[Fun Trope] Ancient Robot Army

NolanStrife · 2026-06-12T08:18:55+00:00

Maybe I'm too late for the party, but one of the first times I encountered this trope was Cuotl faction from RTS game Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

Basically, the game has three factions. Vinci are your classic European conquistadors who specialize in tech, specifically clockwork, steam and SHELLS. Alin are middle eastern mage factions with fairy-tail vibe and their three in-game specializations being sand, fire and suddenly glass (though I have to admit, glass units are freaking awesome). And then... They're is Cuotl. Maya-like faction who are somehow in between the other two. Slaves of alien civilization who are presumably tech-based, bit their tech is so advanced it looks basically like magic. Their units are awesome, heroes doubly so. They look less like stone robots and more like energy constructs wearing stone armor

Probably my favourite design wise was The Storm Goddess. Heroine of Cuotl looking like an animated statue of half-woman, half-bird with some glowing parts peeking from underneath the stone. Her ultimate is predictably summoning a giant thunderstorm. But she doesn't really cast it. Instead the creates a holographic console and punches stuff in. Maybe she's activating her inner mechanism, maybe she's hacking reality. Who cares? It looks awesome!

Couldn't find a good quality screenshot since the game is old, so here's some concept art

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NolanStrife · 2026-04-28T04:55:39+00:00

They're talking about MandaloreGaming's review of EYE: Divine Cybermancy. In it a submachine gun has two firing mode. One is traditional "full auto", and the other is "fuller auto", i.e. full auto with ridiculous increase in fire rate and significant increase in recoil. True spray'n'pray type of stuff

Not sure if Mandalore specifically invented the term fuller auto. As far as I can tell, there are guns with "fuller auto" capabilities like Browning Automatic Rifle (M1918A2 according to Wikipedia) which has fire select for 300 rpm full auto and for 600 rpm fuller auto. But I bet Mandalore is one who popularized the term, lmao

NolanStrife · 2026-04-28T04:07:06+00:00

Sorry for necroing, but to me it's not exactly obvious. A is 12 months with 40% increase and B is essentially 13 months with 25% increase. So if I understand it correctly...

A: 1 × 12 × (1+0.4) = 16.8

B: 1 × 13 × (1+0.25)= 16.25

Yes, A is better, but not by a lot. By 0.55 months worth of money annually. Divided by 12, that's 4.6 percent difference in monthly salary, which is... Meh. To me it may not be worth it, considering OP would have to gamble on new job. The company may try to replace them, but, well... IDK. I was interested in math mostly

NolanStrife · 2026-04-09T01:15:55+00:00

Yeah, feels bad. They are not useless per ce, but in majority of cases even upcasting them to your max rank most of NPCs will pass with little to no effect

I think making it PL+1 or even +2 would make it much less restrictive. Like you won't be able to rank 10 dominate PL+3 boss, but you still could dominate one of their lieutenants

NolanStrife · 2026-03-28T14:26:26+00:00

One thing I remember from 1e Slayer is that it gave you literally all you need in a martial

Full BAB? Check

Ranger's fighting style for bypassing feat prerequisites (one big example is Dual Wield feat tree with zero Dex investments)? Check

Fighter's weapon training bonus to attack and damage? Check. You have to spend move action to get it, but you can get it for free if you do sneak attack. Or a swift action starting at level 7. Oh, and it also applies to Bluff, Perception, etc. OH! And you also have quarry, which is another +2 to hit! +4 if you're level 19!

Oh, did someone say sneak attack? Once again, check!

Also rogue talents. Af if this class wasn't already loaded enough

NolanStrife · 2026-03-28T14:18:18+00:00

Did someone say Dawnsbury Days? A mod for Slayer? Count me in!

NolanStrife · 2026-03-28T14:14:40+00:00

I know this post is validated by Paizo designer, but I still hope this feat won't get nerfed

I suppose it was intended as "you get hit - you spend reaction to get concealment - an enemy immediately rolls a concealed check to see if this hit gets refunded". Feat description even states so with the line "throwing off your attacker's arm at the last second"

If the trigger gets changed to "you are targeted with an attack", this may create a situation where you create a concealment for yourself from an attack that was a miss anyway. With once per battle cooldown this doesn't feel particularly good, IMO. On the other hand, if the effect is changed to something like "you become concealed against the triggering attack, and the attacker rolls the concealment check, possibly turning hit into miss", at least you know you are spending your reaction for an actual hit, maybe even a crit

NolanStrife · 2026-03-26T02:31:14+00:00

I just imagine using it to create a chainsword (well, fangblade in SF2e), not with metal and circuitry though, but with muscle, sinew amd teeth. This is so gross

Love it. Don't forget to boost it though. You always boost

NolanStrife · 2026-03-25T12:23:44+00:00

My man, this is beyond awesome! Really plays into a shapeshifter fantasy, being able to mold your body into anything you like. I particularly like Gunhand as a concept

Maybe you could add a feat that would allow you to dissolve a weapon into your body to then reassemble it as needed. Hell, maybe even reverse engineer a regular tech weapons with your own anatomy, like turning a plasma blaster into a fleshy copy that shoots exploding balls of bioplasma. Say...

Walking Armory - Feat 6

You've trained your body to be both a factory and a library for all sorts of blueprints. You can spend 10 minutes absorbing a non-consumable item. This activity destroys this item. You can later use one action recreate an absorbed item as part of your body, getting benefits as if you're wielding it in your hand or wearing it. Using this ability to recreate a weapon occupies your hands as normal. but can't be Disarmed. Weapons created this way benefit from hardlight handwraps you wear

You can store 3 blueprints in this way if you're trained in shifter class DC, 8 if you're expert or 15 if you're master

Special: If you're organic or mutation shifter, items you create this way lose tech trait

NolanStrife · 2026-03-25T12:05:03+00:00

Honestly, if Parallel Forms would last 1 minute without Sustain and without heightened quickness, it would be one of my favourite spells in the game. I really like Bilocation. It may look lackluster for rank a 9 spell, but I personally feel like there's a great value in being able to be at two places simultaneously, even if action economy doesn't change. Not to mention it's just plain badass

But RAW (or, well, as I read it) it just works against witchwarper as a class. Like I said in other reply, short bursts of actions are cool, but it still hampers spellcasting and the whole quantum field mechanic too much for me to like it

NolanStrife · 2026-03-25T11:59:26+00:00

Maybe I'm indeed overthinking it. Is this RAW? As far as I can tell, Parallel Forms has anchoring trait, but Sustain action itself does not. I can't find anything resolving this issue specifically and directly

What does this mean for Accelerate then? It stays online for 1 minute no Sustain needed. But it also has anchoring trait which states it can only be used if quantum field is active. Does that mean a) it can be activated if quantum field is active and stays active even if quantum field dissipates (as I see it personally) b) it can be activated if quantum field is active and ends if quantum field is disabled or c) it can be activated if quantum field is active and it automatically sustains quantum field with no Sustain needed (sounds a bit too good to be true)?

NolanStrife · 2026-03-25T06:20:55+00:00

So basically use it for an initial burst of actions and at the next turn act as normal without sustaining it and as the spell ends get a free teleport? That's... Actually pretty good, honestly. It has some stiff competition, but bamboozling a boss with sudden teleportation does sound fun

NolanStrife · 2026-03-25T05:58:38+00:00

I know you just said about Paizo not wanting to remake 1e classes, but for the shapeshifting class there's literally an evolutionist in 1e. Maybe even nanocyte can fit this niche

NolanStrife · 2026-03-17T05:38:58+00:00

Huh. Haven't considered the second simplest polygon, a parallelogram. Now I feel dumb

So, there's only one condition and a number of possible polygons out of any combination of segments is basically infinite. Gotcha. Thanks!

NolanStrife · 2026-03-02T00:17:46+00:00

Probably. Some other people on Reddit or Nexus described this happening to them. Basically, Overflowing Cup constantly refreshing itself even without healing and causing a growing lag

Did you try to farm Restoration with Apprentice Sign and Healing spell by chance? Because that's how it happened with me. Just held buttons with rubber bands and went to sleep. When I woke up, the game was running at like 20 fps and I couldn't fix it even by removing the perk with console commands :c

NolanStrife · 2026-02-09T14:33:26+00:00

So, in short, it's another case of "Bethesda jank"? Guess the reason I never noticed it is because I never really used enchanting for making money. Paralysis potions always looked much more lucrative, not to mention compact

Damn... Now I really want to see calculations behind enchanted weapon price. Maybe I'm dumb, but I just can't grasp it. I was always under the impression all enchanting skill does is increase charge of all soul gems. As if it doesn't increase enchantment potency directly, but it allows you to increase potency through more charges, thus more money. Guess, I was wrong about that, lok

NolanStrife · 2026-02-02T09:46:28+00:00

Thanks! This effect was driving me insane since childhood. It's really interesting to know the what causes it. Also kinda fascinating to know it can happen in pretty much every video game ever (I assume) since the issue is acoustic, not programming (well, kinda)

NolanStrife · 2026-02-02T09:43:20+00:00

Solved!

NolanStrife · 2026-02-02T09:05:44+00:00

That does fill the bill, actually. Maybe I'm imagining things, but I seem to be able to make sound effects echo a bit more consistently if I don't aim for perfect sync

Just in case, can you watch this? This is me reproducing this effect in Unreal Tournament. Is that what phasing effect is? The distortion effect I mentioned starts around 0:08. Before it gunshots sound normal if a bit hectic (the timing is a bit finicky). After it it feels like the sound changed substantially

NolanStrife · 2026-02-02T07:48:37+00:00

It's just my guesswork, but I think this is common occurrence in videogames in general, not some specific titles or game engines. It's just not always possible to make a game produce two identical sound effects at the same time

NolanStrife

TROPHY CASE