Demesne Update · 11:28am Feb 23rd, 2016
So this is happening.
So it's currently sitting at about 8,000 words, and I'm just about to send the final draft to the pre-readers. I'm planning on having the story move a lot faster than it has been, which has honestly been most of what frustrated me enough to need to put it on hiatus.
Mare in the Moon will update hopefully twice during March. I mean, I wrote the first five or six chapters of it during March this time last year, why not again?
So!
So this marks the first chapter that will set off Patreon rewards. That means names on blog posts, bonus stories, everything promised. I've also retroactively decided I'm spending my first paycheque from it on XCom 2. I've already broken it in, had a lot of fun with it, and it... honestly broke a lot of itself, let's be blunt, but it's here and I got it.
I put a lot of thought into that decision. A lot of thought that ended with...
"Man. I bet I could make every one of my Patrons and followers as a squad, play Commander Difficulty in Iron Man mode, and just see who survives the longest."
I'll take plenty of screenshots. And while I'm not exactly Beaglerush, I am Australian. This should give me a 20% racial bonus.
If you want your character added to the pool, send me a PM. Priority given to Patrons, shoot me the name you're under.
I guarantee I'll have this done quicker than 14 months.
Eeeeeeeeeee.
SOOOOOOO translation hi new chapter out soon i hope might post more but dont hold your breath as i will be purging invading xenos scum from the face of earth bribe me and i might add you to my game
Nice. :)
Good luck, and thanks for the update!
3772537
I thought I was rather more eloquent about it.
Mare in the Moon updates in March?
Best birthday present ever!
Yay!
HYPE HYPE HYPE
Despite Golden x Twilight becoming one of my favorite Twilight x OC ships ever, Demense seemed to go off the rails the last few chapters with civil war, crazy!Twi, and Luna holding the villain ball. Mare in the Moon, however, is delectable and I can't wait for more! Glad to see MrN back on the wagon.
Best news I've had all week. Though I suppose it's only Tuesday...
Sounds good to me! I recently re-read through demense, and would love to see what happens next.
=o
1. Don't try to melee a Muton. Ever. You're going to have a bad time if you try.
2. Grenadiers are your best friend.
3. Specialists are your other best friend. Keep several on standby.
4. Make backups of your saves states in Ironman, there are several game-breaking bugs that can only be resolved by loading an earlier save. There's a mod that will let you make saves while in the Geoscape during an Ironman run, I'd recommend using that.
5. Mimic Beacons OP pls nerf.
6. Flashbangs will pull a Ghandi on low-level ADVENT troops, boosting their aim to ridiculous levels. (instead of going into negatives, it just resets to the highest possible aim)
7. Poison will cause a large aim penalty, fire prevents abilities from being activated, and flashbangs will disrupt active psi abilities.
8. The Codex is designed to piss you off.
3772833
My own additions to that:
Standing on the squares enemies use to climb up things means they can't climb up things.
Overwatch means I can kill you on your turn and laugh at your pain.
Elerium cores are a cheaparse bottleneck and I hate them so much
Never quit out on a map with Chrysalids in them. They're the most common cause of save file corruption.
Mimic beacons can actually use cover and things will still go out of their way to shoot at them exclusively what the fuck.
Suppression OP plz nerf.
Tygan is a douche, but goddamn if I don't want his wardrobe in my wardrobe. Maybe in a purple, or a burgundy?
OH! And my personal favourite:
Sniper + Superior Extended Magazine + Killzone Cone = 6 confirmed kills buh-bye.
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Overwatch tends to just crap out, there are several aim penalties in it that make it almost useless except at higher soldier levels or when you have nothing else to do.
The game suggests putting the squad in overwatch before breaking concealment, but all that does it lock you in with whatever happens. If half the squad misses critical shots, you gave up your turn, the enemy got bonus movement, and now they're free to flank you and all that. Better to break concealment with a grenade, then actively start shooting. Part of it is because the enemies start moving when revealed, which penalizes overwatch aim.
Also I think there's a mod that'll let you buy/craft Elerium cores. They're not cheap, but no bottlenecking.
Oh man, if it's anything like Twitch streamer's friends/colleagues, that's some bad luck a-brewin' right there.
Also, stick to your guns on Commander difficulty. At the behest of a buddy, when I jumped from Commander to Legend I went Iron Man. Fuck that. There are 4 alien pods on the very first mission, including pectoids. If you somehow manage to get through that with your 4 rookies alive, the next few automatic missions aren't much better. Larger pods much earlier, and more pods per map. Oh! And just about everything on the strategy layer has double the intel cost as Commander.
I'm sticking with it til I lose, though. That way when I go back to Commander Iron Man it'll feel like Easy.
Demense of Twilight is in the league of the best 'saga stories' on this site.
The world-building is immersive and characters are believable (the chapter where Rarity shows her business side is fun to read and not considered OOC)
Happy Days when this story updates!!
Awesome!
Legendary Ironman or GTFO.
3772935
This is actually, mathematically, only half true. Breaking concealment with a grenade is excellent, but after they all skitter for cover you're left taking active shots at guys who are... in cover.
My understanding of the way Overwatch aim penalties versus shooting at guys in cover interact is that you have a better chance hitting them as they run, when they're not in cover, than you do hitting them when they're even in half cover. So what you often want to do is put everyone but one dude in Overwatch, then end your turn by hucking the grenade.
This, of course, only applies if you intend to blaze away with normal attacks. If you're planning on special sauce, you obviously need to wait and do that by hand.
Ideally, you want them to discover you on their turn, but that's actually really hard to do without dying. If you're not in cover they shoot you down rather than running, and if you are in cover you're damned near invisible until they get right on top of you. It's only feasible if you're very, very patient on a non-timed missions.
I have mixed feelings about Demesne being back. On the one hand, I really love lots of it. I love Golden. I love Rarity. Twilight's internal voice is spot-on, I feel like her characterization is solid, and critically, it makes excellent use of the ensemble, where a lot of fics that are trying to go big decide to shuffle the members of the mane six they just don't give a damn about off to the side or create obviously tacked-on subplots. Actually being able to use the enormous cast well is a damned rare skill.
On the other hand, the central conflict has always rubbed me raw. It's so contrived. Like, the only reason Equestria wasn't ripping itself apart in minor wars is that everyone just... forgot that it was actually legal? And now that they've been reminded again, its time for bloodletting?
Celestia is either really shitty at the whole "harmony" thing, or, alternatively, she's incredibly good at it and ponies are just such a race of bloodthirsty maniacs this is the best she could do.
This might be why I like Mare in the Moon better; it's more of an explicit AU which means the world being sort of fucked up is more acceptable, since it doesn't need to be reconciled with canon.
I shouldn't complain. At least it isn't Platinum Crown, which went so deep down the rabbit hole of feudalism that Chryssalid didn't seem to have noticed he wrote a world with state-sanctioned rape that passes without comment and, indeed, various degrees of enthusiastic acceptance from much of the cast.
It's wonderful to hear that; I've greatly enjoyed Demesne thus far, and I look forward to more.
3772833
Just a minor note: it's not that flashbangs make them more accurate, it's that it eats away the "norrmal hit" probability before affecting the rolls that will crit, meaning they're less likely to hit but if they hit they're more likely to crit. Like so. Like dodge, Disorientation and other debuffs that don't specifically affect crits eat away at the bar from the left.
You started four of the above ten paragraphs with the word "so", you terrible, terrible creature.
Demesne has been my favorite story of yours, and one of my absolute favorites on this entire site, so my body can't possibly be ready for this... time to start a re-read so I can properly enjoy this after the hiatus.
You might want to curb your expectations on Xcom 2 though. The difficulty is considerably increased from the first one, so don't go into it thinking you're just gonna curb stomp some aliens. Just be ready to watch the deaths of a lot of your patreon supporters.
3773705
So, maybe he's got a good reason?
I love how Australian is the new Gamer Master Race. It entertains me to no end.
A mention of bagel outside of his yt channel or /r/xcom?!
Some advice:
Avoid trying to take on muttons at CLOSE RANGE?!
Meme beacons 2OP nerf plz
1) take at leat skulljack+hacking focus specialist on every mission. 2) haywire biggest robot about while concealed. 3) fun
Go for those weapon upgrades ASAP, I beelined mag weapons and beat the early game slog hell that it is before you begin the steamroll.
modify the init files to add in beserkers into late game pool, as it is the game skips entirely over them
As above, but reduce the prevalance of stun lancers and replace with actual aliens.
As above (2) but add in more troop types to reinforcement drops
The codex is an asshole, always use you first rather than last attack actions on her.
Archons are also assholes. DODGE!GRAZE! DODGE!GRAZE! DODGE!GRAZE!
Psi is OP, I regret waiting so long in my first campaign to get them
AWC>GTS
As soon as you can, go for experimental ammo and experimental powered weapons - special ammo carries to a sharpshooter's sidearm, and shredstorm cannon is my favourite (even better than blaster launcher)
3774205 AWC>GTS
Jesus god, I know, right?
I mean, maybe on lower difficulty you want the GTS first, but slicing healing time in half and being able to train the rooks to anything you want is borderline necessary on Commander and Legendary. You won't be able to afford squad size for awhile anyway and the other things you can buy early are merely "nice" as opposed to "mission critical."
Oh my god yay!
3772833
I find it vaguely funny Gandhi can mean either peace or death to all heretics.
3772615 your profile picture goes so perfectly with that comment.
Squeee!!!
Thank you so very much!
Looking forward to more Demesne!