The Laser Grid

Melenky · The Laser Grid

Any comments about the Laser grid whether they be good/bad/indifferent put them here.

Freeman

As a UKGC equivalent to the SG-1's Iris it's a good mechanism.
HOwever UKGC hasn't been 100% efficient in implementing it yet IMHO.

Seeing as Nigel (I think / assume) has gone to the trouble of phys-repping it, we should certainly keep it - we just need to perect the mechanic for using it.

sm0keyb

If someone from admin wants to lift my explanation of the 4AM cockup from "Tripwire operated devices" & put it here it would clear up what happened.

Problems from previous events devolved around not being able to tell it was on, hence the blue flashing lights.

I could suggest a protocol of turning it on if a nasty comes thro' to prevent it's backup following.

It should be in the OOC briefing, but as I had my head buried in finishing the whole gate, I don't know if there was a briefing.

cat

Its an nice vis-rep and I know nigwl what to do more to it.

Fenric

The original design was that the lazer grid sent out a radio signal, and for each team that went out to have a CDI (Certain Death Indicator) which indicated if the lazer grid was on or off before they tried to come through.

A couple of people at the last event mentioned people being "chipped" so that the lazer grid wouldn't active on them?

sm0keyb

It's a big shame that the flat battery/half a gate/laser grid business at 4am impacted so heavily on the players, but the actual failure is par for the course for developing something like this. I'll be looking at audible warnings & low battery indicators, as well as lower current bulbs to reduce the load on the battery. There's no reason for a similar failure to happen again.

Fenric

But that wouldn't have solved the 4am issue - which was that the people on the DHD didn't know that people were evac'ing quickly and left it up since either they didn't hear the radioing in, or people were on different channels (which was an issue on Friday night)

The lazer grid ""prop"" as it were is great though Smile

Olivia Chase

The prop is great.

The fact that it 'killed' me is definately not. In previous events there was an SOP in place that had members of SGUK injected with a chip which meant safe passage, but that only lasted six months, Olivia was gone for a year and Grace never had one.

You can have all the SOP's in the world but in the heat of battle, things will be forgotten. The three hostages were the first through at the instruction of the rescue party (we were told to run through) and even if the chip system was in place, only Keser would have survived.

All players have brainfarts from time to time, especially at 4am, and although I am confident the character would know what to do, players won't. It's simple human nature, and not their fault either.

I would propose the grid is either -

Replaced entirely with a bloody big gun pointed at the gate (cheaper IC and portable if we have to evac again) or

The grid is amended so it acts like a ZAT. That way any errors are not lethal, but the legions of Jaffa still get to fall over, even for a few seconds which should be enough time to get those bullets flying!

Friday night nearly killed the game stone dead. I really don't want to see this happening again. Even the Predator didn't like it!

Make it non-lethal, or not have it at all. That's my two penneth.

Symonds

Personally I think that the laser grid is a poor idea as it stops anything coming thru the gate to interact with us. Meaning that if things are slow we can't just suddenly have stuff come thru to deal with etc etc.
Bless the evil alien that blew it up...long may his work reign.

As for the Blue lights they rocked lets keep those they look cool as coolness.

Fenric

Actually Skippy has a good point there - the ability to "hide" behind the gate while being good IC is actually bad OOC since it stops plot (in the form of combat, or the form of diplomatic) encounters getting through.... and to be honest since we're currently sliding from world to world... erm.. wrong tv show... it's actually got a sense of danger back into it when an activation happens rather than with the "hit the lazer grid and hope" button.

comedyofhate

I agree with symonds.

More base (when you get one back Wink

plot is always good. As generally that is where the majority of the players are the majority of the time.

Fenric

And if i had one complaint about the last event (and it's a low level one) is that we could have done with a lot more science/diplomacy and less murdering (note I'm saying this OOC, IC I'd be voting for more murdering)

Grace

My two penny worth is thus.

Make the bad laser grid go away.

There are 2 reasons for this.

The first is entirely selfish. After freezing my tits off waiting to be saved from a fate worse than death at auction, continuing to freeze them off trying not to break my ankle while I am hustled around a car park in the dark in shitty slave girl sandals, I was caught by a helpful soldier and physically thrown through the gate first, along with Olivia Chase. When I came through the other end, I got the lovely instruction that I was dead. Not just dead, but dead for a really stupid reason. Any lethal device awaiting me on the other end of that gate would have killed me. I hadn't been part of the team before, I had no chip. It was a stupid, unworthwhile death. I'm all for realism but at some point we do have to take a mental step back and remember that all the players there paid at least £50 entry fee, plus travel, plus time off, plus kit costs, to be there.

The second is more to do with that very fine and fuzzy line between IC REALISM and OOC PRACTICALITY. I'm happy for people to want to play things with as much realism as they want to inject into it. Bring on the phys reps! Bring on the demotions! Bring on a chain of command! But, and this is a BIG but, we have to remember that it is a game and at some points it would be nicer to make things easier for those around us to facilitate. This is why, for example, Major Masters wasn't placed under arrest when he showed up having lost his memory and was in fact allowed to have not only his gun back but also his ammunition.

The case in point: The Laser Grid.

What does it do, apart from kill our own players when it doesn't get turned off?

It kills everything else that comes through the gate. IC, yes, we could slaughter hundreds of innocent civilians. Religious pilgrimage to the world we're on, anyone? A thin layer of jam on the gate. IC we could end up in a shit load of trouble over it.

OOC what else does it do? It keeps encounters from coming through the gate. Good thing? Bad thing? I know that I heard people say at least twice that they couldn't put themselves forward for going offworld because the base needed to be guarded. I know that there may be civilian staff who don't actually want to go offworld an awful lot. What is wrong with allowing encounters to arrive at base camp? They are not all 'kill it quick'. They would allow the players on base to have something else to do besides sit around and make sure the beer doesn't escape from the coolbox or stop those pesky Jawas stealing the sand.

My vote is therefore a resounding NO to the laser grid. In the real world, yes, we would want one. In the game world, we are not only literally crippling ourselves but we are reducing the number and variety of encounters we get. And after all, that is what we pay our £50 for, isn't it??

Freeman

Chip or no chip, that which wiped out the player base at 4am was, as Nigel said, an OOC happening that affected IC.

From an IC standpoint, stopping nasties comming through the gate is a necessity. Laser grids, Iris' and the like work a lot better for this than men with big guns.

Yes, as Lucky also found out, a player cockup can be costly, but for an efficient way of stopping things comming through when we need to what else can you do?

It's also a handy plot device - it breaks? It needs fixing.
Being invaded? nice to have hordes of Jaffa splatting against it without needing to phys rep the troops.

We need to keep it, just make sure we get no more cockups.

Freeman

Oh, as for people on gate guard, we need those whether there's a grid or not.
We just need more if there's no grid.

The Guards are there to:
Activate the grid for incomming wormholes.
Direct procedures for those coming through.
Take out any hostiles that make through while the grid is open.

No grid means more people on gate guard duty, which means less people for off world missions.

Woody

First event first trip Laser grid muck up neally lost my leg. Last event near party whipe out.

However given that look at team wellington engaged retreating under fire follwed through and all neally goes horribly wrong. Also Fear mission saturday night the really bad guards followed us back through.

I think we need to have some mechanism for defence. but maybe SOP is that it is default OFF and requires specific action for turning ON. So retreating under fire last person through sreams for it to be put back up.

However the point about power is also well made on an off world site could we provide enouogh power to operate it?

cat

Paul_Howe

As I understand it, the problem with the lasergrid was an ooc technical error. Leave the laster grid in place.

Freeman

Correct, and 'here here'.

All I need say in defence of keeping the grid is:
38 minutes of Jaffa pouring through an open, ungridded, gate - OUCH!

(Problem, with the zat / shock grid would be 38 minutes of Prison Warders (barely slowed down by Zats) pouring through an open, ungridded, gate.)

If we could get an Iris that'd be GREAT!
(although still have the same insta-death problem that folks here are complaining about)

Melenky

What have people been told by the past organisers about:
1. How the Laser grid is powered/What is it powered by?
2. What are the levels of power that are required to run it?

Can someone with any knowledge of this pass it on to Dave so it can be looked at along with things like pattern buffers and all the other flangy bollocks to do with the gate that was implimented/allowed under the previous administration. Don't think that it matters if stuff is canon or not just send the details about what you've been told/know.

If this has already been done, thank you Smile

Esther

I'd never even heard of a pattern buffer till this event.. sounded very startrek to me.

I've aways disliked it and there have been problems with it before now both IC and OOC..this wasn't the first fuck up involving it.

It was originally brought in by the refs and I didn't like it then but there were less options to discuss such things then. Yes it is similar to the iras BUT we need more on base stuff than the TV program does becouse of the fact that we arn't all SG1 so we dont' go on all the missions.

While I appriciate Nigels time and effort hugely i dont' think the fact we have a phys rep is a good reason to keep the grid..

IC having something that easy to suisude on is never a good thing. Having something that can kill potential friends is not a good thing. At the event the chips came in I only didn't refuse to have one for OOC reasons in reality Keser would never have allowed that to be put in her considering where such tech had come from in the past.

Plus the chips only work if the computer is there surely and even if they did I rather assumed Keser's had been taken out of the log of allowed chips so she to would have died with Olivia and Grace.

OOC the limiting of on base encounters is a major minus ot my mind. Waves of Jaffa are not in any way stopped by that they either land on planet or ring in instead.

The Kibble

the laser grid was there from event 1 I believe.

I have never really liked it as a player and have also objected to it as a character.

1) it adds nothing really cinematic to the game other than a false sense of security.

2) it is an accident waiting to happen IC. If we have chips there is no way to phys rep it.

3) it stops friendleys coming through the gate which stops on base rp.
3b) it doesn't stop hostiles as they can choose to ring device down.

4) I have never had the science explained but my gut reaction is it is very expensive bit of kit as the progam is being audited I would expect us to get more ammo instead of replacement laser grid due to the cost.

5) I really don't see the security argument from a game point of view as that is down to the organisers to know how to pace the event. We have ways we can force a gate closed if we really want to and for the rare long attack through a gate compared to the more often desire to have freindlies come through to me seems like little gain.

also the fact it is an autokill doesn't fit with anything out in the system.

If we keep it then we are waiting on the same accident we had this time happening again with it left on. Even if we change the sop's (which I tried to do at the event)

Yes gate duty can be dull but a set up like last time where we can see the gate lighting up means people can get to it quicker and see what is happening.

Fenric

I agree with Tom's points 2, 3, 4, 5.

I also wish to agree with the fact that seeing the gate light up was a MASSIVE help... beyond MASSIVE to be honest - the amount of times I jumped up when seeing the lights coming on was numerous.

comedyofhate

Richard Tyler

Esther

Didn't say it couldn't exsist just hadn't heard of it. i have stayed away from techie stuff as Keser isn't techie and it's hard enought to play dumb on that subject without readin up on SG tech Smile

Still expect Scotty to come out of the buffer !!!

MajorMasters

The Kibble

yup it would mean changing things not having it but I would like to see an event with out it or more thought put into how it works IC and make sure we all know.

i.e do we have chips or not
is it by default down.

sm0keyb

I am stunned that the Laser Grid has generated so much heat! It's just a prop! The science is dodgy, I know of no way of generating a continuous sheet of laser light down to the molecular level but then, we have wormholes, limitless power from Naquadah, force fields, ascended beings and all sorts of other far fetched stuff, so why worry.

This is the briefing that should have been given before the game:

1) If the flashing blue lights are on the grid is active. It is instantly fatal so don't go thro it. The only exception to this is if it is being worked on OOC & this will be notified.

2) If the blue lights are not flashing, the grid is off, even if it is notionally switched on. If it is switched on and there are no blue lights it is deemed to have failed IC & thus thus not working.

This was the situation in the 4AM return. No one was killed, People were just tired & confused, including me, & I got carried away with the rest on the 'who's alive, how many were in the pattern buffer' stuff, instead of realising what had happened, & as I said before, it's a real shame it impacted so badly on everyone & ruined the mood of the game.

Now there are a number of techie improvements that can be made, which I will work on, to avoid the flat battery associated problems & the OOC need to swap/charge batteries interrupting game flow.

As for the prop itself, it's quite easy to add an "off" switch behind the gate to simulate a GDO for returning teams. It is quite easy to set the protocol to routinely "off" & raise the grid if a gribbly comes thro' to prevent it being reinforced by hordes of minions. If hordes of minions are required it's just as easy for said gribbly to target the laser emitters etc, etc!

It does have a value 'cos a simple tactic that would wipe us out is to ring in an assault force, get us fully engaged dealing with that, then launch a second attack thro' the gate.

How "safe" it is or how much it aids or interrupts game flow is purely a question of how we use it.

However, if the balance of opinion is to can it, I'd like to know before I put more effort into refining it.

Esther

Moridin

From sombody who spent most of the event on gate gard, please belive me when I say that it is useful. Some people who question the need of it need to spend more time guarding the gate in my opinion.
Why is it there? To stop hordes of bad guys from comming through it. Duh.
Does it take anything away from the game? What do you mean? You want unending hordes of Jaffa comming through the gate? We all die, go home early, that would take away from the game.
What happens if a bomb comes through hmmmmmmm? This way it get sliced up good and propper.
You know what, I think this is the snake in your head talking here, and maybe it aint a tokra, maybe its a gould and you want us to let our gard down! Can people please stop dissing our 1st line of defence!
As per cost..........well I dont know how much it is IC, as Kibble says we are having a budget reveiw so...........bla. Can you really put a price on our safety?

Esther

The Kibble

from someone who has played every event and spend a fair time on gate guard I still don't ooc like the laser grid.

I am not a massive fan of it IC as it has been demonstrably unsafe on several occasion. Come from a dodgy source IC and never actually performed to expectations. I am expecting Ic I am going to recommend more ammo over a replacement laser grid when we get back to earth.

But this discussion is meant to be OOC does it add more to the game than it takes away. The General impression I had from the ref's this weekend was that it doesn't add to it.

I think we need to clearly know OOC how it is meant to work IC as well so we can decide if we can represent that.

Also clarifications of if the prop isn't in front of the gate where does the grid actually lie.

The other question we do have to ask as well is if we get rid of it will this effect the on base set up considering how hard it is to get people to be gate guard.

Symonds

"The other question we do have to ask as well is if we get rid of it will this effect the on base set up considering how hard it is to get people to be gate guard."

When we had a rota it got done, I don't see any problem with doing that again.

Laser grid is boring!

Fenric

At the last event - we had no problem getting people to guard the gate - perhaps except at 9am Sunday morning when there were like 4 of us IC and awake - Me, Kibble, Cushing and Doc Gordon.

Paul_Howe

The laser grid is not boring.
The laser grid is...
A: coherent in character
B: Effective if used properly
C: Not dangerous to the PC barring assinine stupidity or out of character cockups that can be easily gotten around.
d: Not an inhibitor to game play. We have a very creative reff team and if they want the base evacuating it will happen anyway.
E) A stimulant for creative reffing.

I say keep it. I would certainly, in character consider it indicitive of crass incompetance should the grid be scrapped.

comedyofhate

Actually it is an inhibitor to introducing and writing talky plots to were the players are staying.

I understand the IC rational for having it on an earth base. Yet the last few events (I cannot say anything about event 5) were not earth based. Essentially it is down to you, if you want more roleplaying plots on base which is essentially were the majority of the players are the majority of the time then off world bases without laser grids should be the way to go.

Fenric

Personally I'd love more diplomatic plots - while my character hates them, I quite like them

Freeman

What the grid does do is give the refs the ability to replicate a relentless assault on the base without using crew.

The Goa'uld (or other gate using enemy) simply sends wave after wave of nasties at the base. The guys on base raise the grid after the first wave has been wasted, teh crew go and have a cuppa while the players / characters sweat as to whether the grid will hold up to the 38 minutes of bug-on-windshield action raining in on their location.
It also illustrates the Bad-Guy(tm)'s dedication to wiping out the players by sustaining such a huge obvious waste of military resources.

Esther

sm0keyb

There was a thread on the old "official" board relating to the grid. Grid is actually a misnomer. I queried right from the start that a grid would simply chop things up into little pieces, so that instead of, say, a nuclear bomb coming thro', you'd get a hail of highly radioactive shrapnel. I also queried it's effect on chemical & biological agents, since a grid would not stop such weapons. The official line was that the so called grid is a continuous sheet of high power laser light right down to the molecular level, powerful enough to sterilise or incinerate biological or chemical pathogens. At the time energy weapons were not discussed & since it is now canon that staff blasts et al do go through I see no particular reason to argue that one. Everything else is stopped. The grid draws power from the gate, so power supply is not an issue IC.

The science for this is dodgy to say the least, as I've already noted but hey, this is the Stargate universe.

Originally there were two protection devices. The chip which was implanted in all UKGC staff & enabled them to pass through the grid unharmed. The exact mechanism wasn't specified but presumably it turned it off briefly. The chips lasted about six months & their identities were programmed into the gate computer.

In the current IC world the chip would be ineffective. The prisoners wouldn't have them, in any case we have no gate computer to read them.

The second precaution was the CDI (certain death indicator) A radio transmitter on UKGC frequency that constantly sent a warning that the grid was up. On attempting to call home, any offworld team would have heard this message. It didn't turn the grid off like the SG1 GDO (garage door opener) opens their iris but there's no reason why it couldn't.

Prior to this game all the previous accidents with the grid have devolved from the difficulty of telling when it is on or off. The commission I took away from the last game was to make it clearly identifiable when it is on & when not. That has been done. More can be done, like adding an audible alarm, an off switch an the back of the gate to simulate the CDI/GDO etc etc.

It's really unfortunate that the latest mishap should be down to the same cause but with the OOC issues & no briefing things hadn't really changed at that point from the previous events. Just because the 4AM cockup was such a downer it feels to me as if we're intent on throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Now, if you want to stop it limiting game play around bodies appearing thro' the gate fairly randomly, all that is required is to have the default status as Grid "off". What is the difference under direct threat conditions between keeping the gate open & keeping the grid up? Very little. Nobody gets incinerated if the gate remains up, but if some unfortunate dials in on the 38 minute window they're going to get shot to doll rags anyway. The laser grid is useful for covering that window in case the bad guys manage to quick dial when we're obliged to shut the gate down.

Grace

I'm concerned that of the main reasons to keep the laser grid, one of them seems to recurringly be that we don't want to die in 'waves of Jaffa'.

Given that one of the refs has already input to this thread with rational explanations behind why he doesn't think it's a good idea, I have to ask:

Do we all really think the refs are out to kill us quick and send us home?

Again this is the difference between IC Realism and OOC Practicality.

IC Realism, yes we would suffer.

OOC Practicality, if the player base decides they will give it a try without the laser grid, some sort of official acknowledgement from the ref team that they won't exploit the opening to slaughter us over and over and over.

If we choose OOC to drop the grid in order to let the ref team run more roleplay through the gate, then we should not have to pay for this by all the players having to constantly watch it.

I agree, Gate guard is a tedious duty. Again, perhaps an OOC proposition between the player base and ref team can be reached to decide a 'minimum' of gate guard. That is, if X number of people are clearly on guard around the gate, then it should be considered 'adequately defended' regardless of how many people would really be there in IC realism.

Better IC protocol for incoming wormholes should be employed to make sure that at a moment's notice all available personnel are down by the gate with a gun in their hand as well (An actual alarm would work wonders!) instead of making everyone else free sit by the gate as well.

Gate guarding can also be given a more central role IC - for example if the chairs around the firedrum in the fort had been down by the gate, and made a more central place of 'if you want to sit down, do it by the gate with a gun in your hand'.

These are suggestions that both IC and OOC could make the game more immersive and easier to cater to. As I said, I'm just concerned at the instant knee-jerk reaction of 'if we do that the refs will kill us'.

Paul_Howe

Out of character we all know that the reffs are not in this to kill us but out of character knowledge is never a good reason for in character decisions.
Out of character I think that the Laser Grid is a half-thought-out flange plucked from the air because it wouldn't require immediate phys reps.
With the quality of props teams we have I think we can come up with something better. It's been unreliable and ineffective largely because it was badly run out of character and because of out of character technical problems.

In character I would regard as treasonous/moronic/incompetant anyone who seriously suggested leaving us without a robust and reliable way of securing the primary means by which we may be attacked.

The Kibble

at the last event the laser grid was blown up not replacing it can simply be because of cost restrictions.

Richard Tyler

Symonds

Good point Kiff

Richard Tyler

Another thing to remember is that the earth gate is under potential threat as the goa'uld and other hostile races know the address. Until a hostile force are aware of a beta site being used and its corresponding address any base is unlikely to be visited unless by chance. (OK so its less of an advantage in our current state with only around 50 planets to choose from in total)
Paul Howe can think it treasonous/moronic/incompetant all he likes but he is also at liberty to fuck off back to the SGC Wink

comedyofhate

Heh, the irony of the current situation for the main body of players stranded on "planet bob", that there is no laser grid and there is no base.
Hmm as this is the props thread, anyone got any cheap ideas on making cheap bivouacs. Razz

The Kibble

Esther

Richard Tyler

miraculously I had my full tent and camping kit with me when we bugged out. Anyone who says otherwise gets a kick in the shins.

Symonds

Also team Gladstone may be in need of a delivery of Fly fishing gear and cocktail umbrellas if anyone happens to have any ?

Don't come to planet G just throw them thru the gate....its really not safe here honest Very Happy

The Kibble

bandit

Firstly glad you liked the phys reps for the grid
secondly hope you like the big guns that should be replacing them

comedyofhate

Yeah the team Gladstone hell planet. A terrible place full of cenobites, goauld and cenobite gouald. I would leave it for those few brave souls in team Gladstone to defend with there meagre lives. I reffed it, believe me I would not lie to you.... Cool

There will be I suspect be appropiate OOC sleeping arrangements to meet the fact that very few of us are intergalatic heroes who are on the run from evil system lords.

The arrangements are up in the air at the moment (they have yet to be discussed). do not stress, do not get upset, do not start agruments, nothing has been decided on.

I am sure arrangements will be made for the hardcore, less hardcore and soft people like myself.

Desperatly tries to put lid on can of worms...

The Kibble

I reckon we just take the mother ship then we can sleep in that .

sm0keyb

The Kibble

Theo

All i can say is i look forward to seeing the in-game in-character discussions over the grid/grid-replacement and the subsequent ref-discussions over how the player's solution/replacement will be implemented and function in-game, as well as the ways that they can then utilise this within the setting.

Somehow i just don't think that anyone who was there at 4am Saturday morning, be it ref or player, is going to let another akin situation occur again.

My only thought as to the possible solution is to look at both tv shows. They know more about the potential threats that can come through the gate than anyone in the game-world, yet their iris is rarely closed and certainly never to in-coming travellers (they let any old bugger in!). A few men with guns and a bloody good back-up does them just fine.

sm0keyb

I think it was fed from the naquadah fuel cell when we had a gate computer.

After the cockup it was kept off by default. It was only run for lengths of time when we were trying to ward off attacks prior to the destruction of the base.

As there won't be one next event & this is becoming circuitous, I suggest we defer any further discussion until we've had a chance to see it working properly IC & OOC. In the meantime I'll talk to Dave about some ways I think it can be used creatively in game play.

cat

Symonds

sm0keyb

For what it's worth, I have a method of gate defence which still uses the lasers (hence it can use the same phys rep) but in a non lethal way. it requires a fraction of the power that the grid consumes & can be built for a fraction of the cost. It can produce a knockdown & 5 to 7minutes unconsciousness & will disable vehicles, cyborgs etc. It uses no flangey science. Downside is that it will not stop chemical or biological attacks, although these would have to be packaged in some way as the gate itself stops airborne pathogens.