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| MASTER OF SUPREMACY 8: a space combat sim etc. etc. by Electronic Arts & Zseni 03/17/2005, 12:33pm PST | ||||
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| In an attempt to fill the void of Supremacy's weak space combat, I give you:
Master Of Supremacy 8: The Caltrops Space Combat Strategy Simulation RPG Gameplay proceeds as follows: An unlimited number of players may participate; in practice, a game seldom exceeds two. As with Starcraft, players choose a game location, craft team, and set some game options; play proceeds in turns until they are bored. SHIP STATS: HP, Attack, Defense, Charisma, Genius, Special Abilities HP: you know, how much you can hit the ship until it's dead. Attack: you know, how hard the ship hits stuff. Defense: you know, how much the ship can convincingly protest it didn't get hurt. Charisma: Influences intership relations. Genius: A high genius score can lend the "piercing", "penetrating", or "funny" attribute to attacks. Special Abilities: Not actually a stat at all! These are specific to certain types of ships. Stats range from 0 to 20 except HP, which may range from 5 to 500. Genius Attacks: Ships with a Genius of 13 or above may have piercing attacks which ignore defense when calculating damage. Ships with a Genius at least 16 AND a Charisma above 12 may have funny or penetrating attacks: funny attacks may cause other local ships to attack the victim, and penetrating attacks cause damage leaks, constantly draining HP until the end of the game. HYPER MODE: At a certain damage level, most ships enter Hyper Mode which adds additional attacks or abilities. Craft Teams: Ships are classed as "Sulky", "Histrionic", or "Hilarious." In general, Sulky ships have high defense and soak or ignore attacks; Hilarious ships have high attack ratings and tend to have piercing or funny attacks. Histrionic ships are a prestige class and usually only advanced and experienced players can effectively use them. Below are noted some of the major ships in Caltrops: ARCHCANNONS: These steely giants seldom, if ever, are defeated. DIVINE RETRIBUTOR ARCHCANNON Fussbett Sanitario Team: Hilarious HP: ? Attack: ? Defense: ? Charisma: ? Genius: ? Special Abilities: - Divine Retribution: Fussbett never enters a fight that he can't win. - Flawless Defense: His defense is flawless. - Social Prowess: Who doesn't like Fussbett? Only losers don't like Fussbett. Hyper Mode: Has never been witnessed. CUTE-CUTE MAULER ARCHCANNON Creexul ^_^ Team: Sulky HP: ? Attack: ? Defense: ? Charisma: ? Genius: ? Special Abilities: - Imaginary Damage Calculator: Damage to Creexul is converted to imaginary numbers. And then ignored. - Null-Dimensional Collision Box: While appearing to be a large, slow, and vulnerable ship, attacks on Creex miss him completely. - Memelord: He says it, you ape him. Have fun flipping that keyboard, fags. Hyper Mode: The same as regular mode. JUGGERNAUTS: This special class of ship is as dangerous and bejeweled as it is vulnerable and horrifically expensive. CHAOTIC PALADIN JUGGERNAUT Zsenijeim Team: Histrionic HP: 200 Attack: ? Defense: ? Charisma: 20 Genius: 18 Special Abilities: - Chaotic Attack: Zseni's attacks are apparently random and have chaotic effects. Some of them include: * Zsenicology: this psionic blast attack has a chance to instakill or spnak "mentally unstable" ships. They have a random chance to be piercing or penetrating on normal ships; however, if Zsenicology does not result in at least one fatality, Zseni's charisma is drained proportional to the damage caused until the next Lunar Rebirth. * Eldritch Errata: beams of pure obscure useless information obsfucate the entire battlefield and ships with low genius may be instakilled or lose several turns in the murk. * Gravitas Attack: these law- or morality-based ramming-a-point-down-your-throat attacks do more damage for consecutive Gravitas Attacks, although the damage from a single odd one is spurious. * Science Fact: While dangerously plausible, ships with high genius randomly reflect these attacks, which can rebound on Zseni as critical hits. * Gender Cloud: Ships attacking Zseni must successfully save vs. obsfucation during this attack or get driven into a debate about gender and sex, which will result in, at best, their short and merciful death. - Chaotic Defense: There is absolutely no telling what Zseni will be vulnerable to at the time of attack. Successful hits on Zseni are randomly critical, whether from peashooters or Archcannons, and (less successfully) randomly ignored. - Fast Regeneration: Zseni recovers quickly from non-critical hits and will win any battle that descends into passive-aggressive attrition. - Lunar Rebirth: A successful string of critical attacks will kill Zseni, who will run away and cry for about a month before returning under a temporary Sulky cloak. - Charismatic Presence: Zseni's presence in a fight will raise the attack ratings of both co-aligned and counter-aligned ships by random values; if Zseni is forcibly driven from the battlefield, counter-aligned ships will piss and moan at the Histrionic player to unban Zseni. Hyper Mode: Zseni gains Granny Porn Blitz. Since only BDR and Senor Barborito are vulnerable to this attack, Zseni relies on her considerable arsenal of regular attacks. HOLLYWOOD NAME-DROPPING JUGGERNAUT I Need Clarification Team: Hilarious HP: 350 Attack: 18 Defense: 10 Charisma: 17 Genius: 16 Special Abilities: - Reluctant Alliance: Counter-aligned ships grudgingly respect INC; co-aligned ships are slow to come to his aid. - Phaser Weenie: Not actually interested in anything, at all, INC primarily skates over a battle, lacing everyone with cheap shots, before gliding back into the night. - Real Life Girlfriend: INC has a real life girlfriend, so attacks on him in-game are commonly ignored. Especially attacks from people who don't have or can't keep girlfriends. - Gaming Career: INC gets a set amount of upgrades for each per-player/per-hour time unit that passes in the game. Seriously gay fanboy gaming dorks consider him an Archcannon. - Beautiful People: INC will readily turn discussions into chats about the famous people he has seen or gone to school with. Ships attacking INC must save vs. genius to keep from falling into his thrall. Ships in INC's thrall automatically attack BDR. Hyper Mode: INC enjoys L.A. while you sit at home, playing Master Of Supremacy 8. You sad little person. DESTROYERS: More like "homewreckers", less like "battleships." These ships aren't afraid to make a lot of noise. SKIRMISH DESTROYER Bill Dungsroman Team: Histrionic HP: 500 Attack: 15 Defense: 0 Charisma: 13 Genius: 14 Special Abilities: - Overdeveloped Fight-Or-Flight: BDR goes into Hyper Mode as soon as he is attacked. - Sucker: BDR has no defense at all, and compensates by taking forever to shut up - driving away all but the most ravenous or brainless attackers. - Po-Faced Angler: BDR can switch the topic of any conversation to himself, with a chance to Disgust players with higher Genius than him. Disgusted ships are forced to retreat out of firing range. - All-Seeing Eye: BDR flawlessly parries all attacks from Mysterios and ATORs, since he's always checking the IP logs to see who posted what. - Poison Pen: BDR never runs out of ammunition and can re-use bullets without thinking he's degrading himself at all. - Hyperaggressive: BDR will attack anything that moves within his firing range. Hyper Mode: BDR gains Forever Scrolling, a text blitz attack that muddies the waters of any discussion beyond recognition and causes all participants to lose a turn for each turn they continue to attack him. TANK DESTROYER Worm Team: Sulky HP: 400 Attack: 0 Defense: 20 Charisma: 9 Genius: 9 Special Abilities: - Damage Soak: Worm absorbs the first 20 attacks against him in a given battle. - Immortal: When Worm's HP is reduced to 0, he starts posting in another battle, where his HP is somehow 400 again and everyone is just supposed to forget how badly he got whipped in the last fight or something. Hyper Mode: Worm's charisma jumps 7 points and he's just too cute to hit. SYMBIONT DESTROYER Jhoh Cable Team: Sulky HP: 200 Attack: 20 Defense: 20 Charisma: ? Genius: ? Special Abilities: - Null-Dimensional Collision Box: While appearing to be a large, slow, and vulnerable ship, attacks on Jhoh miss him completely and hit Creexul. - Pulpit Thump: Jhoh shits out a lot of Little Green Footballs cut-n-paste, then laughs at anyone who responds (at all.) He can invoke Archcannon Creexul to assist in Pulpit Thump. Hyper Mode: Jhoh disappears in a cloud of squid ink; Archcannon Creexul takes over the fight. ROGUE SQUADRON FIGHTER ACES: This collective of second-stringers, like Casual Observer, bombMexico, motherfuckerfoodeater, bink, and Souffle of Pain, are ready to step in and fill the power vacuum left by the departure or death of a regular! Hopefully soon... They are only dangerous en masse. SPECIAL SHIPS: SPACE TRADER Ice Cream Jonesy: as the only supply shipper in the game universe, ICJ wins no matter who else loses. The strong and soothing bonds of commerce quiet many of space's troubled waters. And look out for his occasional piercing and funny attacks! This kitten has claws! GEMINI FIGHTERS Fullofkittens and laudablepuss: almost indistiguishable, experienced players can determine which of these two is which by remembering that Fullofkittens makes the occasional adroit point, whereas laudablepuss is the loveable idiot of the two. ART AIRJET K.Thor Jensen: This fame-kissed fruitloop has the inheritable - possibly even infectious - Hipster Scum trait, which doubles his attack strength in battles against ships with lower charisma, and halves it in battles against ships with higher genius. ENTROPY STEW Entropy Stew: Possibly one of Zseni's stray attacks. Semi-alive, like a virus. THE MYSTERIO EMPIRE: this hive-mind of anonytools travels in enormous mists of non-identity. As single fighters they are weak, and their only power is cloaking; however, rumors that all of them might be controlled by a single evil central brain are persistent and convincing... |
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