[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

The difference between a pool and a tank analogy is that, when you use a pump to pull water out of a tank, when you use several in fact, the amount of water in the pool makes no difference to the output's pressure, until it's almost dry.

OK ... now how does that help you?

Let me put it this way, I said there's probably no way the TSAB can tell the difference between output for spellcasting and output to Arf.

Maybe that's true. I slept at 3AM last night, can you remind me how that is supposed to mean they'll choose systems that choke Arf?

If Arf isn't in the Bureau, why take the trouble to reengineer the limiter system?

Despite diagrams showing how a configuration with parallel pipelines, or even a serial configuration where the branch off to familiar is before the limiter has important advantages to its survivability and stability, why do you still assume the limiter systems' original layout is to have the least stable system.

If familiars are rare (as you postulated previously, and is probably true based on evidence so far) then the base layout of the limiter will assume no familiar-like demands. Given this, they are going to have to make some re-engineering choices anyway for Fate's limiter. In fact, in a parallel pipeline configuration, they won't have to modify to just clamp Fate (one pipe), while to clamp Fate and Arf requires modification! Even in a serial pipeline configuration, it is not at all clear why clamping Fate and Arf would be the easier clamp.

And you also never showed how there's a difference between using energy for spells and to familiars.

Umm, difference number 1. As far as can be told, you can disengage most magics on will or if you lose consciousness. Apparently, cutting the link to a familiar ain't so easy.

Difference number 2. Your familiar can execute magics independently. This is not true of most spells.

Besides, if Arf does tap more of Fate's mana pool than Fate herself, what happens when Fate needs that energy after her limiter release?

In a parallel configuration, all Fate will lose is some endurance. In a serial configuration, there will be some problems (again, why the logical system is a parallel one...), but whether she has a limiter or not or where it is placed won't be relevant to the question - it is just a more fundamental problem of plumbing.

In any case, the very premise of a familiar is that any capability loss the mage suffers through making and feeding one is compensated by the gain of an additional maneuver and fire element. In short, Fate should have a net advantage with Arf at her side. If she blows that advantage (say by sending Arf with the Forwards, thus getting into deeper crap in Ep21), that's a use that's probably not anticipated by the creator of the familiar process (or maybe they will say the use shows her priorities and in that sense is correct).

The only deployment I utterly disagreee with was making Erio and Caro stand the midnight shift. They're what, 10? They were at HQ at just past 7pm on Sept 11 and were scheduled to be there until the conference ended at 6 or 7pm on Sept 12, that's 24 hours on duty! They're in the millitary and all, but they're still just 10! At the least, they should have let them sleep and called them in just before the conference starts.
I've already said I don't mind seperating the captains from their devices, there's some rationale for it (however paperthin and farfetched it may seem to you) but this was nuts!

Well, I guess we have to be impressed about one thing - that they all stayed awake. We've been told that Subaru can last without sleep, but even Teana should be feeling the sleep deprivation.

To be fair though, we don't see them through a lot of the guard process. Maybe they took naps in turns and we didn't see them.

Refer to episodes 7 and 23, Zafira has to stand on the ground to fire those white blades of his out of the ground. It looks like he can cover a hundred meters or so, but after that, he would need to catch up.

Yes, Zafira thus uses firing on the short halt. Handle it 100m at a time, or whatever he can do.

In that case, there's no really no chance they can last long enough to escort everyone to the field, is there?

Not necessarily. For one thing, there's the defense area - the frontage of the building may be too large, but perhaps not a phalanx. For another, they are moving, while the building is still, and that complicates the tactical engagement problem for the drones (yes, nominally, computing intercepts should be first nature for a computer-driven drone, but if it is they'll be getting more hits with their fire...)

No. 1 won't get Arf groundside on Mid. RF6 was set up as a special unit under GF juristriction, that's why they had access to GF personnel. No other GF unit would be able to get HQ personnel like RF6.

Wouldn't that be HQ's perogative? Surely, at least occasionally people move from HQ to GF and vice versa. In fact, RF6 is a shuffle of HQ, Air Force and Navy personnel to GF jurisdiction!

In no. 2, you can't guarantee any (HQ) unit that gets Arf will be willing to let her go. Especially if no one in RF6 has any say in her deployment.I think that pretty much precludes 3 and 4 from happening.

That's what the connections are for, to get this kind of cooperation and understanding that can't be put on the page. If these guys are really friends, why are you so sure they won't be letting Arf go?

They only have one connection with the GF, the 108th. It looks like they were at GFHQ that day, so Arf isn't going to be at RF6 during the attack anyway.

Well, then, if that's the case, then they'll have Arf at the GF. Seeing they'll probably know this kind of thing in advance, OK, so Arf's there, which means that:
1) The correlation of forces improves in the HQ, which will at least be something.
OR
2) The option now exists to send someone ELSE back (or even two) and maintain the same approximate combat potential at GF.

Doesn't that just make your statement even more removed from reality? Given the amount of resistance they put up, it can hardly be considered "unprepared".

Fighting back hard is not the judge of whether a position is prepared.

Preparation of a position means to arrange for things that will improve your survivability or your ability to kill enemies. Such as barricades, trenches, barbed wire, mines (OK, I guess the last one won't be TSAB but you get the point) ... etc.

A guy who gets shot 10 seconds in from a stray shot while fighting from a well-fortified position still had a prepared position - he was just unlucky. A person who fights for 2 hours but has to use shields constantly because there is nothing else to protect her from fire is still fighting from an unprepared position. If that person had a prepared position, she might have lasted 4 hours because she can save a lot of effort from not having to make shields.

Not if it doesn't change the outcome.

By that standard, Griffiths calling for help was meaningless, since it didn't change the outcome.

Out in the open with no cover for the people you're supposed to be protecting is a not defensible area. Ask any soldier, would they rather have a roof over their heads when an attack comes, and would they prefer that roof to be made of the strongest material possible? As for the drones getting around them, perhaps this was the sequence of events:
1. Shamal and Zafira smack the drones that get too close to the building. They are successful for a while.
2. Otto shows up and starts bombarding them.
3. Shamal shifts her priority to blocking her attacks. Zafira shifts to covering her from drones.
4. Drones take the opportunity to get around them into the base. But Shamal and Zafira have no choice but to hope that Vice can intercept those that get to close to the personnel.

Actually, the scene with the drones inside the building feeding on the helicopter was before Otto actually started attacking.

Can you honestly say that glass-heavy roof of RF6 (and we can SEE how thin the roof's 'crete was from the wreckage) is "the strongest material possible?"

In general, soldiers would prefer a roof on their heads - if it is actually cover-grade strong, like a bunker. That's why I'm forking them off to a position that can be turned into a defensive position 500m (according to you) away. Hiding under a roof that does not have strength is actually a potential hazard since the durn thing might collapse on the first blow and squash you. It is kind of like hiding behind concealment - it gives a false sense of security and if it is the only (or one of a few) concealment it basically tells the enemy exactly where to shoot up.

Imagine this. You lead an infantry squad. Your choices are reduced now to lying on the grass dispersed or trying to hide out in a (the only) small but very visible hut. The enemy has RPOs and RPGs that will turn the hut into cinders with a few hits, and they probably won't have compunctions doing so to be safe. Sure you won't consider trying to lie in the grass and hoping the enemy doesn't spot you until you can get the jump on them?

For one, she's the only person of that size in the base. Erio and Caro are slightly bigger, but they're at GFHQ. For another, even if they (Otto and Deed) don't see her right away, they'll assume she's among the people gather outside the base/heading for the field and intercept them. Think about, if RF6 is abandoning their base, they have to take Vivio along with everyone else. If Otto and Deed can't figure this out on their own, I'm sure Quattro or Uno will point it out to them.

Otto and Deed, as commanders, have a lot of area to cover.

They can't do it while moving quickly. It won't be long before Otto and Deed join in and they can't move at all.

If Otto and Deed join in, the result of the battle suggests they'll have won that one.

It's never just for show. They always hope (at least) they can hold out until help arrives, however long it is. Besides, they called for help when there were only two hostiles. Shamal and Zafira might have been enough to hold them off (it's not like RF6 knew they couldn't at this time) then the drone swarm appeared too. Where did they come from? Probably summoned by Lutecia.

What? Now according to you, they might have started off thinking they'll have to fight off only TWO enemies? Surely, even if they can't clear the path of countless Gadgets, they can have Shamal and Zafira hold those two enemies off while they run and disperse into the field so even if Shamal and Zafira lose eventually they'll be well hidden (surely, they are thinking they'll put up a better fight than "GAOOOOWW ... urk, urk")?

You can't do that. In any sensible base design, the training field is a modest distance from the rest of the base's buildings. It has to be, because you don't want stray gunfire and explosions damaging your buildings and the noise disturbing everyone in the base. With TSAB mage units, there's still the danger of stray bolts tagging buildings and people outside the field and mages smacking into the buildings while flying around.

That makes sense, but what happened to "non-physically destructive" magirounds at times like this - the building itself can be shielded off by surrounding it with walls during training? Surrounding the base itself is woods so it isn't that bad if the mages crash into it. And as you said, "Compromises".

Those friends have access to the records for a unit that's nominally under GF's control at this time. And Reguis did order an inquiry after ep12, so there's the opportunity to grab info on RF6's defensive arrangements.

Including security arrangement that are changed regularly? One also has to remember that RF6 is not exactly cooperating with Regius, so they'll show him as little as possible to get by. And after that whole farce with Zest Regius probably doesn't think of Jail as a friend either (which is why I figure they reconnoitered GF's defenses rather than just getting some snuck-out plans).

But you can't be absolutely sure he didn't, now can you? Why wouldn't he try to find out enough to render RF6 completely defenseless in the middle of an attack?

Because apparently he didn't in the real attack? Besides, if before he got away with not reconnoitering, and this time he had to, well then there is a measurable improvement in the base's defensibility, no?

It's a lot easier to have 1 big generator to power a network of projectors. Having one generator per projector could actually cost way more than just one big one. When the generator goes, all the projectors still die.

A possibility, but not a certainty.

The level of pseudomatter generation you're proposing mean non-mages should have access to this kind of thing. Here's another example, don't like the design of your furniture? Download a new one and execute.

And has one compared the cost of the field generator versus just using ordinary furniture? Besides, do you want to have more things that you don't really own, but only a "licence for use?"

Besides, since you argue that they don't have pseudomatter but they can generate holograms and forcefields that match it, arguably the same argument goes for your idea. Furniture made of your system would have most of the same advantages.

Not with at least two of them being tasked to deal with the drone swarms.

Well, that still leaves it a 3:3, which makes it very difficult for one to disengage to go inside. Also, remember if they rush inside to support their weaker groundlocked brethen, and then the Ace comes in, there's a chance the groundlocked brethen, out of their league, would be rolled over.