What Supplements Do You Want?

nanite said:
You know what I mean, and you don't need to be obnoxious.

I donno, I think it carried it fairly well. How about this: there's a reason why it's written from the SICON perspective.
 
I think the Units books would have to come 2nd to campaign books. If the fluff is well written and includes cool units and characters then we'll actually want to recreate it but there needs to be that inspirational fluff first- and there needs to be more bang for your buck in unit books the roughnecks one was way too light for the £'s.
 
While I can understand the difficulty of writing from the arachnid perspective, this does not mean one must write from SICON perspective, instead the writer can take the neutral/omniscient role, simply speaking factually about the arachnids.

Thus avoiding the false viewpoint of arachnid speech, and the problem of 'accuracy from SICON' as they are hardly going to know everything about their foe.
 
True, but again there's a reason why it's written from the SICON perspective. One that I really enjoy when it comes to fluff.
 
Hiromoon said:
True, but again there's a reason why it's written from the SICON perspective. One that I really enjoy when it comes to fluff.

Can you imagine what an Arachnid Book would be like written phoenetically in Arachnid . . . . .

Clicky, Click, Clickety, Click-Click-Click - Sqreeeeeeque!

PMSL!
 
Arachnid book persepective: I think a few highlighted segements in separate frames on every few pages throughout the book from a SICON perspective with the majority of the book being a generic 3rd person view would probably nicely.

Overseer Bug sample:
The Vilicus Culicidae Araneide, better known as the “Overseer Bug,” was first encountered by elements of the 7th Sky Rangers on Hydora. Its outer carapace is highly resilient to small arms fire, capable of defeating even concentrated Morita fire. The 7th was able to down the arachnid through multiple salvos from an SW-402, followed by a well placed Sniper shot through an opening created in the central armor near the upper thorax.
Analysis of the recovered carcass has shown the creature to be nearly 24m in length with a wingspan exceeding 12m. Due to its terrible size, the unit can have a negative effect on troop morale. Initially analysts thought the bug may have been a “mama rippler,” but the autopsy indicated the absence of the needed reproductive organs. The creature appears to have limited psychic abilities and is capable of organizing and redirecting the actions of arachnid swarms. Subsequent field encounters with the Overseer include reports of a temporary disorganization amongst arachnid forces with the demise of this sheparding element. As such, units encountering such a creature should seek to overcome it as quickly as possible and attempt exploit the loss of their psychic director with due diligence.

Given all that, and the past releases, I've gotta say Im in favour of one big book a year, even if around 40% of it is reprinting unit stats from S&P.
Im not sure if Mongoose made much money off the army books (Or the nasty splitting the MI into 4 or 5 books...) but given the price even a pamphlet sized book ends up going for these days a single £25 book is alot more tempting (Even when it ends up going for sale in the US for $30), it'll get more use in the long run, and big pretty books with lots of pictures and fun content do ALOT more for a system than five 40 page ones.
The thinness and lack of content in the older supplemental books hurt them. a 40 page book is hard to justify when competitors are selling 100-200 page books for the same price. Leave them feeling a little flat. I'd rather see more content than lower prices, even if that slows their release a bit.
 
Hiromoon said:
nanite said:
You know what I mean, and you don't need to be obnoxious.

I donno, I think it carried it fairly well. How about this: there's a reason why it's written from the SICON perspective.

Really? Care to share this privileged information? Because I get the feeling it's either laziness or lack of imagination on the writer’s part. The continued excuse for the poor quality of the skinnie products has been “SICON didn’t know enough yet.”

Ever read a novel written from a non human perspective? The Chanur series by C. J. Cherryh is a good one.

And Brain bugs are sentient. I don't see any reason a story couldn't be written from one's perspective.

A warrior bug? Yeah, that might be a lousy read.
 
It's quite simple, Nanite. It sets a tone, the perspective of humanity and how it views the other races. Also, it leaves you in the same boat as the other human beings, being more immersive in the background fluff.

Sure, it'll leave you hungry for more information, but that's nothing an 'Intelligence Dossier' released once in a while through S&P couldn't handle.
 
Personally, I have yet to read any fiction from an alien's perspective that didn't come across as awkward, with the exception of some old Star Trek novelsOf course, those aliens are pretty much human with different facial features anyway.

The reason writing from a human perspective makes sense is because, well, we're human. The story of the game is pretty much the story of mankinds entry into interstellar empire and subsequent attempt at survival. Trying to write a book in which you're writing from a human perpective and then suddenly switching to, say, the bugs is going to be rather difficult. It would be one thing if they were psuedo-humans like in Star Trek, but the complete alien-ness present in the game makes it rather difficult.

Now granted, some Forth vs Arachnid campaigns would be pretty sweet, and obviously would not be written from a human perspective. I just think it would work better to keep the different perspectives in different books.
 
nanite said:
Because I get the feeling it's either laziness or lack of imagination on the writer’s part.

No offence taken, in case you were wondering. . .

nanite said:
The continued excuse for the poor quality of the skinnie products has been “SICON didn’t know enough yet.”

I have never said that.
 
I would like all units to be present in the 'one big book'

I would like special campaign class traits or special squad options to be in a campaign book.

I would like any said campaign book to include all the fauna/environmental effects.

I would also like the same campaign book to have allot of scenarios, such as assaulting bug nests, Skinny villages, or MI moon bases.

Basically I want the main book to be everything you need. And then I think they should make 1 and only 1 big add on book for all the other neat stuff.

Then Re-Write said books on a Bi-Yearly basis.

Thats my perfect dream scenario.
 
msprange said:
nanite said:
Because I get the feeling it's either laziness or lack of imagination on the writer’s part.

No offence taken, in case you were wondering. . .

nanite said:
The continued excuse for the poor quality of the skinnie products has been “SICON didn’t know enough yet.”

I have never said that.

Never said you did, but I do remember something to the effect of "SICON has learned more about the skinnies since the first book." from someone officially at Mongoose. I may very well be wrong.

And I don't mean to be offensive, but when Mongoose starts producing a consistently quality product, , then I will start being less cynical.
 
You guys obviously forgot about the discussion between two Brain Bugs after defeating an MI force and the 'interrogation' of the survivors. Enough memories of Earth experience with what the humans called 'fast food' was decoded sufficiently for one Brain Bug to remark to the other when they were planning their next order of battle "OK, do you want firefries with that?" :wink:

My own suggestion might be to have most of each book compiled from the perspective of the humans, with a small added section in the back made up to offer a peek into the mind's-eye of the particular Race. It might be just a narrative of battle tactics, but offered up from the perspective of the "other side".

The local moon's resident "Brain trust" was still rippling and undulating from the latest interrogations of the enemies of the local Host. It was still difficult to wrap ones mind around, quite literally as the foreign matter was still being disected, the concept that each of these creatures was an independent entity. The closest thing that this Host's Brain could grasp upon at all was that each of these "humans" was not unlike the unique condition of a Host Brain itself. No, even that was not a comparison, as there was still a minor whisper-link that reached out to the other Brains of the Over-Hive. The Brain had to try to imagine the entire Over-Hive as contained within each human member. As alien of a concept as that seemed, it was going to have to suffice.

It was of course an insane and quite illogical system, knowing that the Hive could never function if it was populated with the competing world-views of masses of individuals. Indeed, that very thought caused a tremor throughout the entire body mass of the Brain and caused the Brain's familial escorts to scurry away from their position of closeness and support.

Having quite enough of this matter for now, the Host Brain needed to meditate deep within the details of the sending out of orders to be followed without question. This immediately had a benificial effect, one that was sorely needed right now. The Brain reached out and commanded that the Host begin to recover the lifeless bodies of its fallen members. The biomass was needed to rebuild the food stores that were lacking on this desolate moon and to be fed to the generations yet to be brought to serve the Host's needs.

As for the vanquished 'humans', they were left where they fell, as this was not a situation where the Host was invading a major human world. In that case, the plan would call for the adapting of the Host to the new environment and absorbing the local genetic material. The Brain did not wish any further contact with these monstrocities of nature than was absolutely necessary in order for them to be exterminated. This little moon was just a waypoint for deeper-laid plans. The Brain then focused upon the rebuilding of the forces at its command.
 
lt.harper said:
Wow Buships, that was perfect.

May be we should have that perspective for the aracnids.

Just so you know, I'm on the side of keeping the books centered on the human-view, as I said earlier. The preceeding offering of mine was really as filler/fluff material to give the Bug player a role-playing feel to his faction. :D
 
Mage said:
nuts to source books campaigns and all that stuff. Do it like warmachine, a complete all in one suppliment book every year for everyone. Problem solved.

I'd consider the Warmachine and Hordes suppliments sourcebooks. In fact, my suggestion would be to model any books closely on Warmachine and Battletech's books, where you pack them full of fiction and fluff which enhance the universe and further the storyline, and then rules and stats almost as a secondary concern. In fact, I'd suggest a close integration of the SST RPG and wargame, with sourcebooks supporting both games simultaneously where possible.
 
yup pretty good- but I'm a tough critic,

For one thing, the Arachnids do have a concept of individuality, at least on a very basic level each warrior bug is quite individual they grasp their immediate surroundings and take actions. The issue is of course the concept of higher thought being distributed rather than consolidated.

The concept of millions of intelligences rather than a few dozen on a single world would be crazed, aside from the multitudes of Klendathu. And the additional ramification is that each one is limited to his own body in terms of experiences and control, a Brain Bug doesn't directly envision the mind and body of a Warrior Bug, its a waste of time, but it could, and probably has for training purposes, instead each of its chariot bugs equate to physical hands.

The idea of being 'alone' as in incapable of of speech with others when merely physically un-present is an idea you don't hit upon exactly.

Bah- I could ramble for an hour... its just an 'example' as you say and its great as such.

I wouldn't mind the bulk of the book being neutral with some SICON and some Arachnid viewpoints.

Notably the entire process is much easier when considering the Skinnies.
 
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