[Ash'arion]

The key difference is about the caliber of the ammo employed and distance. Their shoot bigger bolts that can pierce big fortifications walls at a very long safe range. Ours can pierce rooftops and piss off folks who are busy trying to relax in a bath.

That's not something that can be easily managed. It's not a simple matter of just making the ballista bigger. There also has to be enough tension in the bow-cable to fire a bolt that massive at such a long range. And also a drawing mechanism powerful enough to pull said cable. The tension could probably be achieved via a pulley system like modern compound bows, but the drawing mechanism is another matter entirely. At the very least, it'd be a two-person crank with a two-handed grip for each person. Or more pulleys. Not to mention the difficulty in achieving accuracy with it. With that much power, the difference between overshooting the wall and burying a 10 foot long shaft 8 feet into the ground in front of it would be extremely small.

[Finn MacCool]

why do you keep saying that? there's always room for another advice.
and, as i already said in other places, i'd be all for questioning the prisoner for general information on mimaneid and then trying to sell her to some nal (other than the nal leader).

She has already provided all the useful information she has. And it's not even useful to us.

no, she hasn't.
she's only spilled information pertaining to the attack so far, but nothing about the political/military situation in mimaneid, for example.
she could also bear interesting news from other parts of the underworld. who knows?

[Dalvyserran]

But there's no guarantee she will give you what you want to know. She will likely only tell you bullshit you want to hear, but not give away actual information about Mimaneid.

She's a soldier and only gave away information that isn't critical knowledge to the Kashyra/Sindri.

[goblin6]

Plus we're likely to leave in the next turn, and interrogation usually takes a few turns to break the prisoner into divulging information. And no, we're not bringing the prisoner with us just so we can get info out of her, security risk and all that.

[Ash'arion]

why do you keep saying that? there's always room for another advice.
and, as i already said in other places, i'd be all for questioning the prisoner for general information on mimaneid and then trying to sell her to some nal (other than the nal leader).

She has already provided all the useful information she has. And it's not even useful to us.

no, she hasn't.
she's only spilled information pertaining to the attack so far, but nothing about the political/military situation in mimaneid, for example.
she could also bear interesting news from other parts of the underworld. who knows?

The fact that she's here leading a joint-task force on the other side of a difficult to navigate country just to serve as a distraction speaks volumes of the political and military climate of Mimaneid. That action alone points to a strong alliance between at least two of the clans, one that doesn't feel threatened sending its troops far away from the home city. Which in turn means that either these two factions dominate all the others, or that all of them have reached an accord inconceivable in Chel. It also means that the Mims feel that their military has grown in size and firepower to the point where they're comfortable starting an all-out attack against the Nals and aren't worried about somebody hitting Mimaneid in said force's absence, likely because they have enough to spare for both attack and defense. We should probably send word back home to start building refugee homes in our city for the Nals, since employing those should effectively neutralize any feeling of debt we have toward them.

[Pelinore]

The Nals do owe you, but they'll paying of all or a huge part of that debt by helping with the wounded. Without that Nal rescue and medical care they would be dead.

But if we didn't helped the nals, those wounded (and the rest of our guys) wouldn't even had risked any wounds in the first place.
I'm not saying it to claim something to the nals, because I think It's good in the long-term to have unsettled debts with them, I just say I have difficulty to see how the rescue of 6-12 wounded (here to help the outpost as already said) could be considered a fair counterpart to the rescue of the whole outpost with the implied risks we took and the wounded we suffered for this action we could have freely avoided.

[Dalvyserran]

We don't really have the right to claim we were the saviors of the outpost. The most we did was warn the Nals of an attack and disable the light posts.

We did majority of the fighting and took the brunt of the injuries for little gain, for in the end it was the Nal'sarkoth that saved our asses (and prevented character deaths) by routing the Mimian forces.

[Finn MacCool]

She's a soldier and only gave away information that isn't critical knowledge to the Kashyra/Sindri.

i'm not looking for critical knowledge, but general information on what is going on in the underworld, what with our home being kind of off the beaten track and therefore a little behind news-wise.

[Ash'arion]

I'm not saying it to claim something to the nals, because I think It's good in the long-term to have unsettled debts with them,

How can you even think something like that?

The DTverse is not the U.S. Long-term loans do not build up credibility here. Which is reasonable, because they shouldn't. Owing something to the Nals is a bad idea. Why? Because they're smart and good at business. We don't know to what extent the interest on our debts to them is compounded over the years. And this also gives them a reason to pull us into whatever war or other venture they have in the future, regardless of our dissent for the sake of our safety and asset protection. So no, having that debt is not a good thing.

[Pelinore]

We don't really have the right to claim we were the saviors of the outpost. The most we did was warn the Nals of an attack and disable the light posts.

We did majority of the fighting and took the brunt of the injuries for little gain, for in the end it was the Nal'sarkoth that saved our asses (and prevented character deaths) by routing the Mimian forces.

Well, surprise effect could (and would, i think) have changed the outcome of this attack, and our armed intervention is nothing but negligible.
And (sorry to repeat myself, but it's what bug me the more) the asses the Nal'sarkoth saved wouldn't have been puted at risk in the first place if we didn't helped them.

Asharion>There has been a misunderstanding. I meant I tought it was good that the Nals (or at least the guys at this outpost) had an unsettled debt toward us. Sorry to have incorrectly expressed myself.

[Ash'arion]

Oh. Well in that case I'm sorry for that outburst. Anyway, what San says is true whether we like it or not, it's what ST said is the case and exactly what I was afraid was going to happen when we first joined this battle. I knew that the Nals would hold back in direct participation until it came time to 'rescue' us, thereby eliminating the debt we tried to generate and saving face in one smooth motion. It's kind of a dick move, sure. But it is good business, which the Nals are all about, and they did keep our Ligr squad alive, which we have to be grateful to them for.

[Jonarus_Drakus]

I support either executing the prisoner outright or just leaving her to the Nals... We have no need of her...

My only real concern now is - We got *a* Balista, what about some of that Mim survival armour? Even if the Nals helped out people out, they still owe us a little... Some of that survival armour (more for research) would cover it in my opinion... *shrugs* ...Lets just not push TOO hard on the 'you owe us' thing, get what we can, but don't force the issue...

~JD

PS: Official hello from me to Suntiger! (Silly of me to forget so far - for future reference, Eh'rin is not only a long-experienced warrior, but also a skilled Tir'ay practitioner - that's how I wrote her anyway...)

[goblin6]

Oh. Well in that case I'm sorry for that outburst. Anyway, what San says is true whether we like it or not, it's what ST said is the case and exactly what I was afraid was going to happen when we first joined this battle. I knew that the Nals would hold back in direct participation until it came time to 'rescue' us, thereby eliminating the debt we tried to generate and saving face in one smooth motion. It's kind of a dick move, sure. But it is good business, which the Nals are all about, and they did keep our Ligr squad alive, which we have to be grateful to them for.

The Nals didn't really hold back, Suntiger himself said that the Nals' forces wouldn't be ready until midday, and that our intervention made a differences in their timely preparation. Had we not alerted them in time, some of our guys would've been dead already and the Nals suffering worse then property damages. Our mistake was sending a smaller force (12) against a bigger one (50). Maybe it would've been better to send the airship earlier and deploy the majority of our troops to deal with the enemy's main force. Though under normal circumstances (as in Kern not wanting any of us to die just yet), such a battle would likely to incur higher wounded and maybe casualties, but we're more likely to defeat the enemy on our own without the assistance of the Nals.

[Timotheus]

I will make my opinion known here concerning the captured ballista and probably leave it at that. The number one concern about trying to take one with use is the shear practicality of it. We do not have any hard information as to the deck space and layout of our ship, the needed foot print of the captured ballista ( both it's physical size and the area needed to work it and turn and aim it.) Likewise, we do not know how much it weighs or what physical or structural means will be needed to raise or lower it's elevation for aiming it or what if any structural reinforcement the ships deck might need to support it.

In short, we don't know if we can even put the darn thing on the ship, if it can be modified to be used in a useful fashion once it's there, and whether it will mess up any of the other ship's functions once it's in place. (such as making the ship's hull unbalanced for steering, interfering with line-of-sight for controls and navigation, structural problems with the gas bag supports, etc.)

Because we lack the actual knowledge to even guess at these answers the questions will have to be placed to the GMs first, and the decision as to whether to attempt to mount the captured ballista on the ship should be left until they have answered those questions.

This thing appears bigger than my ballista turret design and that was generally rejected as too big for the ship by Suntiger.

[Sonor Val'Illhar'dro]

Plus we're likely to leave in the next turn, and interrogation usually takes a few turns to break the prisoner into divulging information. And no, we're not bringing the prisoner with us just so we can get info out of her, security risk and all that.

Then chop off her limbs and cauterize the wounds. There, risk averted.