Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[icekatze]

hi hi

I submit for your consideration, the solid rocket powered flying washing machine.

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[Hālian]

I can see the massive shit-eating grin on Arrir Nesin's face from all the way over here

[ShadowDragon8685]

hi hi

I submit for your consideration, the solid rocket powered flying washing machine.

SpoilerShow

I wish this forum had a 'like' button. This post gets all of my likes.


.....

Hrm, now I kind of want to see what a 'Dawn of Spaceflight'-era Loroi astronaut would look like...

[Absalom]

Inertial... Amplifiers? That sounds like a very weaponizable technology.

As with many such weapons, the issue is range. If you can entice an enemy into your drive plume, yes... very dangerous. But that would be a neat trick at Outsider combat ranges.

In no sci-fi setting I am aware of is the Kzinti Lesson untrue. The trick is, as you say, getting the enemy into the right position to make use of it.

The original Kzinti Lesson is practically cheating, since it involved usefully-high-thrust light-ships with a central light source. There's a lot of things you can casually kill with something like that (even the Loroi & Umiak might have problems, depending on refocusing speed).

I was more thinking of "inertial amplifier" meaning "increases the velocity of this thing" and thinking "man, that would be pretty boss to put on the end of a missile tube."

"Inertial amplification" -> "more inertia" -> "more mass, less speed" -> "more time to shove extra force into the exhaust".

Depending on the details, this could conceivably result in a sudden increase in speed when the missile left the amplification field, but if it didn't all leave at the same time it would be at risk on spaghetification, and thus hardware failure.

[Arioch]

Sucker-punch tricks work... once. In a milieu in which folks have supposedly been at war for a long time (looking at you, Kzinti!), it's impossible to imagine that such tricks had not been tried before.

Also, I apologize in advance if this is too much to ask, but would it be possible to get a version of page 45, panel 1, without the narration or sound effect overlaid thereupon?

http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/images/45_1.png

[ShadowDragon8685]

Sucker-punch tricks work... once. In a milieu in which folks have supposedly been at war for a long time (looking at you, Kzinti!), it's impossible to imagine that such tricks had not been tried before.

Well, in fairness, it can keep working as long as the other guy doesn't know about it. Eliminating the witnesses helps with this.

Also, I apologize in advance if this is too much to ask, but would it be possible to get a version of page 45, panel 1, without the narration or sound effect overlaid thereupon?

http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/images/45_1.png

I love how in that second ghost image, in the middle, he has kind of this great "Oh, this is gonna suck" look on his face. He's probably lucky he didn't crack his skull open.

Out of curiosity, why do they have open lifts? I mean, that handrail so close to the non-moving wall section just looks like somebody's gonna lose a hand. Do the Loroi have OSHA compliance levels that falls somewhere between Triangle Shirtwaist and The Galactic Empire?

[sunphoenix]

SWEET! Thanks Arioch!

[Hālian]

Also, I apologize in advance if this is too much to ask, but would it be possible to get a version of page 45, panel 1, without the narration or sound effect overlaid thereupon?

http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/images/45_1.png

Thank you

I wanted it for a reprint of Telekinesis in the Outsider-themed Magic set I've been working on here and there; unfortunately, it's not possible to get both Leinnol and Alex in shot without making it look like an obvious crop and thus crappy. On the Eighth Edition frame, however, at least, it's possible to get Alex' whole range of movement in shot: (Unfortunately, I had wanted to use old frames, given that the comic started publication before Eighth Edition dropped...)





e: Here it is on the old frame anyway, for comparison.

[Krulle]

The Insider search function only searches HTML files on my website; it can't access the forum database. You have to do a separate search on the forums, unfortunately.

Google search should be able to search both at the same time.
Add "site:well-of-souls.com" to limit your search to anything hosted on "well-of-souls.com". Which includes the Insider and the forums. (I believe the bing functionality works exactly the same way.)

[Mr Bojangles]

On the subject of inertial damping: my internal model for how the ships using Floater Drive (which is the Loroi and most allied ships) is that the internal inertial dampers mainly protect the passengers and sensitive innards of a ship, while the drive itself uses inertial amplifiers to increase the inertia of the propellant as it leaves the engine. Whereas the Umiak Plastron Drive dispenses with the latter element, and produces the same effect by using inertial dampers that reduce the inertia of the entire ship. So while the Loroi can't use their inertial dampers to reduce kinetic impacts, this is something the Umiak can do.

Thanks for the insight into Outsiderverse inertial dampening, Arioch. The approaches to inertia make sense. The Loroi favor maneuverability and speed, whereas the Umiak are G-intolerant.

It probably would be wise for the Loroi to pave the first/last bit of their runways with something heat-resistant to facilitate thruster-assisted landings for heavily-loaded vehicles. Once they're achieved gear-down, they should be able to eliminate the lift-assistance.

Makes sense to me.

Which is real nice for the ship itself, but I strongly doubt that's going to be enough to save the landing gear (and anything that happens to be located directly above that gear) from the forces involved. If the gear can't handle the stress without the dampers, then find some different gear.

Based on what Arioch said, yeah, the gear will definitely have to be up to spec. A shuttle with Umiak-type dampening may be more in line with what I was thinking.

[sunphoenix]

Hey Arioch... do you have a GURPS 3e fillable PDF version of the character you could post? I've decided to build Stormrage in GURPS at 300pts just to see sort of what she looks like in that game's stats. I'd like to post her sheet with her PbP stats here at the forum.

Thank you!

[Arioch]

Hey Arioch... do you have a GURPS 3e fillable PDF version of the character you could post? I've decided to build Stormrage in GURPS at 300pts just to see sort of what she looks like in that game's stats. I'd like to post her sheet with her PbP stats here at the forum.

What I have is an excel template, if that's helpful.
http://well-of-souls.com/temp/GURPS2.XLS

[sunphoenix]

Hey Arioch... do you have a GURPS 3e fillable PDF version of the character you could post? I've decided to build Stormrage in GURPS at 300pts just to see sort of what she looks like in that game's stats. I'd like to post her sheet with her PbP stats here at the forum.

What I have is an excel template, if that's helpful.
http://well-of-souls.com/temp/GURPS2.XLS

Hmmmm... this is odd? Thank you for the spread sheet but for some reason it will only open in protected mode and will not allow me to save the modified sheets? Which is weird cause I have many prexisiting Excel sheet files that open and save perfectly fine. Any advice?

[Suederwind]

Hmmmm... this is odd? Thank you for the spread sheet but for some reason it will only open in protected mode and will not allow me to save the modified sheets? Which is weird cause I have many prexisiting Excel sheet files that open and save perfectly fine. Any advice?

In my Office 2013 it showed me, that the fileformat is rather old and some things are disabled. I could reenable them, but it said that this was done as some kind of protection angainst unwanted macro's and other things.

[sunphoenix]

Hmmmm... this is odd? Thank you for the spread sheet but for some reason it will only open in protected mode and will not allow me to save the modified sheets? Which is weird cause I have many prexisiting Excel sheet files that open and save perfectly fine. Any advice?

In my Office 2013 it showed me, that the fileformat is rather old and some things are disabled. I could reenable them, but it said that this was done as some kind of protection angainst unwanted macro's and other things.

AWESOME Suederwind! Fixed it THANKS a bunch! Stormrage GURPS Style is now coming soon..

[Hālian]

One of these days I should homebrew the loroi for D&D 3.5...

[Absalom]

Which is real nice for the ship itself, but I strongly doubt that's going to be enough to save the landing gear (and anything that happens to be located directly above that gear) from the forces involved. If the gear can't handle the stress without the dampers, then find some different gear.

Based on what Arioch said, yeah, the gear will definitely have to be up to spec. A shuttle with Umiak-type dampening may be more in line with what I was thinking.

Judging from the fact that things can move while inside a damping field, I think that the improvement would likely be minor (maybe worth it, but minor). Or, to put it another way: I think that to achieve the desired effect, you would need to dial the damping field up enough to interfere with movements of the crew & passengers. This might be useful in some engineering fields (if you can confine the strengthened field to the gear & some related support struts, that would help with force distribution, probably aiding the more normal field in it's job as well), but Arioch hasn't given any indications of how detailed the field control is.

If field control is advanced enough to allow it to be confined to specially coated structural members (or perhaps just allowing really steep field gradients with the right field-guide materials) then you could probably achieve some really nice engineering feats (imagine the wind and earthquake resistance of a tower with it's primary support structure rigidly linked to the crust below with this technology), but if it's really coarse then you're basically limited to things similar to what we already know it's used for.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Here's another one for you: What happens if two Loroi fall asleep whilst in skin contact with one another? I mean, I imagine that that's hella unlikely in the current state of their civilization, but it's gotta be happening somewhere in a huge civilization with billions of individuals. Some deviants somewhere (probably Maia,) are gonna attract one another and start doing things the civ at large frowns upon.

Would they like, wind up sharing dreams?

[sunphoenix]

As far as GURP Psionics goes..assuming Arioch is viewing the Loroi mental powers in that venue.. the ONLY dream related ability is Steal Dreams...which ia a Psychic Vampirism power! Something I think the Loroi would deem a mental crime...

The next best is Astral Projection.. but that's not really dream travel...!

[Razor One]

I'd imagine that they'd share the dream, though given the unconscious nature of the mind, that could be either very pleasant, very awkward, or utterly terrifying, depending on the person and the skeletons in their closet.