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HD TV with a bit of 3D

2011-07-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

Television seems to be all about extra dimensions these days.

To tell a quick story, our projection LCD TV blew another bulb Saturday, and getting those replaced involves a 40 mile trip to a TV repair shop and over $200 to get a new bulb put in the housing.

So Monday we went around shopping for TVs, intent on getting something in the 50 inch class with a nice picture for about $1000 and break the bulb replacement cycle.

The one we selected was out of stock, but we picked it up in store yesterday and now I’ve had a day to break it in.

The TV that ended up getting selected was a KDL-55EX723, which is fancy for saying a Sony TV, 55 inch screen, EX line, model 723, which is a special version of the 720.

So some interesting things. The Sony Style store only sales the EX720, after a bit of research I found out that the EX723 is an exclusive from Best Buy that has built in wi-fi, whereas the EX720 requires a USB wi-fi adapter that costs about $90. The bizarre part? The EX723 was $1,480 and the EX720 is $1,800.

At any rate, the EX720 line is actually the entry level Sony 3D TV for 2011, but it just so happens that at that price a 55 inch edge lit LED LCD TV is a good deal without the 3D. Well, a little bit much for a 55 inch, but it does have a very nice picture, both in contrast and colors, even at moderate settings as opposed to overly vivid showroom settings.

Honestly, there isn’t much 3D content. The PS3 has been updated to play 3D Blu-rays, but there are precious few of those, some of the best 3D BRs out right now is Legend of the Guardians(the one about the owls), Tangled and Gnomeo & Juliet. Avatar is out on 3D BR, but only as part of an expensive bundle with other stuff. Upcoming 3D BRs include Transformers (all 3 I think), Green Lantern and Thor.

3D gaming on the other hand is quite nice and movies and games both will be a good reason to go 3D next year.

It just so happens though that LCD TVs have progressed to the point where displaying 3D content just means having a active 3D sync emitter optional or part of the TV(at least for the kind like Sony that use active 3D glasses).

Speaking of which, the Sony 3D glasses for 2011 are surprisingly comfortable and have quick charging batteries that are charged like PS3 controllers. Although a bit bigger than 3D movie glasses, they rest very comfortably on the face while worn.

As for the TV itself, it’s 50 inches by 30 inches and just 1 ⅝ inches thick, it actually felt like handling a mirror while attaching it to the stand. Besides being uncomfortably thin to handle, it only has an inch of border around the actual screen, so from in front all that is visible is a big vivid picture with a glossy black frame.

Speaking of the picture, it really is nice. To put how nice in easy to understand terms, the TV it is replacing is an LCD projection TV, which already has a nice sharp picture, yet the picture on this TV is so much better, watching Wall-E on Blu-ray felt like an all-new experience, the picture was just that rich and clear.

Speaking of the included wi-fi, moments after setting it up I hit the Internet video button, selected the Sony 3D Experience channel and had a selection of quickly streaming 3D HD content to watch. Although they were just 2-3 minute clips, some, particularly the 3D nature shots in Japanese zoos and aquariums were nice to watch, just to check out what 3D is like on the TV.

What’s the 3D like? Pretty much like seeing a 3D movie in the theatre, although some home sources of 3D aren’t as good. The nature video we bought to watch had some bad parallax caused by switching between wildly varying 3D scenes or over-doing the 3D effect. While playing some 3D games (Motorstorm Apocolypse) there were a few instances of a parallax, mostly when pausing the game and a flying box or piece of debris would rotate near the camera. (Parallax ghosting is when the left/right images of an object on screen don’t overlap properly, yet the rest of the 3D objects are in focus.). Overall the effect is very nice, and video games generally have options for tuning the 3D effect, just be wary of watching poorly done 3D video content.

Downsides of the TV? Honestly not much, for being the ‘cheapest’ 3D TV Sony is making this year, it’s a very nice TV, but here are the odd points.

No 3D glasses included. Active glasses are $70 right now and come in adult or child sizes, but honestly there is little 3D content this year and next year looks better, so holding off a year or two to buy glasses is actually a good idea. The TV will work with newer or older glasses, but the 2012 glasses are likely to be better than the 2011 glasses. As a reference, the 2010 glasses were uncomfortably front-heavy and cost $150.

Weak Speakers. The downside of having a super-thin TV is the TV has two tiny 10W speakers mounted on the back. It’s still decently loud, but it has to be turned up a bit higher than other TVs to reach the same sound levels.

Remote. It’s fairly basic and not backlit. The face also has an odd concave curve to it(ie the face with the buttons curves inwards, creating a valley). This was a bit odd since Sony TVs generally have nice remotes, but I did find the lovely trick of this remote. The recessed buttons mean the remote can be placed on a table upside down, revealing a smooth black monolith remote with a Sony logo and a single stylish power button.

This TV also has something called a Presence Sensor, which can be turned off. It’s basically a motion detector that can turn off the TV screen if it doesn’t detect movement within X minutes. I currently have it set to 5 minutes for my own amusement and have to wave at the TV every once in a while because my laptop is apparently hiding me while typing. Under normal sitting conditions, even sitting still and watching a movie it seems to detect me just fine.

The odd part? The more advanced Sony TVs can track eyeballs to the degree of aiming speaker sound at the viewers and warning kids if they get too close to the TV. No, seriously.

One final part of this little adventure is using Bravia Link for the first time. I told my PS3 to allow HDMI control. I told my TV to use HDMI control. What does that mean?

When I turned on the PS3 this afternoon and put in the Wall-E movie, the TV detected the PS3 coming on and switched over in time to show the PS3 start-up screen. I then sat down and used the TV remote buttons to navigate the PS3 menus, start-up the movie and basically never had to turn on a PS3 remote to handle it. When I took the disc out afterwards and hit the power button the the PS3, the TV automatically turned back to what I was watching before.

That was some nice icing on the awesome picture cake.

A Million Grains of Sand

2011-07-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we’ve played with creating items. So now lets say we wish to send the player on a quest to collect a million grains of sand for whatever silly reason the plot calls for.

A sand is a kind of thing. There are 10000 sand in the beach shore.

No, it looks good, but trying that will cause many many issues.

1. Inform understands ‘Take sand’ (1 grain at a time) and ‘Take All’ (runs through every object in the room and tries to take them all, which means printing over 10,000 take messages). Inform does not understand ‘Take 1000 sand’ because the ‘take’ action is defined as taking some thing, not taking some number and some thing, nor would ‘take all sand’ limit the taking action to just all the sand in a room.

2. That pesky 100 copies limit mentioned in the last post. It probably makes sense now with that ‘take all’ action reporting each individual take.

3. For the player to collect a million grains of sand where each is a copy of the sand kind, there must actually be a million of them at least at game start. This alone might choke the game.

So is there no hope other than making sand something insubstantial such as an XP number where when a monster is killed the player’s XP goes up so many points?

No, there is a solution, and it’s just to be less literal about things. The blank weapon kind from the last post is the basis for the solution. We can have sand objects, but they must be bundles of sand.

A sand-bundle is a kind of thing. A sand-bundle can be bagged. The printed name of a sand-bundle is “[if item described is bagged]sturdy bag of sand[otherwise]pile of sand[end if]”. Understand “sand” as a sand-bundle. Understand “bag/of” as a bagged sand-bundle. Understand “pile/of” as a not bagged sand-bundle. A sand-bundle has a number called sand.

This works quite well, we need only create enough sand-bundles to account for all the piles or bags of sand in the game. Each pile/bag of sand will contain as many grains as the sand number. A beach for instance could have multiple piles of sand placed in it with varying amounts of sand in each pile. In z-machine code the max/min of a number is about +/- 65,000, whereas in Glulx which is the modern version, the max/min of a number is +/- about 2 billion, which is more than enough to carry 1 million grains of sand in one bag.

Inform will in this case understand ‘take sand’ as taking an entire bag or pile of sand.

Of course this isn’t finished yet. I at least wouldn’t want the player carrying piles of sand, although multiple bags might be okay. There are two options for consolidating. The simplest is the assume the player has some method of carrying the sand along with everything else, similar to how RPGs don’t really track how the player is carrying 52 health potions and 1074 gold pieces. It’s just in the player’s inventory.

The more fun way is to make it where the first time the player finds a bag of sand, the player uses the bag for sand carrying. This can be simulated with a Carry Out rule for taking.

Carry out taking a sand-bundle:
If the player is carrying a bagged sand-bundle(called sandbag):
Increase the sand of sandbag by the sand of the noun;
Now the noun is off-stage;
say “You add the sand to your bag.”;
Rule succeeds;[this should prevent taking from carrying out further and actually taking the bag]
otherwise if the noun is bagged: [code for claiming it as a bag to carry sand in]
say “Ah, now you have a handy bag to carry sand in.”; [We don’t interfere here so the taking action continues, which should eventually report Taken: bag of sand.]
otherwise:
say “You can’t meaningfully carry that much loose sand.” instead; [this stop the action as a failure]

More on how actions process in a later post, but the idea here is that we want the taking action to add sand to the carried bag and ‘throw away’ the now empty bag, putting it out of play where it can be recycled, perhaps as a new pile somewhere.

This type of code can be done for anything that is numerous and is indeed the trick most video games use for this sort of item, which is why RPGs will drop piles/bags of gold, quivers of arrows, braces of throwing daggers, etc. In those games it is less because they have to create all their items before hand and more to simply keep the current total of all items down.

For more detailed information, chapter 14 of the Inform documentation, Numbers and Equations has some wonderful examples dealing with weights, value of money, liquids and various other numbers.

As an example, say we wish to put in the RPG staple, loads and loads of gold, silver and copper coins. We can use the sand-bundling concept, but we can model the numbers a bit differently.

Working form the basis that 40 copper = 1 silver and 40 silver = 1 gold

1. A coin number, when printing a description of the amount and type of coins in a pile, we can do some math to determine how many where 1 = copper, 40 = silver and 1600 = gold. In this method while the exact value is kept track of, the description math can be written to be a bit random in describing, where it might describe a pile of 2000 coins as 1 gold piece and 10 silver pieces or it might say 2000 copper pieces. Both equal 2000 coins.

2. A defined coin number as 1g39s39c which creates a complex number that automatically ‘makes change’, where 39c + 24c = 1s23c. This type of number is like defining Dollars as $1.99 and time as 1:59, the first number can be as high as we wish, but any following numbers are listed at their highest value. 1 minute after 3:59 will thus be 4:00, and 1c above 1g39s39c will be 2g

3. Simply make separate gold silver and copper coin numbers. In this way if the player is carrying 2000 copper (and 50 coins = 1 pound), the player might visit the money changer in town and pay the 3% change to have that copper converted to gold and silver. This is the realistic method where copper doesn't magically convert to silver, the player must get it converted somewhere or spend it. We can also write code to convert 50 coins into 1 pound of weight, so this will also make coins more of a realistic acting item if the player can only carry so much.

We also haven’t considered something else yet, which is how the player can do ‘drop 500 copper’ in case the player is carrying too much and wants to drop some heavy copper pieces without dropping the whole money bag. That is for another day though, it is only a problem if we make it a problem after all.

Being Informed about Sharp Pointy Objects

2011-07-21T22:26:00.000-07:00

So now that I’ve reviewed some of the details about objects in Inform 7, it’s time for a little practical experience with them. We’ll make something like a pen-and-paper RPG, so we’ll want to define the player and a monster to fight and such.

A person called Thorn is in dungeon entrance. The player is Thorn. Thorn carries an old iron sword.

An old iron sword is a thing. The description of the old iron sword is “This sword is well-worn and in serious need of attention from a skilled blacksmith. Still, it’s at least good for another fight or two.”.

A goblin is in dungeon entry. Dungeon entry is down from dungeon entrance. A goblin carries an old iron sword.

This code looks good, but it will throw up an error when Go! is hit and Inform 7 attempts to compile it. This is because three different statements conflict about the old iron sword and it is a unique item. This first ‘carried’ statement attempt to create it, and the second line explicitly tries to create the sword, and the goblin carry conflicts with the carry by Thorn. This however would work.

A person called Thorn is in dungeon entrance. The player is Thorn.

An old iron sword is a thing. The description of the old iron sword is “This sword is well-worn and in serious need of attention from a skilled blacksmith. Still, it’s at least good for another fight or two.”.

A goblin is in dungeon entry. Dungeon entry is down from dungeon entrance. A goblin carries an old iron sword.

(code for goblin defeat event)
Now the old iron sword is carried by the player;
say “You pry the old sword from the goblin’s not-quite cold dead hands. At least now you’re armed.”.

This code is fine, the sword is created with detail, it is then carried by the goblin(since this comes afterwards, it doesn’t try to create the sword, just set it as carried by the goblin). Then sometime during play the sword is transferred to the player.

We could also do this.

OldSword1 is carried by the player. The printed name of OldSword1 is “old iron sword”.
OldSword2 is carried by the goblin. The printed name of OldSword2 is “old iron sword”.

This creates two swords that sound similar, indeed if both are on the floor of the room, the player will see this: “You can see an old iron sword and an old iron sword here.” That is unpleasant, plus the player can’t type ‘take old iron sword’ and get either sword without a Understand “old/iron/sword” as the oldsword1. Even if both were ‘understood however, then the player can’t pick between them.

To make many unique weapons, it’s better to actually make them unique. Have the player carry the old iron sword and the goblin carry the rusty chopping blade. We could also do something special with such swords.

Sword1 is carried by the player. Sword1 can be reforged. The printed named of Sword1 is “[if sword1 is reforged]gleaming steel sword[otherwise]old iron sword[end if]” (plus matching conditional understand and description)

This gives us a system where the player can gather old used blades from adventures, take them back to town and have a pro reforge them. A can be enchanted property could raise the possibilities further with a mage enchanting swords that have been reforged.

A better thing to do is define kinds.

A weapon is a kind of thing. A sword is a kind of weapon.

The old sword is a sword. It is carried by the player. The goblin carries one sword. There are two swords in dungeon entrance.

This allows us to have multiple swords(which could have stats) along with the option to make unique named swords. Named swords inherit the stats of the sword kind unless they’re changed. For instance if swords usually have damage of 8, the old sword could have damage of 5 (which can be changed when reforged to a higher number).

This also handles multiples more easily, if the player types ‘take sword’ in the room with two swords, the game will just pick one since it understands they’re identical.

The general limit with copies of a kind is Inform limits it to 100 copies in one location. This can be raised to 200 easily, but there are places where an economy of items will help.

Here is a more advanced weapon model.

A weapon is a kind of thing. A weapon can be dagger, sword, mace, axe, spear or bow (this is the weapon-type property). Understand the weapon-type property as describing the weapon. The printed name of a weapon is usually "[weapon-condition][weapon-type]". The printed plural name of a weapon is usually "[weapon-condition][weapon-type]s". A weapon has a number called w-condition. The w-condition of a weapon is usually 50.

Definition: A weapon is worn if its w-condition is 20 or less.
Definition: A weapon is pristine if its w-condition is 80 or more.

To say weapon-condition:
if w-condition of item described < 20:
say "corroded ";
if w-condition of item described < 40:
say "worn ";
if w-condition of item described > 60:
say "fine ";
if w-condition of item described > 80:
say "pristine ";

8 weapons are in old town. 5 worn spear weapons are in old town. 3 bow weapons are in old town. [If a kind-copy is not uniquely named, the number of copies must be specified.]
Old Town
You can see eight daggers, five worn spears and three bows here.

This is a bit advanced, so I’ll explain what’s happening from the beginning. All weapons in this code are made from a ‘blank’ weapon kind. Their printed singular and plural names depend on the weapon-type property. They also have a stat for weapon condition. There is a ‘To say’ statement to apply a name, and a condition between 40-60 is no ‘say’, which is why it shows up as ‘eight daggers’. Finally the weapon-type describes the weapon, allowing the player to grab a sword by typing ‘take sword’ or ‘take weapon’. Since dagger is the first weapon-type, it is the default, hence eight weapons = eight daggers.
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The 'item described' is a variable Inform uses, it's basically whatever object Inform is currently dealing with. If Inform is printing the name of Weapon-37, then the item described is currently that weapon. This is handy to know in this instance because here we can't refer to it as 'the noun' or 'the second noun' or a temporary value like 'chosen-weapon', mkaing it handy for descriptions and printed names.
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The definitions are the most fun. They make Inform understand ‘five worn spear weapons’ as ‘five weapons with spear weapon-type and w-condition 20’. Inform will also understand ‘Let chosen-weapon be the most pristine weapon in location;’ which has inform select the weapon with the greatest w-condition because the definition says ‘or more’.

There are more advanced things that can be done with this implementation as well.

Shall we have a weapon shop? Well all objects must be created at the beginning of the game, so with the previous example, the author would have to define how many swords are in game, how many axes, etc. In this model, it’s just weapons and as the author we can turn a bow into an axe by saying, “Now the weapon-type of chosen-weapon is axe;”.

So what’s the best way to do a weapon shop without creating an excess of weapons?

If there are no off-stage weapons:
say “The weapon smith is currently out of stock.”;
otherwise if there are less than 10 off-stage weapons:
say “The weapon smith has a few weapons in stock.”;

[weapon buying code for when there are off-stage weapons, player chooses to buy a pristine(85) sword.]
Let chosen-weapon be a random off-stage weapon;
Now the weapon-type of chosen-weapon is sword;
Now the w-condition of chosen-weapon is 85;
Now chosen-weapon is on the shop counter; [if the player has a carrying capacity, placing it on the counter for pick-up is safer.]

In this way, the weapon-smith serves as a way to ‘recycle’ weapons, which are moved off-stage after being broken in combat, broken down for parts, etc. If we want the shop-keep to have an initial stock, we just declare some weapons exist and they’ll be created out of play. “There are 20 weapons.”

In this method, the game just needs a total pool of weapons and the properties of the weapon can be changed to fit when code places one in a treasure chest, in the hands of an enemy or the player buys one. It also allows code for ‘destroying/losing’ weapons by putting them out of play and thus where the recycling code can find them and use them again.

The exception for recycling is that unique named weapons shouldn’t be recycled the same way, otherwise if Excalibur gets broken and the player recovers it, it might have been in the hands of a respawned goblin as a worn dagger.

Inform Object Lessons

2011-07-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Following yesterday’s intro to Inform post, this will still be about objects.

Objects can have properties: A person can be male, female, or neuter. Adam is a man. Adam is Male. A Horse is a kind of animal. The clydesdale mare is a female horse. The description of the clydesdale mare is “A large magnificent horse with a mostly brown pelt broken up by patches of whte.”. A female horse can be in-heat. The clydesdale mare is in-heat.

In-heat is an either/or property. The description is a value property where the value is some text, specifically the text that is printed on examining the mare (looking at the mare).

When creating something, quoted text can follow the sentence to save time.

The barn is a room. “The old barn is a bit musty and filled with hay dust.”.
The clydesdale stallion is a male horse in the horse field. “There is a giant stallion standing in the field, eyeing the mare.”.

Text after a room will be used as the description. Text after a thing will be the initial appearance, text shown in the room description, in this case giving the horse a separate paragraph after the field is described. This initial appearance vanishes once the thing is handled by the player, and is commonly used to make objects stand out in rooms.

Inform also infers a lot of things, if that was the first time the horse field was mentioned, Inform would assume it was a room and create a room called the horse field.

A note on a/an/the/some, Inform doesn’t care about grammar and strips these words from code, so Clydesdale Stallion is male horse in horse field. works just as well. A/an/the/some however would tell Inform which to use when describing the stallion if used when the stallion is created in the code. Likewise for capitalization, if it is written ‘The Clydesdale stallion is...’ when created, then the horse field might look like:

Horse Field

You can see the Clydesdale stallion here. (if the stallion had that initial appearance from earlier, this would be ‘There is a giant stallion standing in the field, eyeing the mare.’ instead).

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Inform has some built in properties and values, which are handy to know about.

privately-named/publicly-named : by default all items are publicly-named, which is to say the name of the Clydesdale stallion will be Clydesdale stallion by default, and the player can type “Look Clydesdale / Look Stallion / Look clydesdale stallion” to examine the stallion.

The printed name of ___ : This is the printed singular name of something, useful for when names need to change, or an object is privately named.

Now the printed name of the clydesdale stallion is “Dale”. The printed name of object-403 is “office copy machine”.

Inform won’t understand the player typing ‘look dale’ but stallion and clydesdale will still work.

Understand “Dale” as the clydesdale stallion. Now Inform properly understands dale when the layer tries ‘look dale’.

The printed plural name of ____ : same thing, although typically only a generic kind can have multiple instances. Not always needed since Inform can pluralize most names anyways.

A clydesdale is a kind of horse. There are three male clydesdales in the field. There are 2 female clydesdales in the barn. ( You can see three clydesdales in the field. )

The printed plural name of clydesdales is "herd of clydesdales". ( You can see a herd of Clydesdales in the field.)
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The old barn is a dark room. This creates a room where the player only sees darkness unless the player carries a light source, because 'dark' is a built-in either/or property for rooms. The flashlight is a lit thing carried by the player. This creates something called a flashlight, that provides light, carried by the player at the start of the game. The player can now enter the old barn and see a room description(if provided) and any objects that might be in the old barn.

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The rickety shelf is a scenery supporter in the old barn. Scenery is a property that makes something a background object. If there is nothing on the shelf it won’t be mentioned as an item in the old barn, but the player can ‘Look shelf’ and see it. Scenery is commonly used for things mentioned in the room description the player might interact with, and in the case of a supporter, putting something on it will make it stand out a bit. There is an old lantern on the rickety shelf. ( You can see an old lantern on the rickety shelf here.) When nothing is on the shelf it will once again become part of the background. Scenery is all by default fixed in place.

Fixed in Place is an item property for things that player can’t pick-up. The fridge is a closed openable container in the kitchen. The fridge is fixed in place.

Closed/Open Openable/Not Openable: This is a fairly obvious set of properties for a thing, openable means close/open actions will work on it. Not openable means it is stuck in the current position. Typically found on doors and containers.

Locked/Unlocked Lockable/Not lockable: This works just like open/closed, except for one thing. Lockable things can have keys. The matching key of the fridge is the banana magnet. / The banana magnet unlocks the fridge. / The fridge has matching key the banana magnet. They all work equally well and set the banana magnet as the thing that unlocks the fridge.

Carrying Capacity: A limit on containers and people on the number of items that can be carried. By default 100 things. Also the reason for the player’s holdall kind.

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Now for the relationships built into Inform. These can be found in chapter 13 of the Inform documentation:

containment relation - The coin is in the purse.
support relation - The coin is on the table.
incorporation relation - The coin is part of the sculpture.
carrying relation - The coin is carried by Peter.
wearing relation - The jacket is worn by Peter.
possession relation - if Mr Darcy has a rapier...
adjacency relation - The Study is east of the Hallway.
visibility relation - if Darcy can see Elizabeth...
touchability relation - if Darcy can touch Elizabeth...

Containment for example can be done in multiple ways:

The coin is in the purse.
The purse contains the coin.
The coin is contained by the purse.

There are five relations between objects that are mutually exclusive:

containment relation - The coin is in the purse.
support relation - The coin is on the table.
incorporation relation - The coin is part of the sculpture.
carrying relation - The coin is carried by Peter.
wearing relation - The jacket is worn by Peter.

If two items have one of those relationships, then it can’t have the other four.

For instance: If the jacket is carried by the player, now the jacket is worn by the player. This makes the jacket worn, but also makes it not carried.

Of these relations built into Inform, one probably needs the most explaining, Incorporation.

The desk is a supporter in the office. A closed openable container called the top drawer is part of the desk. A closed openable container called the bottom drawer is part of the desk.

By default these parts of the desk will work like scenery, they go where ever the desk goes and won’t generally be mentioned separate from the desk, although code can be written to say mention open drawers and their contents. They should therefor be mentioned in the desk description at least to let the player know they’re there.

The player will be able to put things on the desk, but not open it. We could redirect that attempt however.

Instead of opening the desk:
If the top drawer is open:
say “The top drawer is already open” instead;
If the top drawer is not open:
Now the top drawer is open;
say “You open the top drawer.” instead.

This can be a lot of hassle, particularly if we also want to intercept trying to put things in the desk. One solution is to simply make the desk a container, the top drawer as it were, renaming the top drawer to middle drawer.

Another is to use a special command.

Understand open desk as a mistake (“You should try opening a particular drawer of the desk.”).

This is a special command to intercept a command the player might try and print a message to redirect the player to something else. Details on this can be found in 16.20 of the Inform documentation.

Inform Basics

2011-07-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

The Basics of Inform 7:

http://inform7.com/ The Official Website

The Inform 7 program is a compiler, which source code is written into and compiled from creating a game file. The game files are played on interpreters, so make sure to use the right program for the right file.

Now onto the basics of coding:

First objects, which are sorted into kinds. The default kinds used by Inform are:

Rooms: every game requires at least one. Rooms are areas where various things are with little other detail except what the author adds.

Directions: The default directions link rooms and are used with movement commands. Twelve of these directions are created by default, eight compass directions, up and down, plus in and out.

Regions: These are basically groups of rooms, which is handy for writing code that applies to only certain regions.

Things: This is a major kind and is the parent of all other kinds. This also represents whatever inhabits the various rooms. Most objects an author creates will be various things and kinds of things.

- Doors: These link rooms via directions, sort of like a room except things can never be in a door, simply passing through. They are implemented by saying the door is one direction form a room and another direction from another room, directions that shouldn’t already link anything else. Doors can also be other things, such as bridges and arches and are typically used when needing something that can be closed and perhaps locked. Doors are also unique for being in two rooms at once.

- Container: Something that can contain other things. If enterable, the player can even get inside, such as a closet in a room or a bath tub.

- - Player’s Holdall: A kind of container, something the player can carry and store excess items in. Has special convenience behaviors that make it different form other containers.

- - Vehicle: Another kind of container, the player can get in and ride it to other rooms with special going messages.

- Supporter: Like a container, except things go on it. Typically not open/closed either. Also can be made enterable, such as a chair or bed.

- Backdrop: Basically a special type of scenery that can be in multiple rooms, regions or even every where. For instance a description of grass in a grassland region that responds to Look Ground/Grass.

- Person: Anything meant to move around and maybe do things. Can also have a gender like male/female and trigger pronouns like he/she.

- - Animal: A type of person. No seriously. Can be male/female/neuter

- - Man: A type of person, typically male.

- - Woman: A type of person, typically female.

A device: Basically something that can be switched on/off.

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A new kind can be defined. For instance “A child is a kind of person. Alice is a child in the classroom.”.

For a story with various aged people where age might matter, we could define a kind of age value instead:

Maturity is a kind of value. The maturities are baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult, middle aged and senior.

A person has a maturity. The maturity of a person is usually young adult.

These values are in order for a reason, because in code we could say “If the maturity of (person) is greater than teen, then etc.” (the first property is always the least and the last the greatest)

We can also code “Understand the maturity property as describing the person.” This would allow the player to refer to a character by their maturity such as ‘child’. Using 'referring to' instead of describing would allow the code to use the property, but not the player.

We could also do this:

A person has a number called age. The age of a person is usually 24. (this sets a default value, it should be the safest most common value)

Definition: A person(called brat) is underage if the age of the brat is 17 or less.
Defintion: A person(called geezer) is senior if the age of the geezer is 65 or more.

With a group of people, this way would allow us to write code that says “Let the elder be the most senior person in the location;” (which would pick the oldest person in the room).

We can also define simpler properties for code purposes.

A person can be drunk. (‘can be’ means by default a person is not drunk, code wise we would refer to the person as drunk or not drunk.).

This could also be “A person can be drunk or sober.” which provides two opposite states. Also possible is “A person can be sober, tipsy, drunk or smashed.”. This is simpler but not as useful as creating a value set because it can’t be judged by level. It simply adds more states for the code to set the person at for future code to refer to, at this point a drunkness number would probably be more effective in code.

Fanfiction

2011-04-02T15:00:00.001-07:00

I went around checking things out, including my fanfiction.net account, and found people trying to locate more of my fanfiction if I had any.

http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/authors/Valor_Phoenix.html

That lists the episodes I've written on that particular website. The Anime Addventure is an episodic place where each episode is self contained and have multiple options for what sort of episode follows it up. Episodes tagged with yellow lemons have sexual content, green limes indicates naughty but not explicit.

Newer episodes are kept on the new episodes list.

Recent 50:

http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/recent50.html

Addventure Home:

http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de

Going Google

2009-04-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

In my previous entry, I mentioned Google Chrome and Google Documents. Now it's time to introduce the Google aps, and they actually make up a significant portion of my favorite programs.

First, go to www.google.com and instead of starting a search for something, find the links up at the top and hit 'more' and keep asking for more until it redirects to a page of all the options.

One thing to mention before getting to the specifics, each one has guides and sometimes video guides associated with it, so feel free to view those. The Chrome design comic was kinda entertaining.

On the column on the left titled 'Search' there are a significant number of very specific searches and two very good programs. The first is the aforementioned Chrome browser. The second is Google Earth, a simulation program that as of the latest version can show the Earth, weather, Mars and even astrological views of the sky.

On the right column is a section titled 'Communicate, show & share'.

Blogger, thou art here. Seriously, need I explain what this is?

Calendar, an online calendar that can be shared between users. Also sends email alerts.

Docs, aka docs.google.com, this is a good documents solution for most people. Essentially like webmail, except you're writing your document and it's saved to the google server about every ten seconds. Not only that, but other users with permission can view the document in realtime and also edit it as it is in progress, or when 'published'. I mainly use it so Eternity can proof-read stories in progress, but it also has the advantage of being useable from any decent web enabled device.

Gmail, an excellent webmail service, it also integrates with Calendar and Docs.

Picasa, a 1 GB storage picture service, the pictures for this blog are served from my Picasa account. Good way to share pics for most people.

SketchUp, an easy to use 3D design program although the shapes are somewhat simple. On the other hand, it is very easy to use. Also the link for downloading the program also has links to video tutorials.

Talk, Google's IM service which is intergrated into Gmail. Nice simple IM that will connect to other Gmail users.

That's it for my recommended Google programs and services. I know I've found a lot of little gems there however, so I'll keep my eye on that little list.

Some PC Basics

2009-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

My niece recently got a new laptop and I was walking her through the steps to set up a new PC. We didn't finish, so I told her I would write up a little guide for the topic.

Then my PC developed a nasty error and I restored the system to factory settings, so I had to take some time and set my own rig up again.

1. This guide is for Windows, primarily XP though most applies to Vista. Mac and Linux systems tend to have tightly integrated programs of their own. Worth mentioning however is that it is often worthwhile to install a dual-boot Linux OS such as Ubuntu on most PCs. Linux is a nice OS to work with at times, and can be worth it just for the ability to fix Windows when Windows is broken since Linux can be used to access the internet and repair files.

1a. Clean up any demo or other trial programs on the PC. Some just waste hard drive space, others actually waste CPU cycles and clutter the RAM, decreasing performance.

1b. Fire up Internet Explorer and hit the Windows Update option under Tools. Download and Install the critical updates and any hardware drivers it offers. In my last round of this this was in the neighborhood of 120 updates requiring about four hours and multiple reboots for the install parts. Also turn on the Windows Firewall and decide whether to update Windows manually each week or turn on Automatic Updates.

1c. Get a list of all the hardware bits of the PC and their drivers. Go to their company websites if possible and get the newest drivers. Video Card drivers qualify as one of the types that needs to be kept up-to-date.

2. PC upkeep out of the way, it's time to get the good programs installed.

2a. Although the guide recommends Internet Explorer for doing the Windows Update quickly and directly, IE is one of the worst browsers available. Although IE has improved over the years, it's always lagged behind in features and usability, plus it represents a significant security risk. The same feature that makes it work for the Windows Update portion is the same security risk involved with visiting other sites with IE.

2b. The good freely available browsers I'll recommend are Firefox and Chrome. Firefox has a lot of customization options with a number of different looks and add-ons. Chrome on the other hand is very simple to use. Although I used Firefox for a long time, I like the minimalist Chrome.

2chrome. My only suggestion for Chrome is to click the wrench icon > Options > Basics > On Start-up: Open pages that were open last; this restores the main window of Chrome to how it was when Chrome was last used. Chrome tabs can be rearranged at will however, including splitting into new windows or merging simply by dragging the tabs. It's also worth mentioning that Chrome is pretty secure and stable. It runs in a sandbox state, tabs are run as individual processes and even plug-ins like flash are kept separate.

3-Security: Windows Defender(free download for XP and standard in Vista) works surprisingly well. Paired with AVG free, Windows firewall and Windows updates and the system will be pretty secure. An anti-virus such as AVG free is optional as good security habits will keep most threats away, but for most the extra security is a good thing.

4-Productivity: I favor open source programs and other community development free programs pretty heavily. In that regard, I will endorse Open Office over the Microsoft equivalents any day. Not only is it a free suite of work programs, but the updates are also free and expedited. With a free suite like this, new features will never be held back just to get more money with the next version. New versions do often introduce a lot of features, but this is because more core parts of the program get upgraded in those instances. The other suggested document system is Google Documents, but I will cover that in another post.

That's most of the important and somewhat basic programs someone might need for their computer. Download.com is good source for programs, so I'll briefly list some nice ones I've played with in the last year.

Miro: A video distribution and download service with integrated viewer. There are subscriber channels to a number of series there including the TED talks, which are presentations about new ideas and products.

Media Monkey: Music organizer and player.

FastStone: A nice picture viewer that can do some minor picture tweaking and batch rename and convert multiple files at once.

GIMP: A free graphics program that originated from the Linux community.

Blender: A free 3D modeling program that likewise originated from the Linux Community.

~VP

Eternity's Picks:

Thunderbird, the email companion to Firefox which can handle email and newsgroup accounts.

Zone Alarm, a firewall and security ap that has a free version.

Spybot, an alternative to AVG for anti-viral duties.

Flashget, a helpful downloader program for getting big files or multiple smaller files at once such as a picture gallery.

Resistance 2 Co-op: Other Bad Vacation Choices

2009-03-12T00:21:00.000-07:00

Chicago

Garfield Park: Imagine a T shape, with the entrance to the park being the bottom of the T and the top of the T being the far side of the park. Now then, the important thing to know here is that the enemy only travels along certain parts of the area and never strays into the lower right and left portions of the area. In other words, the enemy stays on the T and the middle left and right sides are safe areas to defend.

That in mind, the first annoyance are a few hybrids atop a small bridge that take cover, but look carefully for the stairs in the wall before the bridge. Take the stairs and flank them for easy kills. Then head away from the middle path to find a back path that allows flanking the next group of enemies. There are some static enemies guarding the paths to both reactors, but there are still side paths with plenty of cover to take them all out. Remember those side paths.

When one of the switches is hit at one of the reactors the large teleporter at the top of the area starts spawning a stream of hybrids that flow into the park along three paths. Wanna know the secret to dealing with them easily? Don't defend the reactors. Go back to the previous side paths and defend those, or for a more active role, hold the three paths they take. Once the two reactors are down, a mass of hybrids and ravagers enter from the park entrance and cover is again a good idea. After they're dealt with, taking out the big reactor will either finish the mission or summon a Titan for a boss fight.

The Museum: Ambush at the first checkpoint, enjoy. The other main issue is at the only switch on the stage, opening it triggers a nasty pincer rush from two walkways with auger fire as a bonus. This one spot leads to a lot of game overs as the enemy can easily overrun the entire group. There is a semi-secret set of stairs that lead down and around and into the center courtyard. Also, if the gray-tech is missing, entering the museum will be a literal trap, but don't panic and just let the soldiers block the auger fire.

The Subway: Leapers, then a choice of three stairs going down, the side stairs provide a better tactical advantage. After the bomb is defused, there are two options. If no enemies are visible, then leapers and a queen leaper will attack. If hybrids show up, watch out for a nasty rush that triggers when players approach the large stairs across the subway tracks. The hybrids that rush down the central stairs will stampede over the unprepared players for easy melee kills due to the tight and tricky terrain that makes backing up tricky.

The Alleys: This is a lovely place to see players running around like clueless lunatics as they shoot the spawning grays. They spawn from six spread out points and the easy thing to do is just stay near the entrance so all the spawns are 'forward' and easy shots. Also take note that no enemy from this area will go outside the entrance, that might be nice to know for someone that has trouble dodging around alpha grims.

Orick

Take the Hill: Basically several waves of hybrids and a final wave of steelheads assault the hill? Best way to do this is to either stay at the base of the hills and shoot the enemies that run up it, or hold the inactivate teleporter at the very top. Anything in between will expose players to flank and melee attacks.

King of the Hill: Titan Final Mission version, typically this ends when Spec-Ops finish sniping the main Titan to death, killing the rest just gives some xp and taking the hill is fairly tricky.

Gray Facility/15 Hellfire Turret Gas Station: Okie-dokie, take out the hybrids and blow up the cars first, then run towards the building part of the gas station and take the stairs on the side. Three groups of three hellfire turrets to shutdown on top of the roof, watch out from hellfire crossfire from across the way. Drop down from near the billboard and head for the first set of turrets and shut them down and this will be a good position to assault the final three from the side while having cover from a set of distant rooftop mounted turrets. Take out the hybrids and ravagers, then after hitting some switches top open a door, a building full of grays.

Alrighty, if there is a group of killer drones waiting outside, non-boss fight version. After the drones are down there will be a building that has some enemies spawn at teleporters and rush into the building. Avoid going into the building or getting between the teleporters and the building. There will be two waves of hybrids and a wave of steelhead elites. After they all spawn it's finally safe to assault the building.

Final Version? Two three star Titans atop two buildings in a very annoying set-up. Two methods of dealing with them both require soldiers with good support. Either take up a clear position on the ground with a good angle on the left one with cover against the right one, or sneak up onto the roof. For the rooftop version, the ^ shaped roof connecting their rooftops can provide cover against one titan while the soldier faces the other and provides shield cover. That tactic is more dangerous but provides some up close fun.

Bryce Canyon

Not much to say about this stage, just lots of assaulting masses of enemies. Take it one step at a time. One thing to note is that several missions have chameleons that spawn, often at the start, that can be a major pain as most players are busy engaging other enemies. Keep a look out on radar for oddly moving red blips.

Holar Tower

Mission that begins with regular drones spawning in a small room: After the drones are dealt with the switch hit there are some attack drones to take out. Then there is a lightly guarded reactor to the right to take out. Here's the advanced tactic. There will be a forcefield on the left that goes down when the reactor goes down. Any players waiting at this spot will be able to hit the air-jump and run forward onto a ramp straight ahead that gives the player an excellent covered position for the enemies that are about to spawn. Attempting the jump after the enemies spawn is almost always sure death, so just shoot from below otherwise.

Engineer Phillips: Basically protect the blue guy. There is one major sticky situation to this mission. After the two titans he will enter a small building and take a very long time working the switch. Two teleporters outside will spawn a thin but steady stream of hybrids that rush the building from two entrances. SpecOps should stay outside to avoid getting melee killed and snipe as many as they can between teleporter and door. Soldiers can guard the two doors from outside the door or camp out inside. Medics are somewhat better suited to handling the mass inside and should make sure Phillips stays healed.

After the reactor is exposed and goes down, some Steelheads will spawn in a new building and Phillips will take up a new position. Rush the steelheads to prevent them from augering him to death, but avoid using Bellock or LAARK rounds on them otherwise the small reactor will be prematurely blown up. Once they're down Phillips will head inside to the reactor and Hybrids will spawn fro the two teleporters again head for him, just take up good positions and mow them down. After a few waves the reactor will be exposed, don't take it out until the hybrids have run out.

See the two ramps out the sides of the rooms? When the reactor goes down the platforms at the top of those ramps are filled with steelheads and ravagers. There should be a soldier on each ramp to protect those in the room, including Phillips from fire. There are alternate ramps up to these platforms that extra soldiers and Spec-Ops can use to flank these enemies. This pincer ambush is why blowing the reactor early with high explosives is so bad.

One note, this stage is very tricky to navigate for a number of reasons, just realize that many zones only have one or two entrances/exits. The number one pain in the neck however is an area just right of center with ground floor and second floor exits to various areas. This is typically a problem after a couple of missions as multiple doors will then be open.

Resistance 2 Co-op: Bracknell

2009-03-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Bracknell: There are four missions here, the third one is typically the last one.

Train Depot: Blue Soldiers must survive. The missions starts with blue allied soldiers fighting off hybrids. Forward of the soldiers are train tracks with a train that can be used for cover. The right side is mostly empty and features a ramp that isn't an entirely safe sniper position. The left has shipping containers for cover and another ramp that isn't a safe position.

Alright, after the soldiers are saved, some advance to the right of the train tracks where boulders explode revealing a tunnel. The first wave of enemies is a large group of hybrids that will overrun the right side of the area given the chance. The second wave are ravagers that tend to stick to the train tracks until they reach the center. The third wave is a smaller group of hybrids followed by a weak titan.

Shortly after the titan goes down, the tunnel at the opposite end of the train tracks will open and steelheads will attack. Second is a wave of hyrbids, followed by a wave of hellfire-ravagers. Then there will be two weak titans. Unless this is the end mission, the missions ends immediately after the titans go down.

End Mission? Basically both tunnels start spawning waves of hybrids, ravagers, steelheads and titans that overrun both sniper ramps and particularly focus on reaching the center and attacking the blue soldiers. The end of the phase comes when three star titans join the party as well. So, where should players be to survive this? The ballsy place for a soldier with support is the sandbags before the blue soldiers. The safer place is among the containers on the left side of the area. The blue soldiers don't need much protection at this phase as another group of them will join the fight from the upper walkways. Anyways, survive and destroy, good fun.

Four Reactors: This one is wading through waves of enemies plus two hellfire turrets to each the reactor room. There are no real surprises in this section, just avoid chloroforming the overseer as it is a scripted part of the mission that he runs away, and he is invincible until the party reaches the reactor room. The enemies inside the reactor room are no trouble either, yet the deadliest part comes quietly afterwards.

If this is the last mission of the stage, then destroying the reactors will spawn enemy ambushes. From the reactor room entrance, the reactor immediately to the right of the entrance opens the spawn point for the boss, though the elite hybrid always shows up last. The reactor on the left spawns two titans, the forward one spawns two sets of hyrbids and the right reactor spawns lovely steelheads.

End Mission? If unsure about if this is the last mission, stay at the reactor room entrance until a reactor goes down and see if the forcefields beside that reactor go down, exposing spawn points. The entrance is also the ideal place to fight the enemies from so as to avoid being flanked or surrounded.

Supercomputer: There is a hellfire turret covering each entrance to this area, one person just needs to zip past and deactivate that one turret, leaving the other one alone. The air will fill with drones, just take them out. After the drones are dead, deactivate the second turret and a stalker will come out to play. Drop it and a jump elevator to the second floor will open.

Final Mission? If this isn't the last, going for the second floor switch will trigger some hybrids to shoot from above. If this is the last mission, a defense wall springs up around the switch and a shielded killer drone spawns. There is a air-jump leading to another walkway with another switch, trip that to lower the shield on the first switch. Hit the first switch and the drone's shield goes down and the drone can then be quickly turned into scrap.

Assault Ramp: If this is the final mission, the marauder boss will be mentioned and very very obvious, what with it spewing fire all over the place.

Not the final mission? This version can be trickier oddly enough. There will be a titan surrounded by ravagers and hybrids to take out. Once they're all wiped out there will be a big door flanked by two switches. When both switches are triggered and the door goes down, two hellfire turrets will begin killing every exposed player and a flood of hybrids will rush down the ramp going for melee kills. Three or more mines will deal with the rush, and a single high level soldier can hold off the hellfire turret beams. Once the enemies at the top of the ramp are down, it's just a matter of one person rushing up to turn off the turrets.

At the top are air-jumps leading to a walkway with a switch and two walkways that are opened once the switch is hit. Hybrids will come down both walkways, and elite hellfire ravagers will fire from a platform. After they're all dealt with there will be a hole to drop into. At the bottom will be one or two steelheads and spawning drones. Spec-ops are encouraged to send some electro-static orbs down and soften up the opposition. Destroying the reactor will stop the drone spawning earlier and end this mission.

End Mission? There is a screaming marauder spitting fire, but the true danger is when it pauses to spit out a spider grenade projectile. Be sure to watch out for that. Anyways, Spec-ops can just snipe it to death from outside the mission area, but everyone else will need to take out the titan and friends. Just use the inner wall as cover against the marauder while doing so. Once the titan and friends are dealt with the ramp will be open and players can travel up to the marauder level, though be aware that hybrids spawn from two teleporters up there. For those with a bit of range, it is common to shoot the marauder from multiple locations on the lower floor and move to avoid the spider grenade. Not too difficult with the tricks exposed.

50+ Reasons to Reject Evolution

2009-03-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

Let it be thus spoke.

The Original 50 Reasons

Valor Phoenix's Addendums:

VP 1: Because I confuse possibility and probability. To evaluate the probability of something, it had to be tenuously granted the status of being possible. The maths and statistics makes my head hurt, so I just run with 'it might be possible' like a kid with scissors.

VP 1a: If a pothead says the living room got wrecked by Thor and a frost giant duking it out, who am I to rudely question the plausibility of that occurring? I've been assured that the pothead calmed them down by offering to share and they left peacefully once they mellowed out, so the situation must have been handled properly. Meanwhile I'll ignore the inconvenient evidence of the pothead's friends having visited, including the backpack left behind.

VP 2: Some dude made up some statistical numbers that said a complex biological creature randomly assembling and just poofing into existence is statistically improbable, thus evolution couldn't have happened. I'm also willfully ignorant that evolution by natural selection is a distinctly nonrandom process and thus the bogus math doesn't apply there, while also conveniently forgetting that creation stories are about people and things poofing into existence.

VP 3: I might concede micro-evolution but I draw the line at macro-evolution. I literally do draw a line there because it is no longer a scientific distinction. I am also willfully ignorant of Ring Species.

This is sarcasm BTW, otherwise known as a Poe

Also, I ~~steal~~appropriate the quote sig of one of the commentators there.

"Science is simply common sense at its best- that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic."

-T. H. Huxley

Resistance 2 Co-op: Axbridge

2009-03-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

Imprisoned Titan: The initial path has a few ravagers and spawning drones. After clearing them and heading inside, reaching the check point will trigger a small flood of grays from two 'forward' locations. To make firing down the hall easier, everyone should press against the outer wall and aim inwards. After entering the big central round room, three checkpoints will be visible. The left one triggers a few chameleons on visit. The middle triggers a flood of rollers on attempted visit. The right triggers a small flood of grays upon hitting the switch... and yes, all three can be hit simultaneously for much hectic confusion, though this instance isn't very lethal, just annoying.

After all three switches are activated a door back outside will open. Spec-Ops should mine the raised platform on the right, and take note of the round silo at the end of this platform. On the other side of the ramp leading up to the silo will be ravagers and hybrids attacking blue soldiers. Almost as soon as these are defeated a message about incoming will be heard and a drop-ship will deposit ravagers and hybrids on the raised platform, hence the mines earlier.

End mission? If the Titan is a three star, get ready for a tough end mission, otherwise it's just blasting a weaker titan to death. In the end mission scenario doors behind the titan will open and chameleons will come out to play. Then moments later some alpha grays will also come out to play. Then some hybrids will come out to play from the building(not where the titan comes from). Wanna know the trick? That silo mentioned earlier, no enemy can enter it, so as long as there is a soldier to block the door against titan fire several players can hold up in there and blast the weaker non-Titan enemies while the other players are dodging.

Secure the Reactor: Starts with a parking lot where a lot of hybrids and some ravagers are shooting blue soldiers and mostly ignore the players. Car goes boom. Next is inside, resist the urge to rush the hallway that grays start flooding from. Why? A few moments later grays will start coming down from the cat-walks into the room, so just let the hallway-grays come out until the ceiling-grays stop spawning. Afterwards it's a run down the hallway to the reactor room where a large pack of grays will almost always get blasted by grenades and LAARK fire.

End Mission? The big door that opens, is there a single drop-ship to the left? If so it's just a small rush of hybrids, then on to the next mission. If not, get way away from the door as two drop-ships will bombard the doorway for lethal damage. After three salvos a large mass of hybrids will spawn outside and rush the reactor room. Then four titans will drop in, then a wave of ravagers will rush the room. After they're down the titans will be approaching the room, just drop them one at a time, closest first and everything will be fine.

Chimera Bunker: Left or right, doesn't matter, both paths have three hellfire turrets, just run quickly and avoid being hung-up on the rocks. There is a tunnel between the two paths under the turrets. At the other end are some spread out hybrids in good positions. After clearing them, deactivating the 6 turrets will open a room between the turrets with a few hybrids. Clearing these hybrids will cause a switch to rise up, hesitate on hitting it immediately, okay?

There are some big doors where the first group of hybrids were, these come down when the switch is hit, and a huge flood of hybrids and ravagers come out. We're talking Bullseye volume of fire that can eat through 75 shields in seconds and kill medics and spec-ops in one unfortunate moment. The cure is of course mines put into place at the doors and mowing down the hybrids quickly with judicious usage of LAARKs, Backlash and grenades.

Once the flood is over, enter the new area and be aware that the enemy will come from two directions. Resist the urge to go in the middle, it is a quick way to die. Instead use the pillar in the middle for cover and soldiers should put their back to a wall and fire across at the opposing group of enemies(eg back to left wall, fire at enemies on the right). Some hybrids will also rush from the left path, eventually however both groups will go down.

End Mission? Both paths lead to ramps going to a platform directly above, and there will either be two elite hybrids or a few ravagers up top.

Ravagers = not-the-end: Once they're down, resist the urge to rush ahead, there will be a dozen or so hybrids rushing the platform, wipe them out first. Once they're down, there will be one hellfire turret guarding two walkways, just run up a walkway and shut it down. After that there will be some enemies at the end, just wipe 'em out.

Elite Hybrids = Final mission: The two elite hybrids will run as soon as they take fire, feel free to chase them up the walkways and shut down the hellfire turret. Once past the turret, resist the urge to go further than halfway towards the enemy. After a bit a drop-ship will show up and shortly afterwards three hunter drones will join the fray. One will almost always attempt to flank the group, but being pulled back to the turret should prevent the flanking drone from getting behind the party. Once the three hunter drones are down, feel free to advance on the enemy. The map ends when the gray-tech from the Elite Steel-head is retrieved, so be sure to kill the elite hybrids and take their gray-tech first.

Resistance 2 Co-op Guide

2009-03-06T02:19:00.000-08:00

Experience in the game is earned in a few basic ways. Hurting an enemy gives xp based on the damage dealt, plus the player that deals the killing blow gets a bonus of xp listed in red. The xp numbers popping up on the enemy is a good way to judge damage dealt. There are also xp bonuses for each class. The soldier gets bonus xp for damage to the Wraith's shields. The spec-ops gets bonus xp for throwing ammo packs to the tune of 30xp per pack picked up by another player. Medics get the majority of their experience from heals, including healing blue allied soldiers. Healing one heavily injured solder can be worth around 600 xp.

Grey tech is dropped by most elite enemies and found at certain objectives. This is spent for class upgrades, and those upgrades are non-refundable and automatically equipped. A soldier with the gloves and hip-ammo packs will always have both pieces of equipment. Weapon upgrades work the same way, and a Wraith with all four upgrades is quite the fearsome weapon.

Level 1 - Main Weapon and First Berserk

Level 2 - Secondary Weapon A

Level 4 - Second Berserk

Level 6 - Armor - Kinetic Gloves(Weapon Handling Improved)

Level 8 - Primary Weapon Upgrade 1

Level 10 - Secondary Weapon B

Level 12 - Third Berserk and Alternate Grenade

Level 14 - Primary Weapon Upgrade 2

Level 16 - Armor - Assault Pack(Extra Clip) and Ability Upgrade (Wraith 55 Shields, Phoenix Triple Chain, Electrostatic Orb Damage Increase)

Level 18 - Secondary Weapon C

Level 20 - Ability Upgrade (Wraith 75 Shields, Phoenix Quad Chain, Electrostatic Orb Damage Increase)

Level 22 - Primary Weapon Upgrade 3

Level 24 - Armor - Chest Armor(Damage converted to shields/heals/ammo)

Level 26 - Primary Weapon Upgrade 4

Level 28 - Secondary Weapon D

Level 30 - Psychokinetic Helmet(Berserks last longer)

This list is mostly accurate for all three classes.

Primary Weapon should always be upgraded, it's far better than the secondary weapons available. The chest armor for the soldier is a must, spec-ops and medic not so much. Psychokinetic Helmet is only useful for making berserks last longer, and with soldier-backlash this can actually be a bad thing.

Main Weapons:

Wraith: The shield runs down at about one unit per second up and one unit per shot taken. It does not block melee and explosives splashing off walls and other shields can be a hazard. This shield can not be raised or lowered while reloading, and when it runs down it enters a shut-down phase lasting a few seconds. Because of the way it runs down, Bulls-eye fire from grunts is by far the most dangerous whereas Titan fire does little to the shield energy. Before the Timing Motor is acquired, aiming to spin-up the barrels is very useful. Likewise feathering the fire by letting off the trigger for a split second will tighten the grouping back up.

Phoenix: This gun does pathetic damage but it does chain to nearby enemies(2 at the beginning, 4 at higher levels), so it is somewhat effective against groups. It also auto-heals the medic by draining the enemy, so secondary weapons are largely useless except for destroying reactors. The healing blast has a splash effect that goes through walls and floors, though it will splash against the first object it hits. To heal someone on the other side of a crowd, try a jump shot. Likewise for people needing a heal, if the medic doesn't have a shot, it's just not possible. Also the healing works on the blue allies, which is not only a good source of xp, but can be very effective in the long term of that battle.

Marksman: The secondary fire is an electrostatic orb that flies out and zaps enemies which is great for firing from the safety of cover and hurting crowds of weak enemies, particularly swarms of flying drones. Ammo packs restore this at a 1-to-1 ratio, so a common tactic is to fire off several orbs then throw out ammo packs and repeat. These orbs will be destroyed by direct fire, so make sure to fire them overhead of the target. The primary fire is very effective and with full upgrades enemies can be sniped from very long distances. Picking off grunt chimera rapidly is a primary duty of any sniping spec-ops.

Grenades:

Frag(Soldier) : Hedgehog(Medic) : Both grenades are fairly similar except the frag tends to travel further while the hedgehog tends to stick the landing. Both also go off quickly, which is great for some situation but also tends to result in a swift suicide if an object or another player blocks the throw. Both are great against crowds.

Air-fuel(Soldier/Medic): This has a delay and obvious warning signs before going off, making it a less suicidal choice. The downside is that there may not still be live enemies in the blast zone by the time it goes off. On the up side it is a great choice against groups of shield carrying ravagers.

Ammo Pack(Spec-Ops): Gives ammo to the spec-ops automatically, plus provides ammo packs for other players. Try to throw directly at players in need, put it where players will naturally walk over it, or put it all in a convenient pile. Grenade packs tend to pop up at a 1-to-5 frequency.

Proximity Mines(Spec-Ops): Placed on the ground, it is armed once the flashing light changes colors. The explosion is quite large and can result in an easy suicide if an enemy surprises the spec-ops and triggers the mine. Best put to use by spec-ops that know where enemy spawns are so as to ruin enemy rushes.

Secondary Weapons:

Most secondary weapons aren't worth the effort. I'll just touch on the ones worth switching over from the primary weapon.

LAARK-Soldier: The missile is effectively a double power frag grenade that is accurate enough to snipe with. Best used on crowds of course. The secondary is a homing missile swarm that works against lots of small enemies or one big titan, though it is best used in open air conditions.

HE Magnum-Medic: Pretty good for taking out reactors.

Auger-SpecOps: Infinite ammo for this makes it worthwhile for the ability to shoot through obstacles and allies alike. For best results, fire into a crowd of enemies so each shot gets multiple hits. The shield is pretty pathetic, so don't depend on it. For a soldier it makes a nice out-of-Wraith-ammo/shields back-up, but otherwise not worth it with limited ammo.

Bellock-SpecOps: Better damage versus crowds, plus the range on it is actually very good. Secondary fire is a waste of effort, just pelt the enemy with ricocheting air-burst grenades. Best place to aim is to have them land just overhead of a crowd of enemies. With a little practice to adjust for the arc, this weapon can fire into a crowd clear across a large area. This beats out the fully upgraded Marksman in enough instances to make it useful.

Berserks: Different berserks charge at different amounts of xp. Some take only 1000 xp while others as much as 3000 xp.

- Soldier -

Ironheart: Reduces damage taken, particularly good against melee enemies and surrounded situations. With medic back-up this is quite good.

Overload: This is better that fraggicide how?

Backlash: The Wraith shields are refilled and most shot types are reflected back to the enemy. Grunt chimera in particular die quickly. Because the berserk is useless without shield energy the Psychokinetic Helmet is debatable for this berserk. Without the helmet the berserk ends sooner, which means it also refills quicker, and the shield recharge is sometimes the more important part of this berserk.

- Medic -

Healing Circle: Sets up a glowing circle on the ground that recharges health. This also instantly heals the medic which is a very important note.

Chloroform: While active, any enemy hit by the Phoenix beam will be paralyzed(depends) and take constant damage until long after this berserk wears off. The lingering damage effect on tough enemies can actually recharge the berserk quite a bit.

Phoenix Ash: Auto-life... Just use one of the other two berserks and try not to die. Sounds silly, but the other two are far more effective in the long run.

- Spec-Ops -

Prototype Ammo: Drops special ammo packs with a special message on the labels. They also refill ammo and grenades and give a +25% damage bonus, and the Spec-Ops gets both effects automatically, making this a useful berserk at all levels.

Invisibility: Invisibility until the meter runs down. Be wary of getting between enemies and allies or having an ally come up from behind. Both are quick ways to die.

Snake-Eyes: One shot with the Pulse Cannon for a smooth 200 xp worth of damage to enemies. Quite a bit like the primary fire of the LAARK except without the scope. Switching weapons with triangle will put this berserk on stand-by.

General gameplay tips:

Players block shots. Crowds of players at a doorway or choke-point is pretty stupid. If say a mass of grays are in a building and the doorway just opened, the most efficient course of action is for everyone to stand back and shoot through the doorway. Anyone going into the room should run in and definitely not stop in the doorway.

Soldiers are basically tasked with putting up a shield and getting shot at. For Spec-Ops, a good rule of resupplying a soldier is to throw an ammo pack at him in between firing off clips of ammo. A raised shield can consume infinite ammo-packs, so throwing the packs several at a time tends to be a waste. Likewise ammo packs will bounce off shields, so hitting them from in front is tricky. Just put the ammo in front of the soldier(so he can see it) or try to land it on top of the shield.

Medics are tasked with healing and chloroforming groups of enemies. Medics that spend too much effort shooting and miss chances to heal are pointless since they do comparatively little damage and get comparatively little xp from kills. Healing gives quite a lot of xp, the main problem is draining enemies to keep health and heal-ammo up, plus staying in position to rapidly heal injured players. A position that keeps the enemy and other players on-screen tends to be ideal. On the offensive front, chloroform at the right time and place can be the difference between surviving or failing a mission as some enemy rushes are just brutal.

Spec-Ops supply ammo and shoot things. Kinda obvious, but spec-ops need to be aware that soldiers can see ammo packs that land out of their line-of-sight. Ammo packs can be lobbed quite far and very accurately, so there isn't much excuse for not tossing the ammo out. Most of a Spec-Ops time is spent sniping enemies however, and this is quite the useful activity for the team as the spec-ops can rapidly remove hybrids from the battlefield and thin out the enemy. There are times however when the spec-ops just need to get behind a soldier's shield and feed them ammo in between firing off clips.

Enemy spawns are triggered events. A rule of thumb is to clear out all of the current enemies before heading to the next way-point or hitting the next switch. Switches in particular tend to activate enemy spawns, some of which can slaughter the unprepared.

The missions are divided into sub-areas of the map, and what happens will vary according to the number of players and whether it is the final mission of the level.

A good example of both points is the Museum mission in the Chicago area. Upon reaching the first checkpoint the door will close and hybrids will rush from another doorway. After going down the new pathway and taking out two groups of hybrids there will be a switch. The next event doesn't trigger until the switch is hit and veterans immediately prepare for the next rush, including having spec-ops mine the two doorways flanking the switch. Once the switch is hit hybrids and steelheads rush out both doors while auger fire from inside the museum pelt the players. Because of the pincer rush and auger fire this is often a point of mission failure due to a Total-Party-Kill. If the graytech is missing from the pedestal in the museum that means this is the last mission of the stage and the doors will close while auger fire comes through the walls. Just have the soldiers easily block the fire and take out the half-dozen or so steelheads when the door opens and the mission is over.

The Edge of the Earth

2009-02-27T02:35:00.001-08:00

In 240 BCE Eratosthenes calculated the the size of our dear planet Earth. That's right, nearly twenty-three centuries in the past someone not only provided proof of a round Earth, but calculated the size and set about putting collected maps of the known world in terms of latitude and longitude. His figures were in stadia, a distance measurement of the time, and according to which type of stadia were used his calculation for the circumference of the Earth is either off by 20% or just 1%.

Honestly speaking, it doesn't matter which type of stadia it was. For his time, with the accuracy of the measurements he had, either result is just a result of smaller errors either adding up or canceling out. As one of the first to set about a way of measuring such a thing and proving it viable it would be up to later measurements to get more accurate figures.

The issue here is the science of how he did it, why he did it, and what he did right.

Basically he used shadows cast by the sun down wells on a particular day to determine the angle between two cities. Then by taking the distance between the two cities and using geometry he calculated for the circumference. The Chinese did a similar measurement, but by assuming the Earth was flat, they instead calculated for an incorrect distance to the Sun. Eratosthenes on the other hand assumed the Sun was at an effectively infinite distance and thus the light arriving from it was effectively parallel. This is technically wrong, but the Sun is not a point source either. The Sun is instead larger than the Earth, which is why Eratosthene's assumption worked.

Both are on their own, with the knowledge they have, valid calculations. There is nothing within the calculation itself that points to the Earth being either round or flat. That information comes from some other source of knowledge. This is why general research and knowledge is so valuable in science. Eratosthenes had the advantage of being the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria which was the greatest library in antiquity, the one that romantics of knowledge refer to with the story about the royal decree that all ships entering port would have their books confiscated with copies returned in their place. What is known however is that the library sent people out to various cities to buy books from locales such as Rhodes and Athens.

From records of the time however, the likely proof for a round Earth calculation as opposed to flat Earth was based on observation of the Lighthouse of Alexandra, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Why? One of the easiest ways to observe a round Earth is to observe the curvature of the Earth affecting the horizon on a large body of water. Of all the natural landscapes, water is effectively the flattest of them all over large distances, not to mention naturally at the lowest visible elevation. As a boat travels away from the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the bottom of the structure appears to descend below the horizon until finally the peak vanishes. Indeed, with a known height for the lighthouse and a known distance from it over water a rough estimate for curvature can be calculated.

There is also the matter of independent observations leading to verification, which also happened with the Greeks. Since the Earth rotates in such a way as to make the heavens appear to move across the sky, the same observation can be performed for various celestial bodies, not just the Sun. Indeed, a century later Posidonius made such an observation of the star Canopus above the horizon from two different locales and came up with independent numbers for the circumference of the Earth.

The Dark Ages might have set things back, but we've come a long way since then.

This is for you Eratosthenes.

~ Welcome to Earth, enjoy the ride. ~ VP

Ghost Poll Boo-Hoo

2009-02-25T17:24:00.000-08:00

Link Here

Just providing a poll on the silly poll.

Options mostly copied from comment #66 with some editing.

-March 4: Poll Closed, Results posted-

The original poll was sorta hilarious.
0 (0%)

As above, but the indignant response of the pollster to being Pharyngulized was actually funnier.
2 (4%)

As above, but his showing up to defend his actions here was funnier still.
21 (43%)

Seriously, people, once you imply in print you believe someone might actually have evidence their Auntie Flo is living on a cloud and playing a harp, anything else you do after that is really pretty much redundant, humour-wise.
21 (43%)

I refuse to waste my time on this, on the basis that I know perfectly well you'll just pick the answers you like anyway--feel free to stick an x wherever you were going to say I did anyway, however, on my behalf.
3 (6%)

I refuse to answer on the basis that I'm a resident of a swing state or a state with a tight congressional race, and if I get one more @#$^ing moron calling me with a push poll they'd like me to answer, I'm going to hunt down whoever ordered it and violate
1 (2%)

Dibs

2009-02-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090222.html

Click the photo on that page to see the whole photo oriented in a certain way. In that view it looks quite a bit like a blazing phoenix.

So yeah, I call dibs. Orion Nebula is mine.

Don't worry, I'll share :p

~ VP

Art Tutorial Rendering

2009-02-13T21:42:00.000-08:00

This is an example of different coloring methods using a minimal amount of effort. The technique is called rendering because like a 3D rendering program, the effort is based on physics and understanding of materials.

The Left column should be easy to follow, showing a somewhat glossy sphere on a fairly reflective surface. The lighter patch of color at the bottom represents light reflecting up from the surface the sphere is resting on(like a glossy table). Darkening the area under the highlight is an exagerration of the contrast that would occur.

The second column represents a sparkly translucent sphere. Translucent means some light makes it in and then out of the object, which gives a higher contrast as the internally refracted light appears to gather in the lower right of the sphere while the upper left darkens. To prepresent a more translucent sphere I could have put a fuzzy blotch of light in the shadow.

The third comlumn represents a transparent object or blue glass. The non-sparkly effect compared to the second sphere represents the fact that it is composed of smooth glass instead of something like rubber bouncy balls.

While I did the light refraction in the shadow without a reference, that is mostly due to seeing the effect so often. If you don't have an actual glass/crystal sphere to observe that effect with, a magnifying glass will cause a similar effect when held at an angle.

The final one is obviously a refinement fo the glass sphere, and it demonstrates how carefully building up a little detail can lead to a serious effect. The first panel is just laying out the dark lines representing a etched pattern, and honestly speaking, doing straight lines at different angles on a sphere free-style is pretty tough.

- The second pane is simple updating the highlight a bit to reflect the etched surface.

- The third and final version sees the etched lines being finished while the turquoise inner glow of refracted light is given a little detail work as well as it refracts upon the etched lines.

Picture Test

2009-02-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

A test of embedding pictures into the blog. This particular picture is one I rework to try new designs and material types.

Updates

2009-02-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

Working on updating the entire website. Old tired content will be culled out while the remnants are updated and cleaned up. There will of course be new content.