greasy_granny
Mongoose
Yeah and how come ships can teleport through space and people have psychic powers too? How does that work?
The Problem With Sandcasters
- Thread starter Solomani666
- Start date
These are different levels of plausibility. :wink:greasy_granny said:
Almost every player will accept jump drives, especially if his character
owns a ship with a jump drive, and he will also accept psychic powers,
especially if his character has them.
But tell him that his character's enemies can fire at his character while
his character is unable to return the fire, because the sand in between
lets the enemies' laser fire through while it blocks the character's laser
fire, and the player's willingness to accept the implausible abruptly vani-
shes. :lol:
DFW said:
It dosen't. The universe is a supremely complex system and serendipitous happenstance is a factor, even a requirement, of that system to function properly. Anyone claiming to predict, influence or use that happenstance through some sort of effort of will alone is either delusional or a charlatan.
G.
vitalis6969
Mongoose
GJD said:
Wow... your opinion comes armed with quite the broad brush.
-V
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
And you have? lol
I'll take the decades or more of bunking such over any unsubstantiated claims and unscientifically tested proof any day.
You're always asking folks to provide proofs and quotes or shut up. Well, you're the one who waded in with claims here, put up.
Hmm ... someone working as a "psychic" for law enforcement most
probably is someone who does not claim to predict, influence or use
future events, or to rely on some effort of will, but who has a highly
efficient intuition and therefore is able to subconsciously put together
pieces of information and come to conclusions which are helpful in a
comparatively high percentage of cases.
Over the years I have met a couple of people who had this kind of
highly efficient intuition, in fields from finance to medicine, and who
were unable to explain how they arrived at their usually right conclu-
sions - it just worked. I would very much hesitate to call them "psy-
chics" (especially in my language, where the meaning would be most
impolite), but I had to accept that their unusual skill does exist (and
sometimes is a bit unnerving).
However, this has not that much to do with sandcasters ...
probably is someone who does not claim to predict, influence or use
future events, or to rely on some effort of will, but who has a highly
efficient intuition and therefore is able to subconsciously put together
pieces of information and come to conclusions which are helpful in a
comparatively high percentage of cases.
Over the years I have met a couple of people who had this kind of
highly efficient intuition, in fields from finance to medicine, and who
were unable to explain how they arrived at their usually right conclu-
sions - it just worked. I would very much hesitate to call them "psy-
chics" (especially in my language, where the meaning would be most
impolite), but I had to accept that their unusual skill does exist (and
sometimes is a bit unnerving).
However, this has not that much to do with sandcasters ...
SNIPPED BY ME
I am currently working with someone who is exactly this... Psychic? Maybe... but amazingly intuitive, and using involuntary reactions of subjects as well (almost like a living lie detector)... youtube Deception with Keith Barry - he's for real, those are not actors!
As far as sandcasters go, I've always played them not as a single burst/cloud but rather a continuous stream over the turn which focuses on the attacker's vector and allows the defender to fire with attitude adjustments. In the CT days I simply allowed it (or reduced agility), these days I make the Pilot 'help line up a shot' but no bonus DM is given for the outgoing fire.
rust said:
I am currently working with someone who is exactly this... Psychic? Maybe... but amazingly intuitive, and using involuntary reactions of subjects as well (almost like a living lie detector)... youtube Deception with Keith Barry - he's for real, those are not actors!
As far as sandcasters go, I've always played them not as a single burst/cloud but rather a continuous stream over the turn which focuses on the attacker's vector and allows the defender to fire with attitude adjustments. In the CT days I simply allowed it (or reduced agility), these days I make the Pilot 'help line up a shot' but no bonus DM is given for the outgoing fire.
DFW said:
That's cute. You want me to provide data that psychic powers in the real world are bunk? Show me data that says they are anything other than coincidence or, as others have said, observation and guesswork. James Randi has a $1,000,000 that your FBI psychic should collect, if she can prove her powers are anything but mundane.
G.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
Guys, interesting as the discussion of the existence or not of psychics may be, this is not the thread, or possibly even the place for it, can we move back to the original topic of sandcasters, or at least something less contentious.
LBH
LBH
That depends. Is there any possible application to firing psychics out of sandcasters?
Meanwhile, back on topic, a pulse laser isn't a necessarily a single BANG! and the turret is gone...
It might just as easily be a 'jackhammer' - i.e. an ongoing series of pulses, providing impacts not unlike a sort of laser autocannon. As a result, interrupting the burst partway through might still provide meaningful protection.
Thing is, what would a mining laser be there to do? You don't want to necessarily shatter the rock into a million bits, especially if you're mining for something crystalline that might be destroyed in the process...
Meanwhile, back on topic, a pulse laser isn't a necessarily a single BANG! and the turret is gone...
It might just as easily be a 'jackhammer' - i.e. an ongoing series of pulses, providing impacts not unlike a sort of laser autocannon. As a result, interrupting the burst partway through might still provide meaningful protection.
Fair enough
Again, fair enough. Still with the accuracy penalty, I assume?
Thing is, what would a mining laser be there to do? You don't want to necessarily shatter the rock into a million bits, especially if you're mining for something crystalline that might be destroyed in the process...
greasy_granny
Mongoose
The sand has little gravitic drives in each grain that corrdinates the particle wit the firing weapon and makes the sand dodge the attacks of the ship it is protecting. or some other such way of moving the sand appropriately.
Or it is made of some kind of crystal that is transparent to only one insanely specific color of pulse laser and opaque to all the rest.
Maybe a psychic helps the laser jump past the zone of sand.
Or it is made of some kind of crystal that is transparent to only one insanely specific color of pulse laser and opaque to all the rest.
Maybe a psychic helps the laser jump past the zone of sand.
