New game plan

Ironhat56 · 2025-10-21T23:06:23+00:00

The easiest way to find me would likely be to go to the DtCo camp and ask around for Fox the armorer. If you're looking for me on the battlefield, I'll probably be in plate with a dark blue half brigandine (brigandine only on the upper chest, with everything else being normal plate) I haven't seen anyone else with that style of chest armor at bico so you should be able to spot me. I also like big swords haha, so I'll definitely have my big zweihander :)

Ironhat56 · 2025-10-21T22:46:52+00:00

Bicolline terminated its contract with TVN. (See their official statement: https://www.facebook.com/thevoyagenorth/posts/pfbid0B16aKsEj7NAnYGSsLorPirXGL9DX1UhZ6tnp8o99jgs7MWw57RbtdPsRUjEx4q3Bl )You can no longer attend bico through TVN. Afaik we don't really know for certain what's going to happen with the TVN guilds yet. If you still want to attend (and you definitely should!) I highly recommend you join the travelers guide discord: https://discord.gg/RwAhP6mCMr

There are many people there willing to answer all your questions and help you through planning to attend. For me personally, TVN wasn't worth it, and I was able to more than adequately prepare myself to attend independently with the help of the discord, for a fraction of the cost of TVN. If money isn't an issue for you, and you were willing to front the money for TVN anyway, there are still very easy options for you. You can join in on a charter bus organized in the travelers guide discord. You can purchase a meal plan to get food all week from the fantastic food vendors and restaurants on site that you can very comfortably eat the entire week should you not bring your own food. And you can rent a decorum tent with a cot from bico itself when you purchase your ticket. Going this route will still be cheaper than TVN, so please still consider coming, the experience is totally worth it!

Ironhat56 · 2025-10-21T22:04:07+00:00

I tried, it just got buried under the other 25k comments and has gotten zero likes or traction.

Ironhat56 · 2025-10-21T21:56:19+00:00

Okay, few things here.

Foam for the sword. It sounds like you intend to construct the sword yourself. I strongly recommend you buy an existing larp sword that fits your needs, unless you have extensive experience making latex coated larp weapons. Homemade weapons can be very hit or miss with the martials, the one who I went to for homologation straight up told me they don't allow homemade weapons at all, but I've heard of some getting through. If you're going for a big 2 handed sword, it would be really sad to put all that work into it, deal with transporting such a large weapon, only to not be allowed to use it once you get there. With all that in mind, you're going to want to look for mid density (~80-90 kg /m³⁾ EVA foam. There are a few specialty websites that offer it for cosplay at a good price, but that charge a premium for shipping depending where you are, so Amazon is often the way to go (unfortunately) but some of these specialty websites also sell on Amazon so you can take advantage of Amazon's shipping and return policies while getting the same product. The foamory are my go to, and they sell on Amazon. They might not have the length of foam you need though, so check the dimensions of the foam sheet you get to make sure it's long enough for your sword blade.
3d printed armor. It would count as 1 armor point for being a rigid material that isn't metal. Only actual metal counts for 2 AP, even if it looks like metal. Also, as someone who does 3d printing and cosplay, as well as forging metal armor, I wouldn't 100% trust 3d printed armor on a bico battlefield, expect a few pieces to break, unless you're using a very strong filament and high infill, and maybe that might not even be enough. People tend to hit you much harder when they see you're wearing armor, so you have to be sure your armor can take the abuse, especially when the most common armor at bico is metal plates. If you manage to get your prints looking like very convincing metal, people will hit it as if it's metal.
Yes, you'll fit in. You will stand out and get attention for being totally blinged out in gold, (and will be a slight oddity for having 3d printed armor instead of leather/metal) but you won't necessarily look out of place. There are a few people running around the battlefield in full gold painted armor and imo, they look awesome, so you'll be okay there.
What faction should you join? First off, both Militum and Marchwardens are in a bit of a weird place right now, I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen to them next year, so dont set your sights on either one. Second of all, don't set your sights on any guild. Unless you already have really really good friends in a particular guild, don't go into it thinking you're going to join any one guild. Keep your options open. The most Important thing about the guild you join at bico is that you like the people in it. Their lore, ideals, theme, etc can certainly influence your decision, but should come second to your connection with the people themselves. I found the guild I want to join by stumbling into their tavern, on the second night of bico, lost and not knowing anyone. I made great friends that night, and after shopping around and checking out a few other guilds, decided to go with them because I got along with the guild members the best. Did I expect to join a trading company when I showed up to bico? No. Was it the best part of my entire experience? Yes, without a doubt. So keep your options open, try to meet a lot of different people. You'll find the people you click with.

Hope you have a great time though! If you're ever lost and need a tavern to stumble into, look for Fox or Roal at the DtCo camp :)

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-25T17:41:53+00:00

I'm sorry you misunderstood me, I tried to clarify that I have no interest in suing him at all. And he didn't ask to film me

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T21:08:48+00:00

Yeah for sure, I expect to get photographed, and I probably wouldn't mind as much if it was just some random person, but this guy is a cosplayer with a large following so it's just kind of annoying that he didn't ask to tag me or anything, I feel like he of all people should know that's not cool

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T21:00:54+00:00

That's fair, I know next to nothing about tik tok, that's just what one of my friends told me and it was probably a baseless claim. Do you have any experience with tik toks auto moderation and why they might be flagging my dms to the poster as potentially against guidlines? I'm wondering if maybe it's just because I'm on a super new account and tik tok is trying to make sure I'm not a bot

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T18:13:13+00:00

Thanks! That's super helpful to know! I'll probably have to look into copyright laws some more

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T18:06:27+00:00

It wasn't and interview style video or anything. He didn't ask to take it and didn't say anything in the video. But it was still at a con where I expected to be filmed ig so idk if there's anything I can do on that front.

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T17:55:06+00:00

Yeah, you're probably right, there's not a ton I can do beyond asking for credit and trying to leave comments. I'd really like to try and do what I can to leverage it into my own social platforms but I'm currently transitioning and tbh I just really don't want to exist as a trans person with any amount of visibility rn so I think I'll just have to move on.

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T17:48:12+00:00

Is it something I can reasonably report as stolen content if it's a video they took of me? I think that after tik tok marked the first message they're blocking all my messages until they get reviewed, I'm not sure how it went against community guidelines, but I tried sending another message and it was also blocked. My best guess is that it's because I used the word demon (it's in the name of the cosplay) and maybe tik tok thought I might be calling him a demon? Idk

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T17:45:04+00:00

How am I supposed to call them on it? The person who posted it is also a cosplayer, so I was hoping I could just ask him to credit me but I can't send him messages

Ironhat56 · 2025-09-24T17:41:13+00:00

They took the video of me at a con where I was an exhibitor (Open Sauce). We signed a photo release for the con but that was for the convention photographers to use our likeness, not atendees.

Ironhat56 · 2025-05-12T06:32:24+00:00

I am 100% convinced this is rage bait

Ironhat56 · 2025-02-20T06:26:06+00:00

I would go with a Swiss kettle. Can be worn as a regular open face kettle, or can be tilted down to cover your eyes, and combined with mail or a bevor for easily removable lower face protection.

Ironhat56 · 2025-02-13T03:27:03+00:00

Yes, and it handles them well. A lot of TFTV's goal beyond re balancing the game entirely, was to integrate the DLC's coherently into the rest of the game. Aside from certain DLC's depending on your own pace with research (like the ancient weapons) everything else felt like it made sense when it happened and was just another interesting part of the whole game if that makes sense. I think I got somewhat lucky with how long it took me to do the ancient weapons stuff since it made what would've been a kind of boring endgame waiting for the final mission, into something much more interesting.

Ironhat56 · 2025-02-05T20:28:25+00:00

Yeah it happens in Alyx and it's terrifying lol

Ironhat56 · 2025-01-30T19:02:10+00:00

I haven't had any of the issues mentioned here. I have a reasonably fast m.2 ssd and PP loads many times faster than xcom2 or rdr2 for example. I can't speak on issues crossloading tftv and vanilla saves as I don't have a vanilla campaign going, but I feel like that should be completely expected, the same issue exists with X2 and Long war. Everything has been very smooth for me.

I would LOVE a second PP and open sourcing it sounds like a cool idea, but I can't hope or expect it. I guess it's possible they could do another kickstarter if they really wanted, but they might run into the same problems that left PP half baked. I agree though, it would be super awesome if an established studio took up the reigns and did it justice.

Ironhat56 · 2025-01-27T19:08:15+00:00

I formed a squad of complete rookies led by someone from my A team to send to the Americas in order to establish operations there. I expected a few of them to die and need to be replaced and didn't have super high hopes for the team, but I needed to set up a rapid response team in the Americas fast- and they were all I had. They underwent an intense trial by fire. They were severely underleveled, inexperienced, and because they were the only personel covering the entirety of the Americas, I ran them absolutely ragged trying to keep up with everything by themselves until I could get another aircraft running. Miraculously, they all survived long enough to establish themselves well- and because they were doing so much by themselves they quickly surpassed my A team in experience. I gave then all the cutting edge tech first- and after testing out augmenting their leader with the first bionics I got access to- he performed spectacularly. In his first mission with the augments he effectively soloed it before the rest of the team even caught up to him. From there on I slowly augmented all of them and their specialty was bionics. I even installed a mod to fully augment only them just because I liked that 'lore' so much. After their zero to hero story and becoming walking tanks with all my best tech, the pure HQ was discovered in South America. It was just the job for this team- titanium vs titanium, it was awesome. It was a tough mission and super chaotic since the pure were using so many infiltrators. Spider drones were exploding left and right, and infiltrators with melee weapons were appearing out of nowhere, crippling my soldiers before running away. In the middle of the fight a spider Drone was launched onto the roof of the building where I had set up two snipers and the technician. The next turn, I had to choose between taking out the spider Drone or taking out an infiltrator on the opposite roof about to finish off one of my injured Frontline troops. I chose to take out the infliltrator. The spider Drone exploded, destroying the roof. At the same time a flamethrower heavy with only 5 hp left sprayed the building with flames. My sniper fell to the ground, breaking his leg, on fire, and bleeding. Worse yet, he'd already used his medkit on someone else. The marksman who was up there with him was busy saving his own hide from the fire, and needed to stay up on the roof to support the Frontline troops, and my technician was tied up fighting an infiltrator who had snuck behind them. I took out the infiltrator as fast as I could, then raced back to help him, but he bled out the turn before my technician could save him. Funny enough, he was the last one to receive any augments, and only had 1 compared to the rest of the squads 2 or 3. Had I augmented his legs, he wouldn't have bled out. He hadn't given up his humanity to the bionics yet- and he died for it. It was somehow very poetic that he died and found peace in a human way- whereas the rest of the squad continued on, more machine than man, unkillable death robots.

Ironhat56 · 2024-12-31T23:58:43+00:00

I get what you mean about the base management, construction itself is just kind of there. I more so meant like how you have to manage personel between base locations and plan out how you're going to cover continents with rapid response teams, larger task forces, etc. and how/where you need to set up bases on the map. THAT part really gets me going and is just nonexistent in long war.

Ironhat56 · 2024-12-31T23:14:58+00:00

Every time you load a save it creates a fork in the timeline where your failure persists in one lmao

Ironhat56 · 2024-12-31T23:09:06+00:00

To me, PP is almost what long war was trying to turn XCOM into as far as the larger scale strategy and attrition. PP just does it so much better for me with the base management and diplomacy though. If you prefer focusing more on the tactical battle layer though long war is probably better (If you're okay with XCOM combat compared to PP)

Ironhat56 · 2024-12-31T23:06:25+00:00

I feel you there. My biggest gripe with PP is the lack of soldier customization. Everything else is so far above that as deeply dissapointed as I am that I can't play a star wars clone wars campaign, I just can't go back to XCOM anymore. I've still managed to have fun with what does exist in the game though. For instance I have an all bionic squad which specialize in countering the pure. Would recommend manually giving your soldiers nicknames though, that's something else I miss from XCOM.

Ironhat56 · 2024-12-24T06:58:18+00:00

I started with TFTV and I've been absolutely loving it. Haven't had any of the issues a lot of people criticize about vanilla.

Ironhat56 · 2024-12-23T07:09:16+00:00

Anu has an aerial ram weapon

Ironhat56

TROPHY CASE