SBURB Mechanical Discussion

Well I'm an Heir of Blood so clearly two of my coplayers need to be Time and Space. Since I'm a Derse dreamer, let's assume my ecto-sister would be Thief of Time. Let's put the others in as Knight of Space (to piss off people on Tumblr who say this combo isn't allowed), and then something conciliatory like Sylph of Hope or something.

My first order of business would be my land quest for sure. I'd probably spend a lot of time on Derse once I woke up, to be honest. It seems more exciting over there. Once I finished with my land, I'd probably head over to the Land of Whatever and Frogs to help get that done, or just run around on Skaia killing Dersite battle-bishops and whatnot. I honestly wouldn't try to God Tier right away but just play the game normally because I'm assuming my coplayers (whoever they are) would be the ones breaking the shit out of everything.

I personally don't think any specific set of Titles is going to be better than any other. The Game will always tailor its quests and difficulty to the players.

But as for specific actions: What if I just destroyed the veil? Without the veil, there wouldn't be a reckoning so A) Our home planet wouldn't be wiped out and B) the Black King's going to have a much tougher time destroying the battlefield, giving us players more time to sort our shit out. The 'how' might be a little difficult, but with how much grist players seem to be pulling in by the late game, fabricating a buttload of explosives and/or building a Big Ass Dreadnought seems fairly doable. Bonus points if I can start off by targeting the ones the Dersites use to make their army while saving the Prospitan ones for last, giving the Prospitan army a decent advantage in the war and thus giving us even more time.
Once we go God Tier and have spare time, it'd be trivial for us to just manually deliver the baby versions of ourselves manually instead of relying on messy meteor delivery.

Also, I too would abuse the shit out of Time Travel. Except, I really don't think that 'abuse' is even the right term for what I have in mind. Frequently using a teleporter to get where you want isn't called abuse, so neither should using Time Travel for similar utility purposes. I'd save the complicated Multiple-self tangos to the Time Player, but there's a whole range of other, simpler Time Travel things anyone can do that would help immensely. For example, have the future you from near the end of the game turn up and give you all of the Alchemiter codes that you (will) know. Or really, any information at all would help.

For the early game, establishing transport is a priority to me. Getting up to at least the second gate quickly and Alchemising Jetpacks or something similar so that we can get around the session without taking up too much of our limited time. I would also consider the possibility of teaming up on the 'personal' quests. Sburb is supposedly a team game after all, so can the Denizens really fault us if we go around as a group and many-hands-makes-light-work each planet one by one? But this would all be dependent on what each planet's problem actually is. Some of them might have some sort of ongoing deterioration problem that means the player must stay there to continually work on it rather than join in on the roving work gang that leaves planets unattended for long periods of time.

Also, Salty, it's "Quote Unquote" not "Quote on Quote", the point of the idiom is that you're reading out loud the quote marks around the contentional term.

The B2 Kids didn't do much simply because there was wasn't much to do. The skeletal enemies gave pitiful amounts of loot and weren't threatening enough to make their elimination a necessity. The actual quests of their planets seemed to be inert or defunct* and the dungeons of their planet, while providing loot, were very dangerous, usually for environmental reasons rather than packed with enemies, so even when they succeed they wouldn't get combat experience and probably very little echeladder progress.

Besides that, it's possible the B1 Session was actually tailored/scaled to fit within the 24 hour time period i.e. there may have effectively been XP/Loot boosts so that the kids stood a chance in such an unusual situation.

*I say that, but I don't think anyone actually even tried their quests. They seemed to just assume it based on the vague 'quest' of waiting for the B1 kids and that their Denizens were asleep.

Destroying the Veil would probably just cause a doomed timeline-either from the simple act of accidentally killing your past selves when they're holed away in god knows what meteor or through the destruction of other necessary equipment like frog ruins and the player meteors. It'd be kind of like killing all the NPCs in a normal RPG, but instead of essential NPCs being invincible they cause a game over when killed.

Technically, in Morrowind, it was entirely possible to kill essential characters before you were finished with them. If you did, you would get a message saying something like "fate has been unravelled" or whatever, and the main story would just stop. You could never progress any further, unless you either used console commands to advance things, or you reloaded before that action and then continued on normally. But it didn't "game over." I imagine Sburb would work the same way, a "safe" doomed timeline that just sort of peters out over time, much like Morrowind where when you run out of side-missions there's nothing left to do and you either stop playing or try again.

Clearing the Veil in a safe manner is still theoretically possible. I don't think it would be possible to stop all meteors, nor even particularly desirable to do so. But a group that was sufficiently well-prepared could theoretically save their homeworld from destruction. I mean, consider the level of technological development on Alternia. They had legit space dreadnoughts and the like, and we know that (a) the right kind of fetch modus can hold things of nearly any size, and (b) the Veil probably has sufficient industrial capacity to create at least the Derse/Prospit warships. Taking out 50% to 75% of the Veil, particularly the largest and nastiest meteors, effectively neuters the threat of the Black King.

Alternatively, one could attempt to "hack" the defense portals so they point to other places/times--you'd still accomplish the goal of protecting the planet (have all the nasty meteors fall before there's any life on it), but without having to go to all that effort of blowing things up.

On the flipside, I do think it's possible that Sburb has built-in defenses against such shenanigans. Perhaps it is possible to accidentally set the Reckoning off early--before the White King has fallen in battle--if too many meteors are removed. A great way to turn a potentially-successful session into sudden, total failure. And "hacking" any of the deep elements of Sburb's function sounds risky at best--I'm sure the Horrorterrors would not allow such chicanery to go unpunished unless it were a special dispensation.

Well, it's been a while since I've weighed in on anything homestuck-related, but this has certainly tickled my fancy, so here ya go.

Firstly, My own classpect. Honestly, though I've planned many a fanvanteure, I've never had a real grasp on what my classpect would be, partially because of the differing meanings that they can bring. If we use the old-school "You get what's bad for you, but will help you grow" idea that was floating around back in the day (though I'm not sure if it's still thought to apply;) my class would certainly be something passive, and likely have something to do with both waiting and putting my fate in the hands of others. I'm something of a control freak, and I feel terrible any time I can't help others, or require help from people with something that I was\am confident I could\can do on my own. I am also prone to a bit of hyper-activeness, so being forced to wait and see how things turn out is the antithesis of comfort for me. The Aspect is a bit harder to describe, as there are a multitude of angles the game could take in choosing it. The game could focus on the idea if self-respect and the internalizing of my self worth, and the fact that I can improve the things that I often fail to improve because of how hard I am on myself. The game could also focus on how hard it is for me to finish projects, see all of my failed RPs\Fanventures, and as such how much I can get side-tracked by new ideas, or on the flipside could focus on how much I can tunnel-vision on one prospect for short periods of time, getting utterly distracted by what's in-front of me. The Aspect could also have something to do with, as with the class, how obsessed I am with helping people (often to my own detriment.) Over-all though, no matter what combination the game chose for me, The most important part of winning the game is coming to terms with the choice, with learning how to deal with the new powers and their implications, and learning that it's not always a bad thing to get help when you need it.

Going with my penchant for helping people, my priority would likely be helping my co-players with their land quests over my own. Though it may change as I come to understand the implications of my classpect, I would definitely make an effort to make my way onto the planet of the player who was currently, or would soon be, struggling the most. Though I would certainly try to prepare myself first, once equipped I would focus on helping that person to get through their trials, and do my best to comfort them as best as possible. This would likely lead to that player finishing their landquest first, unless they are the last player and our first player is particularly quick, and that would mean that said person would have a serious power lead over the rest of us, and would be able to focus their efforts on the most crucial next step. I would also try to do these things somewhat logically, helping the person with the largest possible power cap\the person who would do the best at doing a specific end-game goal, as long as none of the players where at a serious disadvantage that I would want to help with. I would likely finish my landquest late, if not be the last person to do so, as such, and would likely fall behind quickly in classpect power, though I would do my best to keep ahead through prodigious use of alchemization. This would also lead to me avoiding rushing to God-Tier, though I would not be adverse to helping my co-players who wish to do so. I also wouldn't spend much time on my moon more than likely, unless it lead to some kind of advantage through courting important characters, as helping my co-players would likely be higher on my to-do list than making idle chit-chat with carapachians.

Finally, my end-game plan would come down to being a bit... cheeky. Nothing in the "black must win" paradigm means that all of the white forces on skaia must die, and I would probably attempt to use this to my advantage. Collect various chess pieces, maybe create some ectobiological copies, and otherwise make an attempt to get a small force atleast going before the final battle. If bosses can use Adds, so can we. This would also go with adding effective, yet contradictory items to the kernal sprites whenever I and my co-players can. If we give the king flight, we throw in something with torn wings to try to remove it. If we throw in trogdor, try to add something either without a mouth, or without a right arm to try to get rid of the giant punchy arm. ect. ect., ad infinem. Also, never underestimate the power of a late-game alchemy section, as we will be able to create the items that would exploit whatever weaknesses do arise in the Black King.

Over-all, I probably would find Sburb throwing my feet out from under me, simply because that's what I would do if I wanted to force growth in someone, especially myself. After-all, the best way to learn a language is to be thrown into a country where said language is the primary spoken word, and I think the same principle applies to character growth as well. One simple change in my world-view could throw all of my plans, and likely what little emotional stability I have, out the window and force me to adapt. but, hey, humans are pretty good at adapting, far as I can tell .

Was abput to do that actually, will repost the relevant pieces in the morning .

Many of the players had substantial powers without the use of Fraymotifs. If anything, the Fraymotif may just be an implement to aid powers either by placebo or as a conductor of some sort much like the wands Rose and Eridan used to channel their powers.