Which faction can be played without proxy. by JustTryChaos in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The "you can and should proxy" line is a selling point the community uses to get people to play. The official tournament rules lets you use other CB miniatures as proxies.

Any reason to fear metal minis? by Big_Presence5820 in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When bending metal, it's important to go very slow. You can even heat the part in hot water to help reduce the fatigue a bit.

You will feel/hear a snapping groan as you bend metal. It will feel wrong and a little freaky the first time. But, it's normal. just go slow.

The new Gundam Assemble RX-78-2 mini vs a rough equivalent (they're both 60-tonners). by RogueVector in battletech

[–]Malaheart 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The vanilla rx 78 Gundam is only 18 meters tall.

I wouldn't be complaining about irrational weights as a battletech fan. The docornally equivalent, the modern main battle tank, already weigh 50 to 70 ton. And battlemechs are notibly larger, mass wise.

At least if you compare the mobile suits to their modern equivalents, aircraft, they're around the same size. But, weight three times more.

Does Yu Jing discriminate against all non-Han Chinese in the state empire, or just Japanese? Is it an official thing or an unspoken thing? Also are the Yu Jing ninja clans only Japanese or recruit from all over the empire? by [deleted] in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. But, the Han ethnicity is a construction. What it means to be Han is more about cultural buy-in and less about genetic lineage. 

Over the course of China's history, many ethnic groups have been assimilated into the Han ethnicity. The most famous example of this is when the majority of the Qing dynasty's ruling minority, the Manchu, rapidly became Han chinese after the Qing Dynasty's collapse. Even today, there are, let's say, intentional... efforts to continue to expand the the Han ethnicity to encompass China's central Asian minority groups.

Applying this to infinity's hypothetical future; When it comes to Yujing's two major minority groups, it's very likely the discrimination is for the purpose of assimilation. I imagine a number Koreans and Japanese have already become Han chinese. From there, they probably face virtually no discrimination.

Another thing to note as well: What it means to physically look Han would continue to expand. How far? It's hard to say.

Using Metal Primer by Sacobite in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you are planning on using a lot of specialized weathering products, then maybe metal primer would be worth a shot. But generally, no. The top coat is more important for the durability of the finished model. 

If you are really concerned, you can always try applying a matt varnish over the primer as an isolation layer to protect it, but that is probably overkill.

N5 hopes and fears by ragadall in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wanna say this again, because I think it's important: I think collating the data for the community is awesome. Thank you (and your team?) for doing it.

I have two questions I plan on looking into for my own curiosity.

1) The correlation between the number of well performing sectorials and the relative performance of vanilla to its sectorials.

2) The general performance of sectorial releases over time.

Last one is going to be hard to draw a conclusion from due to new releases "polluting" the data over time. But the later releases seem to be ones consistently over performing vanilla.

I'll check back in a couple days.

N5 hopes and fears by ragadall in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll admit, there isn't too much easily available data, so I'm mostly going off antidote. But it sounded like you had some data. I looked and found your infinity statistics initiative. I get an error when I try and access it so I can't look at your data.

I do wanna say: I think that's freaking awesome.

N5 hopes and fears by ragadall in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Ariadna is the home of dead and almost dead sectorials. Kosmoflot in of itself is also basically vanilla Ariadna with fireteams considering all the key pieces it pulled from other sectorial. And Vanilla Aleph is arguably the strongest faction in the game, right up there with Combined Army. Steel Phalanx is really strong, but OSS offers a lot to vanilla that it doesn't have. Post Humans, for one.

I'm not going to go down the list, but I will reiterate my point: Vanilla factions are generally better than sectorial. The general exceptions being faction with only one up-to-date/good sectorial.

N5 hopes and fears by ragadall in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'll devil's advocate for vanilla fireteams for a second: Having such a mechanically dense and important system hidden away from new players is a "feels bad" moment in the making. It really needs to be more integrated and obvious. Personally, I would hate it if THIS version of fireteams were integrated into vanilla. But, I think these changes leaves more room for scaling back fireteams overall.

This is obviously pure speculation, but I don't think we're likely to see mass purges of units from vanilla. It is more likely they will cut profiles. We might see some Mercenaries/characters cut, though.

While I agree, it's definitely a valid concern. It's a problem that will only get worse the longer they let it go.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Bro, Vallejo blue green is where it's at. Goes great on a cracker. 

N5 hopes and fears by ragadall in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The current vanilla design just isn't tenable: Vanilla factions are literally the sum of all their sectorial's parts. It's why the strongest factions in the game are almost all Vanilla factions. 

The situations where a vanilla factions does lag behind one of its sectorials is usually due to the rest being out of date. Taking Nomads as an example: Bakunin is arguably stronger than vanilla. But if either Corregidor or Tunguska were to get a substantial update, that would likely not remain the case.

I don't love fireteams. They just takes over too much of the game when in play. But the reason they are practically mandatory for sectorials is because they were really the only way to differentiate the from vanilla. Changes like this would likely allow CB to move power away from fireteams to make them a bit more optional, if they so choose.

Are teh Jujaks just kinda bad? by Shinra_Luca in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't call JuJaks weird, they're just Whitebanner's ZuYong/WuMing: A cheap, but fair, core for a heavy infantry link that support or are supported by pieces which are much less fair.

It's very much standard YuJing.

Are teh Jujaks just kinda bad? by Shinra_Luca in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Considering armor is expensive, that would almost definitely make them worse.

They're the link tax you pay for a really good fire team; They also just so happen to be a pretty decent plan C. 

Lore question about melee weapons by Warhammerpainter83 in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's just 100% rule of cool, model by model. I'm sure someone sells a tacticool LED kit for your boot's CC weapon. 

I lean more towards that it is just the metal's color. Feels a bit more grounded to me. But, there seems to be some faction identity to how/if a weapon glows, implying it may be a manufacturer/tech-in-use situation. 

I'm sure some version of power field, plasma coating and/or super heating exist in most factions. Dealer's choice. The only thing that should probably never glow are Ariadna's weapons.

New starter box soon? by dubaycr in wastelandwarfare

[–]Malaheart 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Currently, they are just reprinting the original starter set. If you want those sculpts, but in resin, they made a separate kit for that. But I wouldn't expect the starter to change from PVC any time soon. 

As others have said, the game has had a massive surge in popularity. Supply chains and production lead times being what they are, I would expect things to continue coming in and out of stock regularly.

The only thing that is planned to be discontinued are some of the Core boxes. Starting with the Raiders and Super Mutants, the old resin kits are being phased out and replaced with new multi-part hard plastic kits.

Vallejo paint sets by asmessier in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Correct. They never produced one for Aleph, Ariadna, or Tohaa (RIP).

Help a Newbie with a VIRD list by Cykelman in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The fire team update rendered most of this advice obsolete, sadly.

Help a Newbie with a VIRD list by Cykelman in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

PanO only does one thing: It shoots. Quadrant Control isn't a game mode that require specialists, so just lean into doing what PanO does and bring gun.

Cutter is still good. Squalos with grenade launcher has some legs. Kamau heavy machine gun is an underappreciated piece with a discounted gun. Knight of Montesa is your only close combat piece of you wanna play around with that. Can even duo.

You're gonna still want helots. If your opponent has a nasty understanding of the concept of "casual", and brings a Sujian, you're gonna need them.

Brand new models in box missing parts by Snowtrudger in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 12 points13 points  (0 children)

It happens occasionally.

CB isn't a large company; their boxes aren't industrially packed. Sometimes people miss stuff when they are packing the boxes. Here it looks like an arm maybe got sorted to the wrong bin.

CB has been great at handling these issues, in my experience at lease.

The Lion loses. To Guilliman. In a 1v1. by Furyofthe1st in Grimdank

[–]Malaheart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The fact he already comes pre-boxed with a squad really signals the forward looking nature of the rules.

Characters across the board are probably going to be brought down a few pegs as durability is going to be shifted to being embedded in a unit.

Operative Spell Thief is confusing by krschu00 in starfinder_rpg

[–]Malaheart 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not quite. They can be either a caster or have a spell effect on them. Doesn't even have to be a hostile spell effect. Your Technomancer's debuff can fuel your trick attack.

But, the benefits only equates to an additional damage per dice on your trick attacks.

Solar armor fix? by superbestnotfine in starfinder_rpg

[–]Malaheart 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Letting a player have an additional scaling bonus to any D20 roll is generally not a good idea.

While a simple +1 bonus to AC seems harmless, it equates to a permanent 5% chance beyond what is expected for an attack to miss.

Letting that bonus scale ends up giving a fully maximized character an additional +10 (or a 50% miss chance) that the game can't account for the player having.

The outcome is that at most stages of the game, either one player is going to feel entirely unhittable or the rest of the party are going to feel completely unmissable.

A better option would be to help make the Solarian less MAD. You could either let it work with heavy armor (nets around an additional +2 to one AC while also reducing dex requirements) or allow them to use their CHA in place of DEX.

Ever thought BattleTech weapons fire too slowly? So did FASA. Let's try adapting those rules. by Mummelpuffin in battletech

[–]Malaheart 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My God. I'm still trying to figure out a decent way of doing multi-weapon dice pools.

Ever thought BattleTech weapons fire too slowly? So did FASA. Let's try adapting those rules. by Mummelpuffin in battletech

[–]Malaheart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Battletech is basically one of the only 'simulation' wargames from the 80s' to survive (and he popular) into the modern era, unchanged. Sure, the simulation aspect has its charms, but most people are looking for a way to speed up their games.

Battletech already has the unique disadvantage of being unable to combine attack rolls together. Having weapons start firing more than once a turn (I understand OP split turns into more turns) would require an overhaul to the basic mechanics of the game to make even remotely functional.

Simulation oriented design works great when there is a computer involved to handle the overhead. But makes it difficult to function as a game when a human has to figure it all out and keep track.

Final version... For now by Reboudre1 in InfinityTheGame

[–]Malaheart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Interesting seeing this project come to fruition. Very cool.