Sunday, April 10, 2016

Rusty Reactions

I like to play a little game called Rust, which is perhaps one of the more enjoyable survival games out there.  I've been playing Rust since it came out a few years ago and I've seen more than my fair share evil deeds done in the game.  It's a brutal game.  I like the brutality and the scraping to survive. 

I've lost days worth of supplies.  I've lost homes that took hours to build.  I've had my head bashed in by a naked man who laughed at me while he did it.  After each of these horrific losses I've picked myself off and soldiered on.  It's part of the game.  Besides, I've put more than my fair share of arrows through eye sockets and stolen peoples pants. 

So when I say that a recent experience with a player made me want to never log in again you know that it's not simply because someone stole my favorite hat.  No.  It was something far worse than a hatchet to the head and the pillaging of my pants.  It was an attempt at trolling that gave me a terrible taste in my mouth.

I had just installed a front door on a small shack that I was going to use to store some supplies while I built my art studio.  I went out to grab some things when I was approached by another player.  I held off attacking because they were talkative but when they were close the attacks began.  I'm fairly horrid when it comes to hand to hand combat and lost quickly.  My body was looted and within that haul was the key to my shack.  Predictably my killer went inside my house but that's when the problem began.

Over voice chat came the grating, childish, presumptive line I can barely stand to type.
"You mad, bro?"  Uggh.  I wish I was kidding.

This players entire reason for being in the game was to try to get people to yell at him over chat.  It wasn't to build or raid but only to make people angry.  I'm old, tired and not one to be angry in any situation.  I wasn't the ideal candidate for his trolling but he insisted.  In the end he logged out still under the delusion that he had actually accomplished something.

The trolling is an issue that I don't like.  People are dicks in Rust all the time but they are dicks in the way that the game demands.  They are killing you to take your stuff, kick you off their land or simply to exert their dominance.  Trolling is none of these things. Trolling is just trolling for a reaction.  I can't stand it.


Monday, February 15, 2016

LED Flashlights

A long time ago when I was very young I had one of those 101 electronics project kits.  I might have been a little too young at the time because I couldn't quite grasp the purpose of most of the components and made many mistakes.  One of those mistakes I made was something amazing that I couldn't grasp at the time.  It was the invention of the LED flashlight.

The LED wasn't a new thing, there were colored LED's on the kit and commonplace everywhere in electronics at the time. The purpose of the LED however was to be  a simple light to provide a visual cue that something was happening.  An on/off light if you will.  Very dim and not intended to provide actual illumination.

I was randomly hooking up components on my kit one day and accidentally hooked direct current through a common diode.  The overload caused an intense and blinding white light.  I tapped the connection a few times and was blown away by how bright it was.  Sadly I think I had pushed a full twelve volts through the diode and burned it out.  I thought I had ruined the kit and put it away regretfully.

It was many years later that the LED flashlight came out. A simple clear diode hooked to direct current.  The exact same setup I had accidentally created when I was a kid.  Now it's difficult to find a flashlight that isn't LED.  This technology has revolutionized the industry and if I had been a little more aware at the time I could have had the first patent on it.  Imagine that. 

So that's my story on how I once invented the LED flashlight but didn't know it.  The moral of this story is to never overlook the results of an accident.  Penicillin and Dove soap were both accidents.  I could have joined that group of accidental inventors.  

Klaus

Sitting at my kitchen table I  noticed that both Carcassone and Settlers of Catan were both designed by men named Klaus.  I just thought that was interesting

Speaking of board games.  I've been flirting with the idea of actually making a prototype of one of my board games for awhile.  I think it might be time but I'm not quite sure which one to go with.  One of the difficulties of designing a board game is actually producing all the accessories required.  The game board is easy and various pieces can be coins for testing but when it comes to cards you have to put in some serious work.

There are only a handful of games that don't require a deck of cards.  I don't know if it was Monopoly that started the trend but it's a consistent element of modern board games.  There's no better way to put random elements into a game than with cards.  Dice are great for movement and such but cards add information and can shape a game in a unique way.  With a large enough deck of cards or multiple decks you can vary game play to the point that a person can play many times without repeating the experience.  Making all those cards is difficult.

My big game idea is a Mutant Chronicles style team dungeon crawl with many random encounters.  To give the game replay value you have to create many different encounter cards otherwise players will get bored.  With the system I devised each encounter card has to have calculated stats, flavor text, picture and rewards.  That's quite a bit to put on a single playing card and calculating that I'd need around 50 of these cards put me off the project for awhile. 

My next project was a city building game that also needed quite a few cards to play.  Each card was a building that players could build to gain points and power within the game.  Again, each card needed stats, pictures and other vital information.  In order to add all the flavor and depth I had imagined the number of required cards was significant.  Again I put this on the shelf for later.

With the prospect of designing decks of cards crushing my spirit I then turned to designing a game that didn't require them.  Instead I thought about a game system that instead relied on a good old set of standard playing cards.  You would have a game mat that was the playing field and your deck of playing cards was the random element with face cards as important characters and number cards representing faceless troops.  The idea was that a simple rules pamphlet, game mat and deck of cards would suffice to play the game.  In fact you could carry many different games in a backpack with this system instead of lugging around big boxes.  I was designing two different games based on this system, a World War I game and a game of royal politics in a fictional land.  I got backed up when it came to the math of it all and put that on the shelf as well.  I think this is one project I should really get back to.

So even though my name isn't Klaus, it is Keith and maybe that will account for something.  I should really get back to work on these games and just do the damn cards in Publisher and print them like a tech savvy person.  That would make the most sense.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Instant Universal Communication

So I got to thinking about instant universal communication.  It's damn near impossible but then I was considering the various possible shapes of the universe.  If the universe is spherical or curved then we can set a center point that will be equidistant to points on the curved outer area.  This center point can then be used as a focal point for communication signals from anywhere in the universe. 

What you would do is shoot a communication signal at this center point and keep it engaged at all times.  If you wanted to talk to someone else across the galaxy you would tune your communication beam to their beam and see what they have to say.  In essence everyone is always connected to everyone else through the galactic center point.

So it's not truly instant since there would still be a massive distance between each endpoint but the distance would always be constant between all people using the communication network.  In order to create a truly instant system you would have to create a crazy type of instant communication signal.

Communication methods we currently use are insufficient for this scenario.  We would need a beam that can transfer data without any lag.  This would rely on some new faster than light type of particle that could be used to transfer data. 

I'm a little tired and now I'm thinking about how to get full two way communication in the system since it wouldn't be point to point communication.  The two signals would meet at the center point but a relay would be needed.  So...maybe we tunnel a relay station to the center point that bounces signals back to their origin point allowing communication to actually work. 

We could also do all this with wormholes but ships would have to only use it when operating at sub-light speeds.  It would also need to be able to create a wormhole at will which could be difficult.  I need to go to sleep. 


Sunday, February 7, 2016

Alien Contact

I'm watching Star Trek and I had a thought.  How do we expect to receive signals from alien civilizations when we don't know how they communicate?  I'm not talking about the language but rather the technology.  For years we searched for radio communication but that didn't produce anything.  Recently we started looking for signals that are based on laser communication technology. 

I found this funny because I had conceived of a laser communication device for a game I was designing once.  I thought, as apparently SETI does as well, that light based communication would be a more likely for a space faring species.  Light might not be the right way to think though.  This is where Star Trek comes in.

In the Star Trek universe communication is handled over subspace.  Subspace is a sort of 'alternate' universe linked to our own but with slightly different properties.  Physics is different and transmissions through subspace appear to be nearly instantaneous across vast distances in normal space. 

I'm not saying we have to find subspace but we do have to consider that a form of faster than light communication might be the only way space fairing species talk to each other.  We may never find radio or light based communications due to distance or interference from astronomical phenomena.  We would have trouble ourselves using light based communication to chat with vessels at the edge of our own solar system.  Subspace type communication might be more reliable.

If a subspace communication system exists then it may be easier to detect alien communications.  If communications can travel so quickly in subspace than it's possible it's much smaller in 'area' than our universe.  If so than it would require far less time to search for signals.  It also possible that subspace communications are instantaneous and universal.  In that case we simply need to tap into this pipeline and all alien communications could be accessed.

This is all random thoughts while watching Star Trek of course.  We currently have no good evidence of any sort of extra-dimensional existence.  We are still trying to get a good understanding of sub-atomic particles which will more than likely be the key to accessing any type of subspace.  One day we might tap into the alien radio network but it will be some time if we keep looking for what I would consider 'short-range' signals.  I might just need a nap though.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Sick

I can't seem to shake being sick this winter.  I was just starting to feel better but I seem to have taken a turn for the worse again.  It's a little crazy that we have the knowledge to make all kinds of drugs but the inability to get access to them.  I blame the schools.

We have a huge range of painkillers and other drugs we can purchase over the counter but we still can't get basic antibiotics  without a prescription.  I understand that the majority of people don't know how to accurately diagnose themselves.  With a little knowledge it really isn't that hard to know when you need some basic antibiotics.  If we had better education about basic health then we could bring antibiotics into the over the counter market.  If that was done we could massively decrease clinic congestion and make healthcare cheaper for all.

Mainly I'm just angry that I know when I need antibiotics, I have to go to the clinic then wait around for someone to write my prescription.  I spend more time in the waiting room than I do meeting with a doctor.  It's a giant waste of time. 

Boo.  I'm going to take a nap.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Cool it!

I never thought I'd see the day I overheated my computer.  At least I think I did.  This last week I found myself playing some Rust which can get a little time consuming.  So today I logged in and stayed logged in for quite some time which apparently was a little much.  I started to get some crazy graphical glitches that I can only assume was my graphics cards telling me to slow down. 

This was surprising since my card has one of those massive coolers on it and I recently upgraded to a new case with two big cooling fans.  This might not sound like much but for me it's pretty good since I don't do much hardcore gaming. 

Anyway.  I had to log out and give the poor thing a rest.  I could look into plugging in four more fans since I have the spots for them. 

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Flexible Screens...

...another technology that will be used horribly wrong.

So they've cracked the flexible LED screen and everyone's excited.  Why wouldn't they be?  The prospects are interesting for the technology but I can't help feel like it will horribly misused.  We've had lots of advancements in display technology over the last ten years but very little creative use of it.  The consumer market has dictated that no matter the size or application, displays should always be judged by how good they are as televisions.  This isn't the best standard to use since it's holding us back from being innovative with technology like we were back in the nineties.

It was long ago that tablets with 'e-ink' screens were supposed to change everything.  We were going to have displays that were easy on the eyes, consumed a fraction of the power and got people back into reading again.  That technology was quickly abandoned because it couldn't double as a device to watch YouTube or Netflix on.  You couldn't go on Facebook and look at cat pictures so the technology wasn't worth pursuing.  The Kindle, the king of the e-ink devices, was quickly adapted with a full color display to accommodate the market demand for a full featured tablet.  Instead of applying the technology in different ways it was instead abandoned.  I was hoping for the e-ink, one page notebook, that could be used for writing and drawing.  A simple device that didn't have WiFi, a browser or even an OS.  Just a notebook.

I see flexible displays going the route the e-ink displays did.  They'll be used to make lightweight televisions and roll-out tablets that won't work right.  It's great in theory to have a large, twenty inch screen that you can fit into small bag but what's the real advantage?  You'll need a flat surface to put it on otherwise the picture will be warped.  People will realize rather quickly a smaller, rigid screen that is always flat is more useful.

What we'll get in the end is a semi-rigid phone that advertises itself as lighter and more durable.  It won't be the major revolution in technology we're all hoping for.

I've seen a lot of changes in technology coming from the simple days of the Commodore 64.  In the nineties we went through an amazing phase where we designed new devices rather than designing apps.  Since the smartphone took over we've stopped thinking of new ways to use technology.  I find this disappointing because of all the new devices we could be coming up with.  So many devices that people won't touch simply because they aren't social media machines or Netflix capable.  Cheap devices for writers, readers and artists.  Why can't we have a electronic sketch pad for under fifty-dollars?  A notebook for under thirty?

The iPhone 8 will be a little bendy and televisions will be lighter so you won't need a heavy-duty wall mount.  There might be some military applications but overall very little will change with the flexible screen.  Sorry people but it's you're own fault.  Start getting some hobbies and stop insisting everything be able to play cat videos in 1080p.


Wednesday, January 20, 2016

The Secret World of Fun!

I recently jumped back into The Secret World and rediscovered how awesome that game is.  Yes, it's an MMORPG but don't let that dissuade you from checking it out.  It does many things well, other things cleverly and many things fantastically.  I love the setting which is a strange mix of conspiracy theory and horror sprinkled with good adult humor.  It does a good job at being incredibly familiar yet feel unique at the same time.  A hard thing to pull off.

Right off the bat you get to choose which ancient, secret society you wish to join.  The Templars are all about old European tradition with a high class feel.  The Illuminati are the modern bad-boys with high tech toys, kick ass uniforms and loads of attitude.  Finally, the Dragon, is all about Eastern mysticism with a little anarchy for flavor.  Whatever you choose you get a neat initiation movie and a crash course in your secret societies operations.

I picked Illuminati which turned out to be a good choice.  Their attitude is pure Reagan-era, me-first, Martinis for lunch awesomeness.  Right after your initiation you get into the action saving a New England town plagued by horrors that are mix of Steven King, H.P. Lovecraft and Romero.  Inside jokes abound with names and themes ripped right out of literature, movies and television.  If you know your horror you're going to enjoy things immensely and have a leg up on some of the puzzles.

The quests are where this game really shines.  There's big focus on missions making sense rather than just creating busy work for you.  You also have to interact with the world more to accomplish goals rather than just running around killing tons of random mobs.  Then there are the investigation missions that will test the patience of even the most hardcore gamer.  These require some high level puzzle solving and out of game investigation.  Missions that force you to learn things...it's a crazy idea.

There are no character classes which can be a pro or a con depending on what you like.  Instead you custom build your character by investing points into various weapon skills and combining unlocked abilities into a 'deck'.  As different as this is you end up with tanks, ranged DPS and healers like any other game. 

PVP is fairly traditional and quite frankly nothing to write home about.  You can do the traditional battles but then there is the eternal 'secret war'.  This large map is constantly running and you can take key areas to give all members of your faction a boost even out of PVP.  So far every time I've jumped in there has only been a handful of players and little cooperation.  I would imagine there are better times when guilds or 'cabals' as they're called, do runs to boost XP bonuses for PVE missions. 

The Secret World is something of an overlooked gem in a genre that has become silly and overrun with pointless clones.  It's smart, looks great and offers tons of initial content with new stuff still being added.  You pay once then there is no monthly fee so it's not 'free-to-play' with limited missions and constant begging for more money.  There is some premium content if you feel like it but no 'pay-to-remove' roadblocks.  Overall it's highly recommended for a unique game experience.  Illuminati for life!

Monday, January 18, 2016

Sci-Fi Sins Part II

So!  Here's some more problems I have with Sci-Fi design.


No Fuel Rockets:  I have a big issue with all the robots and armored suits that have rockets but apparently no sign of fuel.  Iron Man is the worst.  I get that Tony Stark is brilliant and all but intelligence can't break the simple rule that rockets need fuel. 

The heart of the Iron Man suit is the arc reactor which apparently can generate a nearly limitless amount of power.  Now there's an issue with that.  Reactors, fission and now fusion, don't actually produce direct electricity.  Reactors produce energy in the form of heat that's used to power electrical generating turbines.  So we'll have to assume the arc reactor instead produces electricity directly somehow.  This could be done by triggering some sort of reaction that causes electrical current, like a modern battery but on a much more energetic level.  Unlike a modern battery that must be recharged by another power source, the arc reactor must also have a secondary reaction (or reactions) that 'self-charge' the system.  This 'arc' of reactions could use a small amount of self-repairing fuel to make a steady flow of electrical energy.  Since no system is perfect there would be a need to 're-fuel' at some point. 

Alright.  The arc reactor can make lots of electrical energy but it's still just electricity.  I don't know about you but I haven't seen any electrically powered rockets.  Sure there's that new thing they're working on that seems to defy the laws of physics but that's only useful in the vacuum of space.  To generate the lift needed to make a man and metal suit fly you'd need some sort of propellant.  At the extreme you could make an argument that the suit can compress water vapor from the atmosphere and split the elemental components to produce fuel.  Performance would decrease significantly with an increase in altitude and completely useless in space.  Even if we assume that the suit constantly creates fuel while in non-flight modes it would have to be stored.  If we go by that route then the suit would require huge fuel storage tanks which it clearly doesn't have.  So then the solution would be that the intake, compression and separation required to create the fuel would have to be done in an 'on-demand' manner.  I know we're talking about a super hero here but even I think this is a bit of a stretch. 

Things got a little off track there...more later

Friday, January 8, 2016

Sci-Fi Sins

There are some science fictions design sins that I just can't stand.  I'm not sure why they continue to persist despite the fact that they make no sense.  There's some obvious big ones like sound in space but also some less talked about. 

Naked Aliens:  You see this all the time, aliens that don't wear clothes but have advanced technology and travel through space.  I don't get it.  I understand it comes from the old UFO reports where people reported tiny, naked, grey aliens.  Somehow this found it's way into science fiction writing and continues to this day. 

We don't wear clothes just to preserve our modesty.  We have to protect ourselves from the cold, the heat and keep ourselves dry if it's raining.  We wear specialized outfits to shield us from radiation and airborne pathogens.  Work clothes protect us from hazards like sparks, flying debris and chemicals.  Why would an alien race remove these protections from their standard set of equipment?  Are aliens devoid of emotion and have no sense of personal identity?  It makes no sense.  You also run into the problem that many of these shows have attacking, space alien armies that don't wear uniforms.  Uniforms aren't entirely about conformity but also play a vital role in organization and identification. 

Anyway.  It bugs me.

Silly Guns:  Almost every major science fiction series has a problem designing guns that don't make any sense.  I can see guns that are set up for races with different physical construction but you see many five fingered races using stupid weapons.  We've spent a few hundred years with some of our most brilliant people designing guns and they all look pretty much the same for a good reason. 

The basic shape and features of guns are born of function.  You don't mess with the basics when designing a good weapon and get fancy.  Even the most extravagantly designed weapons are still basically the same basic shape.  Then there's the problem with making weapons that are just devoid of basic things like the ability to aim.  Star Trek is terrible at this.  Firing from the hip is neat on film but it's just silly.  Why would any organization distribute weapons to their members that you can't aim?  I'm not even talking about scopes but simple iron sights are almost always ignored.

 There's more...but I'll expand in another post...

Monday, January 4, 2016

SDK is A-OK!

I've always been a fan of creating content for video games.  I can't say I'm that good at it but it is fun.  If a game came with a map maker or scenario editor you could be sure that I was going to play around with it. These days it's getting even better since many of the source engines are available for free!  That's right...you can mess around with the actual tools used to make the game.  It's neat. 

My biggest accomplishment to date was a fully functional map for Team Fortress 2.  I loved the cartoon look to the game and it made making the map easier since you could get away with less detail.  It was a bit ambitious and didn't work all that well but I got some positive feedback from some players.  Apparently trying to render an ICBM in the middle of the map was a bad idea.  Who knew? 

I downloaded Unreal Engine 4 recently which is amazing and free.  You can do a new game from scratch or load it to do just Unreal Tournament modding.  I also found out that CS:GO still uses the old Hammer Editor for map making.  This was a bit surprising and fun to load up again.  I couldn't remember how to do much though which was disappointing.  

For an easier project I found there was a toolkit for Civ V which was easier to navigate.  I made some silly maps and had some fun.  There's a huge range of tools available and I sort of want to try them all.  I should have been a game developer.

Anyway.  If you've never looked into it, look and see if your favorite game has an SDK or a editor.  You can extend your enjoyment of any game by learning how to make custom content.  Plus with the Steam Workshop and other distribution systems it's easier than ever to get your creations to the masses.  If you're good you can even make a little money.  Not bad.