Comic for Thursday, August 17th, 2018
Okay, we are definitely skipping Thursday come next week… am falling behind again.
The SA on my project resigned, so work is problems again. Even if we get a replacement for him, I reckon that’ll take awhile until they are any use to me (if they are ever any use to me, that part is sort of unlikely… guess I will hopeful to time neutral…). Plus this page sort of took a long time even, even drawing it pretty quick… So… need to slow down and take a bit more time I guess…
I mentioned during the attempted assassination of Weber that this pink haired guy was actually a powerful mage, just sort of bad… at things… not every mage is naturally adapt at using their skills for combat, even if technically qualified, but they can still be pretty useful. Mage-as-artillery is actually more common than we see, as we tend to see more brutal up close and personal confrontations. Some mages excel at that those due to sheer reflexes and speed (like Naomi) or by having a highly compatible power for short range combat (like Tyler). Some mages like Kally excel at Mage-as-artillery, but are still pretty competent at close range, while some mages struggle at close range if they lack the calculation speed or nerves and concentration to handle someone shooting (or punching) them.
Some people have asked why soldiers use the gun-like-autocasters instead of just guns, and this sort of why. While most mages are plenty shootable, it doesn’t always take, and sometimes you just want more bang for buck your then a little piece of metal (or you want a little piece of metal going much much faster). That said, a mage like Kardus can be hurt bullets, particularly if his guard is down or the gun is powerful. If he hadn’t noticed it at all he might have been in trouble, or if it had got him clean in the eye, or been a more direct hit. Of course, there are also ones like Rovak, but he’s sort of a special case…….
Arkday has a tough life as a mage… he may be a pretty good mage, but has some insecurities on that… it is hard being a family mage with big expectations on you… even if you’re a good mage, people expect you to be the among the best in your generation… and his generation… even his school has some unfair people at it…
I haven’t really talked about the Family mages, but like real world aristocracy of old, they tend to do marriages is a little funny… I don’t think I’ve mentioned before that that is what the little hair braid things means… but we’ve seen a few characters with it.
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Ah, Ash did a FINE job of setting his sister’s mind at ease. >:P
If she doesn’t have a nervous breakdown after that, they’re probably going to have to sedate her/tie her to the bed–perhaps both. O.o
The side missions our author sends us on!
Wait no isn’t that “Princess or something”? Ha! I guess he’s really not kidding when he says he doesn’t want to waste her time with you. (And he really is there visiting family, and probably not Weber’s guard. Huh.)
(Also she’s great with that bit about blanket forts. Hee~)
Also interesting is that if Ila does get there in time to keep Arkady alive, Ms. Princess might also feel indebted to Team Peter and want to help out in some way. (So +networking for (unrelated) “selfish” reasons. Which could probably describe at least half of what Peter does, just doesn’t look intentional here.)
Hey man, feel free to take a break. We will wait. Love the comic still.
Yeah… I probably will take next Thursday off, not sure yet. I guess I’m just a little concerned – patrons and viewers have both been declining the last couple months, so I don’t know if taking time off will make that worse, or if the quality of stuff is declining because I don’t spend enough time on it.
I suppose it’s not the end of the world, the comic isn’t really my livelihood, but they are the best metrics I have to know if things are going well or not. I suspect in general that content being sparse, a little rushed, and that I complain too much about too much stuff are to blame 🙂
Also maybe summer and people going outside and not reading webcomics. Idk, but first time we’ve had a sustained significant decline in readers and patrons.
Honestly about 3/4 of the reason I’m here is for the spec. and world dissection. Because unlike most webcomics there seems to be an underlying world to this tale.
Ah right. That’s the zap that Naomi shrugged off like it didn’t even happen. Man is she scary.
Folks, I suggest ignoring the errors for the moment, so our storyteller doesn’t feel the need to fix them quite yet, given how behind we’re hearing the situation is.
It is fine… I could just not fix them if they were taking too much time… usually it’s pretty quick stuff. The text layer is fairly easy to edit, and saving and reuploading doesn’t take too long. I know they really bother some people so I try to fix them 🙂
I think we were doing fine and slowly making progress at half pages, but between work being troublesome and that I keep doing not-half-pages I’ve fallen behind I again…
Panel 17: What the hell is going on, Ashy?!
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Mages-as-artillery? The exponential power loss with range drastically narrows how they could pull that off. From what we’ve seen so far, it takes tactical-class magic to affect something *one* mile away.
I think more in the sense of field artillery than a proper modern real world sense, in that mages are not really “over the horizon” style weapons (usually). But there are a few things to keep in mind – first of all, most of the best artillery is integrated into autocaster these days, some of which require a powerful mage to operate. Most HVW are not purely mechanical, and even if they are not in the Ila league, even a lesser attack of that nature is still one of the more effective ways of doing things. A lot of long range methods revolve around ye olde “objects in motion stay in motion unless-etc etc”. If you toss a big rock “that-a-way”, it’ll come down down somewhere over there. Obviously usually they are a bit fancier than that. One could argue that a cannon can do that (and they do) but the other half of the game is not being hit by their big rocks (or BRE, Big Rock Equivalients) which mages can accomplishes with their magic or barriers, while classic artillery have to just not get hit or have enough armor to take the hit. A solid strategy could be to use mages for defense only in the BRE lobbing contest, the effectiveness of magic and range flips around to your favor again.
Additionally, thought haven’t seen it much, mages can work together, which can considerably extend range if of the the mages has some sort of magic for extending their sensory reach or certain autocaster set ups (like the visors we see some mages wear can work like that, though they don’t always).
Most of these require talented mages, but not necessarily mages that have good reflexes and speed, as you can afford to be more deliberate if someone is not trying to shoot you.
You do realize you probably just sent half your readers through an archive binge to determine exactly who else has braided hair, right?
… Look a little closer at the second-to-last panel. Also, there’s a closeup about halfway through the page.
She may not be the only option, but she is probably the best.
I mean, yes, that was obvious, I thought. I meant for any other characters beyond the pair here.
The smart ones will probably just wait to see the wiki updated.
I’m not one of the smart ones, but I recognized that Ms. Princess was someone who had a braid in her earlier appearances. Also, my current archive binge is moving at a snail’s pace, so hopefully someone else will update the character bios with this important information before I get to it.