Profile for Student of Trinity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Student of Trinity |
| Member number | 3431 |
| Title | Electric Sheep One |
| Postcount | 3335 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| Light in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 23:52
Profile
Yeah, Jeff seems to have had the idea to put in lighting limitations, but then just given up on actually doing anything significant with it. I can't particularly complain, since nothing really springs to mind that he could have done that wouldn't just have been tedious instead of cool. Maybe in G5. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Where are the challgenge areas? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 23:48
Profile
Yeah, seems a lot of things got nerfed. The Northforge Warrens thing is not so bad with a singleton, if you take out the supporting troops first by luring them away. Then when you come back to take on Alwan, charge straight in to the back corner of the little alcove he stands in. The machines can't reach you there. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Where are the challgenge areas? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 15:40
Profile
No, the breeding pits is not terribly difficult, if you take it carefully. Dig up Matala, in the Western Morass, to the north. Or attack the drakons in Greyghost Gates. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ornk canisters? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 12:47
Profile
Excellent. Once you get the canister, the Ornk replaces the Fyora as your default creation type, the one you make if you click OK before selecting anything. So there can be a Spiced Ham challenge for G4, too. Slay the Titan on Torment difficulty, using only ornks, rocks, and incredible tactical sophistication. As in the G3 version, this is intended to mean that the only type of item you are allowed to carry is rocks. Optionally, this could include rock-like charms and/or the Gloves of the Rock. It is also ambiguous whether you are allowed to use offensive spells. But now that you have Spine Shield, your Ornks are dangerous weapons. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| So, who is the scariest foe? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 11:26
Profile
That 'hunter in darkness' Rotghroth was cool, but the effect was rather spoiled for me by the fact that my hasted Infiltrator was cruising around the place so fast that she really only figured out that it was chasing her when she got all the way around back to the exit and found that whatever lurking monster the pop-up had warned about wasn't there anymore. So then she set out after it, caught it half way around on her second lap, and blew it away quite easily. Only realising you are being hunted at the same time you realize that your hunter is a lot slower than you definitely lessens the effect. It is hard to choose a scariest enemy. There are lots of scarey ones. Of single enemies, Matala and the Titan are both pretty bad, though maybe Matala gets the nod just because with the Titan you're expecting it to be bad, and you've got everything from the whole game to throw at it. The Old Golem was also nasty, as was the Warped Creator, and Salassar was pretty hard, though I think he got toned down a bit before release. But probably the worst fights are against organized groups of enemies. Thornton and Western Barrier Zone are maybe the worst, if you're a rebel without a pass. Or the Drakons in Grayghost Gates, if you pick a fight with them. A dozen angry Drakons are bad news, and they do try hard to sack your Lifecrafter. One of the things I really like about G4 is just how many memorable battles it contains. Instead of exploring a zone and picking off a lot of rogues in ones and twos, you have a lot more places where you fight a big pitched battle, then explore the rest of the zone after it's empty. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ornk canisters? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 11:08
Profile
No-one has reported a Create Ornk canister in G4 yet. But they were in all three previous games, and the one in G3 was behind a secret door of the old Avernum style (bash into the wall). So one could certainly be stashed somewhere. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| All good things must come to an end... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 02:18
Profile
Why not switch to having a Preamble to every post? If it doesn't work you can always switch back to Postambles. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| HELP! in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, December 3 2006 02:14
Profile
Some people complain about the new no-button mouse, but Apple fans insist that it is better because it forces users to develop telekinesis. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| HELP! in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, December 2 2006 15:41
Profile
Jeff is a Mac guy, so he makes his games on a Mac, then ports them to Windows. I think board members are more evenly split, and Macs may even be in the minority. Highly inflated compared to the normal gaming market share for Macs, though. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| All good things must come to an end... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, December 2 2006 12:13
Profile
Who would not post for Lycidas? he knew Himself to post, and build the lofty count. He must not flote upon his watry bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| cheats for geneforge 4 in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, December 2 2006 11:54
Profile
In beta I tried giveasnack, and got peculiar green tiles instead of the expected pieces of cake. I could drop them, and paint the floor green. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Wingbolt or Kyshakk in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, December 2 2006 11:53
Profile
I'd take the Wingbolt. That's what I did, and it was a blast. The Wingbolt does enormous damage against the relatively poorly resistant creatures of the Fens. It takes down most things in one shot, as I recall. But you'll have to pace yourself, because it runs out of energy quickly until it gets some experience. I found Kyshakks rather disappointing in comparison. They're fine, but just not as much firepower. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Episode 3: A New Game in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, December 2 2006 11:28
Profile
Hang around the internet a little longer and you'll realize how much superficially lucid monomania is already available. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Statistics:Topics Derailed in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, December 1 2006 11:07
Profile
How about that fantasy baseball? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ghaldring (SPOILERS) in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, December 1 2006 07:35
Profile
Anybody else as impressed as I was with how Jeff brought Ghaldring into the game, after a build-up consisting of the last screen from G2, all of G3, and 3.9 chapters of G4? Before I got there, I really wondered how Jeff could possibly avoid anticlimax with this guy, short of introducing a 'super Mecha' sprite that made him take up half the screen. But it was awfully clever, I think, to deliberately make him anticlimactic at first, unimpressive in appearance and all. But the fact that the climax of Chapter 4 is you being a pawn in his game with Salassar makes him seem quite impressive after all. After that, I figured I would never be sure, whatever happened, whether it was Ghaldring's plan or not. I mean, for all I know, he actually wants the Trakovite ending to happen. Like for instance. After you kill Salassar, he suggests that you visit his bier to pay your respects. I'm sure he says this because he knows full well this will lead to you wearing Salassar's hide around on your feet for the rest of the game. This guy is cold. Instead of just a big sprite, we have a Drakon Godfather. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Best Game Ever? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, December 1 2006 07:26
Profile
G4 would get my vote too. G1 still has a unique charm, being the first introduction to a quite original world, and having an especially nice harmony between the game mechanics and the game atmosphere. But G4 kicks it up a hefty notch in pretty much every respect. It might not give everyone what they want, but it gives a significant answer of some sort to pretty much every request somebody could have made. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Fall of the Cryoan Empire in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, December 1 2006 07:13
Profile
So don't do that. Precisely. Lifecrafters don't need the battle magic. They need good buffing and healing, to pump up the team before sending them out, then to play combat medic when they get hurt. When your Rotghroths are going toe-to-toe with comparable enemies, it's your Lifecrafter firing Major Heal from around the corner that makes the battle a sure thing. And the converse of DV's point is that if your PC doesn't do any damage to the enemies, they do not seem to come hunting for him much at all. You can heal and buff without line of sight. Your Lifecrafter can also spare a few points for Endurance and Strength to carry armor, so he can survive coming out into the open in the late stages of a battle, when the enemies are thinned out and pinned down. Mental Magic and Missile support are also options that would probably work very well. Keeping up enough missile skill to finish off the wounded, for instance, can be very handy. But just pumping Intelligence like crazy, to have a really big horde, is dandy. I'd accept the view that Lifecrafter and Servile are pretty balanced. And I don't think Infiltrators are in any bad way, really. Mine wasn't ideal because she was mostly built before the Great Change. Significantly more Mental Magic would have made her much stronger. I never tried Warrior or Shock Trooper, but I would think that if Servile and Lifecrafter both work well, then some sort of average between them ought to be just as good. I would think we have more of a long couch than a pair of stools. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Fall of the Cryoan Empire in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, November 30 2006 14:10
Profile
Yeah, my Servile took Shaftoe and the Circle of the Drayk at those levels; it's not a bad class by any means. But you can do the same at least as easily with a Lifecrafter. Having four to seven creations amplifies the benefits of mass buffs, but it also gives more tactical options. For instance enemies usually don't concentrate all their attacks on one creation, then run away to recover after bringing it down. But you can do that to them, and thus gradually wear down groups that consistently overwhelm smaller parties. And this is an example of why I think you have to be careful in judging how big an advantage or disadvantage is. A Servile who did his best to be a Lifecrafter, by pumping Int and buying some skills, might only lag by 30% and 2 points Int. But he would be left with melee skills that were worthless for the second half of the game, and health too low to absorb late game damage, and then it wouldn't matter how much better he is in melee than the true Lifecrafter, because neither of them would ever fight in person. So the Servile-as-Lifecrafter might be only a 30% worse Lifecrafter, and still significantly better in melee and health, but really that just means he's a 30% worse Lifecrafter, with no compensations that count. And 30% is a big margin. Of course, the Servile who sacrifices everything to be the best Lifecrafter he can is a straw creation. And a Servile who is mostly built for melee, but does make the slight effort to have a decent creation or two, will indeed be a strong character. But his shaping capabilities will be a lot more than 30% behind those of a well-built Lifecrafter. I'm just saying that you have to compare the best build of each class, in performance against the whole game, rather than simply weighing the classes' base properties against each other. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shorass? Second Forge? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, November 30 2006 09:19
Profile
Quite a while; roughly half his health. I took this guy with a melee Servile singleton who couldn't hit with a Searer to save his life, relying on the Oozing Blade and an Acid Baton to get through the weapon-resistant phase. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Fall of the Cryoan Empire in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, November 30 2006 09:16
Profile
No scripted encounters I remember actually force you to be anywhere, except Moseh's (about which I pestered Jeff repeatedly). You can start duels without formally offering the final 'I'm ready' challenge, and no-one seems to think the worse of you for it. So your fragile lifecrafter can hide in the distance while your uber-creation strikes the first blow. Drakons are cool with that. My Servile has been playing as a singleton, and so far (near end of Chapter 4) this is fine for the necessary encounters but does not let me wipe the floor with optionals by any means. In particular Thornton, Western Barrier Zone, the Turabi Gate and Matala are all very tough. Which is to say I haven't managed yet to do them on Torment, and I'm at level 37. I'm thinking that more pumping on Mental Magic would pay off a lot here, but so far the game has by no means been a cakewalk. The Servile does not get the enormous amounts of Essence that Lifecrafters and Shock Troopers enjoy, so I'm expecting that a Servile who did try to shape would field a disappointingly small force compared to a Lifecrafter. This is Geneforge, creations are good, and quantity has a quality all its own. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Storyline and Endings in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, November 29 2006 02:19
Profile
I think it's a great touch how Trajkov's story has gotten garbled by repetition in Servile tales, so that he becomes 'Trakov' as the legendary founder of the Trakovites. This seems realistic somehow. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shorass? Second Forge? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, November 29 2006 02:15
Profile
Shorass's hideout is in Kelekee Bridges. The Maddened Trall can be killed in various ways, but you can't rely on just one way, because at some point he resists practically everything. Fortunately acid seems to work on him pretty much always. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Is it intentional? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, November 28 2006 12:45
Profile
That was my feeling too. But I got won over by three considerations: 1) the Agent's hit-and-run tactics would inevitably degenerate into absurd engine abuse, so really we're all better off with toning that down; 2) you can still hit-and-run if you use crystals, since these don't stop you from moving; 3) even if you never add Endurance points, your health will be high enough now that you can afford to get hit back a bit, especially once you get some good Blessing spells. You can often still jump around a corner and blast everything in sight. You can generally survive the retaliation by whatever is left, and then either blast again, or run away at that point. It kind of still feels the same, at least to me. What you can't do is count on pure battle magic (let alone pure Firebolt) to handle every single encounter. It's a really good idea for an Infiltrator to get some serious Mental Magic as well now. But to me this is a sign of improved balance. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Some Chapter 2 Questions in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, November 28 2006 01:21
Profile
There is a Moseh in the game, and then later also a Mose. No Moses. But I presume you mean Moseh. So far no-one has reported successfully killing Moseh after first restoring him. One report suggested it was impossible, in that he absorbed about 4000 points of damage without dying. I'd bet that sabotaging his machine would help with this, but it might well not help enough. Good luck. Clearing out Turabi doesn't seem to really matter one way or the other. You are told in a couple of places that the Turabi guards are unusually hotheaded, and also that the Shaper commanders won't tell all their underlings that you are working for them. So they will understand if you have to fight some loyalists, and fighting the Turabi force would seem to be especially understandable. On the other hand it is clear that the rebels have no chance of retaking the Turabi gates even if you do clear out the outer defence force. So it really just doesn't matter. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Episode 3: A New Game in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, November 28 2006 00:31
Profile
The Cosa Bianca is really a secret order, not a cult. As such, naturally, there are a lot more people involved than you realize, or even than they realize. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |