Sunder The Gold's speculations

Sunder The Gold's various speculations:

Red Rider's Arms Creation (http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4749738&postcount=194)

Returning to the Ultimate Gunsmith topic...

A player's items can be sold to Shops in return for Burst Points, and those items become available for sale to other players, whom must pay Burst Points to get them.

Fuuko told Haruyuki that she could do that with her Gale Thruster, as an alternative to Haru needing to meet her in real life and reveal his face. (But, she said, the price for her Enhanced Armament would have been prohibitively expensive for him because of all of the bonuses she had invested into it.)

Supposing that Red Rider's gun-creating item cost Burst Points to make a gun, Rider could turn right around and sell those guns to Shops to get Burst Points back.

Obviously, he would need to recieve only as many (or fewer) Points for selling the guns than he spent on creating the guns, otherwise he could game the system for infinite Points.


But even if he doesn't make a profit from this, Red Rider could still avoid running out of Burst Points while simultaneously filling the "market" with weapons that NPCs might not normally have in their inventories, which benefits other players (especially allies, whom can buy the weapons before their rivals can). Especially if NPCs can't make customized weapons according to a player's order, which seems likely.

In fact, the ability to make exactly the kind of gun he desires may be the only benefit of Ultimate Gunsmith.

If Rider gets an equal or fewer number of Burst Points back from the Shop compared to the amount he had to spend in creating the weapon, that means that any weapon he means to keep for himself costs him as much or more than any weapon he could buy from a Shop.

If Shops could make weapons to order, then the only benefit of Ultimate Gunsmith would be that it saves him the trip of finding and visiting a Shop.


All of this assumes another point of balance: That Red Rider must pay exactly as many (or more!) Burst Points as the Shops would charge other players to buy the weapon.

See, it's possible that Rider could create for 1 BP a weapon that is worth 100 BP, and that the Shops will only buy that weapon from him for the same 1 BP cost that he spent to make it.

However, if Red Rider could create weapons cheaper than he could buy them, he would break the system. Because no other player could gain so many additional Enhanced Armaments so reliably and with such a smaller-than-normal risk.


This means that Red Rider, before he became Level 9, likely did not have a staggeringly huge arsenal of weapons. After all, if he kept spending Burst Points on new guns for himself, he'd never have enough left over to Level Up!

Instead, it means that Red Rider gradually accumulated a few extra guns, in addition to his starting equipment and anything gained through Level Up bonuses. These extra guns would have been created for the express purpose of dealing with enemies against whom Rider's normal abilities would be ineffective. Each of them, a purpose-made, anti-(player) or anti-(Boss) weapon.

And if that player or Boss stopped being a concern? He could make up the cost by turning around and selling that weapon to a Shop. (Though he might have to worry about someone else buying that weapon and using against him or his allies.) In the end, Rider would lose nothing, and in return for "nothing" he gained a huge advantage against his target for as long as that target was a problem. DAMN.

Quite possibly, Rider had eight extra guns, each designed specifically for one of the other eight Kings of Pure Color. Which would, of course, make him very difficult for the other Kings to fight, since he could specialize against each of them rather than just one or two of them.

To counter that, they would each have to luck upon a Shop, Enemy or other player who had a suitable anti-Rider weapon, and then buy the weapon or kill the target and hope for a successful random drop. That's a lot more work.


So you see, simply being able to make exactly the weapons he wants, whenever he wants, is already a big advantage for Rider that no one else would have. Especially once he had the allies or the personal strength to reliably farm Enemies for Burst Points.

However, while Ultimate Gunsmith is powerful, we still can't be sure how powerful it is until we know more about the limitations of Shops. Such as whether they have a randomized inventory, a universal inventory between shops, an exclusive inventory in certain hidden shops, or whether some weapons are limited in stock.

Likewise, how reliable Enemy item drops are. Those might be random, and some weapons might not drop a second time.

(and the post right after this)

TL;DR version

1) Shops don't take custom orders. They sell only what's in stock.

2) To make a gun, Red Rider needed to spend as many Burst Points as someone would need to buy it from a Shop, if not more.

3) Rider could make guns specifically designed to counter other Burst Linkers or Enemies, then sell the gun if he didn't need it anymore.

4) Rider probably only ever had a few "extra" guns at a time, because of the huge cost involved. He didn't spend much time as a Level 9, and before that he needed to save up BP for leveling up.

5) Selling a gun allows him to get back the Burst Points he spent and makes a new gun available for his allies to buy, but it also runs the risk of his enemies getting the gun.


New

6) A number of Rider's old allies and legionaires (and one or two enemies) would still have guns created by Rider. Since a lot of his old legionaires left after his death, many of these guns would now be found in the Purple King's Oval Aurora. Purple Thorn herself likely has at least one such gun as a gift.

7) Beyond making ISS Kits, White Cosmos might have used the forge to create various Anti-King Guns, since she doesn't need to save up BP for leveling up anymore.

8) It's theoretically possible for a Blue avatar to have an Ultimate Swordsmith device, which would make him a coveted asset or target. (Tus note: inb4 UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS)



Blood Leopard

"Pard, on the other hand, may have conflated her idea of "speed" with "groundspeed". Rather than dreaming of flight, she may have dreamed of speeding along the ground like a motorcycle or great cat. It's possible that, unlike Haruyuki, she desired self-improvement rather than escape." (Source: http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4592941&postcount=151)

And the main speculation comes forth in an earlier post. Source: http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4552849&postcount=112

I'm going to offer a theory on Blood Leopard -- that her avatar is Red because its initial, humanoid body is weak like a Red. Not much muscle mass; most is concentrated into the legs (especially the thighs, which Haruyuki notes are particularly thick); extremely minimal armor, too.

The transformation into the cat form is Leopard's version of "completely turning the tables". Her avatar goes from speed-based Red to speed-based "Super-Blue", gaining loads more muscle-mass across the entire body; including the jaws.

Blood Leopard could not be a Blue, because no Blue could be as fast as she wants to be. To deliver that kind of potential, the system needed to make her pay for it.

The payment is the initial weak Red avatar, and the time and effort needed to earn her "Super-Blue" cat form. This enforced waiting period might be some reflection on the impatience she seems to show.

SP-Drain seems to be a reflection of her efforts to reduce waiting periods. HP-Drain may be a reflection of a desire to avoid wastefulness; rather than all of that precious HP vanishing into a vaccuum when she inflicts injury, she can conserve some of it by drinking it up.

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This will be updated in the future while I retrace my adventures in Animesuki. Credits to Sunder The Gold, or simply 'Gold,' for teaching me the wonderful ways of human imagination and the finer points of language art.