Also relevant to Fallout 76 and Outer Worlds

The lack of risk-taking and long-term brand value is back in the news b/c TROS was apparently a bit shit (I haven't seen it, and one of my friends whose taste I respect liked it a lot) and I wonder if the capitalists of Hollywood realise that a flaccid, mediocre sequel is worse for your brand on the long term than even a bad or kind of forgettable first installment.

B/c like the thing about good sequels is that they retroactively raise the prestige of the whole series. A good sequel uses just enough of the previous movie to build interest in it, which will make the previous movies more profitable in the long term. A boring retread of even a fantastic film will cut off and cauterise any attempt at branching the story out, and kill long-term interest.

Like I doubt that it's actually economically any "safer" to greenlight batches of new ideas and then drive the successful ones to the ground with the sequel factory approach. It's more stable, maybe, but the companies producing art with minimal risk are never gonna see the kind of money and prestige companies with healthier approaches to risk-management do.

(Never mind that there will always be rich people who just wanna have their name on someone else's work. It's not gonna solve capitalism, but we really should bring back the stereotype that rich folks are patrons of the arts so they start competing with each other over who makes the most pretty things happen with their wallets.)

Everything in scifi behaves like a video game would IRL, so that helps with the simplification

The more I read about premodern and Antiquity warfare and see it fill out the holes in my strategic understanding (I really truly don't know anything about strategy pre-WW1) the more I think cavalry and infantry strategy makes for a way more sensible lens to analyze scifi warfare in generally, not just in TF.

The biggest difference is pretty much density of strategy, as communication is much less of a problem and theoretically everyone on the field is equally aware of the situation, but that is something not even all modern militaries have yet. Consistent, always-active radio communication is not exactly game-breaking, but the way it clarifies the situation and makes even massive coordination possible with a fast response time definitely helps simplify things.

:O

*hears a train horn for the first time in ten years* :O

(Sidenote: I should write about mass-based weapons sometime, to fill out the knowledge base)

(Now available on Tumblr.)

Still on the topic of war and strategy, I was also pointed to this post about archery and armour and quickly eyeing through it, the power math behind bows actually works a lot like how I imagine ion blasters to work in TF?

At their maximum range, the effect is primarily concussive, and doesn't strike through armour, and depeding on the calibration of the weapon, you might have to get very close to really "punch holes" into other mecha with them -- their primary damage came from damage to under-armour components like wiring, joints and surface electronics, eventually overtaxing the frame's support and repair systems. Only large-bore cannons, weapons with some form of secondary charge, and weapons calibrated for vacuum being fired in vacuum retain their effectiveness at their maximum range, but they're weapons that can also one-shot people at their effective range, so that's a given.

This is why avoiding continuous fire is important, but a few stray glancing shots won't take any but the frailest of mecha out of the fight. Also, there are some places where a direct hit will disable the mech instantly, even with a lighter payload, but one-shotting any mecha is usually done with mass-acceleration weapons or even the occasional combustion cartridge rifle as opposed to blaster fire. After all, it's the difference between needing one 100% accurate shot, which is aa dependent on circumstance and position as it is on soldier ability, versus needing three or four 45% accurate shots to overwhelm and disable your target just as decisively.

This leads to mobile infantry (as opposed to infantry in defensive positions) using all sorts of kiting and feinting tactics, although depending on the infantry there might be way more slamming directly into the enemy defenses. Between opponents of equal size and weight, ramming tactics always favour the party doing the ramming, because they'll have more control over how the damage is distributed, and will have better recovery, especially if they have any kind of fire support, either with their own weapons during the manoeuver, or from supporting artillery -- and frankly, sometimes physically slamming into your opponent does more, and better dispersed, damage than firing at them even from point-blank range. It all depends on how the armour they wear matches up against the weapons you carry.

In general, sustained blaster fire is still damaging enough that getting into melee range as soon as possible is recommended, because most melee attacks only deal blunt force and physical damage, whereas most blaster fire damages not only the armour, but the electronics underneath it. Medics can fix armour, broken struts and damaged wiring fairly easily, and a lot of it is standardised for easy replacement as well, but electronics by and large are unique to the individual, and while circuit surgery is common, it's very hard to do in field conditions and it's often safer to allow the self-repair system to fix the damage.

Hey!

How come nobody told me Ken Watanabe is in Detective Pikachu?

I am never tired of this man's face or his voice.

(Also yes I am finally watching Detective Pikachu, leave me alone.)

(The villain disappointed me, tho)

..... this movie is actually ridiculously way better than I thought it would be.

I mean, I'd heard people liking it, but I hadn't realised it would be this genuinely good.

I feel catered to and I'm barely a Pokémon fan.

(Also Lucy is so right, they ARE all cute, even though I really genuinely did not enjoy the way this movie looked in the promos. Something about the sound design, I think? IDK. They're all Baby. Charizard is Baby. Mewtwo is Baby. Psyduck is suuuuuper baby.)