Forums of the Megaverse®

In the Shemarrian Nation Sourcebook (written for 109 PA), only 54 Shemarrians roam Mexico (p84, Shemarrian Nation Sourcebook). A pretty solid number. Of those 54, 18 are models from before 105 PA, indicating that while they are destroyed over time, an individual unit sticks around for a while before being put out of commission. It also states Archie only sends replacements by the dozens from time to time.

As a matter of a fact, if you add up the numbers reported in the Shemarrian Sourcebook of the various tribes, you still only see about 6000 total Shemarrians roaming around in North America (p23, Shemarrian Nation Soucebook) and only a few hundred extra total around the world (p84, Shemarrian Nation Sourcebook).

The more vague blurb in Sourcebook 1 Revised under Disbursement of Monst-Rex A-002 with Riders (updated to 107 PA) indicates only about 3000 of these warriors exist (p102, SB1:R). That seems to support the above numbers we read about in 109 PA and makes a believable rate of population increase.

However, where I am getting confused is with the Official material in Rifter 62 (pp 28-19, Rifter 62) "Shemarrians - Enemy Number Six". In there apparently *thousands* flooding into Mexico and attacking vampires. This material was supposed to be in the Vampire Sourcebook and is official material and most articles written for the 108 PA time frame, the Deathspike article in the Vampire Sourcebook in 105 PA (p112, Vampire Sourcebook).

So, between 105-108 PA, Archie could afford to send thousands of Shemarrians to Mexico, but by 109 PA only 54 are left in Mexico? Are these thousands of Shemarrians in Mexico pulled back to the Eastern Coast to form the "Nation" in 109 PA, leaving only 54 remaining? Was Deathspike successful in repelling a Shemarrian invasion of Vampire Mexico?

Thoughts? Am I missing something? Is there a larger story that was simply not written down? Or am I just reading too much into lack of Palladium continuity again?

Door Number 3.
Really... didn't you learn from the Seige of Tolkeen, continuity & numbers given of distributed assets varry from sentence to sentence in PBooks.
The answer to this conundrum is... IT is the GM's call WHAT is "true" and what is not-true.
As it has been.
as it always will be.
...NEXT

DhAkael wrote:Door Number 3.
Really... didn't you learn from the Seige of Tolkeen, continuity & numbers given of distributed assets varry from sentence to sentence in PBooks.
The answer to this conundrum is... IT is the GM's call WHAT is "true" and what is not-true.
As it has been.
as it always will be.
...NEXT

Cop out

Archie can make more Shemarrians whenever he wants.

I would say the shamarian invasion was repullsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Greyaxe wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Likely salvaged or destoryed. the only real sensible options. Now who salvaged them that is anyones guess.

Rimmerdal wrote:

Greyaxe wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Likely salvaged or destoryed. the only real sensible options. Now who salvaged them that is anyones guess.

Some guy in a sombrero.

Given their self destructs probably not a lot left to salvage. Seems like at least as per the new vampire book archie has been doing supply drops and supply caches for vampire hunters find/utilize and making some good anti vampire titan armor stuff available for pretty much cost. Robots really are not the most ideal way to hunt vampires so helping trained vampire hunters with equipment and logistical support is a pretty reasonable way of helping out. Also after the fall of tolkeen the splugorth became much more active on the east coast so I think some of the "losses" are probably more repositioning of assets to the threat closer to his home.

kaid wrote:Given their self destructs probably not a lot left to salvage. Seems like at least as per the new vampire book archie has been doing supply drops and supply caches for vampire hunters find/utilize and making some good anti vampire titan armor stuff available for pretty much cost. Robots really are not the most ideal way to hunt vampires so helping trained vampire hunters with equipment and logistical support is a pretty reasonable way of helping out. Also after the fall of tolkeen the splugorth became much more active on the east coast so I think some of the "losses" are probably more repositioning of assets to the threat closer to his home.

You'd think Lazzlo would have a pack of hunters or three out there. That and if the Society of Sages is still out there...they'd be hunting them too. but have to save some reserves for later.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:

Greyaxe wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Likely salvaged or destoryed. the only real sensible options. Now who salvaged them that is anyones guess.

Some guy in a sombrero.

That dog that was in the Taco bell comercials probably has a rail gun too..LOL!

Rimmerdal wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:

Greyaxe wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Likely salvaged or destoryed. the only real sensible options. Now who salvaged them that is anyones guess.

Some guy in a sombrero.

That dog that was in the Taco bell comercials probably has a rail gun too..LOL!

he's referring to a bit of art from the old WB1, which had a dude in a sombrero, sitting against a wall with his head down, and a Shemarrian Railgun propped on the wall next to him. the art had really confused fans back then since the railguns were supposed ot be almost impossible to get.. yet here is some average Jose packing one.

Greyaxe wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Machete happened.

glitterboy2098 wrote:[quote="Rimmerdal
That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Likely salvaged or destoryed. the only real sensible options. Now who salvaged them that is anyones guess.[/quote]

Some guy in a sombrero.[/quote]

That dog that was in the Taco bell comercials probably has a rail gun too..LOL![/quote]
he's referring to a bit of art from the old WB1, which had a dude in a sombrero, sitting against a wall with his head down, and a Shemarrian Railgun propped on the wall next to him. the art had really confused fans back then since the railguns were supposed ot be almost impossible to get.. yet here is some average Jose packing one.[/quote]
If it confused you maybe you thaght thaght to much on it. Nothing said he was some average jose could be just the artist thaght it looked cool or maybe he was something special.

glitterboy2098 wrote:the art had really confused fans back then since the railguns were supposed ot be almost impossible to get.. yet here is some average Jose packing one.

It wasn't THAT tough for adventurers to capture one; all you had to do was to separate the bot from the gun before you destroyed the bot.
Blow its arms off, for example.

But yeah, I always loved that one of the most badass guns in the game was just sitting there in the hands of... some random guy!
He was either really lucky, or really tough!

Must have been easy to find, there were thousands of em dow there at that time.

As many as Archie decides to send at any given time.....

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:

Greyaxe wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I would say the shamarian invasion was repulsed handily and destroyed until only 53 remnants remain. Shemarians are very, very good, but well organized vampires can kick the crap out of any purely technological army given time to work with. their turning to mist is the ultimate hit and run tactic, and they have home turf advantage.

That is the only answer that makes sense. A vampire can rip a robot to pieces given the right direction and time. SO that does beg the question, what happens to all those rail guns?

Likely salvaged or destoryed. the only real sensible options. Now who salvaged them that is anyones guess.

Some guy in a sombrero.

LOL at least one....

Greyaxe wrote: he's referring to a bit of art from the old WB1, which had a dude in a sombrero, sitting against a wall with his head down, and a Shemarrian Railgun propped on the wall next to him. the art had really confused fans back then since the railguns were supposed ot be almost impossible to get.. yet here is some average Jose packing one.

When he said Sombrero I thought of the old Taco bell comercials. though looking at the gun it is smaller than expected...guess its true. its not how big your railgun is..

wait, why is there an assumption that robots would make bad vampire hunters?

- they don't need to sleep. they can be awake at night to defend themselves without sacrificing their daylight hours when vampires are the most vulnerable.
- they are immune to the vampire's mind control.
- they are inherently an MDC construct, and do not ever stop being one. in contrast, if a human ever removes their armour they become very vulnerable to surprise attacks.
- they are tireless. not just that they don't need to sleep, they also don't need to rest. for example, they don't need to take breaks when they're digging up the ground they saw a vampire choose for their resting place for the day.
- the vampire cannot use their non-biological nature as a weapon vs robots. for example, a vampire could drop a cloud of tear gas at it's feet, potentially causing major difficulties to biological opponents, but this will not bother a robot. neither will poisonous gas or even hard vacuum.
- robots inherently have sufficient strength and frequently have built-in weapons that enable them to deal with any guardians the vampires might use effectively.

and, in the case of the shemarrians at least, they don't suffer the typical drawbacks of robots (which basically boil down to being really bad at making decisions they weren't specifically programmed to make)

if ARCHIE stopped sending shemarrians, it likely wasn't a matter of "they're not able to do the job well". more likely, he encountered some major setback (probably due to lack of information) and, being ARCHIE, lost his confidence to keep on trying. ARCHIE has a lot of qualities, but dealing well with failure is not one of them.

in all likelihood, making all of those weapons available to vampire hunters is probably an intelligence-gathering operation more than anything else. he's probably petrified himself with doubt that if he acts again, he may risk exposing himself before he's ready and fail in whatever he's trying to do anyways (maybe he got some innacurate information, say, that cold iron was extra-effective against vampires, and used that instead of silver for that big fight people were proposing happened... or maybe he just vastly underestimated the number of vampires he would face and wants to get a better idea of numbers... who knows?)

Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

And all that memory aside it doesn't mean he's got human creativity. Hagan is part of Archie's wilder more out of the box ideas, including strat and tactics that human inspired instead of rehashed. Books state that much and hagan does poke fun at Archie for his struggle to understand humans. Given that if he was so good at it they'd be gone or he'd be doing it now if he didn't have atlantis to worry about.

Whole point is AI thinks by elimination of ideas one at time a person makes logic leaps. Plus the lack of magic. Not saying robots are worthless at it. just less successful then us flesh and blood types.

Rimmerdal wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

And all that memory aside it doesn't mean he's got human creativity. Hagan is part of Archie's wilder more out of the box ideas, including strat and tactics that human inspired instead of rehashed. Books state that much and hagan does poke fun at Archie for his struggle to understand humans. Given that if he was so good at it they'd be gone or he'd be doing it now if he didn't have atlantis to worry about.

Whole point is AI thinks by elimination of ideas one at time a person makes logic leaps. Plus the lack of magic. Not saying robots are worthless at it. just less successful then us flesh and blood types.

I imagine Skynet and its Terminators might disagree with that.

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

But his bots are still AI, so the point still as validity.

Rimmerdal wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

And all that memory aside it doesn't mean he's got human creativity. Hagan is part of Archie's wilder more out of the box ideas, including strat and tactics that human inspired instead of rehashed. Books state that much and hagan does poke fun at Archie for his struggle to understand humans. Given that if he was so good at it they'd be gone or he'd be doing it now if he didn't have atlantis to worry about.

Whole point is AI thinks by elimination of ideas one at time a person makes logic leaps. Plus the lack of magic. Not saying robots are worthless at it. just less successful then us flesh and blood types.

Given the weirdness of vampire tactics I would not want a force comprised of only robots BUT robots working with people are a good force multiplier kinda like how Reid is using necromancers. The biggest issue dealing with vampires is the fact that they blend into the local population so well. Hard to send a kill bot in to root them out without them either doing nothing or just killing everything in town to try to root out the vamps. Out in an open fight robots would do fine it is just that they are not ideal without some assistance in clearing cities/towns of vamps.

Kagashi wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

But his bots are still AI, so the point still as validity.

That doesn't make the point valid, since the point was that AI are basically worthless against undead like vampires for no other reason than 'well they're sentient and got creativity'. Given AI generally don't have that much trouble dealing with living sentient beings who're just as creativity they aren't going to have any more problems with vampires just because vampires can be creative. Sentient things often have patterns and predictable things that they do that can be predicted and dealt with by a decent AI (and the average AI is fairly decent by the time of Rifts) so if one's going to make it out that an AI/robot is ineffective against vampires they need more than 'AI can't deal with creativity' because that's not valid.

Nightmask wrote:

Kagashi wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

But his bots are still AI, so the point still as validity.

That doesn't make the point valid, since the point was that AI are basically worthless against undead like vampires for no other reason than 'well they're sentient and got creativity'. Given AI generally don't have that much trouble dealing with living sentient beings who're just as creativity they aren't going to have any more problems with vampires just because vampires can be creative. Sentient things often have patterns and predictable things that they do that can be predicted and dealt with by a decent AI (and the average AI is fairly decent by the time of Rifts) so if one's going to make it out that an AI/robot is ineffective against vampires they need more than 'AI can't deal with creativity' because that's not valid.

not just that, but the shemarrians in particular are neural intelligences, or at least some/many of them, are they not? they're not restricted like regular AI. they actually can be creative themselves, adapt to unexpected situations, learn new skills, etc, without any sort of software updates.

Shark_Force wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Kagashi wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:Robots lack that free form creativity Undead use. Even the best AI Will follow a pattern..no matter how good. Archie has had Hagan helping him learn so thats why he's a lot more then your usual AI. other reasons too. but that is the key one I see. that and no magic.

ARCHIE-3 isn't really an AI, it stopped being one a long time ago and even then it was a super-advanced neural intelligence that was given access to the memories and experiences of dozens if not hundreds of people. Hagan had absolutely nothing to do with it being more than the standard AI.

You also don't have to have creativity in order to kill something that does, if that was a requirement to be effective then AI would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to be effective against anything that was sentient which clearly isn't the case.

But his bots are still AI, so the point still as validity.

That doesn't make the point valid, since the point was that AI are basically worthless against undead like vampires for no other reason than 'well they're sentient and got creativity'. Given AI generally don't have that much trouble dealing with living sentient beings who're just as creativity they aren't going to have any more problems with vampires just because vampires can be creative. Sentient things often have patterns and predictable things that they do that can be predicted and dealt with by a decent AI (and the average AI is fairly decent by the time of Rifts) so if one's going to make it out that an AI/robot is ineffective against vampires they need more than 'AI can't deal with creativity' because that's not valid.

not just that, but the shemarrians in particular are neural intelligences, or at least some/many of them, are they not? they're not restricted like regular AI. they actually can be creative themselves, adapt to unexpected situations, learn new skills, etc, without any sort of software updates.

I'm not sure as I haven't read the material on them in a while but I believe so, in order to better pull off their masquerade as living beings.

Nightmask wrote:I'm not sure as I haven't read the material on them in a while but I believe so, in order to better pull off their masquerade as living beings.

Most are just advanced AI's. However, a number of them are neural intelligences. IIRC it's something like 20% of all basic models and 100% of all War Goddess's are NI's.

Shark_Force wrote:wait, why is there an assumption that robots would make bad vampire hunters?

I never made that assumption actually. given proper weapons they could make highly competent vampire hunters

- they don't need to sleep. they can be awake at night to defend themselves without sacrificing their daylight hours when vampires are the most vulnerable.
- they are immune to the vampire's mind control.
- they are inherently an MDC construct, and do not ever stop being one. in contrast, if a human ever removes their armour they become very vulnerable to surprise attacks.
- they are tireless. not just that they don't need to sleep, they also don't need to rest. for example, they don't need to take breaks when they're digging up the ground they saw a vampire choose for their resting place for the day.
- the vampire cannot use their non-biological nature as a weapon vs robots. for example, a vampire could drop a cloud of tear gas at it's feet, potentially causing major difficulties to biological opponents, but this will not bother a robot. neither will poisonous gas or even hard vacuum.
- robots inherently have sufficient strength and frequently have built-in weapons that enable them to deal with any guardians the vampires might use effectively.

and, in the case of the shemarrians at least, they don't suffer the typical drawbacks of robots (which basically boil down to being really bad at making decisions they weren't specifically programmed to make)

It's just that all those advantages won't save them. This isn't the boarderlands, where vampires need to hide their nature. This is the vampire kingdoms, where amoung other things

1: they have millions, count them, millions, of humans who work FOR them, willingly and openly. meaning they will be able to engage in open feild battles during the day. it's not like the vampires have to fight their own battles here. they have regular armies with which to engage with. The shemarians, with ARCHIES technology, likely outclass them handily, but what's it to the vampirs? they see humans as just cattle and cannon fodder anyway. a hundred human lives for one shemarian is more than a fair trade to their eyes.
2: as I said, hit and run. wild vampires, run by a compnetent secondary vampire who stays out of the fight, are the ultimate hit and run tacticians. yes, a shemarian can remain awake and alert indefintately. and that won't MATTER. they will appear out of the blue, ready or not, strike until you strike back, then vanish without a trace. and will keep doing that, and only that, until you are destroyed. there isn't any weapon in the shemarians arsenal that will counter this short of running away where they have some kind of home turf advantage.

of course, sinse the vampires goal is only to make them run away, that's mission accomplished all by itself.

Don't get me wrong. a few thousand shemarians will do some terrific damage when they show up--likely strike down vampirs by the hundreds. it's just a war of attrition they won't win, in fact, after the first week, things will go bad and bad fast.

Given the weirdness of vampire tactics I would not want a force comprised of only robots BUT robots working with people are a good force multiplier kinda like how Reid is using necromancers. The biggest issue dealing with vampires is the fact that they blend into the local population so well. Hard to send a kill bot in to root them out without them either doing nothing or just killing everything in town to try to root out the vamps. Out in an open fight robots would do fine it is just that they are not ideal without some assistance in clearing cities/towns of vamps.

Unless they have normal human body tempature detecting vampires is as simple as installing thermal vision. there are probably other tells that a sophisticated system could be instructed like
If blink rate >30 times a minute 32% vampire

Weirdness of tactics is an opinion. A well conceived programming hierarchy can more than compensate. Look at any fight you've had in a video game. The CPU isn't freaked out when you use the powers defined by the game why would a CPU with a body? I could see weirdness of tactics if ARCHIE was invading SKRAYPERS where anyone can have any ability but vampires have a pretty consistent set of abilities.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:2: as I said, hit and run. wild vampires, run by a compnetent secondary vampire who stays out of the fight, are the ultimate hit and run tacticians. yes, a shemarian can remain awake and alert indefintately. and that won't MATTER. they will appear out of the blue, ready or not, strike until you strike back, then vanish without a trace. and will keep doing that, and only that, until you are destroyed. there isn't any weapon in the shemarians arsenal that will counter this short of running away where they have some kind of home turf advantage.

of course, sinse the vampires goal is only to make them run away, that's mission accomplished all by itself.

Don't get me wrong. a few thousand shemarians will do some terrific damage when they show up--likely strike down vampirs by the hundreds. it's just a war of attrition they won't win, in fact, after the first week, things will go bad and bad fast.

not sure i can agree with that. if ARCHIE manufactures some silver shemarrian rail gun rounds, it's actually quite likely to go the other way around. pretty sure the shemarrians are faster. pretty sure they outrange the vampires. spot one at long range, shoot it with 2-3 rail guns, and it's not going to be running or hitting. even if they do manage an ambush, the shemarrian rail gun is, once again, a very strong choice for making sure that striking until they strike back means strike until you start getting killed.

now, that in particular is fairly specific to the shemarrians, but the simple fact is that vampires are an enemy that can be potentially one-shotted by anyone with a pointy stick. they do *great* in situations where nobody manages to stake them, but are vulnerable to being staked. i mean, really, there are tons of weapon systems that would make it inadvisable to attack robots and expect to get away (for example, give them a large supply of SDC fragmentation grenades with silver or wood shards to spray everywhere). by their very nature (heavy, strong, tireless, don't get bruises from recoil) robots are very well suited to use the kinds of weapons that mean if you are doing a hit and run, you do the running *before* they start fighting back.

and with robots, it's relatively easy to give them fairly respectable bonuses that make them likely to fight back sooner rather than later; bonus attacks, extra sensors that increase their awareness and reduce the likelihood of surprise, inability to become inattentive due to boredom, etc.

now, in the case of ARCHIE in particular, i'm okay to agree that he probably went in with poor information, got his butt handed to him by 10,000 vampires when he was only expecting groups of maybe 20-30 at most or something, and is now convinced that he cannot afford to risk another attempt until he knows everything about vampires and their kingdoms (which, as i said, would certainly explain why he's providing equipment to vampire hunters). but in general, robots (with appropriate information) should do quite well at combating robots.

You can't hurt them with silver rounds as long as they are in mist form. They have no reason to come out of mist form until they are already within striking distance. There will be no spotting them from a few miles away because the vampires will merely stay in mist form until they are within hand to hand range of the shamarians.

Oh, and remember those armies I was talking about? several thousand engage them to distract them WHILE the vampirs are going around misted.

Vampires have home turf advantage, superior numbers, AND local infastructure and support.

Yes, the shemarians will kill hundreds, likely thousands of wild vampires and thousands more mortal troops.

and the vampire masters are going to kick back sipping blood in wine cups and call it a victory easially acheived. it will be. it's called "Acceptable losses"

the vampires can make more wild vampires faster than archie can mass-produce shemarians.

Shark_Force wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:2: as I said, hit and run. wild vampires, run by a compnetent secondary vampire who stays out of the fight, are the ultimate hit and run tacticians. yes, a shemarian can remain awake and alert indefintately. and that won't MATTER. they will appear out of the blue, ready or not, strike until you strike back, then vanish without a trace. and will keep doing that, and only that, until you are destroyed. there isn't any weapon in the shemarians arsenal that will counter this short of running away where they have some kind of home turf advantage.

of course, sinse the vampires goal is only to make them run away, that's mission accomplished all by itself.

Don't get me wrong. a few thousand shemarians will do some terrific damage when they show up--likely strike down vampirs by the hundreds. it's just a war of attrition they won't win, in fact, after the first week, things will go bad and bad fast.

not sure i can agree with that. if ARCHIE manufactures some silver shemarrian rail gun rounds, it's actually quite likely to go the other way around. pretty sure the shemarrians are faster. pretty sure they outrange the vampires. spot one at long range, shoot it with 2-3 rail guns, and it's not going to be running or hitting. even if they do manage an ambush, the shemarrian rail gun is, once again, a very strong choice for making sure that striking until they strike back means strike until you start getting killed.

now, that in particular is fairly specific to the shemarrians, but the simple fact is that vampires are an enemy that can be potentially one-shotted by anyone with a pointy stick. they do *great* in situations where nobody manages to stake them, but are vulnerable to being staked. i mean, really, there are tons of weapon systems that would make it inadvisable to attack robots and expect to get away (for example, give them a large supply of SDC fragmentation grenades with silver or wood shards to spray everywhere). by their very nature (heavy, strong, tireless, don't get bruises from recoil) robots are very well suited to use the kinds of weapons that mean if you are doing a hit and run, you do the running *before* they start fighting back.

and with robots, it's relatively easy to give them fairly respectable bonuses that make them likely to fight back sooner rather than later; bonus attacks, extra sensors that increase their awareness and reduce the likelihood of surprise, inability to become inattentive due to boredom, etc.

now, in the case of ARCHIE in particular, i'm okay to agree that he probably went in with poor information, got his butt handed to him by 10,000 vampires when he was only expecting groups of maybe 20-30 at most or something, and is now convinced that he cannot afford to risk another attempt until he knows everything about vampires and their kingdoms (which, as i said, would certainly explain why he's providing equipment to vampire hunters). but in general, robots (with appropriate information) should do quite well at combating robots.

add on to that the ability to co-operater with locals then have a real chance. Logic will win most battles but sometimes you need to think different..and Archie as well as some his creations is slower to do that..look at the some of the good designs he made...they came from Hagan.

On Hagan..you'd think he would have told archie about vampires or would advise the great lord of toasters.

Rimmerdal wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:2: as I said, hit and run. wild vampires, run by a compnetent secondary vampire who stays out of the fight, are the ultimate hit and run tacticians. yes, a shemarian can remain awake and alert indefintately. and that won't MATTER. they will appear out of the blue, ready or not, strike until you strike back, then vanish without a trace. and will keep doing that, and only that, until you are destroyed. there isn't any weapon in the shemarians arsenal that will counter this short of running away where they have some kind of home turf advantage.

of course, sinse the vampires goal is only to make them run away, that's mission accomplished all by itself.

Don't get me wrong. a few thousand shemarians will do some terrific damage when they show up--likely strike down vampirs by the hundreds. it's just a war of attrition they won't win, in fact, after the first week, things will go bad and bad fast.

not sure i can agree with that. if ARCHIE manufactures some silver shemarrian rail gun rounds, it's actually quite likely to go the other way around. pretty sure the shemarrians are faster. pretty sure they outrange the vampires. spot one at long range, shoot it with 2-3 rail guns, and it's not going to be running or hitting. even if they do manage an ambush, the shemarrian rail gun is, once again, a very strong choice for making sure that striking until they strike back means strike until you start getting killed.

now, that in particular is fairly specific to the shemarrians, but the simple fact is that vampires are an enemy that can be potentially one-shotted by anyone with a pointy stick. they do *great* in situations where nobody manages to stake them, but are vulnerable to being staked. i mean, really, there are tons of weapon systems that would make it inadvisable to attack robots and expect to get away (for example, give them a large supply of SDC fragmentation grenades with silver or wood shards to spray everywhere). by their very nature (heavy, strong, tireless, don't get bruises from recoil) robots are very well suited to use the kinds of weapons that mean if you are doing a hit and run, you do the running *before* they start fighting back.

and with robots, it's relatively easy to give them fairly respectable bonuses that make them likely to fight back sooner rather than later; bonus attacks, extra sensors that increase their awareness and reduce the likelihood of surprise, inability to become inattentive due to boredom, etc.

now, in the case of ARCHIE in particular, i'm okay to agree that he probably went in with poor information, got his butt handed to him by 10,000 vampires when he was only expecting groups of maybe 20-30 at most or something, and is now convinced that he cannot afford to risk another attempt until he knows everything about vampires and their kingdoms (which, as i said, would certainly explain why he's providing equipment to vampire hunters). but in general, robots (with appropriate information) should do quite well at combating robots.

add on to that the ability to co-operater with locals then have a real chance. Logic will win most battles but sometimes you need to think different..and Archie as well as some his creations is slower to do that..look at the some of the good designs he made...they came from Hagan.

On Hagan..you'd think he would have told archie about vampires or would advise the great lord of toasters.

Why do you think Hagan would know anything about vampires? Or that ARCHIE-3's vast intelligence network couldn't simply ask around and get all the necessary info on how to deal with them in a few weeks at most? Gathering intelligence on a target is something he's long been known for.

Nightmask wrote:

Rimmerdal wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:2: as I said, hit and run. wild vampires, run by a compnetent secondary vampire who stays out of the fight, are the ultimate hit and run tacticians. yes, a shemarian can remain awake and alert indefintately. and that won't MATTER. they will appear out of the blue, ready or not, strike until you strike back, then vanish without a trace. and will keep doing that, and only that, until you are destroyed. there isn't any weapon in the shemarians arsenal that will counter this short of running away where they have some kind of home turf advantage.

of course, sinse the vampires goal is only to make them run away, that's mission accomplished all by itself.

Don't get me wrong. a few thousand shemarians will do some terrific damage when they show up--likely strike down vampirs by the hundreds. it's just a war of attrition they won't win, in fact, after the first week, things will go bad and bad fast.

not sure i can agree with that. if ARCHIE manufactures some silver shemarrian rail gun rounds, it's actually quite likely to go the other way around. pretty sure the shemarrians are faster. pretty sure they outrange the vampires. spot one at long range, shoot it with 2-3 rail guns, and it's not going to be running or hitting. even if they do manage an ambush, the shemarrian rail gun is, once again, a very strong choice for making sure that striking until they strike back means strike until you start getting killed.

now, that in particular is fairly specific to the shemarrians, but the simple fact is that vampires are an enemy that can be potentially one-shotted by anyone with a pointy stick. they do *great* in situations where nobody manages to stake them, but are vulnerable to being staked. i mean, really, there are tons of weapon systems that would make it inadvisable to attack robots and expect to get away (for example, give them a large supply of SDC fragmentation grenades with silver or wood shards to spray everywhere). by their very nature (heavy, strong, tireless, don't get bruises from recoil) robots are very well suited to use the kinds of weapons that mean if you are doing a hit and run, you do the running *before* they start fighting back.

and with robots, it's relatively easy to give them fairly respectable bonuses that make them likely to fight back sooner rather than later; bonus attacks, extra sensors that increase their awareness and reduce the likelihood of surprise, inability to become inattentive due to boredom, etc.

now, in the case of ARCHIE in particular, i'm okay to agree that he probably went in with poor information, got his butt handed to him by 10,000 vampires when he was only expecting groups of maybe 20-30 at most or something, and is now convinced that he cannot afford to risk another attempt until he knows everything about vampires and their kingdoms (which, as i said, would certainly explain why he's providing equipment to vampire hunters). but in general, robots (with appropriate information) should do quite well at combating robots.

add on to that the ability to co-operater with locals then have a real chance. Logic will win most battles but sometimes you need to think different..and Archie as well as some his creations is slower to do that..look at the some of the good designs he made...they came from Hagan.

On Hagan..you'd think he would have told archie about vampires or would advise the great lord of toasters.

Why do you think Hagan would know anything about vampires? Or that ARCHIE-3's vast intelligence network couldn't simply ask around and get all the necessary info on how to deal with them in a few weeks at most? Gathering intelligence on a target is something he's long been known for.

Most folks in NA know something and he was an adventurer before he ran into Archie. Like I said KNOWING something and knowing HOW to use that knowledge effectively make huge difference. Especially when dealing with vamps.

The other advantage ARCHIE has is that he can carpet bomb areas with SDC wood and Silver attacks that will clear the area of vampires and leave his forces completely unscathed.

As for mist form vampires get bored faster than robots. Robots have no problem waiting to stake the thing or following it as it tries to get away. The vampire is either going to starve to regular death or get exposed to the sun.

And it's only a matter of time until ARCHIE stumbles across an old copy of Megaman and makes robots with giant fans in them or creates a Dyson tribe of vaccuum bots.

nilgravity wrote:The other advantage ARCHIE has is that he can carpet bomb areas with SDC wood and Silver attacks that will clear the area of vampires and leave his forces completely unscathed.

As for mist form vampires get bored faster than robots. Robots have no problem waiting to stake the thing or following it as it tries to get away. The vampire is either going to starve to regular death or get exposed to the sun.

And it's only a matter of time until ARCHIE stumbles across an old copy of Megaman and makes robots with giant fans in them or creates a Dyson tribe of vaccuum bots.

You just suggested a new use for the EShemar Cyclopede Warmount! Squeee!!!!!

taalismn wrote:

nilgravity wrote:The other advantage ARCHIE has is that he can carpet bomb areas with SDC wood and Silver attacks that will clear the area of vampires and leave his forces completely unscathed.

As for mist form vampires get bored faster than robots. Robots have no problem waiting to stake the thing or following it as it tries to get away. The vampire is either going to starve to regular death or get exposed to the sun.

And it's only a matter of time until ARCHIE stumbles across an old copy of Megaman and makes robots with giant fans in them or creates a Dyson tribe of vaccuum bots.

You just suggested a new use for the EShemar Cyclopede Warmount! Squeee!!!!!

Archie + copy megaman = trouble...though if he did a metal man and equipped all his bots with those blades. That'd be cool.

and the look on Hagan's face alone would make it worth the experience...his response would be even funnier.

nilgravity wrote:The other advantage ARCHIE has is that he can carpet bomb areas with SDC wood and Silver attacks that will clear the area of vampires and leave his forces completely unscathed.

As for mist form vampires get bored faster than robots. Robots have no problem waiting to stake the thing or following it as it tries to get away. The vampire is either going to starve to regular death or get exposed to the sun.

Oh I don't know, I think vampires can stay in mist form long enough to survive carpet bombing silver fragmentary rounds.

I also don't know why you assume the vampire kingdoms military dosn't include an air force to carpet bomb the shemarians with regular bombs that leave the vampires unscathed. heck, just WW 2 artillery with rifts style explosive shells would do the job.