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OOC [OoC] Miharu Discussion thread

Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

I have no moderator powers yet, so it makes some things (like stickies) unavailable to me for the moment...

However, as you can see in the Miharu forum now, some progress has been done.

The Restart point thread is from where you guys can start roleplaying from where we were before. It essentially contains all the written text since the shuttle arrived to the Miharu - I also - for the sake of clarity - sorted the text so that the new arrivals, the bridge crew, the people in the armory and the people in the engine room all had their respective dialogs and actions together for better flow to anyone wanting to read about a specific scene.

Likewise, we'll be taking this new forum reset as an excuse to deal with some of the unedited stuff we've had before and try to present it in a more reader-friendly fashion. The Interlude thread is an early version of what I am trying to accomplish.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

I'll be handling the Prologue formatting tonight, with any luck.

Mission 1 is the bear. Please be prepared to help me with formatting and preparing it; it's easily 80 old forum pages, and that will take time to correctly figure out.

This is our chance to be the best-documented ship in SARP. Let's take advantage.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Just a heads up, I'm going to D.C. So I'm not going to be available for the next few days. Probably be back near mid-week of next week.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

I wish to strangle this hacker with the filth-encrusted intestines of a tapeworm-infested bear with irritable bowel syndrome.

That being said, I have two midterms coming up on Monday and I work 10 hours Saturday, so I'm probably not gonna be much help in the move-in process. But, I'll try getting one of the smaller mission threads or something when I have some time.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

I've worked a little bit on the start of Mission 1, with the arrival of the Miharu in system, the battles which went on and such.

The way I'm doing it is making it look a lot more like JPs now. I'm essentially bundling up everything which happened in a specific segment of the plot. I'm also - again - trying to set scenes from the bridge and the engineering separate so that a reader doesn't have to ping-pong from one setting to another. I also tried to make some composite replies (like Blas posting for Nyton while quoting text from previous posts) get each part of them contextually inserted. It's not perfect, but I feel it still turns out being better for a reader.

Some cleaning up is also being done. Many references to Chigusa have been removed except one which supported her presence in the engine room when she ends up being more or less NPCed. I also removed some bits which were hanging loose ends, such as a request from Miyoko to Masako to fix the main sensors which was never answered by Masako in the confusion.

Bits and pieces of the story might end up pruned from the whole, but I feel the result ends up being better in the end.

I'm starting to really like segmenting specific parts of the thread, putting it under one whole post and having the table of content directly link to certain situations.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Something I noticed while editing older Miharu posts: The longer a neko is played, the less Japanese they use in their speech.

Or maybe editing posts makes me imagine things. One of the two.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

I think it might have something to do with the ease of communication with other crew and it's less formal to speak in Engrish?
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

My theory: it takes a while for the player to find a balance of the two languages that feels natural... because, let's face it, just randomly throwing Japanese in sounds goofy.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Well, from where I stand, it has to do with something like this:

Americans whom tend to like the anime culture tend to pick up some japanese words just to sound cool and such. I saw blatant uses of that when I was playing MMORPGs and seeing people finish their sentences with "ne?" and such.

But then, I noticed that the japanese used english words to achieve the very same end. Which was: sound cool.

Therefore, japanese words are cool.
But english words are cool too.

...so, why bother using japanese words abundantly when the primary language we use to roleplay on Stararmy.com is english? We don't really need to add japanese words to make our stuff read in a cooler fashion when english is already cool. Besides, some uses of japanese languages are cumbersome anyways and not everyone can translate over them in their head.

"Hajimemachite"? Might as well say 'Pleased to meet you'.
"Yoroshiku gozaimasu"? Why the heck would I need to say that usually?
"Komban wa"? We're in space - does it really matter?
"Itadakimasu"? Bleh. People write that more for themselves in their own posts than to have other notice.
"Gouchisosama deshita"? Firstly, the spelling is pretty screwy-I'm willing to bet I got it wrong. Secondly, saying "Thank you for the meal" sounds more honest.

Despite the lack of need to write japanese words, we are still stuck playing characters whom supposedly follow a japanese culture... so, in essence, the best way to convey that easily without too much confusion to the reader is the honorifics. -san, -sama, -chan, -dono, etc...

But then again, the ranks often replace the honorifics too. What becomes tricky is when people not really understanding the structure of japanese start trying to bunch things together from having picked up the words on the way... but then try them out to show others 'look, I can use cool japanese words too!'... except the result is often rather overdone, goofy - like Kel mentioned - or horrific, even.

So, my tip: use japanese only if there's an important cultural feel you really need to put in your post - not to look cool. The most effective way of going by it is just putting in the honorific and leave everything else in english.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Oh, yeah, and since I don't know how much coordination we have going on here--I have the first 4 pages (200 posts) of Prologue Day 2 done, and will probably get the rest of the thread by Sunday night.

... because it would really suck to pick up one of these and do hours of work on it only to find out that somebody else already finished the one you chose.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

*wince* Kel, tell me Jake gave you my archived files from the Prologue... and that you aren't editing from the text dump on the previous board. If not, you're missing a LOT of text formatting.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

I have Yukari use less Japanese mostly because no one else on the ship actually speaks it with any regularity. She seems to reserve it specifically for certain people at certain times. But yeah, it sounded less cool as time went on.

I'm working on Prologue, Day 1. Fred, the kind of stuff you're doing to these posts is ... look, I can put them in order, but I do not feel comfortable editing out references to people or posts. I'd rather you do that. This seems to be far your baby, in that sense, so I hesitate to do it for you.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

It's fine.

* * *

About the simulation stuff Nyton and Miyoko is going over: Miharu can't fire all six of its particle cannons at the same time because of the respective position of each. An up-front attack can have four of them fire at a target (two on the dorsal side of the main hull and two from the ventral side of the main hull), while attacks directly from the side can also have four (two port/starboard of the main hull and two from the Hoshi's nose) - while most of the time only three can be fired at any given time (3 dorsal or ventral turrets from the whole ship).

That limitation is mostly due to turrets not being able to fire through the ship itself.

Another thing to take into consideration that a moving target hit with a beam weapon (which goes at the speed of light) is going to be much harder to hit thanks to the time-to-impact delay between the firing of the weapon and the time it'll take to get to the target. Crossing 300 000km takes around a second for light to cross... but let's not forget these ships will likely be moving at around 0.5c to 0.8c while fighting/making evasive maneuvers, requiring the attacker to be much closer to give a much shorter time-to-impact figure so that the weapons can hit while not giving the opponent the reaction time to dodge.

Of course, the FCS aboard the Miharu sort of helps by predicting where the target might go and giving the tactical station a lead indicator... but range still matters a lot.

The reason torpedoes are so useful is because not only do they pack a big punch and have blast radius, but they generally are much faster than beam weapons (which is usually not how missiles are - missiles are supposed to have guided systems which makes them more accurate, but they aren't supposed to be as fast as beam weapons by convention) - allowing a much shorter time-to-impact delay than beam weapons offer... and at a greater range too.

That's about it. Space battles are extremely hard to picture because it is fought with hardware which is so unbalancingly high in certain aspects as to go much beyond our comprehension and our ability to relate with it. If, for example, ships had STL drives which were three times less fast (a fast ship would go at 0.3c) then beam weapons would have a little more credibility in space combat. If torpedoes of the AS-series were less fast, then there might be a 1 to 3 second delay usually in which one would see them coming and attempt to dodge and such... instead of being hit instantaneously without the opportunity to react.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Sorry, guess I couldn't properly see where the canons were. I thought a frontal attack could sport all six but then again I guess my definition of the terms was off. Plus I still don't have a good grasp of the whole speed of light chart and how this all affects space battles. I just now remember you guys hacking one out so I should've thought to reference that along with the damage chart. Bloody hell with it, I'm a little too tired right now to try and fix it, sorry.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Hey, Blas, don't worry about it. The reason I mentioned it so is you'd know. Wasn't a rebuke or anything so much as a clarification for future reference. All the Miharu's cannon can fire if Yukari flies the ship while turning it aorund so all the turrets can have a shot at one target. It's called "cycling through firing arc" and it's generally useful if you have slower firing weapons.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Sorry for not posting recently. The back light for my laptop screen went kaput for the second time since I owned it. This means I cannot see anything on my laptop screen at all. And since my laptop is a 3-year-old Dell with an expire warranty, I'm having to use a CRT monitor hooked up to it.
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

Thanks for the heads up Matt.

In light of our preceeding discussion about japanese language, I have chosen a new avatar... or would've had if we allowed a 161kb avatar (only 150kb)... so, you're stuck only seeing it down here:

diefangirlbykhalitzburgvw3.gif
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

B-but I like saying some of those words! :(
Like I call my brother 'baka' even though he knows what it means now... >>;
 
Re: [OoC] Discussion thread

@Fred: Hey, you should be able to use that avatar now. I increased the limits on size and dimensions from the forum default back to what the last forum had. Also, if you or the Doshii still need mod power let me know.

I would also like to set up an IM meeting sometime to talk with you. Please send me a PM with some times you'd be interested in chatting via YIM.
 
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