Mid-Range Game 35: Final Flight

[StrikerEZ]

So, I’ll work on making a proper post later, but for now I think Drake’s explanation makes sense. 

Drake Marshall

While it’s important that we work on figuring out who to lynch, I also think we should probably coordinate which ships need to be repaired....or not, because the only remaining ship that needs repairs is mine, which I can handle. Carry on then. 

[Lumgol]

10 hours ago, Young Bard said:

Lumgol, this is the second cycle in a row I IMP'd a target we agreed on, and that ship wasn't shot down, presumably because you didn't submit an action. Why is that?

Um, Bard, the ship we agreed on was shot down. I definitely submitted an action. I have no idea where you're coming from. Fura. Bard. Something's going wrong here.

5 hours ago, Furamirionind said:

But it doesnt matter that I disagree, why have your reads suddenly gone from Joe-Maill to me? Especially when in your post you basically argue I am village?

I will admit that my vote on you was rather careless. I will point out that you specifically said I could just say random names or gut reads, as long as I said someone. I don't consider asking people about their suspicions to be suspicious. What threw me off was the pretend-death threat, and also I don't think that me saying random names is any foundation to consider me genuinely suspicious of those people.

I will also concede that since I have a lot of free time now, I really have no excuse not to catch up and do some analysis.

[Furamirionind]

Lum, random names from a villager gives no info, however random names from an elim wont be truly random, and therefore still give info.

1. I asked you to send me your reads. And said pretend your life depended on it.

2. You refused

3. I said you'd die, but I thought it was obvious this was in the pretend world where your life depended on giving me an answer. You obviously dont imidiately die in game, and dont irl.

If you want to interpret that comment seriously, interpret it as I will push for your lynch if you dont give me any names.

[Young Bard]

54 minutes ago, Lumgol said:

Um, Bard, the ship we agreed on was shot down. I definitely submitted an action. I have no idea where you're coming from. Fura. Bard. Something's going wrong here.

...You targeted 3A? And you got a message that 3A was shot down? Either the GM made a mistake in one of our PM's, or you're lying.

Also, it's 3AM, and I need to sleep. I'll figure this out tomorrow.

[Lumgol]

@Young Bard, yes, I targeted 3A and was told that it was shot down.

Hmmm. My shields were knocked out last night. Maybe you were meaning to target 3A but accidentally typed me instead?

[Young Bard]

Just now, Lumgol said:

@Young Bard, yes, I targeted 3A and was told that it was shot down.

Hmmm. My shields were knocked out last night. Maybe you were meaning to target 3A but accidentally typed me instead?

No - I just double checked to make sure.

[Lumgol]

Okay, Steel made me a clarification, that he meant 3A wasn't destroyed but that I successfully hit it.

That's still suspicious. Maybe your IMP was roleblocked?

[Elandera]

5 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

As stated in the write up, joe was a pilot. Not a gunner. That’s the secret. Not sure how that’s not clear. 

Shhh.... it's not like I skimmed over the specifics of deaths... nope. Not at all. I definitely read the whole thing thoroughly. 

[Steeldancer]

There are slightly less than 4 hours remaining in the turn. Get your ship requests and repair actions in now. 

[Elandera]

Vote count:

Drake (2) - Elandera, Ark
Lumgol (2) - Bard, Fura
Bard (1) - Lumgol

I'm going to leave my vote on Drake. Though his explanations make sense, my gut is still telling me something is off there. Lumgol does seem suspicious though, so I'm okay with leaving things at a tie (now that the rules have changed.. thanks Steel!)

[Lumgol]

Okay, so as much as I'd like to investigate the situation with Bard, I almost certainly won't be around for rollover and I'm one of the lynch candidates, so I'll do a quick vote on (Bard) Drake. We can't afford that many more villagers dying at this point.

[StrikerEZ]

I definitely did not have the time I thought I would today to do analysis, but I don’t think Drake should die. I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to vote on you, Lumgol. 

I completely almost forgot to put in my action and ship request tonight. Dang. 

[+Ark1002]

I'm not sure who is more suspicious, Lum or Drake.

I like his explanation tho, so I'm gonna go Drake Marshal Lumgol

[Steeldancer]

10 minutes remaining. Submit your stuff now or forever hold your peace. 

[Steeldancer]

The turn is over, the new turn will be up soonish, I’m sort of preoccupied with family videos atm. 

[Steeldancer]

Night 4- But You Broke My Firmament
Alarms sounded through the base. High alert. No ordinary Krell attack warranted that. This, this was death. 
A Lifebuster ship was attacking.
Every pilot scrambled for the best ship they could find, except one, who held her head in shame. She had just been court-martialed for having hidden a bunny from the clean-up crew. Not that Steel really disagreed with Preciousss's actions, but he didn't have time to dwell on the injustice of the situation. 
He flipped the controls, powering on his acclivity ring, and took off. Sure enough, there it was in the distance. A lifebuster, with a small escort of ships that would probably only attack anyone who attacked the lifebuster. 
Every pilot knew their job. Turn back that ship, and destroy it far enough away from the base to make sure no one got killed. After the previous night, Steel wasn't so sure about how he felt about that sentiment. But surely, the rebels would have just as high of a stake in destroying the Lifebuster as well. Right? The flight was too small to sustain much more culling from the rebels... if they didn't kill more soon, they would be liable to run over the base, and then Steel would never get his medical leave. 
He pushed everything else aside, and aimed his Fresa at the ship that threatened his life. And then he opened up the afterburners. There would be no time to worry about high-Gs now. He was going to get every bit of speed out of this ship that he possibly could. 

Doomslug had finished her nap, and was back on to her journey. She could almost feel that she was close to her goal, if she just looked a little longer...
_____________
Lumgol was lynched! She was a Pilot!
Drake (2) - Elandera, Lumgol
Lumgol (4) - Bard, Fura, StrikerEZ, Ark
PMs are open, and you should have already gotten your GM PMs. The forces tonight are simple. One Lifebuster, 1E, 3A, 3C, and 4A. The Krell Ships will be acting as escorts, and will therefore only attack ships that attack the Lifebuster. The shield of the Lifebuster comprises 5 of it's health, with 15 total health including the shield. If the Lifebuster is not stopped, only the Traitor will win the game. Good luck. The turn will end in 23 hours, at 8:00 PM EDT, 6/3/19. 

Spoiler

1. Snipexe, "Scissors" Pilot, Wingmate to Joe
2. Xinoehp512, "Llerk"
3. Elandera "Bad Wolf" Brenna 
4. Mailliw73, Millis “Storm” Stromberg
5. Devotary, “Yaw(n)” Yafrion Pilot
6. Ark1002, Bard "Bastard" Dominion
7. Furamirionind, Julis "Junior" Elliot
8. Lumgol "Preciousss" Pilot
9. StrikerEZ, Seth "Striker" Johnson
10. Young Bard, Rivelda "Topsy-Turvy" Kline
11. Sart, Sarah "Seraph" Potts Pilot
12. Darkness Ascendent, Noel "Skinny Ship" Miller Pilot, Wingmate to Walin
13. Walin, Ildem "Isekai Inbred" Pilot, Wingmate to DA
14. XXGaea, Iradesca "Paradise Song" Aleh
15. A Joe in the Bush, Knowstoo "Number 4" Much Rebel Pilot, Snipexe's Wingmate
16. _Stick_, Stick "somethingcool" stick Pilot
17. Drake "" Marshall

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Steeldancer

[+Ark1002]

Oof. A lifebuster. Hopefully the elims will leave off attacking us for the night, because the gunners do a lot of damage, and we're gonna need that.

So, a coordinated attack will be extremely helpful tonight.

[Elandera]

One largo should use its IMP missile on the lifebuster. Then we'll need either a Gunner to hit it, or a few ships working together. More analysis to come later, on mobile and with family.

[StrikerEZ]

Well, I guess this might be as good a time as any to out myself. I’m an Ace and I’m flying a Largo right now. I can use my IMP to take out the lifebuster’s shields and shoot at it as well. (This would leave it with 11 health). I’d need four people to use their light lances on the Krell escorts, preferably any Fresas we have left, so the Krell can’t retaliate against us when we try to kill the lifebuster. Then, it would be nice if a Gunner could shoot the lifebuster. And then the remaining 3 players could coordinate their attacks so that whoever has the least amount of destructors finishes off the lifebuster and the other two attack Krell. It would be very nice if we’d all list which ships we have so we could coordinate who needs to do what. Once we know more people’s ships, I’ll make a list of who’s doing what.

EDIT: To clarify, I’m flying Largo-2

Edited June 3, 2019 by StrikerEZ

[+Ark1002]

20 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Well, I guess this might be as good a time as any to out myself. I’m an Ace and I’m flying a Largo right now. I can use my IMP to take out the lifebuster’s shields and shoot at it as well. (This would leave it with 11 health). I’d need four people to use their light lances on the Krell escorts, preferably any Fresas we have left, so the Krell can’t retaliate against us when we try to kill the lifebuster. Then, it would be nice if a Gunner could shoot the lifebuster. And then the remaining 3 players could coordinate their attacks so that whoever has the least amount of destructors finishes off the lifebuster and the other two attack Krell. It would be very nice if we’d all list which ships we have so we could coordinate who needs to do what. Once we know more people’s ships, I’ll make a list of who’s doing what.

EDIT: To clarify, I’m flying Largo-2

K, cool

Someone decide who attacks which Krell

[DrakeMarshall]

Damnation. The cycle ended while I was typing my analysis post. If the site hadn't deleted half of it, twice, I might have gotten it posted on time. Anyways, I'm still posting it. Even if I'm attacked tonight you'll have my analysis to go off of.

Lets see if I can catch the eliminator team! Wish me luck 

The first lead is Joe:

Spoiler

• The reveal that Joe was a pilot and not a gunner is very important. It invalidates Bard being hard-cleared. It invalidates some other stuff I was watching out for, including something Striker said in our PM which made me trust them more. This isn't a piece of the puzzle we can afford to leave out.
  • On the other hand, we shouldn't expect very many elim pilots. They probably need at least 2 gunners in order to have even a somewhat reliable kill.
  • In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. I was confused by the caveat in the rules that IMP missiles can only be used on one other player, because why would a pilot ever IMP another player. In hindsight, the possibility of eliminator pilots was the obvious conclusion.
• At first, I was really confused that Joe was the one making the kill. Why would you sacrifice the 10 attack power of a gun tower? How did he know the attack would kill the target, considering they had shields and more health than a single Poco attack could take down? I considered a few options, but then I realized the writeup actually tells us exactly what happened:
  • Joe targeted DA with an IMP.
  • An IMP technically isn't an attack, so a different eliminator was free to use their AA tower to finish DA off.
    • If the elims are able to use an IMP and attack a target at the same time, that makes a lot of sense, balance-wise, giving them a much more reliable kill.
    • It also means that if we kill all the elim pilots (of which Joe may be the only one), the elims no longer have a reliable kill, which is great news for us.
  • Walin, DA's wingmate, delivered delivered 2 retaliatory damage each to Joe and the AA tower for targeting DA, and then an additional 4 retaliatory damage to the AA tower for killing DA. Neither Joe or the AA tower were brought down by these attacks. Then Walin died due to DA dying.
  • By coincidence, a Krell ship attacked Joe, whose shields were down after using an IMP on DA, and who was already damaged from Walin's retaliatory attack. He died.
  • As Joe's wingmate, Snipexe died, presumably shooting down the offending Krell ship in the process.
• If the elims could use an IMP to guarantee a kill, why didn't they succeed in killing anybody N2?
  • It isn't inactivity, because everybody has been putting in action orders.
  • The most obvious answer is that their pilots were coordinating with villagers to shoot down Krell, in order to defuse suspicion. And of course, it makes sense to do just that, it's an obvious way to build trust that would have occured to them well before it occured to us. Did anybody get a slightly sketchy offer for help shooting the Krell on night 2?
    • They were willing to risk fudging their N2 kill to make Joe appear more trustworthy. Come N3, when their N2 kill had failed, they were more determined to kill a villager, and used Joe to guarantee a kill. That they used Joe, who really could have benefited from any extra trust given he attracted votes both D2 and D3, implies that Joe may well be the only rebel pilot they had (which could be really great news for us).
    • Of Joe's last couple posts, 3/4 of them were calling for transparency and coordination on Krell attacks (the other 1/4 was trying to lynch me). And remember, Joe didn't expect to die, it took 2 unrelated and unforeseeable coincidences to kill him, so we can probably take this at close to face value. The people that are acting like coordination and transparency and doing pilot stuff somehow clears them? That sort of behavior is looking a lot more suspicious now, since clearly the elims were thinking along those lines.
• Earlier I theorized that Joe was being more active in the eliminator doc than in the thread (in retrospect, it is also possible he was being more active in his wingmate PM, although I doubt it, since the two of them were different alignments and Snipexe was even less active than Joe was). The fact that he felt he needed to be active in the elim doc despite his generally low activity says something. If the elim doc was not very active, if Joe didn't consistently have people to talk to, why would he be sacrificing in-thread activity for doc activity? This suggests that the elim doc is actually pretty active, discrediting my earlier theory about the elim team containing a significant number of inactive players.

Great, so now I know what I'm looking for. Lets take a look at the pool of suspects:

Spoiler

1. Xinoehp512 - Low activity.
2. Elandera - Increasingly suspicious read.
3. Mailliw73 - Low activity. Moderate suspicion.
4. Ark1002 - Low activity. Soft village read.
5. Furamirionind - Increasingly mixed and contradictory read.
6. Cadmium/Lumgol - Low activity. Soft village read.
7. StrikerEZ - Thoroughly ambivalent read.
8. Young Bard - No longer hard-cleared.
9. XXGaea - Low activity.
10. Drake Marshall - I already made the case about my alignment.

Narrowing it down to the ones it might be productive to lynch:

1. Elandera - Increasingly suspicious read.
2. Mailliw73 - Low activity. Moderate suspicion.
3. Furamirionind - Increasingly mixed and contradictory read.
4. Young Bard - No longer hard-cleared.

 

Young Bard

Reasons I suspect Bard:

• Bard was sure they would be attacked. The elims have been picking off trusted villagers (DA). Bard still hasn’t been attacked.
• One of the major pushes for lynching me has been that if I flipped elim, Bard would probably also be elim. The obvious implication is that if I flipped village, Bard would definitely be trustworthy. Convenient.
• Bard has suggested we go after inactives. If my conjecture about the elim team being more active is accurate, then this is misdirection.
• Bard participated in the Sart lynch, which I am generally suspicious of as it wasn’t justified.

Reasons I don't suspect Bard:

• Bard has from the beginning consistently been willing to discuss sacrificing the battle against Krell to gain an edge against the elims. This seems like an idea elims wouldn’t want to promote, even as a way of blending in.
• Village or elim, Bard is definitely a pilot, and if Bard and Joe were both elim pilots, I would have picked Bard to use the IMP, not Joe. Joe would have benefited more from the trust gained by coordinating with villagers.
• Bard said he would shoot the inactives. An elim would have wanted to lynch them. An elim would not have wanted to commit their kill to inactives, or to advertise that they were doing so.
• The elims knew Bard wasn’t hard-cleared all along, they probably knew we would work it out eventually, and they may have wanted to keep him alive for exactly that reason.

 

Furamirionind

Reasons I suspect Fura:

• I noticed statistically significant distancing between Fura and Elandera. I don’t give Fura’s protests much credence in this case because she said a few posts later she felt like she wasn’t hearing enough from Elandera.
• Fura ignored Sart’s request to lynch Joe while posting about other things, then suddenly changed her mind about it in the last 10 minutes of the cycle, when it was too late to make a difference.
• I've already noted that Joe had been advertising the importance of coordination and transparency between players, and Fura has definitely also been doing that.

Reasons I don't suspect Fura:

• I feel like she has sometimes been inconsistent, but this is a pretty village thing to do. Elims care a lot about appearing consistent with their previous posts because it means not getting caught in a lie. Villagers don’t really need to care about that stuff.
• For the most part, her posts defending herself have made a lot of sense. Also, it doesn’t really feel like the sort of logic an eliminator would think to employ.

 

Mailliw

Reasons I suspect Mailliw:

• It’s hard enough to get a read on an inactive that even registers, so when I get an elim read on a player who isn’t very active, I take it seriously.

Reasons we shouldn't lynch Mailliw:

• We already have one dead eliminator who wasn’t very active. Even if Mailliw is an elim, lynching them just won’t give us that much information.

 

Elandera

Reasons I suspect Elandera:

• Elandera assumed the elims shot down Devotary on the first night. A reasonable assumption, but they did not present it as a guess, they just acted like they knew it was true.
  • When questioned about it, responds with an RP. Now, I’m all for using an RP to talk about this stuff, but Elandera doesn’t usually do that. And in this case, roleplaying shock at even being questioned on this point kind of just feels like a way of hiding.
  • The gist of Elandera’s answer was that they weren’t aware from the rules that things other than the elims could kill people. If they had said something to the effect that in most SE games, the only kill of the night tends to be the elim kill, I would have been satisfied, but I very much don’t trust the explanation they gave. The threat of the Krell has been discussed exhaustively for the entire game, and Elandera has played an active role in that discussion. In a complicated game like this it sounds like a good excuse to say that you misunderstood the rules, but in this case it would basically mean not knowing the Krell were part of the game.
• Not to overstate myself, but the timing of the "people wanting to lynch Drake" trend exactly coincides with when I posted my first list of reads. I find it hard to ignore that. If my list of reads was totally accurate, or even if I was right about Fura, I think the elims would have been more cautious in dealing with it. Conversely, if it was totally inaccurate, or even if Joe was the only correct suspicion on that list, I doubt the elims would have cared. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that at least one of my other suspicions on that list were accurate. It would have to be either be Elandera or Mailliw, and given how weak my read against Mailliw was, I find Elandera a lot more likely.
• I have much stronger village reads on basically everyone else of Elandera’s caliber of activity (many of whom are dead anyhow). Process of elimination is surprisingly well named, considering its effectiveness when playing elimination games.
• Generally has een leading lynches on villagers (in the case of Sart, ones I was particularly watching for eliminators to go after, because they were obviously low hanging fruit), and was okay to let the D1 lynch not happen. When all else fails, actions speak louder than words.
  • One of the most obvious village tells is overanalyzing things. Villagers tend to try too hard. Most people have done it at least once in this game. Elandera is not suffering from this particular ailment. Villagers fantasize about finding an airtight case, but eliminators know that no airtight cases exist against the people they are trying to lynch.

If I had to guess right now, I’d say the eliminator team was Joe, Elandera, Mailliw, and Furamirionind.

Of these, I am by far the least certain about Furamirionind; Fura could easily be innocent, and it could instead be Striker, an inactive, or possibly Bard.

(Interestingly, I appear to have reached very similar conclusions to what Sart predicted right before dying, independently of whatever Sart was doing.)

Edited June 3, 2019 by MrakeDarshall

[StrikerEZ]

Oh, I just realized something. If I take out the shields on the Lifebuster and take out 4 of the remaining health, that leaves the Lifebuster at 6 health, since shields are included in the total health of 15. That is both good news and bad news. That means we can use less ships to take out the Lifebuster...but that also means it isn’t as necessary for the Gunners to fight back against the Krell this night. 

Edited June 3, 2019 by StrikerEZ

[Elandera]

We should also be careful of having too many people target the Lifebuster, since the Krell fire back at those people specifically. Gunners might be opportunistic if they know who exactly will be targeting the lifebuster.

[+Ark1002]

25 minutes ago, Elandera said:

We should also be careful of having too many people target the Lifebuster, since the Krell fire back at those people specifically. Gunners might be opportunistic if they know who exactly will be targeting the lifebuster.

cool

still isn't organized

[Elandera]

11 minutes ago, Ark1002 said:

cool

still isn't organized

I mean, I don't think there needs to be too much organization. Striker has already offered to launch an IMP missile, which means we only need three people to fire at the lifebuster to destroy it. If you're concerned there won't be enough attacks on it, fire away. If your attack wasn't needed, it'll be redirected to one of the surrounding Krell.

I just don't think announcing every person who plans to attack the lifebuster is a good idea. Person A, B, C, and D all fire at the Lifebuster after announcing they would do so. Krell will then attack persons A-D, removing their shields. Gunners then know persons A-D will be vulnerable, and will have their pickings for whom to kill.

Also, if the traitor is active, then announcing everyone would allow them to pick their roleblock or attack target in an effort to keep the Lifebuster alive.