About Story Time and The Lost Wolves

[ObsidianFang]

Alright. Look…listen, a couple of you are interested in knowing the details, and some of you could give a rat’s-ass about any of this, so, to those who find it helpful in spending the time to collect the asses of rats just to hand them out, respectfully you can keep it and eat it all to yourself. I got enough gut-rot goin on without having to choke down your offerings. Now that I got that out of the way…ladies and gentlemen! …

Wait…no, this is not an announcement. I’m hear to fill you in on what I think might work for the fan-ficiton and, also, to hear you out on whether or not these ideas would mesh well with existing XO lore. I’m hoping to avoid contradictions and, if possible, bridge existing gaps with our own creative ideas.

As it is:

The Ravaging takes place in the not so distant future where alien technology has run rampant across the Earth, and L.A. Diesel, a hapless survivor in the wastelands of this ravaged Earth, finds herself in an unending cycle of brainwashing as she fights for her life.

I deliberately ended this cartoon with our character getting her mind wiped by a Ravager because, in Crossout, the mission “Awakening” starts out with our character having amnesia, and trying to piece together what’s going on. People have asked me if I’m going to continue the Ravaging cartoon series and, at this point, the answer is officially: “It does continue, you just have to be a part of the story by going in game and playing Awakening.”

With that project done, I’ve moved onto the next fan-fiction, The Lost Wolves. I did not have initial intentions of mixing the 2 stories but, thanks to encouragement found here, I think I’ve found a way to bridge the gaps. How?

I’ve created a video where we have narration done by established characters LA Diesel and Demitri, voiced over The Lost Wolves visual story-line. How can this be if, in the Ravaging, Demitri was made into a spiderbot? Time is the answer, I think, and to that extent there is a considerable time gap between the end of The Ravaging and the start of The Lost Wolves. Demitri has been salvaged from the wreck of the spiderbot and, thanks to a chance encounter with Lloyd (on a good day) he’s been fixed up, but his brains still a bit scrambled. In the video, LA is trying hard to bring Demitri up to speed about the changes that have taken place while he was botting around the place.

Going forward, I want to use the Lost Wolves to cover how XO has changed over it’s time in existence. And, to do that, I need real, legitimate feedback on all this. Not rat-asses. Who want’s to help and, also, what do you have to say?

Sidenote: while typing this, a bothersome fly would not stop pestering me. It landed and crawled under this recently opened fortune …

So I reached out and took that fortune’s word and moved on with life, no anger about any of it.

[DocSavage]

“In the XO/Ex Machina universe there is extremely advanced tech, and two factions with that tech. The Oracle which is human AI which could be derived from the ravagers, and the Njeri which are the aliens who were responsible for the Crossout because they want to terraform the earth for themselves. ALL of the highly advanced weapons in Ex Machina are Njeri/Oracle tech. Everybody else is using conventional powder weapons.” - AFluffyBadger

I think that’s a really good overview of the heart of this game, and an excellent abbreviation of Crossout lore.
In the game world, it started out very close to the Thunderdome; it was mostly Rusty old cars and gunpowder, but over the years the developers have caused seasonal plagues of Hovers (alien tech) and plagues of drones (A.I.) to inflict all kinds of suffering on the player population. This has caused a schism and somewhat divided the community along certain philosophical lines, almost like real factions.

Here is my break-down of the actual organic factions in the wasteland:

There are the Road Warriors who prefer…you know. They often scoff at things like drones, aim-free weapons, and most famously Hovers. They shun alien tech and A.I. and prefer a more conservative guns on a hot-rod build. I think speed is a fan favorite here, and anything with a thunderously kinetic aesthetic.

There are the Silent Pragmatists who, because this game is actually difficult often, go ahead and use the drones and the A.I. because who needs a third job, right? This game is supposed to be fun, not another chore on the list, and drones and A.I. can simplify a lot of things from creating builds to farming scrap. It puts you in the game in a useful way, but buffers you a little from some of the game’s more frustrating elements. You can have fun without the intense competitive dedication that often leads to the rage some of us others feel when all that effort and dedication is thwarted by some guy in a mind numbingly simple Boring-Trucker build.

Then there are the Min-Maxers; These guys are only interested in a high body count efficiently executed. No tech is off limits, A.I. or alien, and they will shamelessly use exploits, not only without batting an eye, but they also reject the very idea that it might be unethical to exploit game mechanics for wins. They are usually members of Clans, so of course they will use every method on the table in order to win. If they don’t, the enemy will. It’s not even debatable in their view, and suggesting that it is indeed unethical to exploit the game mechanics to cultivate a win can cause them to throw their heads back in laughter.
If anybody knows the boundaries of the Wasteland, it is these people. They have pushed every envelope, tested every extreme, and every subtlety, in order to milk every last drop of performance they can from the system.
They are principally responsible for development and up-keep of the popular META.

There are also the Clone Warriors; They use whatever is working at the moment, follow trends, and will often scour the exhibition looking for the most effective builds on hand. They frequently hunt in small packs with similar to identical builds and are devastating to new players and veterans alike. They are probably the most responsible for occurrences of divine intervention, where the developers have to actually come down from their thrones and contend with us by hand, due to the spectacular havoc they inspire below.

That’s my break-down of the actual social order of Crossout, without going into the trolls and cheaters.

As far as the environmental evolution has gone, it seems to have started out very basic and simple, mostly revolving around Mad Max themes and tropes, but has gradually been saturated with A.I. and alien tech. Perhaps it’s over saturated at this point. IDK. There isn’t any lore that explains this, but is mostly due to the developers trying to market the new latest and greatest thing to earn a buck and keep the villagers from wondering off, I think.

Presently, a storm has gathered in the heavens, and we are at the verge of a great transformation in the Wasteland. Flying things have been spotted in the sky for the first time, and the very nature of this universe is about to be torn apart and re-born. The citizens are on edge, and are in a considerable state of awe over the future of the Wasteland. Some are afraid or angry. Others are in a state of wonder or excitement, but we all know, for better or for worse, things will not be the same after this storm.

I can’t remember exactly when I caught the Crossout virus, but it’s been more than a few years. Maybe, about a year before the Fusion feature was introduced, I think. Anyway, that’s my take on the evolution of Crossout.

[ObsidianFang]

That’ll help me with things, for sure! I hope there’s others with as creative an out look as yours. Maybe we can really get some where with this.

[DocSavage]

I think if you take your time, in the near future flight will be available to players. The new control system leads me to believe this, as it seems nearly identical to the system used in War Thunder, which also does military trucks and tanks, as well as airplanes. This game has been compared to Robocraft a bit with one of the only major differences in game play being that you can craft stuff that flies. I think that’s the next step for this game, and I believe that is the goal that underpins this new update, and why Hover tears mean so little to the developers (they’re gonna do it anyway). The developers see a bigger picture I think, and I think that includes flight well beyond the scope of Hovers.

Point is, if that happens, in the future the Lost Wolves might have a much stronger context to spawn from, considering their affinity for aircraft. You’re timing with this project could potentially be exploited for maximum impact. Don’t get in a hurry. Create and collect your materials, polish and trim it while you wait, and then pick your moment to present your product.

Maybe play a little War Thunder. You’ll see what I mean about the controls. I plan on re-installing that game myself, because I like flying, and I like making skins for my planes. It’s a big download, so I was planning on doing it right before I go to bed.
I could probably make skins with Lost Wolves iconography incorporated into them given the resources (logos and a color palette) or just a little art direction. You probably could too, but IDK what your War Thunder inventory looks like. I don’t have any jets yet but I have played that game a good bit (at least a year) and I have a good inventory. I used to have a ton of skins, but I lost them between computer upgrades. It’s been a long time since I played that game.

[ObsidianFang]

@DocSavage

I think if you take your time, in the near future flight will be available to players.

I been holding on to several these jets in my hanger for the better part of a year and a half, except for the F14. I was finally about to finish that one just this last month. When the devs started talks about the hover changes is when I started to think, “maybe, these things will start to perform…”

As for War Thunder…I have (on average) about 20-25 GB of space on my drive to work with stuff, and WT is 40GB download. Wish I could try it out, I spend time watching vids of it and dreaming to try but, yeah, not enough space.

[Babuskae]

@DocSavage

because I like flying, and I like making skins for my planes.

Now i can say without blinking my eye in a nervous twitch I don’t care anymore.
Crossout replaced the warships.

I had a burn out cause of OP planes that’s how i came here (back in 2018).
I still remember, patch 8.0 the cv (carrier vessel) rework.
Before the rework the battles were one sided if one of the CV players was way better than the other.
past 5 minutes of possible 20 minutes.
Chat.
I’m out of planes!
then you knew that your team mate was a bad cv player
After the rework , fighters became automated, the cv players no longer controlled the fighters , the AA was nerfed to the ground and things took a bit longer to stabilize, being torped every 20 seconds and so on.
Both cv players of both team are in a damage race, no more spotting no more team work, their repair party is way better than a fused Ermak cabin, fires don’t last longer than 5 seconds.

Now if a cv player wants a piece of you, he will get you under a minute, your AA doesn’t do jack sht, your repair party takes double that to exit cooldown.
CV players pick one by one, you can’t do anything about it.
And now there are submarines, equally broken stuff, with homing torpedoes, hydrophones doesn’t detect them, if you were pinged twice the torps ignore armour and hit directly the citadel .
It’s like being one shotted by a mandrake.
Game over.

Here, take a look how two ships, two AA ships get wrecked.

World of Warships - The Fun Police

[ObsidianFang]

you can have this back

[DocSavage]

I’m not sure how into War Thunder I can make myself these days, but it used to be a fun casual arcade like game. Crossout is more creative, IMO.
This DDoS attack is about War Thunder too, I think. They seem to have at least some issues, eh?

[Babuskae]

One thing i can tell you
Warships despite a more complex mechanics and ballistics, armour penetration vs calibre values, type of ammo, armour thickness, angling and so on , than crossout. it’s pretty arcade style.
Def AA, Repair Party, hydro, and so on (kind of a perk) they are a consumable.
You control the speed, the main guns, and direction, you have vertical aim assist.
e.g.
you press a button and for x seconds your AA is boosted then when it’s over it’s cooldown, you have to time it right, you don’t even see or engage the planes yourself cause you are occupied with other ships.

In war thunder things are way more realistic you have control over every single type of weapons at a time if you are fighting planes you are firing the AA guns, if you are torping someone you are in control of the torps, and so on. During battles it’s chaos, a very different take.

In warships DDs (destroyers) are speedy tiny things when compared with bigger ships.
In war thunder DDs are huge ( closer to IRL) they are and feel like cruisers or even BBs (battleships) in Warships

I tried and i didn’t adapted, the aim e.g. while in warships the crosshairs lock on a target then you give the lead you want and shoot, in warthunder you have to take into account the speed of your vessel the speed of the other vessel, inertia and so on.

War Thunder Naval Forces - First Impressions, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

[ObsidianFang]

Been working with an AI modeler to try and make some LA Diesel comix. Problem is I’m not as funny as I want to be so there’s been very little progress, also, I need to work on my photoshopping skills too. Still, I wanted to share a couple images from the whole endeavor.

This is one I’m considering for a cover shot.

Here’s an Interior image

go ahead and caption it if you like