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Okay, here's the sign up thread for the next journey to the DARK SECTOR

I'm going to assume you lot can see all the characters clearly to pick.

Mizal and Malk, having already survived the first time around, already have their characters (Abbot and Cook). Sent also has picked Grib.

Peng and Corgi have also expressed their desire to play, but until they actually pick someone, it's first come first serve for the picks. Which all means there's four spots left.

Team Alpha (Sentry Drone)

Lt. Abbot - Mizal (Combat Protocol)

Lt. Cook - Malk (Auto Cortex)

K-100 - Thara (Enhanced Reflexes) (Carrying the Life Support Module)

Team Delta (Surgical Drone)

Lt. Grib - Sent (Augmented Healing)

Lt. Xaree - Cel (Advanced Targeting 2.0)

Lt. Parvon - Peng (Advanced Targeting)

Team Gamma (Replication Drone)

Lt. Taloch - Corgi (Weak Point Analysis)

Lt. Voki - Type (Drone Commander)

Lt. Gorn - Killa (Neural Override)

After picking the character, there's a list of cyber implants to pick as well. Again Mizal and Malk are going to just have the ones they had from the first game

Cyber implants

1. Combat Protocol - Once per round of close combat can reroll your crew die and choose which result to apply

2. Auto Cortex - Once per chapter, when not in combat, you may reroll your crew die applying only the second result

3. Neural Override - Whenever you roll a double outside combat, you can change it to any single and apply that result instead

4. Weak Point Analysis - Once per round of close combat, when you roll a double you may choose to apply any single instead

5. Enhanced Reflexes - Whenever you roll one or more hit dice, you may reroll each of them once, applying only the second result

6. Advanced Targeting - Once per round of ranged combat you can reroll one ammo die and apply only the second result

7. Drone Commander - Once per combat, after taking an activate drone action, if you use the basic action for it, you don't have to recharge it.

8. Augmented Healing - When performing a take cover action, you can restore 1 HP

9. Advanced Targeting v2.0 - Once per round of ranged combat, you can reroll any number of ammo dice, applying only the second results.

Each team also gets a drone. Whoever picks the last member slot for Delta or Gamma picks the drone for their team. (Except Team Alpha which gets whatever drone is left)

All drones have a basic function of healing 1 hp, but they also have an advanced function as well. These drones are a bit experimental though so using the advanced function can result in a malfunction (Which is typically losing 1 hp)

Surgical Drone - Can heal more than the usual amount and even remove mutations (If you have any)

Sentry Drone - Can provide more firepower during combat (Ranged only)

Replication Drone - Can replicate weapons and gear that has been previously lost (In the discard pile)

Finally Team Alpha starts with the Life Support Module which allows a one time transfer of hp from one or more members to another. (The benefits of winning the first time around) They can decide who is going to lug it around.

That should do it for the picking of characters and equipment. I can re-address rules and explain more in other posts in this thread.

What's a take cover action? I still think I want the healing augment, since health is always at such a premium in these games.

Take cover is basically just staying out of the fight and waiting a turn. You don't get targeted by the enemy in return fire/attacks. Obviously you can't take cover if you're by yourself though.

I'd like to join. I request Voki, and the cyber implant of Drone Commander.

Alright. I'll change yours to Drone Commander since you did post it first

I hate you.

Shit. Sent stole the healing one. I wanted a passive healing perk! I'll take enhanced reflexes. Also K-100. 

I'll take Xaree and the Enhanced Reflexes implant..

Too late, dumbo! Hahahahaha!

Lol. Glad to see you're playing.

I somehow ended up with another 'combat' or 'tank' like character. Because I take it reflexes would be good for combat, right? This time I'm not gonna be sticking my neck out for others so much and constantly entering combat! Because I remember being betrayed and dying!

Yes, I am seething.

I guess I'll take drone commander then.

I am not only crippled, but also blind. I'm taking advanced targeting v2.0.

All of them look miserable, but I suppose that I will choose Parvon.

Oh, I guess I'll take advanced targeting as well.

Oh no. Peng is with us.

Sent, we're fucked.

Blame Lar.

Surgical drone for Delta, please.

I concur, thereby outvoting Cel.

...I literally suggested it in the first place...

Sounds like hindsight to me, captain salty.

Since you have the healing, I suggest you as the frontman.

He'll be a frontman that routinely dips out of the fight to recover while you're getting beat on.

Since I am, above all, a fair and just individual, here's the link to how this game is played:

Not that it'll help much, since End has kind of adapted this, and he's rolling all the dice anyway, but it may help you make some better decisions or something idk.

Also, by council vote it has been decided that these are the mass effect equivalents:

Abbot - Hackett

Cook - Male Sheppard

K100 - Legion

Grib - Wrex

Xaree - Liara

Parvon - Garrus

Taloch - Shadow broker

Voki - Javik

Gorn - Mordin

K-100 turned out to be EDI rather than Legion

Alright Corgi's told me he wants to be the Shadow Broker so I'll mark that for him and he can pick which ever cyber implant next.

Then we'll just need one more and that person can pick which drone Gamma gets.

Fuck yeah, I still look like the average crackhead. Weak point analysis please. What is this doubles and singles rolls

Some die results have 2 symbols on them instead of just one.

Thara is the robot and thus should have to carry our shit 

Alright, she'll be carrying the life support machine at the start.

Alright, just need one more person to pick Gorn and one of the two drones for Gamma team.

I'll try Gorn, and we'll pick up the replication drone since the chance to malfunction probably means we don't want to use it frequently anyway.

Also why are some of the character bars half white?

Some of the aliens have a split double die. (All of them on Gamma team)

I guess I might explain that a little bit since it's come up in questions from a few people.

The Doubles

Okay, so everyone has a crew die and on this die, you have various symbols

Might - fist

Cunning - eye

Wisdom - asterisk (Or maybe it's a mind spark, I dunno)

Generally you roll this die for combat and various tests. Get the right symbols and you succeed, etc.

There's at least one die face that will have a double. This double works a bit differently depending on the races.

The humans (Alpha team) for example will just have a straight up double, which is a result with two of the same symbol. (Two might, two wisdom, two cunning)

There are some aliens (Delta team) that have mixed doubles which is a result with two different symbols. (One might and one cunning, one might and one wisdom, or one wisdom and one cunning)

Then there are some aliens (Gamma team) that have split doubles which also has a result with two different symbols, however they only count ONE of those symbols twice. So if your dude rolls a result with a might and a wisdom, they could either count the might twice or the wisdom twice, they don't get both.

Finally K-100 being an android is rolling a different die than everyone. K-100 has a 12 sided die and actually has triple results available on their die. (All 3 symbols). K-100 however also has more of that Galactic Alliance experimental hardware, so it also has a few blank results, meaning it "freezes up" and has to spend that turn rebooting again.

All die also have some results with a shield outline around the symbol (or symbols). This means you managed to block an attack in addition to whatever else. Doubles (or triples) typically always have the shield outline around them.

Of course this is more for your info, since I'll be rolling all the dice and optimizing results, along with taking anything you mention before resolving an encounter into consideration for actions.

As I've said before, the game is lethal enough without me deliberately trying to kill you. Lol.

Okay, that's everyone. I'll just start writing up the intro for all this stuff and post it when I can. Hopefully at least by tomorrow morning some time or if I'm really ambitious sometime tonight.

And of course when I thought I had some free time, I suddenly don't.

Still have time do this of course, it's just I was going to post the prologue sometime this morning, but work shit came up. Might either be much later tonight or tomorrow now. (Most of it is finished though)

The game is on!

Yes, and I actually watched that entire video Celicni posted. 

This should be super fun.

Oh damn, I gotta be fast with posts. I get back from work and the first action is already done lol.

Just a reminder that unfortunately EndMaster's mortal shell has to do real life things like work every once in awhile, so sometimes you might have to wait for an update.

This is more of a reminder for Gamma Team so they don't completely destroy each other mind controlling each other or throwing each other into toxic waste.

Or well they CAN still continue to do that, but when I come back, I'm just going to take whatever situation and start weaving it into the story as I see fit and may not benefit anyone. (Well except me, since I'm trying to kill all you lot off anyway)

I'll be getting to everyone's next encounters sometime later today/tonight.

Sent and Corgi haven't chimed in yet for their teams, though Voki already said she was taking point for Gamma. There seems to be a disagreement about who is taking point for Delta though.

The "upgrade" to Thara's character has made me realize we can all go full faggy RP on future games if we want, and have our own characters with our own art and background lore. As long as we're still picking an existing skill template from one of the default bunch.

Seethe.

Abbot really is going to retire after Team Alpha wins this, and the rest of you will be dead. We'll all need new characters.

Nah.

Ya'll niggas health is dwindling.

Probably should of broke free and ran instead of attack the guy back.

This aged poorly. Ngl I was rooting for Team Alpha especially at the end there. Who knows? Maybe with all those time rifts opening up in the dark sector there's an alternate universe where Abbot and Cook survived 

They were doomed as soon as K-100 left the team.

In every reality, they die. It's sad, but it's a bitter truth that has to be accepted.

I see we think alike, I just suggested that in the Alpha thread. I'd been unsure how a third game could play out with the same characters as I mentioned in here, but there was so much time and space weirdness going on elsewhere on the ship it could explain away a lot. I'm honestly surprised Abbot and Cook never ran into any of that given how many the others were drawing.

I mean the RP trend was going on since the Dark Castle games, so that's nothing new.

Unless you mean just adding a new picture.

This is the first time we did a repeat playthrough though, and we just happened to have the two survivors from last time used by the same players, and then a bunch of new alien characters.

Any future thread will by default have to discard any deaths from this one and reboot the characters, give them new personalities, new players etc. But now I've just realized how easy it would be to have people design their own characters. As long as they're mechanically a match to the prepackaged ones, we can do anything with the flavor stuff like names, portraits, and background lore.

I think it's a mod exclusive thing.

Killa should make himself a big-titty anime kitty girl.

That's an alien of some type.

Sent seems to be having fun already doing what he's doing.

Just gonna post a dumb meme kind of describing the current goings-on with the teams...

Grib is off-panel taking a shit.

Don't ruin the wholesomeness of our team >:(

Title change to "THARA'S REVENGE" imo.

Revenge?

You think I'm going to fight you 9HP flame thrower, mech having bastards? I was just doing a classic Thara bit to liven up the thread a bit with some lighthearted humor.

Malfunctioning woman-bots just can't control their emotions, we understand. Poor K-100 can't even make up her mind whether she's angry, afraid, or aroused in any given encounter.

Kind of a neat detail I just noticed with the crew art, but everyone with weirdly placed eyes or a weird skull shape has a helmet to match. Seeing as they're all in the same pose just holding them, it would've been easy to make them all generic.

In fact I can tell Parvon's skull crest must be flexible, with the amount of detail the others have they would've accomodated him if it couldn't be easily flattened to one side.

Did a quick count to fact check the oft repeated claim that Delta got screwed over drawing the most fights.

And...yep. I'll give this one to the whiners. Unless I misidentified something while skimming, it goes:

DELTA: 9
ALPHA: 7
GAMMA: 5

But that's just the game. It's a roguelike, it's not really intended to be fair.

Gamma really had the strongest early start, skipping an encounter entirely with the vents meaning they were guaranteed to reach the ship before anyone else if even one of them survived, and only having one combat encounter in the detention area before finding the medical hologram in the heart of the station.

And then..well, Corgi happened, lol.

I'll just add that we also died before the last fight. Which means our total number would have been 10, aka twice the number of gamma.

With his absurd luck, I was expecting Corgi to win. Even had a drawing of a dog on space crack prepared. 

Oh, we still want to see this.

Lol.

Well this was fun.

One of the harder things to write "in story" were the Mutation cards. Generally when you're picking up items, one of those can be a mutation which has the various effects. Since none of you were actually here to physically pick up the cards yourself, I had to have some way of getting one of you to pick up some item in story, then I also had to make it make some sort of logical sense (Though some of those I know were awkward)

The mutations are sort of like the plague cards in Dark Castle, though less record keeping and there actually can be a benefit to them.

Alright, well I think Dark Sector is still easier than Dark Castle if only because the ranged weapons and simple tactics such as flanking can even up the odds. Plus someone has survived at least both times in the play through of Dark Sector, everyone died in Dark Castle.

Anyway, time to unpin the threads, and archive the links.

I have also gotten my achievement. 

Thanks!