So I know we got really spooked by the potentially haunted power armor, but I still think we should go back during the day time and salvage it. We might even be able to use Lovecraftian ghostbusting equipment to exorcise it.

>>124735
Or just Lucius' radiation purging devices. Radiation, magic, same difference in Fallout. (Except when it isn't.)

>>124736
Speaking of his radiation purge tech, aside from its obvious uses in our own Project Purity, I wonder if taking radiation away from creatures that need it (ghouls, supermutants, mirelurks, and other mutated life) would kill them quickly and cleanly.

Without the threat of Gatling lasers and an army of assaultrons and sentry bots, what leverage do we have with the Golden Sons?
All we have is the ability to lie and a single sniper of theirs that went and disobeyed orders to camp our friends.

>>124745
First we need to find out if the Golden Sons would even take her back, whether they value honor or family more. Then, we still have the forces of the Metro on our side. Remaining welcome in a center of commerce should have some pull with a band of mercenaries, assuming they're more than just glorified raiders.

>>124746
>we need to find out if the Golden Sons would even take her back
This is the important point, since the girl didn’t seem to be that good at following orders from what I remember of reading in her diary.

But aside from that, those raccoons: we need to recruit them. They’re smart enough to maintain and use rifles, as well as build an electric fence to catch food. And given their size, that’s the kind of technician we need to help salvage our other nodes that are still buried in the metro system.

Oh, and don't forget about Shadow. See if Lucius knows anything about cybernetic augments, and maybe we can either get a cyberdog body from a Vault or from the Brotherhood.

And speaking of the Brotherhood, there's that completely intact armored van that we know about; we just have to dig out the tunnel to it. Once we've got some Mr. Handy's or construction-pattern Protectrons, we should be able to dig it out.

>>124788
I find the idea of converting someone else's perfectly functional dog into a cyberdog ethically and pragmatically questionable. Though if we do find/make a cyberdog, I wonder if we'd be able to pilot them directly like other robotic units?

>>124790
We probably wouldn’t be able to pilot it since robodogs didn’t have their minds and memories wiped upon being transferred into their new bodies (as far as I can remember).
While the tech for the interface is the same as the robobrains, I think, the software architecture is different.

Anonymous 2018/08/14(Tue)21:17 No. 124818 ID: 5f089f
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Once we've got some downtime, I was thinking maybe we could learn how to cook. Or tease Aria by putting this apron on her Assaultron and her having a boyfriend.

How long is this latest hiatus going to be? Another 6 months?

Honestly speaking, aside from the fact that it’s been brought up as an option, why would the Golden Sons, a professional merc company from what we’ve been told, consider an operative that can’t follow orders to be worth losing a contract over?
From what we’ve seen and heard from the Lurkers, they pride themselves on being a functional government; granted, a raider one, but a government nonetheless. From the way that they’re ready to throw down with an entrenched settlement over two jeeps and some dead members, they seem pretty serious about settling debts. There’s no indication that they wouldn’t pay the Golden Sons.

>>125186
I don't think Sparrow wants to go back to the Sons for happy returns, I think she actually wants to use us to get revenge on them. Dealing a crippling blow to the Sons would also prevent them from joining the siege, and that works for me.

>>125193
Why makes you say that?
What we gathered from the diary was that Sparrow wanted to prove she’s good enough to be a full merc of the Sons, while the leaders felt that she was too insubordinate to be a good merc in a professional outfit like theirs.

>>125197
And what makes you say that? Her only condition last time was that she comes with us when we go see the Sons.
>“You need something. I need something. Those assholes aren’t my friends, and you’ll need more than words to barter with anyway.”

Everything that was in her diary and how she’s acted so far makes the case that she knows she’s not respected by the Sons but wants their respect and a position in their organization, and has gone that route in predictable teenage fashion. She’s smart enough to get into trouble but still too dumb to get out of it.

Are you going to say that this was an act meant to make us more likely to kill the Sons, by damaging one of the more valuable robots in this place? She knows we’re a robot and that we aren’t ruled by our emotions.
Cooperation would have made it more likely for us to decide to kill them all, since that would lessen the cost of doing so, by providing us with their location, numbers, defenses, and how they would react when attacked.

I think the Major has a point in using some nerve gas. Using enough to cover the battlefield is logistically prohibitive, and could be bad if the wind goes against us.
However, using it as part of a gas trap or to eliminate the enemy when they’re in a choke point might work. Just something more threatening than land mines, because of the excruciating way that they will die in plain view of their friends.

Saying we have a cache of nuclear weapons doesn't seem that big of a deal when there's man-portable nuke launchers just lying around.

bananon 2018/09/29(Sat)11:58 No. 125704 ID: 5ddaa1
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>>125661

As best I can recall, I don't think SARA has a nuclear arsenal readily available. In theory, she might be able to find some given time, information, and some serious luck, but you don't exactly have a trigger finger on nukes (mini or otherwise).

>>125704
Of course we don't. I was making a point about why trying to bluff that we have a cache of nuclear weapons in a Fallout setting is a poor idea, because Fatman Launchers and mini-nukes are, while not commonplace, not rare enough that a decent-sized merc company may have one or two.

We should see about putting together armor upgrade packages for our robots.
Sure, it's just sandbags and scrap metal, but it's still effective against small arms fire, and maybe even small caliber laser weapons.

Personally I want a war. The current status quo is not tolerable, and so we need to kill all of the raider groups around here if we're going to rebuild.

Maybe we could rig together another jeep? Give them two, with one being set to blow at a radio signal once inside the Lurker base.

>>125198
So, Sparrow's actions so far don't seem to back up your idea that she wants revenge on the Sons at all.

What is the point of giving in and avoiding the fight?
Is there a plan to bring more resources to bear to this fight? Or to just go back to the status quo of the raiders just periodically kidnapping and killing trader caravans?

And honestly, a representative fight when we’re the machines and therefore have an advantage in small scale fights where the Lurkers can’t bring the advantage of their numbers and heavy weapons seems pretty short-sighted to expect Red to accept those terms. And there’s really nothing preventing Red from bringing enough bodies to swamp our Assaultrons. So either she refuses because she can win without increasing the likelihood of failure, or she stacks the deck so that she can win.

>>125971
Avoiding the fight? No, we just want the Golden Sons out of it to reduce their numbers. The Sons get the Lurkers' vehicles back, their contract is complete. Vehicles aren't going to turn the tide in the Lurkers' favor. And then we grab more vehicles (and perhaps more immediately useful stuff) off dead raiders.
Unless these are the Lurkers' only working vehicles, as posited in a previous thread. I don't know the accuracy of that statement.
Didn't we also promise the second jeep as payment to a third party at the Metro? Hoo boy. If there's anyone I'd want to disappoint, it's the ones already planning to shoot us.

>>125974
The Sons were contracted to get two jeeps back, specifically the two that belonged to the Lurkers.
The Sons don't give a shit, but if the Lurkers won't take anything less than the original two jeeps, which the Sons negotiator has said is likely, then we've got nothing further to talk about.

Everybody keeps on saying we don't listen, but all that seems to mean is that we need to not resist when raiders and mercs take our stuff, kill our friends, and enslave people in front of us. The first time we resist and fight back, the raiders hire a merc company that says we're not listening.

The idea that it costs nothing to ask is pretty naive and self-centered. How would you view someone who “just asks” if you’d be willing to give back the thing you’ve committed subordinates to die for? And for the promise of something better rather than a physical thing already in your possession?

“Just asking” does cost us, in trust and reputation, if not in caps.

And remember that letting the Lurkers have the two keeps back means that they can move around heavy weapons when we fight them, like M2 Browning machine guns and rocket launchers with plenty of reloads.

>>126030
We got pretty damn lucky that the BoS didn't take our attempt to alter the deal. Seems they only didn't take too much offense because we framed it as preserving Brotherhood lives and we gave them full disclosure.
But it still seems to have cooled our relationship with Davis; not by any significant amount, but still spoiled her day.

I know that we want to make Sparrow understand that if she crosses us we will kill her without hesitation, but I don’t think it’ll get through her teenage stubbornness.
Instead maybe we should tell her to think about things in a more merc kind of way.

>>126084
We didn't kill her the first time when she tried to blow someone's brains out with a sniper rifle

We also didn't kill her the second time when she barricaded herself in a one-way room and tried to execute her only bargaining chip.

And we even went so far as to bring her back to her group safe and relatively sound instead of just immediately cutting her loose unarmed halfway to the Sons.

So, fuck her. She's had more than enough chances to clean up her act instead of being an idiot. If she doesn't take them and STILL tries to kill us, she should not get another opportunity to waste so frivolously.

bananon 2018/10/21(Sun)11:11 No. 126127 ID: 06095b
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>>907781

New Last Spark chapter is up!

We haven't really told many people that we're an AI. Especially the Brotherhood and their stance on Abominable Intelligence. We need to be careful who learns this about us; we've been sticking with the "hacker holed up in a bunker with a lot of computers" story, and we should stick with it until we meet another AI.

>>126136
But we've met two of them: our sister nodes.

>>126139
We've got Aria and Major running with us now, but the people of the Metro don't know the secret behind the additional Eyebots we've got running around.

Oh, we should ask about Mentat Dog Chow for Shadow, and a PupBoy, to see if we can uplift him into a better companion.

Welp Looks like I may have wrecked the Majors Eyebot.

>>126310
You thought that the eyebot would be able to fly high enough to be safe while plinking at the yao guai; you forgot that some bears can jump 8 feet into the air.

The eyebots can fly 20 feet in the air
post No.1767316 in the first thread.

>>126312
Yeah, but that's 8 feet into the air, plus their height when standing of about 8 feet, and their reach of about 3 to 4 feet, would mean that they can probably reach a target that's 20 feet in the air.

Anonymous 2018/11/01(Thu)18:12 No. 126314 ID: 5f089f
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>>126312
Looking at the length of the forearms, and the general size, that looks like when standing it can be anywhere from 7 to 8 feet, and an additional 3 to 4 feet for the forearms.

Okay, giant grizzly, wat do?

We don't really have anything that could set it on fire; that would have been the best option. Major and Aria have their piddly lasers, but without an accelerant like gasoline or maybe cooking oil, I don't think we can set the grizzly's fur on fire.

We can't just retreat into the cave because the grizzly lives here, so the cave tunnels are big enough for it. But there are some places, like the tunnels we used to infiltrate the place, that are small enough that we could hide out and plink at the grizzly with our lasers.

We do have the tranquilizers we snagged from the guard station in the Vault, so we could try pumping it full of tranqs. Given its size, we probably can't put it down, but it might be enough to slow it.

It's intelligent, which is going to make killing it a lot harder. If only the river wasn't so far away, we could try to get it into a fight with mirelurks.

If we have a map of the area, we could try to lead it on a chase off of a cliff. It's huge; once it gets going, stopping is going to be a problem, and if we can hit its eyes so it can't see the cliff, we could maybe get it to follow us off; all three of us can fly while the bear can't.

>>126338
Since we've got the scent of dead bear on us, and the grizzly locked eyes with us and realized we're the one that killed her offspring, she'll be coming right at us.

So we have Aria and the Major fly ahead of us and find that cliff, giving us map updates and terrain information so we don't lose our footing and know where to go. We have to operate at the speed of electricity because that bear is probably faster than we expect.

Maybe we can look for a ZAX computer to assist Lucius. Maybe even weaponize the radiation cleaning tech to work against creatures that depend on high radiation.

Wait, can we even use other computers to provide extra processing cycles? Or would trying to run a SARA agent suck up so many cycles on its own that it's just diminishing returns?
I kind of remember that the same was said about the Eyebots, that they use more cycles to control than they can provide.

>>126488
An eyebot has all sorts of propulsion, power, sensor and communication subsystems to maintain. A server rack is just a server rack. It's more of what we're made of.

>>126489
>A server rack is just a server rack. It's more of what we're made of.
That server is currently running the entire Vault. It's a fucking lot more than nothing.

bananon 2018/11/17(Sat)07:32 No. 126493 ID: 06095b
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>>126488
>>126489
>>126492
>>126482

It's an interesting question, maybe one that I should clarify a bit. Basically, SARA -is- a ZAX at her core, smaller and less powerful than some of the solo AI's mentioned in the setting proper, but still incredibly unique.

She was built as one of several, all of them meant to be able to work together as a single, gestalt intelligence with a single overarching identity that could in turn process thousands upon thousands of operations at the same time to keep the entire city of Seattle on one, near-perfect schedule.

Basically, at her peak right now, SARA could have three fully functioning conversations in three separate bodies in three separate languages on opposite ends of the city, all actively sharing their experiences with one another with the main processing bank still having the capacity to give less strenuous orders to a certain number of other machine intelligences. Those extra intelligences would then basically have to operate on their own initiative based on their programming.

Think of it like having three very smart lab technicians that can go anywhere at a moment's notice, with one standing by working a super computer. Right now, it's worth mentioning that SARA has no strenuous, constant activity that would keep that desk person occupied, though that could easily change. The more basic robots or processes she's managing on her network, the more basic processing power she would require to handle it without calling in her field technicians and putting those bodies on autopilot.

If she were to subsume the Vault or RobCo into her network (each containing about 50 robots), that would keep her kind of busy at present. Both at once would be about the limit of her current processing power, but that would mean having the ability to specially designate whatever is going on at those facilities.

bananon 2018/11/17(Sat)07:42 No. 126494 ID: 06095b
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>>126493

As one anon suggested, the Vault proper's processors are probably busy managing the environmental controls and the robotic staff, keeping them on their assigned details. If you were to subsume those resources, you would gain little practical benefit because they don't have a lot of extra space to run whatever analysis you might want them doing without taking down some of those vital functions.


So, if you wanted to say, get all of the Mr. Handy's in the Vault dancing the macarena in sync, something they theoretically don't have an autopilot for, that would either take a lot of concentration on your own processors, or you would have to surreptitiously shut down the Vault's vital functions until it had sufficient room for coordinating macarena.exe.

Now, if you could put all of the lab computers, which aren't doing anything at present, onto a network, those have plenty of extra space to crunch numbers on fire-and-forget tasks, like sequencing genomes, searching for things on satellite, or just controlling even more robots. It would not, however, allow SARA to further divide her own consciousness to other locations, as her special awareness is limited by the ZAX own processing limits.

>>126494
So even if we built in a backdoor in the Vault mainframe and put the lab computers on our network, all it would do is let us run research tasks on auto-pilot, not provide us with extra processing power to better control more robots.

And we could just ask Theodore to let us set those lab computers on genome sequencing or language translation tasks, since he's not using them right now anyway.

bananon 2018/11/17(Sat)08:57 No. 126496 ID: 06095b
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>>126495

Hmmm. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it.

More computers does mean more processing power for you. That means more robots following basic orders, more research programs you can run, easier hacking, and a larger general zone of awareness.

Now, the real issue is that there's an upper-bound on nuanced control operations you can perform regardless of the amount of general processing power you have. Those are the sort of complicated tasks requiring a human level of awareness or at least exceeding the programming of whatever machine body you are using. Examples of that include tactical combat with specialized weapons, conversation, and subterfuge. At present, you can do three of these things simultaneously in different locations.

The person at the desk, we'll call them, can do two very complicated things that can be done remotely from its location at home base, like hacking a system, rapidly sequencing a genome, or commanding a squad of up to fifty robots to coordinate in a basic function (be it move, attack, manufacture, etc). Subsuming a facility with appreciable untapped resources, like Vault 59's science lab, would effectively give you one more mental action you can perform at once. Similarly, having one less body out in the field means you can do one more complex mental action.

Does that make a bit more sense?

bananon 2018/11/18(Sun)07:20 No. 126500 ID: 06095b
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Also, as a heads up to you good folks, I'll be traveling out of town for the next week or so. With this chapter wrapped up, I figure that it's a decent time to take a small break of about a week, possibly two, at which point we'll be flipping back over to the Metro perspective.

Mind you, SARA is still in both locations. So, if there are things that you want done before leaving the area of the Vault, feel free to hash them out here. Just also bear in mind that time is running short for her to get reinforcements from here to the Metro. As in, T-Minus 12 hours.

We likely can't get enough of the raccoon's language to make them useful as an army, and I don't know if they would be able to make it back to the Metro in time, but I suppose we could try.

We should also take up the volunteers from the Vault; they might be able to help by planting explosives in the Lurkers' ammo cache.

And we should try to track down that power armor. We have to figure out what we can trade for it, and to get it back to Lucius.

>>126503

As to the first, that is a question. Right now, you don't share a language with the raccoons, but you have been able to communicate, albeit haltingly, through pictograms. In a direct confrontation between settlements where they would have to distinguish good humans who need to be protected from bad humans who need to die, things could get very, very complicated. If you can propose a way to get around those stopgaps, they could be a tremendous boon. Feel free to discuss it.

The same thing goes for the dogs, who are presumably not rocket scientists either. However, they may have a partial grasp of English, enough to take on basic commands.

As for the power armor, let me know if people want me to stick just a little bit more on the end of the chapter to account for a meeting between SARA and the thing in question. I thought that the sit-down with Theodore was a good stopping point, but I don't want to leave things hanging that will bother people for the next week or so.

>>126510
The easiest way would be for the Metro and Brotherhood to all wear armbands with their respective insignia, and to use Aria’s video screen to show BoS/Metro=Good. And Lurker symbol=Bad.

The same can be done with the dogs.

And yes, I at least really want to meet the Power Armor. We fortunately have 2 operational robots, at the Vault, so one can go to the Armor while the other sees if the message of who is friend and foe gets understood by our furry friends.

bananon 2018/11/19(Mon)19:31 No. 126515 ID: 06095b
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>>126511

Well, I took ill this evening, unfortunately. That's going to mean I'm out of time for an update before I leave town. Just let me know if folks would rather spend a little more time in the woods before heading back to civilization, and we can pick up there next chapter rather than back in the Metro.

In the meantime, I encourage folks to plan their battle strategy. I'll be about, after a fashion, just not in possession of a keyboard and the time I need to hammer out more than a short blurb here or there.

All that aside, I'm wishing you all happy holidays! Enjoy your time with family, friends, and food and be safe if you are traveling.

>>126515
We could take advantage of the defenses that the Metro already has, with their minefield.
If the Lurkers would just try to attack us like regular raiders, we could catch them between the Metro's anvil and the Brotherhood's hammer.

But they've got Johnny on their side, so we can't really expect things to be that easy.
It may be best to try to get the Brotherhood to send the troops we hired into the Metro, so that we don't worry about the BoS troops getting encircled and wiped out beyond the Metro's range.

And I'm siding with the Major on the development of chemical weapons; not enough to try to blanket the battlefield, just enough to help hold chokepoints and to be nasty surprises. And not the nasty nerve gas stuff; the simpler stuff like chlorine and mustard. Simply because manufacture and cleanup is easier.

I think Johnny inadvertently gave us the key to getting around his precognition: have too many moving parts and he can't see them all, because there's too many potential futures for him to look at.
So just have lots of plans in motion, even if they won't do much to the overall battle. Especially if we can pay attention to the insignificant ones so that Johnny's attention goes towards them instead of the one with a bullet with his name on it.

>>126515
Make the name of the Vault's expedition leader Fry.
Seymour died at the Vault's door, waiting for Fry to return.

>>126522
Aw shit, I almost completely forgot about the tech cache/fusion-powered plane at the underground hangar that the rogue scientist, Abernathy, we looted Sandra's PipBoy from had prepared.
We need

So, did capturing Sparrow and talking with the Golden Sons really get us anything? Sure, we got a nice pipe rifle out of it (which is already trashed and only made that yao guai mad), but other than that, we got:
1. slightly worsened relations with the Brotherhood. Not by much, admittedly, but still lost some trust there.
2. damaged robots and reduction in supplies, when Sparrow tried to escape.

If Johnny hadn't used Sparrow to distract us, he wouldn't have come talk with us. So all I can see is that he introduced doubt in our planning, made us have to deal with Sparrow and the Golden Sons in an exchange that went no where.

We do have the Lurker we took prisoner to pump for information on their base, and to use our Assaultron and some StealthBoys to cause some mayhem.
We can go in and destroy the Lurker's ammo and weapons caches, maybe destroy what food and water supplies they have.
But Johnnie knows that we were going to take that guy prisoner; how much can his intel be trusted?

And we should check the Vault 59 mainframe for a copy of VATS. Jeremy didn't have a copy and the PipBoy that Sandra has doesn't have it.

>>126572
If it's not in the Pup-Boys, Vault 59 probably lacks it as well. Not really a big loss.

>>126578
This is still a Vault that had a human staff, so it would be reasonable for it to have had PipBoys and the software for their maintenance. And being a Vault meant for producing results instead of being just an experiment in itself, I'd expect the place to be better equipped than the other Vaults, especially as the Army intended for this to be a military experimental Vault with FEV.
We should still check the Vault mainframe for VATS and any PipBoy updates that are available.
And also spare PipBoys; have a group of Metro defenders equipped with PipBoys using VATS would make them much more effective.

bananon 2018/11/28(Wed)18:39 No. 126598 ID: 06095b
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>>126580
>>126572
>>126578

The Vault would indeed have conventional Pip Boys with VATS included. Whether Jeremy will be happy to part with some or how many is something only time will tell, but we'll pick back up at the Vault next chapter to tackle some of those dangling threads.

>>126569

Whether you want to try to achieve air superiority before the battle is a good question. Just keep in mind that the garage is fairly far away, and any plan to try to access that resource immediately will have to make clever use of SARA's resources.

Anyway, I'll get back to writing as soon as I can. Still just catching my breath from the holidays and work is speeding up the tempo to try to get everything done before Christmas time. It's going to be a hectic next month or so, but I'll at least try to get something out this coming weekend.

>>126598
Thanks for the heads up, bananon.

We probably won’t be able to use the plane in this fight, as we don’t know how to fly it (unless we have piloting files tucked away somewhere), but there might be other useful items, like a chemistry workstation and weapons.

Our Assaultron is currently at the RobCo repair hub, but it would be great if we could buy another Assaultron or Sentry Bot from the Brotherhood; we need to be on the lookout for stuff we can sell to them for more items like that.

Air superiority would mean dealing with the thunderbird, and possibly the Valkyries, first. That's a hornet's nest we don't have to kick yet. The Lurkers lack a motor pool entirely, thanks to us. Plus, we're almost out of time! Maybe our Metro body has time for one more mission, but our Vault party needs to haul ass to get back in time to help prepare.

bananon 2018/12/02(Sun)18:32 No. 126637 ID: 06095b
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>>126598

NEW THREAD!
>>912788