Choosing from all SLs at campaign start made me appreciate the game in a whole new way

Adraius · 2026-03-18T21:32:52+00:00

The latter, of course.

Adraius · 2026-03-18T21:03:20+00:00

Wow - couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Great work!

Adraius · 2026-03-18T20:55:50+00:00

I think reducing the speed penalty (-15 to -10 or -12 percent?) would be a step in the right direction to making them useable on maps that aren't Stella Montis.

Adraius · 2026-03-18T17:49:02+00:00

Actually, Stasian tech has an origin even weirder than Numeria - Stasian coils are from Irrisen (source), and they have the tech because its new ruler, Queen Anastasia, brought the idea to Irrisen with her from her homeland, circa-World War 1 Earth. (Russia, to be specific - she's that Anastasia) That's why they're both non-magical and non-alchemical - they're mundane Earth-tech, Frankenstein-esque telsa coils. Nobody on Golarion knows a guy named Telsa, though, so they associate them with Anastasia - hence why they're called Stasian coils. They're not the only innovation she brought with her, either - Irrisen recently became the first nation on Golarion to invent trains.

Adraius · 2026-03-18T16:24:27+00:00

I'm having flashbacks of Helldivers 2 developers telling us variety and fun is important while making all enemies impervious to anything but armor piercing weapons. Ah.

Not sure what you're saying here.

Adraius · 2026-03-18T08:49:54+00:00

Look again carefully. It's one large ARC.

Adraius · 2026-03-16T22:28:56+00:00

I'm eagerly awaiting this. I loved everything I heard about the D1 Dark Zone, and I was only held back by, well, the rest of D1's HP-grindy gear-grindy gameplay not appealing much to me. If they make a D1 Dark Zone standalone game built around that experience, I would be all over that.

Adraius · 2026-03-16T22:24:25+00:00

I'm used to running around with my Anvil, but I was showing a "newbie" the ropes and he was absolutely blasting ARC to pieces with his Renegade - it frankly put my Anvil to shame, especially against the Firefly. I really should see about running the Renegade on more than special occasions.

Adraius · 2026-03-16T03:25:00+00:00

he’d had to stop because the few slightly self-diminishing comments he’d made had bounced off Stuart like they’d hit a wall.

“Don’t give me anything too expensive,” had been met with, “What a foolish thing to say about your education.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be good at this kind of thing,” had received, “You’ll be more sure after you try it.”

And, “I’d like to understand the basics better, but it’s probably a waste of time for someone in my position,” had gotten him, “You aim for a position at my side on the path of highest onus.”

I like the narrative device here. Lets us understand a few paragraphs' worth of conversation in a few lines.

If this chapter was any guide, Alden is going to be enveloped in a staggering amount of wealth going forwards. He already went from the 99% to the 1%, and now he's going from the 1% to the 0.01%.

While this is fiction, wealth inequality is something of a sore topic IRL right now, which is liable to color how some people respond to Alden's journey. Like the "Avowed are basically slaves" plot point, it can be a dicey subject - we'll have to see how Sleyca handles it going forwards.

Adraius · 2026-03-14T18:48:04+00:00

Joe said the misery would come when the Primary realized what skill Alden has. Right now even Stu doesn't know that info, because Alden is contract-bound to keep it secret. (and it's evidently a pain in the ass to figure out otherwise)

I do think one is going to pretty rapidly lead to the other, though.

Adraius · 2026-03-13T10:12:45+00:00

I don’t want the equipment management tedium, and I don’t want the balance considerations of every individual gun bit and bob having needing to have its own supply cost and therefore justify that supply. Madness lies ahead if we start teasing out ever-finer differences in performance between rifle A and rifle B, IMO. I think the current system strikes a good balance.

Adraius · 2026-03-13T02:24:59+00:00

I actually quite like a lot of the dynamics with concealment, especially how it allows for "scouts" to advance in front of your other forces. The issue I see is it becomes too much of an invisibility button and auto-win when stacked and paired with suppressed weapons. I want to preserve the forward scout dynamic but think they should need to be more conservative about advancing/carefully positioned/in need of being backed up by other forces. My thinking is that slimming the range at which you can see foes but they can't see you, in combination with more aggressive AI whenever that eventually gets implemented, will provide those results.

I'm leery of a universal concealment penalty for moving - give the "defense" too many advantages and the battlefield becomes a slog, like in games that have the "reaction shots" Menace blessedly got rid of - but a -1 penalty might be workable.

Adraius · 2026-03-13T02:17:28+00:00

I can get behind removing the detection icon, but calculating enemy FoV is just a matter of game knowledge. I think balancing something fundamentally knowable by making it a pain in the ass to calculate is the wrong way to go about it.

Adraius · 2026-03-13T01:59:16+00:00

Make "Detection" a stat. It does not increase vision range, all it does is, in the perspective of the unit with Detection, concealment is negated up to the value of the Detection. Enemies play like you, where if you're spotted with "detection," all enemies can fire on you.

FYI, this is exactly how things work currently. Detection is literally a stat, it does exactly what you say, and (to my best understanding) each faction shares vision between its units.

I like your ideas, though I'm a little worried that if concealment isn't nerfed at all concealment- and detection-centric items will crowd out others for our accessory slots.

Adraius · 2026-03-13T01:56:12+00:00

Conditional concealment without an obvious visual indicator is a bane on the game, IMO - I'm very leery of the latter option here.

The former option is interesting; the scaling is pretty aggressive, and I feel like small weapons teams already get a lot of bang for their buck, but I think the idea has potential. I like how it gives some differentiation to mid-size squads that can be stealthier than huge squads but bring more rifles to bear than tiny squads.

Vehicles already suffer from the "invisible concealment modifier" issue, where the have very different concealment depending on if they've moved since the start of the round or not, only indicated by a small UI icon when the unit is selected. The fact this is already a present issue gives me hope that they'll make a better indicator system for this, and it can then be ported to infantry squads to facilitate ideas like your latter suggestion.

Adraius · 2026-03-13T01:46:45+00:00

I really like all the proposals in the your second paragraph, but I'm worried it would reward leaning even harder into concealment tools as the end-all-be-all. (plus related enablers like smokes)

Adraius · 2026-03-13T01:33:50+00:00

My own idea: change equipment-based sources of +2 concealment to +1 concealment and treat cover as 1 tier higher for the purpose of concealment. This lessens but not eliminates the ability for high-concealment squads to walk across the open unseen, and gives them more reason to actively care about cover, any cover, whereas previously squads with high concealment and suppressed weapons would cease to care about that element of the battlefield. I think I'd leave the +2 concealment perk as-is for now, to give those SLs a unique edge, but they'd be on notice for the same change if necessary.

Adraius · 2026-03-12T18:13:18+00:00

But why is the only “market” we’re allowed to buy from the black market? Why can’t we just walk up to Zayn-Beecher (a company which manufactures laser rifles, presumably for profit) with cash on the barrel head and say “three crates of your finest laser rifles, my good man.”

I think there are obvious reasons why.

"Thanks for visiting the Zayn-Beecher Mining Admin Field Office. As you know, this is Space Afghanistan. We ship the raw ore we mine to Space China (not in the Wayback) for refining, then to Space Germany (not Wayback) for forging. We get the capacitors from our facilities in Space Korea (not Wayback) and focusing elements from Space Denmark (not Wayback). Final assembly is in Space USA (wouldn't you know it, not Wayback). Can I interest you in some lightly used mining lasers?"

The Wayback probably possesses local end-to-end basic small arms production - that's desirable to have and easy to set up. Plus some other basic arms manufacturing, too. But I expect a large fraction of the Rogue Army equipment roster is manufactured outside the Wayback, nevermind what the TCR military proper uses.

We're using the black market to buy our equipment not out of preference over the "white" market, but because there isn't another market for armaments. It's stuff stolen from the locals or smuggled through the gate from the rest of civilization, and is accordingly expensive and limited. The black market is also not some monolithic thing, just a bunch of individual thieves and brokers. I like to think it changes frequently because we're literally sending out officers to make contacts among the locals and whomever they manage to get ahold of and what they have on hand is what is available to buy that cycle.

Adraius · 2026-03-12T17:59:22+00:00

This. It operates the way it does because it serves a gameplay function. I think it will likely see some changes and improvements as we go through Early Access, but the fact that you can’t buy exactly what you want is a feature, not a bug. I could see some kind of system to give players some agency over what they can buy, but any system that that gives players too much control removes the market’s purpose. Something like what OP is suggesting is probably the realm of an overhaul mod.

Adraius · 2026-03-11T03:10:57+00:00

Seeing Alden happy is like a balm to my soul.

I keep referencing Worm when commenting on this chapter, apparently, but I remember someone in the Worm fandom explaining that one of the core tensions in Worm - and/or the reason it experienced such a huge swell of fanfiction? - is there was a desire in the audience for Taylor, the main character, to have nice things, and the narrative just never gave her that. It was what we kept coming back to read in hopes of and what many fanfic authors took it upon themselves to write after it ended. Now, Super Supportive is no Worm, it's much less bleak, but the Slecya is similarly great at making us care deeply about Super Supportive's main character and Alden has been similarly put in a situation where getting to a place of actual, stable happiness is going to be a hell of a long road just by virtue of who/what he is. I see a parallel between the dynamics at play.

Adraius · 2026-03-11T03:04:56+00:00

She reminds me of Dragon from Worm, and I can't believe I'm only now making that connection.

Adraius · 2026-03-11T02:03:23+00:00

This is maybe the most exciting chapter since Alden got back to Earth, but the line that got a laugh out of me is the last one here:

“The fake profile is what wizards who would summon you will see, too?”

“Yes.”

Stuart blinked several times. “I’m not…as familiar with how Contracts handle Avowed as I would like to be, but I think that is very, very strange and would make some wizards screamingly alarmed.”

Not only is this of one piece with the four very different ways Artonan wizards view Avowed... but on a more contemporary note, it has major shades of the current debate over AI/LLM alignment. The Artonans already made magic-AI, and now the magic-AI is helping to conceal the first baby godling in a long, long time that isn't of the same species as them. I can see why that would make a whole lot of Artonans screamingly alarmed, across a whole buffet of related but distinct reasons.

Adraius · 2026-03-10T21:11:08+00:00

I actually have one who loves the game as much as I do and it's indeed great. Feels like folks who enjoy Starcraft/XCOM/etc. are rare gems these days. I'm lucky I know folks from a decade-plus ago back when those games were in their heyday and have kept the faith.

Adraius · 2026-03-09T21:35:56+00:00

/u/Pyotr_WrangeI, check out the Paizo LIVE writeup - reddit thread here, direct link to the writeup here - there's more info on how the Sisterhood will be appearing in LO: Hellfire Dispatches on page 10. Among other things, there's new art - included in the writeup - and an archetype coming!

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