NewSun

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

The guardsman braced for impact as the unusually spiky Chitin warrior rushed through the doorway, wielding a macabre tool indeed: the body of a dead guardsman. He was slammed into the wall, pushed up against the corpse by the immense strength of the alien, cracking several ribs, feeling the life drain from him rapidly. His vision swirled away from him once more as he struggled to stay conscious. He coughed a small spew of blood that dripped from the expanding crack in his visor.

The Cybernetic one had offered him a deal. But he could do one better.

“No…” he wheezed, attempting to speak with as much strength as he could muster. “You’re here to kill Kolac, right?”

He coughed again, and a little more blood came from his lips. He tried to adjust himself to make his position a little less unbearable.

“He’s paranoid… He’s been preparing. The…” He gasped for a breath of air before he continued. “The… The Arakath came here a few weeks ago…” He blinked hard, keeping his eyes open through immense willpower. “Slinging some cryptic bullshit about… The Star Marshals overestimating themselves… Said they gotta be eliminated… He’s been expecting Arakath assassins… You’re not Arakath. You’re not with them,”
He pushed back against the Chitin a little, not expecting the alien to give any way as he addressed them both, though mostly the Cybernetic who seemed to be most forgiving.
“The room he’s in… Trapped. Go inside and you’ll be dead…. seconds… explosive doors, stealth turrets… You gotta draw the guy out… I only joined cos… I wanted to do him over myself… Elaina, killed her… I know it was him…”

The Guard collapsed from lack of oxygen. He was still breathing, but heavily unconscious. His head slumped to the side. He wouldn’t have long left being crushed by the Chitin.

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

The guards at 29 were satisfied that the facility was secure. Guardsman Ano was a seriously ferocious individual. Nothing could have pout him down, surely. They spent a moment joking about how the make-believe assassins were on their knees right now, begging for mercy. of course, there were no assassins, but they joked all the same…

…A shadow fell across them.

They thought nothing of it other than a minor malfunction with the lighting system. It happened from time to time; the facility had sketchy power supplies.

“When do you think they’ll change the genera- *cough*” He started to wheeze horrendously. The second guard looked at him, puzzled.

He began gasping, choking, grabbing the uniform of his partner as the second also began to cough uncontrollably. Their visions grew hazy, their knees grew weak. The first guard collapsed and the second followed only seconds after. They fell into a loose heap, never to wake up again.

Congratulation! You have obtained the Choking Force Achievement!

—-

The Guard at 51 was minding his own business, flicking through photos of his wife and child down on the planet below. He hated being stationed on this damn rock with this damn man, Kolac. He was not an honourable man, he was only terrifying. He was a redshirt, a new guy, not one of the Kolac-sympathising veterans like a lot of the others in the facility.

There was an incredibly loud beeping, and the static of his radio went totally silent. The temperature inside his helmet began to raise at an alarming rate. The door slid open and a suit of powered armour flew in, silent as it could.
The guard’s eyes widened. Was it here to kill him?

“No! Please!” He screamed as he tried to unclip his sidearm, struggling due to the increasing heat. “I have a…” His vision began to grow hazy.
“I have a…”
he blinked hard, pulled on his pistol, letting it free of it’s clipping.
“A fucking child!”
Taking the pistol, he slammed it against his own visor, cracking it and releasing a good amount of pressure and heat from inside. Vision swirled back to his eyes; but he was shaking hard. He took shaky aim and fired one shot, two shots. The first ricochetted off the Cybernetic’s hand, the second punching Alexis in the chest. The shot made no penetration thanks to the CPDA that Alexis donned, but the shot pushed the Ephemeral back several steps.

“Stay the fuck away from me! Whatever you are!”

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

TTwoThumbsUp said
Oh noooooo this means ACTUALLY knowing our characters? What type of sick torture are you presenting us NewSunI still think some sort of collaborative system would be cool. Maybe for between ops where we all get to know each other, and then one person posts it up with their bit of backstory so we're not all bombarded with sad stories and adrenaline.

What can I say. I'm a sadistic motherfucker. ;)

But yes, that does sound good. Would you guys be capable of organising your own collab documents during the time between missions? It would make my life a little easier, especially if the map style is changing up somewhat. At least until I can build a standard 3d tile set for what we're going to aim for.

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

horrordaily said
I actually really like both the suggestions that have been put up, of less information on the map and of something between ops, even if it's just us learning about each other. On the note of the maps I find all the constant numbering of rooms to be rather confusing to keep up with, since I have to keep another tab of the layout open to follow any game play. PS. I will have a post up shortly, just caught up with some business today.

Thats a fair enough comment. I really was hoping the map would display as larger on the guild, it does make the numbers pretty small. But potentially the game would benefit from fewer rooms per map, generally to keep things less cluttered. However, we could number enemy squads instead, or just label them. That may actually work better as a method of identifying different enemy groups, and simply colour code areas of the map to keep things coherent.

As for in-between mission content, anything really action based would take too long to get through before the next mission, but we could try some retroactive storytelling. How about in between missions, you can write your own extra backstory and past missions in the style of data-logs being accessed and processed by the Terrarial HAKESATH, as well as the standard 'getting to know each other' material between characters. You'd have to keep between-op interactions short and sweet to avoid it getting cut off by the next mission, but it could work. Thoughts?

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

TTwoThumbsUp said
EVERYTHING! But no, I think it'd be interesting if we were just given a basic layout and maybe a general idea of where the mark is, with again perhaps a sort of minisode between missions that determines what else we can find out about the location?

Guard locations are pretty much a must for gameplay, however, or it'll be way unfair on you guys, but I see where you're coming from. It'll take some thinking to discern exactly what details can be cut from the maps though.
It seems like something in-between the missions is something that you guys would like to be included, though. Did you have any ideas about what kind of activities could allow the team to garner more information? My mind keeps wandering back to the idea of training simulations of some sort, but that seems like it could take a hell of a long time to get each individual one complete.

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

TTwoThumbs:

Indeed I am, just trying to get everything in order. What kind of details do you refer to that should be left open to discovery?

Map Sizes will definitely vary. There will be some small, intense maps; some wilderness ones hopefully, caverns, buildings, ships, ect ect. I was thinking that isometric maps (they are in my capacity to make, but its time consuming) would be used for smaller maps that needed more detail.

And I... actually hadn't thought of doing split missions. Something like that would have to be done via PM to avoid mass confusion... but... maybe. I'll have a think on how something like that could work out.

@HeyNow: Absolutely. I'll let you all loose on each other in the corvette when the mission is done. You'll probably have a day or two to associate with the other characters while i build the next mission's details.

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

So guys, the first mission is what I like to think of as a sort of pilot for the rest of the RP, and I need some insight into the maps and how levels are represented.

A few questions: are you happy with the style and detail representation of the maps? How about the size? Would you guys like to keep this style with a few situational assets added in, such as vent systems, camera vision cones ect ect? Or would you prefer me to look into developing more detailed isometric 3d maps that cold include some Y axis action too? Bigger maps? Smaller maps with more detail and less clutter?

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

There was a moment of silence, even from the Ephemeral as the both doors quickly slammed themselves shut once more, leaving the two new guards to their fates. The first, Guardsman Ano, at the top eastern door, who had his rifle already drawn had little chance to react to anything he could see. His eyes glanced over the body of a guardsman hanging from the structural beams above, and a gathering of fierce looking individuals beyond.

He had no time to raise his rifle, let alone loose an expletive from his lips. He knew he fucked up.

A chitinous dagger lashed from the ceiling; he didn’t even check above himself. The sharp bio-blade dug itself into his neck with a sickening whip, sending a small spray of blood gushing against the door he had just come through and crooking his head to one side as he gurgled and tried to speak. There was another split second of apparent apathy before his neck snapped as his body lurched upward and Rin descended slowly to the ground, leaving the guardsmen hanging, lifeless, with a broken neck, bleeding profusely over the floor below him.

—

The guardsman who had proceeded through the south door, who was completely unaware of the situation, had almost even less time to react than the first. He had no chance to unclip his rifle, no time to scream or shout, no time to engage his radio and absolutely no time to defend himself as Alexis launched himself at the hapless sentry with the force of a damn meteor, taking him to ground with no resistance. The guard was slammed against a storage container by the furious Cybernetic, which cracked it’s way through the helmet, and the skull, killing the second guard instantly and quietly. A small thud would have been all that was heard.

Achievement obtained by Alexis / TTwoThumbsUp. 'Taking out the Trash'

Starfall | Below A Thousand Shadows

TTwoThumbsUp said
Just posted and hoping that'll work, but if NewSun doesn't like the sudden repositioning I'll retcon it to the rifle.

No, that's more than okay! Ephemeral can move pretty damn fast when they need to. Comes with the territory.