Physics, A Technomage Primary Skill Options

[Tzekelkan]

CODE

Aurora          Distract opponents with a dazzling display of colours.

Finally: Aurora
Syntax: ACTIVATE AURORA
Exciting the atoms in the air with charged particles from trapped stellar winds will create a curtain of incandescent lighting inside an isolated system. The brilliant aurora will periodically flare, distracting your opponents and making them miss you completely.

(A passive which would make every 8th(10th?) targetted attack miss completely (or at least make sure they hit someone else).)

I know it's not that creative, but I'm really all out of ideas. If I come up with anything else--or another ability--I'll post it, because I like it. This is how the skill looks now:

CODE

The skill of Physics contains the following abilities:
Isolate         Physical processes work best in ideal conditions.
Parametrisation Redefine the boundaries of your system.
Spacetime       Your sight will no longer be limited to four dimensions.
Plasma          Ionise air particles for a devastating result.
Gradient        Seek out and exploit critical points in functions.
Refraction      Cleverly fool your attacker with tricks of the light.
Volume          Altering microscopic distances affects macroscopic sizes.
Pressure        Even something as minute as molecules can crush you.
Temperature     Control the rate at which molecules vibrate.
Isothermal      Inhibit changes of temperature in your system.
Isobaric        Prevent any instability in the pressure of your system.
Isochoric       Limit the changes to air volume within your system.
Adiabatic       The Second Law of Thermodynamics may take a break.
Enthalpy        Check the heat reserves of another.
Origin          The axial intersection is but an arbitrary definition.
MatterDuality   You are both wave and particle!
Curvature       Bending spacetime will bring your enemy to you.
RedShift        Alter your wavelength to become untraceable.
VectorField     Impose order unto the movements of elementary particles.
Divergence      Give your vector field a point of sink.
Electric        Wield electrical charges to disable the nervous system.
Magnetic        Disable nanites with electromagnetic induction.
Algebraic       Materialise the abstract to utterly confuse your foes.
Curl            A rotating field is much more difficult to flee.
Capacitor       Discharge stored energies for a powerful effect.
Crepuscular     Redistribute air density to reveal the light's rays.
Aurora          Distract opponents with a brilliant display of colours.
Airglow         Cosmic rays will reveal those who are invisible.
Superposition   Superpose optical phenomena without interference.
Irradiate       Gamma rays are an indication of nuclear workings.
Fission         Create massive energy through the separation of atoms.
AB PHYSICS <ability> for more information on an ability.
Colour code:
Gold - Mastered; Green - Learned; Yellow - Able to learn; Red - Unable to learn.

Reason for Edit: Fixed wording to make it clearer.

This post has been edited by Tzekelkan: Feb 29 2008, 09:04 PM

[Soludra]

Wow, this skill has so much pontential. I just have one hopeful suggestion, though....

Can you add a Tesseract ability? Hoping you've read "A Wrinkle in Time", but a tesseract basically pinches two points of spacetime together. It would be something like a grove Gate in Achaea, or perhaps just an immediate "jump" from your current location to the target's.

[Feli]

Oh, another thing. Fission sounds a bit too hard to pull off. Most instakills that require your health to be under 66% never get used because it's too difficult. I like the idea otherwise.

Also, figure out a Blackhole ability!!! Maybe something that requires 3+ Physicists to open that causes extreme damage to everyone in the room?

[Tzekelkan]

Wow, this skill has so much pontential. I just have one hopeful suggestion, though....

Can you add a Tesseract ability? Hoping you've read "A Wrinkle in Time", but a tesseract basically pinches two points of spacetime together. It would be something like a grove Gate in Achaea, or perhaps just an immediate "jump" from your current location to the target's.

I haven't read that, but I've looked it up and it looks pretty interesting. I might pick it up when I find some time, thanks!

On the ability though, I recall Kunin saying (or someone saying Kunin said, can't remember) that he doesn't like instant travel abilities like that, it makes walking and flying pointless. Besides, this is a pretty straightforward offensive skill few utilities, and I'm sure that if there's going to be an ability like Tesseract, it's going to be put in a general skill.

But just for the fun, sure, why not?

Tesseract
Syntax: TESSERACT <target>
Spacetime limitations are mere games with which you play. As you've learned to transverse into the fourth spatial dimension, you are now able to create tesseracts to any point in the Universe. Bringing a hypercube's vertices together will bend spacetime and instantly transport you to your desired location.

Reason for Edit: Removed the edit into a post of its own.

This post has been edited by Tzekelkan: Feb 29 2008, 11:14 PM

[-Neil-]

the word Fission gave me an idea:

Fusion- have like a handful of slime, and whatever it touches starts to melt into itself and keep getting smaller

*gets out mad scientist goggles* lol

[Feli]

the word Fission gave me an idea:

Fusion- have like a handful of slime, and whatever it touches starts to melt into itself and keep getting smaller

*gets out mad scientist goggles* lol

Tht sounds alot more like chemistry. What would that do anyways?

[Tzekelkan]

Oh, another thing. Fission sounds a bit too hard to pull off. Most instakills that require your health to be under 66% never get used because it's too difficult. I like the idea otherwise.

Also, figure out a Blackhole ability!!! Maybe something that requires 3+ Physicists to open that causes extreme damage to everyone in the room?

Make it 75-80% then? The skill already has a lot of damage abilities, though I did make them so they wouldn't be too spammable.

I made a Blackhole ability ("A judgement/chasm-like instakill that would require many celerity points and need you not to perform any action during the casting; easily interruptable; cast time: ~10-12 seconds."), though your idea sounds a lot more interesting! Maybe you could only do it from a ship, it would require three physicists and about a few minutes of doing nothing else but intense concentration, but would deal insane damage to an enemy ship. How cool does that sound?

I'm also trying to figure out a Fusion ability and come up with more relativity-related abilities (though my knowledge in that field is limited--it'll expand in a few weeks though).

Reason for Edit: removed shady phrasing.

This post has been edited by Tzekelkan: Feb 29 2008, 11:15 PM

[Feli]

Make it 75-80% then? The skill already has a lot of damage abilities, though I did make them so they wouldn't be too spammable.

I made a Blackhole ability ("A judgement/chasm-like instakill that would require many celerity points and need you not to perform any action during the casting; easily interruptable; cast time: ~10-12 seconds."), though your idea sounds a lot more interesting! Maybe you could only do it from a ship, it would require three physicists and about a few minutes of doing nothing else but intense concentration, but would deal insane damage to an enemy ship. How cool does that sound?

I'm also trying to figure out a Fusion ability and come up with more relativity-related abilities (though my knowledge in that field is limited--it'll expand in a few weeks though).

Reason for Edit: removed shady phrasing.

That sounds really cool. It would certainly add a different dimension to space combat. Of course, the black hole would have to be tiny for them to have any measure of control over it.

EDIT: Also, concerning the Fission skill I seem to have made a mistake when reading it. I thought you meant your target had to be have only 1/3 of his health left, when you meant he had to have lost 1/3 of his health. Ah, in that case 66% would probably be balanced.

This post has been edited by Feli: Feb 29 2008, 11:26 PM

[Tzekelkan]

That sounds really cool. It would certainly add a different dimension to space combat. Of course, the black hole would have to be tiny for them to have any measure of control over it.

I admit it'd be more of a grey hole than anything else, but maybe "Black Hole" would be just the codename for a really special weapon using quantum gravity to annihilate the other ship's very molecular structure and collapse it soundlessly into a dark singularity of infinitely large mass but arbitrarily quick decay time. Just imagine the deathsight of that. *drools*

[Arizte]

If black hole is an instakill, I'm having trouble seeing that affecting only one targeted person. It seems it'd be rather impartial (unless if the Physicist can direct this too!), but... an instakill for all in the room is kind of overpowered.

ETA: A black hole has infinite mass and zero volume, right? So size would affect little...

This post has been edited by Arizte: Feb 29 2008, 11:34 PM

[Tzekelkan]

If black hole is an instakill, I'm having trouble seeing that affecting only one targeted person. It seems it'd be rather impartial (unless if the Physicist can direct this too!), but... an instakill for all in the room is kind of overpowered.

ETA: A black hole has infinite mass and zero volume, right? So size would affect little...

Instakill for ships!

It wouldn't be a black hole per se, just a weapon maybe. Perhaps ships could have a module which would be operated by Technomages of the Physicist subtype; it'd allow this powerful, destructive weapon to be used at a large cost, of course. It could instantly "swallow" (crush or implode would be better words, but swallow sounds more frightening) small ships if they don't get out of range quickly. For larger ships, it'd just do a lot of damage!

Oh, it doesn't have to be related to the skill though. Such weapons of mass annihilation could just be available to any ships large enough to contain and power them... if they can overcome the difficulties and costs of trying to use them

Reason for Edit: I'm tired, so most of my sentences were very poorly worded. Changed some of them.

This post has been edited by Tzekelkan: Feb 29 2008, 11:47 PM

[Arizte]

Oh, then instead of an instakill, it's an "ability with very high damage" Anyway, having it operated by a few prestigious Technomages to hold back an onslaught of ships sounds cool.

[Feli]

Oh, then instead of an instakill, it's an "ability with very high damage" Anyway, having it operated by a few prestigious Technomages to hold back an onslaught of ships sounds cool.

Except with an awesome death-message.

[Gaetele]

Except with an awesome death-message.

vs. player -- Reality bends and twists around you as a minuscule black hole forms, painfully tearing your entire body asunder with intense gravitational force.

[Soludra]

On the Tesseract: Sounds like your implementation is a lot more like an Occultist's "Universe" tarot card than an open-a-portal-to-someone spell. Perhaps a better way to implement it would be to only be able to tesseract to up to five locations at any given time? And you must have been at those locations previously and set a "marker" there to enable access to that point.

This would help with the "Tesseract means you don't need ships!" thing.

[Tzekelkan]

vs. ship (1st person damage) -- An ear-shattering clang echoes from the ship's walls, making your skin feel ready to peel off one infinitesimal atom at a time.

vs. ship (1st person death) -- Time seems to freeze for an instant as a pitch-black darkness invades your senses without warning. A pain the likes you've never experienced before throbs through your head for no more than the split of a nanosecond before suddenly subsiding, leaving a complete void where your consciousness once was. Were you still able to, you'd realise you are no more.

EDIT:

On the Tesseract: Sounds like your implementation is a lot more like an Occultist's "Universe" tarot card than an open-a-portal-to-someone spell. Perhaps a better way to implement it would be to only be able to tesseract to up to five locations at any given time? And you must have been at those locations previously and set a "marker" there to enable access to that point.

This would help with the "Tesseract means you don't need ships!" thing.

Never played Achaea, so don't know what you wanted exactly. (I think "Universe" = Teleport in Lusternia? Can someone confirm this?). Though I like the five rooms idea; not so much the "marker" idea if you're limited to five rooms.

This post has been edited by Tzekelkan: Mar 1 2008, 12:55 AM

[Arizte]

Universe: You physically set a place for the Universe tarot. When you activate the Universe tarot, it returns you to that place. Right?

[Soludra]

The Universe tarot causes a shimmering map to appear in the air; you touch a location you want to go to, and you go there.

I used 'markers' only to show that you can choose any five rooms you like, and enable one out of five tesseracts there. I guess you might explain it ICly that you need to go to the location and gather the universal coordinate position there, so you have somewhere to anchor your tesseract destination to.

[Tzekelkan]

The Universe tarot causes a shimmering map to appear in the air; you touch a location you want to go to, and you go there.

I used 'markers' only to show that you can choose any five rooms you like, and enable one out of five tesseracts there. I guess you might explain it ICly that you need to go to the location and gather the universal coordinate position there, so you have somewhere to anchor your tesseract destination to.

Ooh, I understand now.

Though how about this: it's a teleport ability, meaning it takes you to a player, close to instantly (3-4 second delay), but they have to be up to five rooms away from you. Further than that is out of range. This way, you'd be able to catch up with enemies somehow.

Choosing any five rooms you like anywhere, even with a planetwide restriction, might not get approved.

[Soludra]

True. But then what's the point of Irradiate, except for the instakill?