Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Beth Pavell]

FLAZE-KUN'S NOT DEAD

 

[Instrutilus]

Can't you sleep in Red/Blue? I seem to recall one of the early games allowing you to use your bed as a Pokecenter due to the town's lack of one.

Shhhh...

FLAZE-KUN'S NOT DEAD

Actually, he is, but I managed to procure one of the cursed Aztec Coins that the pirates of the Black Pearl were determined to put back. Sooo... undead?

 

[Beth Pavell]

Ooh, bags I be Cutler Beckett an effective Beckett

 

[Instrutilus]

Ooh, bags I be Cutler Beckett an effective Beckett

*blows your ship out of the water before you can do anything, then blows your lifeboat out of the water as well to prevent you coming back with a bigger army*

 

[Beth Pavell]

Ahem, with what? Because in the 1700s 1800s Golden Age of Piracy short of a very unlucky magazine explosion nothing simply blows a ship out of the water.

Actually, I tell a lie, the plot does, but that doesn't count

 

[Misfit Angel]

Because in the 1700s 1800s Golden Age of Piracy short of a very unlucky magazine explosion nothing simply blows a ship out of the water.

 

[Instrutilus]

Ahem, with what? Because in the 1700s 1800s Golden Age of Piracy short of a very unlucky magazine explosion nothing simply blows a ship out of the water.

Like a flame being thrown into said magazine by one of my loyal crew to deal with you before you can do anything dangerous toward me?

 

[Beth Pavell]

What, three decks down? Without anyone noticing? Including the Royal Marine stationed by the magazine?

... you know what, it makes about as much sense as an impoverished pirate crew not throwing their selfish and ineffectual captain overboard

 

[Instrutilus]

What, three decks down? Without anyone noticing? Including the Royal Marine stationed by the magazine?

... you know what, it makes about as much sense as an impoverished pirate crew not throwing their selfish and ineffectual captain overboard

He came in underwater and slipped in through your gun port, then killed that guard before he could sound an alarm. What, did you think we only took one coin? We took the entire chest, the curse only effects you if you take a coin out of the chest so we all take one when it's time for a fight.

 

[diamondpearl876]

The lying awake in other people's beds and describing the smell/feel of it in Sun/Moon was actually kind of weird... you'd think it'd stick with the whole sleeping and healing thing they've done with past gens, but no. Sun/Moon wanted to be different in literally every way.

 

[Ereshkigal]

The topic of urbanization: I'm doing a story in what is almost the real world. So, a lot of the modern-world development is going to be present simply because it happened anyway. It presents a lot of fun in showing the ways that Pokemon have made their world more advanced (digitizing items and Pokemon, for example), and the problems their relationship with Pokemon has created (Groudon and Kyogre's last fight screwed up Earth's climate).

The pirate stuff: Aim for the magazine, fire. That tends to end a ship quickly.

 

[Misfit Angel]

The pirate stuff: Aim for the magazine, fire. That tends to end a ship quickly.

I think you're overestimating the simplicity of such a maneuver. You've gotta deal with waves, distance, barriers, your incompetent crew, poor visibility from all of the smoke, etc. I'd argue that grapeshot aimed at the masts will do a better job of disabling the enemy ship. They might still have cannons to shoot at you, but as soon as you move into the stern or bow, they're toast.

 

[Instrutilus]

You should see the complexities of a ship battle in space. And you can't get close, because debris doesn't disappear and you really don't want to hit it.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I think you're overestimating the simplicity of such a maneuver. You've gotta deal with waves, distance, barriers, your incompetent crew, poor visibility from all of the smoke, etc. I'd argue that grapeshot aimed at the masts will do a better job of disabling the enemy ship. They might still have cannons to shoot at you, but as soon as you move into the stern or bow, they're toast.

Even then, actually hitting it won't do that much unless there's a spark, and that's not even remotely a guarantee unless you're using explosive shells.

You should see the complexities of a ship battle in space. And you can't get close, because debris doesn't disappear and you really don't want to hit it.

I typically have them at a kilometer or less. Mostly because of in-story countermeasures and defenses. It's definitely not because they want to be that close. Needless to say, a properly-executed ram at the right speed hitting the right enemy ship will completely ruin the day of an entire enemy fleet, since they often have to be as close as possible to present a wall of fire to keep out your munitions and fighters.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It's effectively impossible to deliberately aim for the magazine. The room would have been in the absolute bowels of the ship, in the later Age of Sail, copper lined to prevent sparks. And, crucially, below the waterline. We all know what water does to bullets - same thing with round shot.

Aiming with shipboard artillery was never easy. As Eliza points out, there's the pitch and roll of the ship to contend with, plus the problems of inconsistent powder, the fact that until very late the guns were smoothbore, that each gun could only fire directly forwards (The British invented a way of allowing the guns to traverse up to 45 degrees, I think, while keeping the guns stable. That didn't come in until the early 1800s, if I remember correctly). This is the reason why guns were fired in volleys, and battles at sea so often came down to which side kept their nerve. The great advantage the Royal Navy had in the Napoleonic period was the highly-trained and highly-motivated British gun crew, capable of loading and firing quickly even while all hell was breaking loose around them.

The best story I can think of regarding magazine explosions is probably the case of the French 120-gun (That's pretty much as big as battleships got) ship Orient, at the Battle of the Nile. As I recall a British sailor had thrown a Molotov cocktail through one of the stern windows and set her ablaze - in order to prevent the crew from putting it out the Brits targeted the fire with grapeshot. When the fire reached the magazine she exploded - the sight was such a shock that both sides actually stopped fighting for a while

 

[Ereshkigal]

I really should have included a smiley on that bit about shooting magazines. I intended that to be a bit of a joke >.> My bad.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It wouldn't have stopped me anyway I've been re-reading Empire of the Deep: The Rise and Fall of the British Navy, and frankly it's all I can do not to enter into a long post explaining the complexities of the defeat of the 1588 Spanish Armada (Short version - the storm couldn't have come at a better time, but the English Navy had already prevented the invasion anyway)

 

[Kharixi]

The lying awake in other people's beds and describing the smell/feel of it in Sun/Moon was actually kind of weird... you'd think it'd stick with the whole sleeping and healing thing they've done with past gens, but no. Sun/Moon wanted to be different in literally every way.

Yeah... I think this is one reason it isn't as good as other Pokémon games. They tried so hard to be new and different that certain features were... subpar, if you will.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Yeah... I think this is one reason it isn't as good as other Pokémon games. They tried so hard to be new and different that certain features were... subpar, if you will.

I enjoyed Sun/Moon much more than X/Y, at least. Some things just made me deadpan. Some features like PokePelago were interesting, and the trials, though easy, were refreshing, because the gym puzzles in the last couple gens were becoming borderline absurd. (I'm looking at you and your honey walls, Burgh.)

 

[Instrutilus]

I typically have them at a kilometer or less. Mostly because of in-story countermeasures and defenses. It's definitely not because they want to be that close. Needless to say, a properly-executed ram at the right speed hitting the right enemy ship will completely ruin the day of an entire enemy fleet, since they often have to be as close as possible to present a wall of fire to keep out your munitions and fighters.

What about a core breach? Whatever you've got powering these things would be producing a lot of power, and whatever is producing the power would probably be highly volatile. As such, if that goes off and you're a kilometer away, you're going to get caught in the blast radius and you're gonna have a bad time. Let's not even get into the radiation that would probably flash fry the crew...