, but even after this fanfic is finished and I start another, I'll definitely be holding off on publishing the first few chapters of the next one until I have several done, for the same reasons.

[Spiritwolf1]

Well whatever your doing Dru keep at it I love your story

[Drussius]

TY! I'm very glad to see some people like it!

[Icyflare]

Drussius wrote...

Holding back, at least at the beginning, is really essential for the way I write. Not so much now, since I know where the story is headed and am flowing well, but even after this fanfic is finished and I start another, I'll definitely be holding off on publishing the first few chapters of the next one until I have several done, for the same reasons.

I actually find that impressive. This little thing called "patience" is one thing I haven't really tried before. Might help a bit in the future =/

Does anyone else feels like there's another reading slump or is it just me?

[hot_heart]

I'm in a reading and writing slump. Hopefully, with the next couple of days off I can get something done. Been a bit too hot here recently, and I can't concentrate. Just a routine of work, dinner, catch up with friends, read a bit, get very tired and sleep a bit, wake up later than expected, brain won't function, waste time on internet for an hour, sleep. The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom.

Modifié par hot_heart, 11 août 2012 - 10:36 .

[Drussius]

The slumps people are experiencing may be a result of the World Muse Convention going on in my house. Sorry to everyone whose muse I stole!