Final Fantasy VIII General Discussion

[Cthulhu]

Neat. Square should make those too. Actually they could probably make a lot of non-video games if they wanted to.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

There was an official physical Triple Triad released back when VIII came out. The cards weren't in production for long and are now extremely rare and expensive. I bought one pack at a convention back in 2000, but have always wanted more. I need to check some time, but I think I got Ifrit in that pack.

 

[Jason Tandro]

Here's my latest journal. Finally getting back to this baby after XV.

Journal 5: You Know The Drill

 

[Tetsujin]

I had planned to finish VIII before XV came out but...
I only made it to after the Garden lifts off.

 

[Ite]

My PS3 has a bonked HDMI port so I'm stuck in FH.

It's why I've gotten back on the Elder Scrolls train. Take me far, far awayy

 

[Clement Rage]

What's so hard to understand about the error ratio? Sometimes you want to bomb, say, a specific factory, and you want the impacts to happen close together. Sometimes you want to bomb, say, the industrial district, and you want the impacts to be spread out because bombing the same factory nineteen times after it's already destroyed is a waste of expensive missiles.

 

[Tetsujin]

What's so hard to understand about the error ratio? Sometimes you want to bomb, say, a specific factory, and you want the impacts to happen close together. Sometimes you want to bomb, say, the industrial district, and you want the impacts to be spread out because bombing the same factory nineteen times after it's already destroyed is a waste of expensive missiles.

I mean yeah, but you'd just target a general area instead of "target very specific area then fuck up the targeting so it hits the general area instead"

^

 

[Clement Rage]

What's the difference, practically?

 

[Jason Tandro]

What's the difference, practically?

It's the difference between carpet bombing a series of legitimate military targets in one area where precision is put into each target and but they are fired simultaneously to create a sweep and "whoops, sorry civilians - collateral damage." Until I hear evidence to the contrary I am confident that an "error ratio" is not the way any military has ever run a carpet bombing of an area.

 

[Clement Rage]

I tried to look up missile guidance, and didn't really understand it, but most of the methods seem to need radar or external guidance, which doesn't work in FF8 because long range wireless communication is impossible in that world. So they could be using fictional tech.

It's not really uncommon to just generally bomb a city or area of the enemy nation without worrying too much about collateral damage. And this missile base belongs to a nation not adverse to 'take over the world' politics.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Though a good point, a lack of concern about collateral damage -- or a lack of concern about imprecise targeting so long as something in the vicinity is hit -- strikes me as quite different from deliberately imposing unreliable targeting upon a very reliable targeting system.

Like, if you don't care who or what gets blown up in the area, would you not still take advantage of the fact that your technology allows you to precisely target different sections of the area? It just seems wasteful and kind of willy nilly. Like, if you didn't hit anything valuable, you'd have only yourself to blame.

 

[Clement Rage]

Depends on whether you know exactly where your targets are. They probably know exactly where Balamb Garden is, but if you're shooting into Esthar or some other enemy nation, possibly all you'll know is the rough position of the city/fortress/whatever, and, and an enemy nation will try to to hide its more important targets. The UK used to do things like paint duckponds on the roof of factories if they were at risk of being bombed.

Precise targeting doesn't make much of a difference if you don't know where your target is, beyond 'somewhere around there'.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

In that case, though, what benefit would firing blind provide that firing at different "maybe" spots wouldn't?

 

[Jason Tandro]

That explanation flies in the face of basic probability though.

Scenario: We have no idea where the enemy base is, but here are some buildings.

Option A. Target those buildings with 0% Error Ratio. 100% chance of blowing up those targets.

Option B. Target those buildings are with 75% Error Ratio. 25% chance of hitting any of the buildings.

 

[Clement Rage]

Note: If anyone that actually knows how ICBMs works wants to chime in, feel free.

Not quite.

Esthar has closed its borders, we have no information on what's on the ground We know where the capital city is, roughly. We don't know what's on the ground at any given point inside it.

We can (somewhat) precisely target specific points (It's not 0% it's minimum), but we don't know what we're aiming at. That specific point could be anything, the presidential palace, a vacant lot, a landfill, a river. But we can reasonably assume this point is somewhere within the city limits.

We have many targets. We can target the same place with multiple missiles precisely, but we don't know what it's hitting, and it could easily be a useless target, and therefore we waste many missiles.

We can individually target each missile in a different spot, but this is actual genuine rocket science we're talking, so it's difficult and complicated, which means it takes time and money, and since we don't know where the valuable targets are, you're not any more likely to precisely target something valuable, and your engineers are spending time they could be using on something else. Also, it's slower, which means less missile launches.

Or, we can do the targeting once, but widen the error ratio. So you only need to set one target point somewhere in the centre of the target area, and you know the missiles will hit somewhere in the vicinity of that point, mostly likely each somewhere different. So you only have to set the target once, but will actually hit many different places in the general area. Saves much time and effort, and money and achieves pretty much the same thing.

Because you have no information about what's on the ground, other than 'this is probably a city', your precisely chosen points are still random guesses, you have no idea what you're aiming at. So bombing a wide spread in the area without specifically targeting each missile achieves the same thing, except you only have to set the targeting once, so it's quicker, easier, and cheaper. Which means you can do more of it, or at least spend that money somewhere else in the war effort.

Option A: Precisely target each missile to unknown points within city. No idea what the points will hit.

Option B: Target somewhere vaguely central, increase error ratio. Each missile hits somewhere different, unknown points within city. Only need to set target once to strike many different places. Same result as A, but quicker, easier, cheaper.

 

[Tetsujin]

If anyone that actually knows how ICBMs works wants to chime in, feel free.

I do, but Galbadia doesn't use ICBMs

Also, the datalog thingy described them as ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). Seems like someone at Square didn't know what 'ballistic' meant though as these are clearly cruise missiles!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Esthar has closed its borders, we have no information on what's on the ground We know where the capital city is, roughly. We don't know what's on the ground at any given point inside it.

We can (somewhat) precisely target specific points (It's not 0% it's minimum), but we don't know what we're aiming at. That specific point could be anything, the presidential palace, a vacant lot, a landfill, a river. But we can reasonably assume this point is somewhere within the city limits.

We have many targets. We can target the same place with multiple missiles precisely, but we don't know what it's hitting, and it could easily be a useless target, and therefore we waste many missiles.

We can individually target each missile in a different spot, but this is actual genuine rocket science we're talking, so it's difficult and complicated, which means it takes time and money, and since we don't know where the valuable targets are, you're not any more likely to precisely target something valuable, and your engineers are spending time they could be using on something else. Also, it's slower, which means less missile launches.

Or, we can do the targeting once, but widen the error ratio. So you only need to set one target point somewhere in the centre of the target area, and you know the missiles will hit somewhere in the vicinity of that point, mostly likely each somewhere different. So you only have to set the target once, but will actually hit many different places in the general area. Saves much time and effort, and money and achieves pretty much the same thing.

Because you have no information about what's on the ground, other than 'this is probably a city', your precisely chosen points are still random guesses, you have no idea what you're aiming at. So bombing a wide spread in the area without specifically targeting each missile achieves the same thing, except you only have to set the targeting once, so it's quicker, easier, and cheaper. Which means you can do more of it, or at least spend that money somewhere else in the war effort.

Option A: Precisely target each missile to unknown points within city. No idea what the points will hit.

Option B: Target somewhere vaguely central, increase error ratio. Each missile hits somewhere different, unknown points within city. Only need to set target once to strike many different places. Same result as A, but quicker, easier, cheaper.

This would only be a sensible approach under a very specific set of circumstances, though:

-Galbadia knows Esthar City is cloaked
-The precise targeting system doesn't already exist
-The missiles are being developed specifically to attack a cloaked Esthar rather than to be used against any and all potential enemies
-Development time for the precise targeting system is at a premium (e.g. you're currently at war and are desperate)

That the missiles are capable of targeting Balamb Garden so precisely and that we are even discussing this matter tells us that neither the third or fourth considerations were in play, as does the fact that Galbadia apparently never attempted what you're describing (i.e. attacking Esthar after its borders closed). For that matter, once Esthar closed its borders, the war ended.

By the time the game's present day events occur, whatever expense of time or money was involved was already dispensed to develop such a precise targeting system. Assuming it didn't exist during the war 17 years earlier anyway. In either case, during the present, it exists already. There won't be added expenses involved in just going ahead and using it.

I also feel I must question the validity of the approach you describe as being quicker, easier and cheaper. Lazier perhaps, because I would assume we're talking about a system that was designed to be fairly simple to use to begin with. What notable expense of time or money will be added by having the people punching in the coordinates punch in a few different numbers?

For that matter, in the event of attacking Esthar, how is knowing where you've already sent your missiles (because you're using precise targeting) a waste of missiles any more than letting them fall at random? Because you're removing the possibility of more than one being used on the same target, you know you're getting the most out of each one, and -- if you fire more later -- you'll know what you've already hit, so you can more efficiently use the next salvo.

 

[Clement Rage]

What about having a system in place for generalised targeting of a city prevents the missile base from also targeting something precisely if it needs to? It's not an either/or.

Galbadia apparently never attempted what you're describing (i.e. attacking Esthar after its borders closed). For that matter, once Esthar closed its borders, the war ended.

I am assuming that Esthar in wartime controlled what information reached its enemy, and that there were travel and information restrictions in some form.

The rest of the post is arguing about fictional technology, which neither of us knows enough about. How does the targeting work? Is it a simple matter, or do they need to do long, complicated calculations to get the strikes on target. We don't know, but my guess would be that targeting this precisely is not point and click.

As for easy to use, it's a running gag during the missile base mission that Selphie has no idea how anything works.

For that matter, in the event of attacking Esthar, how is knowing where you've already sent your missiles (because you're using precise targeting) a waste of missiles any more than letting them fall at random? Because you're removing the possibility of more than one being used on the same target, you know you're getting the most out of each one, and -- if you fire more later -- you'll know what you've already hit, so you can more efficiently use the next salvo.

It's going to be much more complicated than that. What kind of missile defenses do they have? How many of what we launched were duds? How many of them hit places that can be quickly repaired? How many of them hit hard targets that were able to take a missile strike with no trouble? With no way to get any of this information, it's not any particular advantage to have precise targeting when you don't know what you're aiming at. But, if the targeting is long and complicated (there was at least time for a team to be sent from the prison before the launch took place), you're increasing the workloadon the people doing the targeting, for essentially the same result.
This also means you can't launch as many as quickly if they all have to be targeted individually, because they have to wait for the targeting to happen before launch.

I do, but Galbadia doesn't use ICBMs

Okay, you have the floor. Educate us.

 

[Lord Noctis]

So I was messing around on FF.net, and I happened to find a sequel to FFVIII that's honestly really damn good, so I'm gonna leave you all a link. Fair warning though, its a lengthy read.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8816271/1/Final-Fantasy-8-Future-Bound

 

[Ite]

Fellas, the missiles had eyeballs.

 

[Lulcielid]

Happy 18th anniversary Final Fantasy VIII.

 

[Jason Tandro]

How appropriate, I wrote another FF8 Journal today:

Journal 6: Deus Ex Hortus

 

[Jason Tandro]

God this playhtrough is taking me ages. I don't have an update yet but I do have some news. A while ago I asked around for an el cheapo strategy guide for the game that I had when I was a kid. It was like 30 pages, paper and was my very first taste of the game. I have been searching for this elusive thing for about 10 years and unlike the FF9 Art Book which I knew how to find but was always too expensive, I never found this thing. As one might expect searching for FF8 Strategy Guide always provided me with the BradyGames guide.

On a whim tonight I searched ebay and specifically looked up FF8 Book.

And I think I found it:

It was a 32 page paperback which is already a good sign and reading a zoom in on the last page I noticed that it is formatted in the exact way the old one was. I haven't seen this thing since I was about 12 but how many other books like this formatted the same way can there be?

I paid $20 for it but if it turns out to be the genuine article it's worth it for the sheer nostalgia.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Take pictures!

 

[Jason Tandro]

Take pictures!

Naturally. As soon as it gets in I'll scan the whole thing.