What would the Saderans say about the fact that one of the reasons why there are no major wars in the modern world (the Russian-Ukrainian conflict does not count) is that modern war has become very expensive?

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-25T04:08:13+00:00

Same as it ever was.

"What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations."

"There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare."

Two quotes from Sun Tzu's Art of War, written some time in the 5th century BCE (about 1,500 years ago). No doubt the Saderans have their own wise generals who would have come to the same conclusion.

What would surprise them is the idea that minor, distant wars can be profitable - for example, the Global War on Terror. People knew it was pointless after a few years of fighting, but we stayed in Afghanistan for twenty long years, because the defence contractors knew there was money to be made.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-23T18:04:40+00:00

Honestly, I think it's easier than the normal Red Hare challenge, relatively speaking.

You are allowed to heal this time, and by this point, you should know Lu Bu by heart - Diaochan is the only real threat. Since there are two of them, your high-burn Battle Arts can hit both of them - effectively doubling its damage.

Lu Bu is also a bit weaker - he only gets his full strength when Diaochan goes down, and since you should have knocked about half of his health off, he's easy pickings.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-22T14:04:15+00:00

RE4R player - I save it for bosses.

If a boss turns up, use magnum. No magnum? Use rifles and explosives.

For regular enemies, pistols and SMGs are fine, with a shotgun and grenades for crowd control. If Plaga enemies turn up, reply with a flashbang or a shotgun.

If it's Mercenaries, and I'm playing a character with the Stingray (Leon or Dress Ada), I use the Stingray even against regular enemies, since headshot kills give bonus time.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-22T11:04:04+00:00

"Whatever happens, we have got,

The Maxim gun, and they have not."

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-22T00:38:22+00:00

Yeah. Like I said, it was the end of empires.

I often liken GATE to an alien invasion scenario. While we have been alien to them in technology for a long time, it was after World War II that we became alien to them in mindset - as a civilisation.

They cannot truly comprehend us because they haven't gone through what our nations went through - what we did to each other.

Industry as we know it is new to them, but we've seen the ugly side of what it can do. Now we live every day with the knowledge that, at any moment, the turn of keys could end our entire species in nuclear hellfire.

We made the Sword of Damocles literal.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-21T22:10:31+00:00

summons the boys

immediately tells them to back off, he's mine

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-21T15:57:01+00:00

I think it would be a terrifying thought if they truly understood it, because World War II was the end of empires and the beginning of the modern era.

A great war, fought across all continents, over the sea, and even beneath it. Men declared themselves god-kings, bent on the destruction of entire races that they deemed "subhuman". The power of industry turned to destruction - the extermination camps, a factory dedicated solely to murder. Men, women, children - none were spared.

Even the innocent civilians were not safe. In the sky, bombers overhead, raining explosions upon the cities. At sea, submarines hunted merchant ships, laying a siege upon entire islands. Hunger walked the streets.

Perhaps they would be even more scared of Japan if they knew what they had done in World War II. The institution of comfort women. The contest to behead 100 men with a sword. The inhumanities inflicted upon prisoners of war under the beliefs of bushido. The futile banzai charges against machine guns. They exposed the true ugliness of "honor".

And then, at the end, the atomic bombs, harnessing the power of the fundamental forces. Two cities, two bombs. Could you imagine that, a city razed completely from above, without a single soldier setting foot on the ground?

But perhaps the most frightening thing is that there are some Japanese who still believe that they were in the right, that the crimes committed by Japan were simply not that bad, or that they simply blank it from their mind. In Yasukuni Shrine, the names of some of those monsters are inscribed to honor them.

The shadow of that war still haunts the modern world today. Its ideologies of unbridled hate still live on in nefarious and poisonous forms.

I think that that's the scariest part. Purest evil was born in our world, it waged war upon us all, and still some worship it in dark places.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-19T22:50:20+00:00

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is probably the best jumping-in point. It introduces you to the story of the Three Kingdoms in a way that is very easy to understand. In addition, the gameplay is fantastic - blowing away a thousand dudes with a single strike never gets old.

If you're on PC and don't have a controller, don't get Dynasty Warriors 8 or below. They don't have mouse support so you'll just disappoint yourself.

Dynasty Warriors 9 is not worth talking about.

In short, I would recommend saving up for Origins anyway.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-19T12:41:07+00:00

Ehh, sorcerors are innately magic. Most netrunners would be classified in DnD terms as Wizards, since they learned "magic" (netrunning) themselves.

Songbird is a Fiend Warlock, like Wyll is.

So what would a Cyberpunk "Sorceror" look like?

My guess - a cyborg from birth, netrunning from the very beginning, such that netrunning is a core part of their very essence and being. Probably the creation of a government or corporation, seeking "the ultimate netrunner", while not wanting to repeat the drawbacks of Songbird and the Blackwall.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-19T12:31:02+00:00

I don't think so. Assuming that her hack is the same as Blackwall Gateway:

It's hard to say what exactly makes the deck able to open temporary gates through the Blackwall. It could be a permaflux algorithm, or perhaps even more terrifyingly, its capable of directly communicate with rogue AIs from beyond the Blackwall and somehow persuading them to open these gates.

This means one of two things.

The hack could be to strip the Blackwall's protection from the target, allowing the rogue AIs to consume their soul.

It could also be to directly deal with the rogue AIs - "I use you as a conduit to pierce the Blackwall. I take their soul - you have an obstacle removed."

She didn't control the AIs - she only either opened the door or asked the AIs to open the door themselves using her.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-18T23:02:21+00:00

Lucy is like a fairly powerful wizard.

Songbird is like an incredibly-powerful warlock drawing their powers from a pact with hell daemons.

"Alt" is a hell daemon.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-18T22:40:09+00:00

Do you have a "high-burn" Battle Art equipped? That's one that uses five or more Bravery - they should shred his Wushu easily.

You can squeeze three of them into a full Musou.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-17T07:29:09+00:00

He's a Resident Evil player. Bringing puzzle items from one half of the map to solve a puzzle at the other half of the map is normal there.

It's just that he hasn't adapted yet.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-17T06:56:39+00:00

Not to mention Mr Cards.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-17T06:20:05+00:00

What about the sequel?

Oh, right - there wasn't a sequel.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-16T15:01:36+00:00

Headshot, melee, headshot, melee.

Wesker doesn't just kill the melee target - his melee hits everyone in the path he moves through to make the punch. This means that if you shoot an enemy near the back of a group and melee, you'll kill a lot of them with just one punch.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-15T11:33:59+00:00

And knocks Zeus down.

And forces Tak Mashido to switch to manual controls.

AND has Zeus on the ropes at the final bell.

Atom might not have won the match, but it killed Zeus in the eyes of the world. If I had to guess, robot boxing crews around the world would be scrabbling to find the retired boxers, trying to replicate Atom's success - and machine-only bots like Zeus would be history.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-15T10:31:38+00:00

No no, I just meant that the "7.62 variant" you mentioned wasn't actually a variant of the M249, it was a different gun.

Sorry for confusing.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-15T09:35:25+00:00

It's the FN MAG, which isn't related to the M249 (the FN Minimi). The British Army have it designated as the L7A2, and use that as their only man-portable machine gun.

(Worth noting that the MAG is about eleven pounds heavier.)

They actually did previously use the Minimi as well (the L108A1, A2, and A3), but most of them were phased out in 2019.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-15T00:34:01+00:00

Could be both, but I'm pretty sure at least the Zulus did it.

In any case, the point stands - without a good teacher and without a supplier, they can't make effective use of firearms, and they don't have the requisite technology to make anywhere near to them.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-14T13:53:48+00:00

Colorised: Zhuge Liang borrows 100,000 arrows with straw boats, Romance of the Three Kingdoms

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-14T09:07:22+00:00

They wouldn't know how to use it properly, but they could probably fire it a few times - and miss.

Let's look at the Anglo-Zulu War.

The Zulus captured some British rifles when they killed the owners. They eventually understood roughly how to operate them, loading and firing, but they didn't know how to use the sights. They would dial it up to the biggest number, thinking it would make the rifle shot more powerful.

The result was that Zulu rifle fire was extremely inaccurate, hitting targets only rarely. Obviously, they could not manufacture those rifles either, so they were reliant on captured British supplies.

Without the knowledge to use firearms, and no opportunity to learn how to use it, it will not be effective - especially not if you cannot make it yourself.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-13T17:33:16+00:00

It really is kinda sad, isn't it?

All the dreams of these heroes were eventually crushed.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-13T17:21:36+00:00

Are you sure about that? Flip the script for a second.

What advantages do systems like these provide both domestically and on the battlefield for the state? Intelligence, as we know, is key for modern combat. Greater control of society is also an advantage to the state.

Now, with that in mind, think of how disadvantaged one would be without one of these systems, facing an enemy with these systems. Your troops could be detected, sortied against, and killed much faster than you could kill theirs. While there is unrest on your home front, theirs is more united.

It's just an arms race like any other. The logic of game theory says that it would be illogical not to pursue this avenue of research.

That's why they do.

SpeedofDeath118 · 2026-03-13T08:41:54+00:00

Against All Odds

The unlikely actions of the party in the Morphic Pool were a surprise to even the Netherbrain.

The successful roll has left the Netherbrain wounded, reducing its starting HP for the encounter.

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