Off Topic Thread

[Astorax]

Hey Ed! Good to hear its still chugging along and making progress. Could you hazard a guess as to how far along you are? Say, half way done? lol, sorry, I'm just anxious for new games and a purported "SE 4.5" catches my fancy!

Been playing Distant Worlds and its pretty good. They are ironing some bugs out but so far so good.

Hope you guys are well.

-Astorax

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by Astorax

...Been playing Distant Worlds and its pretty good...

How in general terms is combat and ship design handled in Distant Worlds? From looking at some of the video online I get the impression it is a RTS - select all gaggle kind of affair. How does ship design compare to SE4?

[jars_u]

I'm curious to solicit thoughts from people who have played

Distant Worlds and Armada 2526

in general what they like or dislike (as it pertains to wanting or not wanting to see in SL) and if you feel they were worth parting with your money for (or perhaps would be when the price drops).

I haven't spent any real time playing Flotilla yet so haven't any real insights to share yet.

Thanks.

[getter77]

http://starruler.blind-mind.com/ Star Ruler

Yet another 4x dealie for Star Legacy to compete with. I find the timing of all these ambitious projects popping up one after another after stewing all this time to be quite delightful. Should be something for everybody's tastes and really give a shot in the arm to the entire genre set.

Big dev Q/A thread, where one of the staff is actually a Goon, over at SomethingAwful in the Games forum.

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by getter77

I find the timing of all these ambitious projects popping up one after another after stewing all this time to be quite delightful.

I agree - I'm glad to see the genre is alive and well. Here are a couple of other projects/recent releases that might be of interest:

Star Ruler

Thousand Parsec

Free Orion

Aphelion: Phoenix Rising

Distant Worlds

Armada 2526

Flotilla

[MarcoPolo]

Originally Posted by jars_u

I'm curious to solicit thoughts from people who have played

Distant Worlds and Armada 2526

in general what they like or dislike (as it pertains to wanting or not wanting to see in SL) and if you feel they were worth parting with your money for (or perhaps would be when the price drops).

I haven't spent any real time playing Flotilla yet so haven't any real insights to share yet.

Thanks.

I am actually currently playing Armada 2526, And I must say it has a way of growing on you. But maybe because I have had so little time to figure out its nuances. I am not sure if it would hold my interest as much if I was playing it for more than a few hours every lazy Sunday or so.

However I will say this about it, it falls short of what I would call a truly immersive game universe. I am sympathetic towards its building construction and tech tree, to a point. But its weaknesses is definitely the way war is waged. Very uninspiring and short lived. I would have preferred a Sins of a Solar Empire style engine or even a 2D gratuitous space battles style (if gfx and developing an upto date engine proved too costly)

As for FreeOrion, its ok as far as 1st impressions are concerned. But its more like a game I would of played in the 90s than something I would even give a chance to today. Its very conservative and lacks any innovation or ingenuity.

I also got a copy of Lost Empire Immortals, but I have from 1st impressions deemed Armada 2526 the worthier candidate. Lost Empire just seems way too repetitive for my liking, and despite it having its unique system of planet resource building, its still quite unpalatable for me.

However Star Ruler seems worthy of a look by me. I'm not too sure about Thousand Parsec, seems dated and constrained by a tiny budget.

Here are some more stellar scales for you amusements

HERE

Stellar Scales and the Future of Planet Detection

PlanetQuest

As well as some real life star system comparisons.

5 Worlds of Kepler

Five Exoplanets

First Time Photos of Extrasolar Planets

Corot 7b

Gleise 5c

[Ed Kolis]

To get back off-topic, thought I'd share some nursery rhymes... programmer style!

// Little Bunny Foofoo v1.0 beta
public static void Main()
{
	var foofoo = new Bunny();
	foofoo.Size = 0.001; // foofoo is a little bunny
	var forest = new Forest();
	forest.PopulateMice(typeof(FieldMouse), 50); // TODO - more diverse mouse population
	foofoo.HandleMice(forest);
	var fairy = new Fairy(Alignment.Good);
	for (var chances = 3; chances > 0; chances--)
	{
		fairy.SetDesiredVisibilityOf(foofoo, "mouse handling", false);
		fairy.Warn(foofoo, "mouse handling", "goonification", chances);
		foofoo.HandleMice(Forest);
	}
	fairy.SendLink(foofoo, "somethingawful.com"); // should turn him into a goon!
}
// Mouse event handler
private static void HandleMice(this Bunny bunny, Forest forest)
{
	foreach (var mouse in forest.Mice.OfType())
	{
		bunny.Scoop(mouse); // prevents mouse out of range exception
		bunny.Bop(mouse.Head);
	}
}

REM ANNUAL TODO LIST
1 PRINT "1-2 BUCKLE SHOE"
2 GOSUB BUKLSHOE
3 PRINT "3-4 SHUT DOOR"
4 GOSUB SHUTDOOR
5 PRINT "5-6 PICK UP STICKS"
6 GOSUB PIKUPSTX
7 PRINT "7-8 LAY THEM STRAIGHT"
8 GOSUB LAYMSTRT
9 PRINT "9-10 BEGIN AGAIN"
10 GOTO 1

// Dog Finding Script
// TODO - figure out why we're getting out of memory errors
function FindMyLittleDog() {
	// Find all dogs in world
	var dogs = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < world.length; i++) {
		if (world[i].type == "dog")
			dogs.append(world[i]);
	}
	// Criterion: it's a little dog
	var littleDogs = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < dogs.length; i++) {
		if (dogs[i].height < 15)
			littleDogs.append(dogs[i]);
	}
	// Criterion: it's a he
	var littleMaleDogs = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < littleDogs.length; i++) {
		if (littleDogs[i].sex[0] == 'M' || littleDogs[i].sex[0] == 'm')
			littleMaleDogs.append(littleDogs[i]);
	}
	// TODO - check with SPCA on ethicality of these next search criteria
	var withCuts = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < littleMaleDogs.length; i++) {
		if (littleMaleDogs[i].cuts["ears"] < 5 && littleMaleDogs[i].cuts["tail"] > 10)
			withCuts.append(littleMaleDogs[i]);
	}
	// Where oh where could he be?!?
	return FindMyLittleDog();
}