SS2 No weapon degradation

[6740c7fe826a3Kolya]

1) The log also contradicts the gameworld.

Apart from that you're right, basically. I'm also not so dependent on authority, what ZylonBane calls a purist. I don't think Xemu read the manual or background story or even played the game lately when he wrote his parody log. Therefore I just don't take it so literally. I'd rather use it as an inspiration for a log that fits into the game, than use a log that doesn't fit, just because someone wrote it who worked on the game. That's not good enough. It has to fit the game, not the people who once made it. That's where I'm a purist.

[6740c7fe827caFironkkuify]

I agree.  Should we work on a new script for the log?

[6740c7fe828daKolya]

Haha, you're great. Never leave.
Seriously, I don't think we're quite finished yet...

[6740c7fe82bf9Fironkkuify]

Haha, you're great. Never leave.
Seriously, I don't think we're quite finished yet...

I wasn't exactly joking though.  We could create a new script that has a more urgent tone to it and get someone to voice act that one.  This kind of thing is a matter of good writing and good acting really.

[6740c7fe82ec7RocketMan]

I volunteer to do the voice !!!

[6740c7fe82ff2Kolya]

Fironkkuify, we will do that eventually. But we're a community, so we have to come to a solution that most people are mostly satisfied with. Otherwise the produced log would not see community support and be a failure. This is even more important because we plan to include it in the ADaoB mod which is widely used and has seen several such discussions before.

[6740c7fe833d4ZylonBane]

I merely pointed out that the quote speaks of a gas with selective damage - to weapons.

The quote says it damages weapons, because that would have been the reason for including the log. It doesn't say it only damages weapons. Lack of explicit inclusion != exclusion.

1) The log also contradicts the gameworld.

In what way?

[6740c7fe834caFironkkuify]

I know Kolya, sorry about that. -w-;

[6740c7fe83616Kolya]

Lack of explicit inclusion is good enough to disqualify it as evidence. And that's what you brought it up as.
It is described as selective in only attacking weapons, but not humans.

1. Because it's comedy. Other logs certainly have their jokes as you pointed out, but not at the meta level this log aims at. You can't just delete the punch line of a parody and call it serious game fiction.
2. Because it contradicts the psi skill that alleviates this very effect.
3. Because it delivers a new reason for the ship failing that undermines original authorial intent. And without any need since there is no lack of explanation in that regard as there is with gun decay.

[6740c7fe838c7Fironkkuify]

In what way?

I think how it contradicts the game world is that mist is usually readily apparent.  You can normally see mist floating in the air (another word for it is fog).  A mist also never has any true effect (unless you mix it with a gas).  In that case, a gas usually has more direct effect on certain substances and no effect on others (like how the presence of oxygen effects us cause we need it, but not machinery because they don't need it). 

A gas would be more realistic as something floating about and effecting different types of machinery, more notably guns because they aren't so shielded from such influences as incased, airtight machines are.

[6740c7fe83e4eEnchantermon]

3. Because it delivers a new reason for the ship failing that undermines original authorial intent.

Perhaps, but then again ZB brought up a good point earlier; there are lots of things going wrong both inside and outside the Von Braun that would likely contribute to its failure and would also contradict the hubris theme.

I volunteer to do the voice !!!

You and I can mud wrestle over it later.

[6740c7fe840d9Kolya]

Hubris is a conceptual reason for the ship's and the mission's failure. But ZylonBane's list doesn't even differentiate between cause and effect. It merely lists a bunch of actions taking place, without regard to why any of these happen: The corrupt leadership leads to a rushed launch of the Von Braun which leads to various ship systems failing or being vulnerable to attacks.

Now we're talking about an invisible alien gas that destroys the ship at a point in time when the humans don't know that there is an enemy. Where is the human failure here? Do you think they would have anticipated that with more construction time?
Imagine the Aliens in the James Cameron movie would have had that gas. A bit unfair isn't it? I mean they're relentless evil creatures designed to kill. But their attacks are visible and a smart person can avoid them or shoot them. But if they breathed an invisible gas that destroys metal... Well that would fuck up the whole movie. It would lift part of the moral responsibility from Weiland Yutani, because they could always say: Who could have known?

Now let's get back to that story from irrationalgames.com:

The log would have explained that as part of their takeover, the Many had released a special corrosive gas into the Von Braun that damaged weapons but was harmless to organic creatures.

I said this shows the gas works selectively and that may have come off as wise cracking. Let me explain: If they wanted to have a gas that destroys metal, don't you think they would have said that?
Instead they specifically mention weapons, because that's the problem they wanted to fix. Entering a metal corroding gas into the story was bound to screw things up because it's too general. It can create paradoxes easily and influence stuff you didn't want to influence. So they didn't say that.

And by the way,  if you specifically name what's included then a lack of explicit inclusion does equal exclusion.

[6740c7fe844fbEnchantermon]

Hubris is a conceptual reason for the ship's and the mission's failure. But ZylonBane's list doesn't even differentiate between cause and effect. It merely lists a bunch of actions taking place, without regard to why any of these happen: The corrupt leadership leads to a rushed launch of the Von Braun which leads to various ship systems failing or being vulnerable to attacks.

Actually, thinking about it some more, you could argue that anything related to the Many takeover (including the appearance of the mist) is related to the greed of Korenchkin and Diego. Even if the ship was in perfect condition, they still would have found Tau Ceti V, still would have landed on it, still would have become controlled by the Many because they rushed out of the shuttle without thinking, and still would have brought the eggs back to the ship.

By the way, I haven't seen Aliens, so I don't get that analogy.

[6740c7fe84674Kolya]

Fine, you think it doesn't hurt the theme, I think it does. Doesn't matter.
As you know we don't usually add stuff just because we can. So let's turn this back to a normal approach: 

Can you give me a reason why we should add another explanation for the ship failing? 

The only reason I see here is is a lousy attempt to explain weapon decay that's too general and hence starts making its own demands on the rest of the story. As could be expected from introducing a metal corroding gas/mist/bacteria into a story taking place on a space ship.

[6740c7fe849fbNameless Voice]

By the way, I haven't seen Aliens, so I don't get that analogy.

Go watch it.  Right now.

[6740c7fe84b50Mr Rayford]

Just throwing this out there.

If the goal is to maintain that only the weapons are being effected, then the mist could only react with e lubricants used on the gun, causing them to harden with the heat of firing, which would cause the gun to jam.

That also addresses the issue of "How are they repairing the metal that's been eating away." 

I don't know how that interacts with the psi ability though.

[6740c7fe84c2dFironkkuify]

You may be onto something.

[6740c7fe84e8eRocketMan]

Guys don't forget, we have an entire suite of weapons ranging from projectile weapons to energy weapons to organic weapons.  If you start getting too mechanical with the explanation, it will fail because there are too many exceptions.  How does a worm gun jam from overheating lubricants?  How does the stasis field generator fail that way?  It's a fine theory but it's too specific unless you can adapt it to work with all the weapon types.....

...which is why I think being kind of generic is unavoidable.  I don't think it's necessary or important to add an explanation for why the ship is failing.  It may however be an unavoidable symptom of coming up with a robust explanation for the weapons failing.  If we consider a weapon in a very generic context (because of all the nuances of the different weapon types) then how many ways can they fail?  The ones I can think of are:

The materials can simply fail causing structural damage
The weapon's source of power (or motive force) can be compromised
...

unfortunately that's all I can think of that covers everything.  Now how do materials fail?

1. They react chemically to produce different, less useful materials
2. They develop geometric faults like cracks

and how do you remove a weapon's source of power?

3. Suppress the forces of nature that fire the weapon using other forces of nature (ie. electromagnetic fields, anti-entropic, etc)

So, in an effort to address ONLY the weapons failing WHILE covering all weapon types, I have only found 3 specific ways to do this.  There may be more of course but I can only think of these 3.  I think that any explanation we come up with based on 1, 2 or 3, will probably have repercussions for the ship, since the ship and the weapons are both forms of technology, both organized systems, both made from selected materials.

How do you affect 1 thing and not another when they both share a lot in common?  Intelligent control is one way.  Relying solely on the differences is another.  I think there are further risks to the game with either of these too.

[6740c7fe84fd6Mr Rayford]

Well, I would imagine that, with the exception of the Worm Guns, all the firearms would have moving parts in them somewhere. The energy weapons, by their nature, would have fewer moving parts, which also explains their much slower rate of degradation (unless that has been changed in ADaoB. I rarely use energy weapons and it's been a long time since I've played vanilla SS2).

As for the worm guns, thoes could be explained away by the fact that they are made of worms.

I'm not terrible attached to the idea, it just throwing it out there.

[6740c7fe85144Kolya]

Guys, this is a game. If we want to make up some force that affects only the weapons we can do that. Of course it has to sound believable but it doesn't have to stand scientific inspection. There are lots of things going on in this ship that are less believable and still work because someone put enough creativity into them to keep up immersion, eg the Many sending you on a hallucinating trip through their heart.

Basically the weapons break by magic. Whether you call it a gas, mist, entropy or bacteria doesn't matter. None of these are realistic when looked at with a suspicious eye. That's why the argument that any explanation would have to affect the ship is just lazy and unimaginative.

[6740c7fe85258RocketMan]

I've got ruggedized 50 dollar d-sub connectors suffering catastrophic failures where I work because of a little moisture in the air

However, a little creativity is probably harmless, as you say so do you think we should tweak one of the existing ideas to work for guns only or do you have a totally different idea?

[6740c7fe853b2Kolya]

Consider the fact that you find all of your weapons. And most break quite fast. (Not all.)
If the weapon has been handled by one of them before, something their bodies exude could cause corrosion to accelerate.
And vice versa it could be that something they emanate (a psi power) keeps the weapons from breaking as long as they handle them. Which would explain why the shotgun hybrid's shotguns never work, which I personally found more of an immersion breaker than the fast degradation of guns.

[6740c7fe854b7RocketMan]

Ok I suppose that could work as an explanation.  You'd have to believe that every weapon accessible in the game was once in the hands of the many though.  Seems a bit of a stretch.

[6740c7fe85644Kolya]

Yeah, I know. It's just an idea so far.
What I'd like to use, because it fits the body horror theme so well, is an explanation that evokes the David Cronenberg film Videodrome, where the protagonist grows together with his gun. Note the literal execution of the word "handgun" in the first 2 pics below. There's a similar depiction of a "handgrenade" in the film.
Interestingly in 1999 Cronenberg made a film (eXistenz) about videogames that has Jude Law build a gun of the remains of an animal he first eats, see last picture. That gun shoots teeth! Now if that doesn't remind us of our exotic SS2 guns.