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HeavyMetalSunshineSister

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Blog Entries posted by HeavyMetalSunshineSister

  1. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Alright, alright, I know how to take a hint. No response on something generally means it's been weighed, measured, and found wanting. Really wanting. Thus, the other thing has been discontinued.
     
    That being said, I'm still doing goofy things in Minecraft. Finally returned to the home continent, and ended up starting on a fortress that relies oh-so-much on projectile-based defenses. Currently working at a testing range I dug into the permafrost to ensure I've got the splash potions that will be fired from rapid-pulsed dispensers done correctly. This primarily involves putting sheep in a hole and shooting potions into the hole, then checking for dead sheep.
  2. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Every month, I've decided, I'm going to put a shiny little spotlight on a specific musician, generally one who also composes (or composed, I've nothing against dead guys), give a brief description of them, and recommend a small sampling of their work for curious listeners to get started on.
     
    This month, it's the father of ragtime, Scott Joplin.

     
    Scott Joplin is widely considered to be one of the most important composers of ragtime, and, indeed, the innovator that basically created ragtime. Ragtime, in case you don't know, is generally piano-based music characterized by a playful use of syncopation, and, in the hands of a creative composer, can have pretty awesome applications in contemporary music.
     
    There's really quite a lot of Joplin's work out there - you can even buy little books full of his sheet music so you can have the satisfaction of having the most fun with a piano since Beethoven got evicted from his apartment for rocking too hard.
     
    If you want to get started, here's three pieces to look up:
    -The Entertainer Yes, yes, I know. To those all too familiar with ice cream trucks, this song just sounds like diabetes. Gotta forget the ice-cream-truck connection and just listen to the song itself.
    -Maple Leaf Rag This one's just cool.
    -Gladiolas This is an awesome title, and a very good example of what ragtime should sound like.
     
    Use those three as a jumping-off point for jamming with Scott Joplin, and tune in next month for another Musician Spotlight!
  3. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Yeah, yeah, I know - there wasn't a Musician Spotlight for January. I'm sure all -3 of you that read this thing were livid.
     
    Ahem.
     
    Anyway, I'm probably going to have some more business - sorry, busy-ness - so from now until April 3rd - or, until I update the Musician Spotlight again, whichever comes first - the Spotlight will be focused on Ian Anderson's new album, which is to be released as a direct sequel to the legendary Thick As a Brick... err, 40 years late.
     
    I've heard lots of good things about this album (some of the songs that will be on it! Steven Wilson's involved! Another Ian Anderson album! Steven insisted that Anderson use the same instrumentation [for the most part] as the original Brick! Anderson went along with the idea!) and one bad thing (Martin wasn't interested in working on this album) that's kind of a good thing (Martin is instead off doing his own thing.) so I'm really pretty excited about this.
     
    The one disappointment is that, unlike the live (and lyric-less) performance done in India a while ago, the album version of A Change of Horses is unlikely to feature sitar.
     
    But, hey! This blog isn't about my opinions - no, really it isn't. My opinions matter about as much as the -3 people who read them matter. This blog is about the opinions of those people who 1. don't exist and 2. were just told, in a hypothetical universe where they do exist, that they don't matter!
     
    So, tell me what you think of the upcoming Thick As a Brick 2. Or don't. Probably don't. But do if you exist.
  4. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    I've finished my exams for the semester, and to celebrate, it's time for this month's Musician Spotlight. This month, I'd like to start things off with a clarification of the term "winning."
     

    Winning does not look like this. This is what torpedoing your career and ruining your life looks like. That is not the face of a victorious man, in any sense of the word.
     

    This is what winning looks like. If you want a slightly more accurate version, look up the videos of one of the songs from his album Fearless. Maybe the song I Do The Rock, that's a good one.
     
    Anyway, the point is, Tim Curry is a singer as well as an awesome actor. Those of you who are fond of a certain Rocky Horror Picture Show are already well-aware of this, but you might know that he's put out three albums, one of which I'm really rather fond of.
     
    The best way to describe Curry's style is as what you get when a talented singer who's mainly an actor gets bored, and decides to do something fun. His first album was mainly covers, but the second album proved, one, that this man can write music, and two, that this man can write really fun music that takes itself about as seriously as non-child-eating clowns take themselves. Live performances of I Do The Rock feature Tim Curry grinning like a maniac, because he found the definition of the word winning, and then he decided to start living it.
     
    Those interested in starting a collection of Curry's musical work have it easy - he's only put out three albums. Out of those, the first and third tend more towards pop, while the second makes a respectable effort to lean towards rock, which Mr. Curry does, and does well.
     
    For those hoping to get started, I heartily recommend browsing the album Fearless, probably starting with I Do The Rock and Paradise Garage. Anything else just write up on a cork-board and throw darts at, because that's the approach to picking songs that fits the spirit of winning.
  5. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    My luck in Minecraft has an interesting flavour to it lately - I set out from my home on a savanna plateau, hoping to find a mesa from which to get hardened clay for use in the construction of my house.
     
    I did not find a mesa biome.
     
    Instead, I found three villages and five desert temples, leading to quite the collection of enchanted books, horse armor, diamonds and other goodies... and a rather low food supply by the time I turn back - or think that is what I am doing.
     
    This results in me getting desperate enough for food to drop some planks and craft a fishing rod.
     
    This results, not in food for the first few casts, but a Punch II, Power IV bow, 4 puffer fish, and a few random useless trinkets. After getting enough salmon and unnamed fish to stop starving to death, I continue south, confident that I will see my hilltop tower any second now...
     
    ...Except I'm now two kilometers south of the origin point, and did not walk that far in setting up my base.
     
    Good thing I found a horse right after making this realization, really. Diamond horse armor and a convenient saddle undoubtedly saved my life tonight.
  6. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    More Technic fun.
     
    I went tromping off through the Nether Portal I set up in a Siege Castle I captured a while ago, taking only weapons and food, with the intention of acquiring a few Blaze Rods so I could craft an Ender Chest or two... well, exactly two. Thaumcraft plans.
     
    Knowing that a Nether Fortress would be the best thing to find, I set about the task of wandering aimlessly until I found one - finding, instead, this cheeky little pigman in a funky robe who immediately started setting me on fire, making me nauseous (a nasty little effect that makes your vision swim about) and spawning pigmen (not even zombie pigmen, just pigs on two legs) to rush forward and... I don't know, hug me? They weren't very good in battle, and judging by his swift death, neither was the Great Wizard Chuckles.
     
    So more wandering ensued, followed shortly by falling in lava, dragging myself out, and burning to death. This resulted in a knee-##### expedition to find the site of my death, which resulted in abject failure, and the creation of a new escape Portal... which dumped me in a cave, under the ocean, more than three kilometers away from my house.
     
    ...Yeah.
  7. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    It is hardly a secret that worldbuilding is my favorite part of writing. I don't care much for plots until I've got, at the very least, a detailed map of the relevant planet's ocean currents. I won't design a single character until I know where the tallest mountain is and whether it casts a significant rain shadow. I could go on, if I had no other responsibilities, for years, figuring out how a fictional world ticks. Once the planet is done, the ecosystems come in. Here I could get lost forever, and with good reason. I'm quite likely to, with no thought for what lies ahead, devote a significant chunk of my time to figuring out the last five million or so years of the planet's natural history. Once that's done, I can figure out cultures, and then characters and plot.
     
    So I love world-building, and put clinically insane amounts of work into it. That is, from my perspective, great.
     
    But, I do not harbor the illusion that the average reader actually cares about where all the deserts are. They don't. They're there for the plot and the characters, and pages spent lovingly describing the world will be met with a sudden loss of interest on their part. This is not their problem to fix, as it would be pretty daft of me to expect people to not read stories for the stories.
     
    What this really means, then, is that only the bits of the world that are relevant need to show up. The rest is all still there, of course, much as the currents of the North Atlantic are still there in a Sherlock Holmes novel, but it never needs to be mentioned. This runs quite counter to the inclinations of some writers I've run into, who appear to believe that any detail is good detail, and thus pack whatever they write with infodumps on whatever they think might be involved in some way, even - or maybe especially - if it has no relevance to the plot.
     
    If the way your starship's engine works never enters into the plot (or, if you're making an RPG, the gameplay of the RPG), the readers don't need to hear about it. You can have it all figured out in case someone asks, sure, but don't stress out about it if you don't understand all of the tiny nuances, and don't regurgitate every detail in a vain (of the self-image variety, not so much the futility sort) attempt to show the hours of work you put into what the reader is holding in their hands. Quite apart from making you look whiny, showing your work for the sake of showing your work is a recursive, stupid activity that tends to ruin your work.
  8. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    So, I found the most adorably stupid Daily Mail article today - yes, I know, that's a tautology, but bear with me.
     
    The article, you see, was about the Greenland Shark, a large, cold-water shark most closely related to dogfish, that looks like this;

     
    Now, most of what the article said in describing this "fearsome creature" isn't factually incorrect - they have indeed been found with the remains of polar bears, reindeer, and seals in their stomachs.
     
    The article just failed to mention one thing - the top speed of the Greenland shark is about 1.6 miles per hour - somewhat slower than a live polar bear, but considerably faster than a dead one. In keeping with the tendency for these sharks to be mostly or completely blind (due to a parasitic copepod that feeds on their corneal fluid), and their goofy, mostly-harmless appearance, the Greenland shark is believed to primarily be a scavenger.
     
    As the delightful Wikipedia article on this shark put it;
     
    Fearsome creature, indeed.
  9. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    One thing that bugs me, and which I hear a lot from people looking at drawings or playing Minecraft, is the tendency to look at anything that's been done well, and remark that they would never be able to make something as good as that. This is especially irritating in Minecraft, where we're all working with the same cubic-meter blocks of material, and thus there is no really good reason to think that any particular piece of work is impossible for you to match.
     
    The idea of someone being naturally talented beyond anyone else's ability to match is, to me, ridiculous. No one's first attempt at architecture, with no background in it or Minecraft, was as good as what some people have made in Minecraft. M.C. Escher did not wake up one morning, with no background at all in drawing surreal geometries, and start producing art. J.S. Bach's first experience with music, almost assuredly, did not immediately result in any famous compositions.
     
    Getting good at something took time for them, and it will take time for anyone looking to follow in their footsteps - they were not born doing what they do/did, but rather worked to do it and do it well. If you really want to be good at it too, study the principles of the artform, and practice. Practice until you're sure more practicing isn't actually possible, and then continue practicing.
     
    Because if one more person looks at something I've built or drawn [i don't show compositions to non-musicians, because I can't get them to sit still long enough] and says 'Wow, I could never build/draw like that,' I'm going to chase them around the world with a diamond pickaxe and set their weird squarish wooden shack on fire.
  10. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    I have recently seen an instance in which a single female character was portrayed overreacting to something. The scenario was played for laughs, and while a good amount of time could be spent going over the joke itself and why it was or was not funny, a more important issue is some of the criticism that the joke received - that having this character, who was female, overreact in an emotional manner, was sexist. That it implied the attitude that all women were prone to overemotional reactions.
     
    This, I believe, is a flawed judgment, for the reason that some individual women are, in fact, prone to overemotional reactions.
     
    This is not because they are women.
     
    This is because they are human, with any of an assortment of personality quirks that come along with that condition. I know more than a few men who are prone to such an overreaction.
     
    And perhaps, one might say, it would have been better to use a male character for that role - to make a man overreact instead of a woman, to deter the accusations of sexism.
     
    I disagree. Women are approximately fifty percent of the human population, and it is probable that approximately fifty percent of overemotional freakouts are had by women. Simply because years of consistent portrayals of a trait as a quality exclusive to women has made it a sensitive subject does not mean that this trait can never again be ascribed to women in fiction, nor does the ascribing of such a trait to one character mean that the writer is sexist. For that to happen ,the writer has to consistently portray the majority of their female characters as overemotional basket-cases - have a look at a good many sitcom writers if you need an example. Having one character with this trait is not sexism, it's having a character with believable human qualities - or, in the case of some works of amateur comedy, somewhat unbelievable human qualities. Even exaggerating these traits to absurdity in one case, however, does not make the writer a sexist - anymore than making a male character an unbelievably smug windbag suggests a belief that all men are cartoonishly smug windbags.
     
    When writing fiction, it isn't healthy to constantly be looking over your shoulder to make sure that nothing you write could possibly offend someone. Just write natural characters that fit the story you're writing. And even if you can't do that, a bad joke doesn't make you a bigot - perhaps a bit thoughtless, and certainly not a master comedian, but not necessarily a bigot.
  11. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    I don't recommend it. It makes you look like an awful person, makes everything that moves think you're an awful person, except for that one guy in the corner telling you that yes, they are all out to get you, and when you calm down he just ends up looking and feeling awkward.
  12. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    The blogs have become an uncomfortable place lately, and, due to some disagreements on the way a few things have been handled, I have found myself at odds with people I would rather count as friends. I don't see an end to this situation coming as soon as I would like it to, so there is something I would like to make clear before things go too far.
     
    I do not want a fight.
     
    I have never logged onto BZP with that desire in my mind. I have enough people to argue with elsewhere, were I the sort of person who revels in confrontation - but I'm not. When I log onto BZP, I want to relax, laugh with my friends, and maybe debate minor matters of philosophy. No matter what is said in the rather more serious debates happening now, and those still to come, no matter what my errors of communication or careless, accidental, hurting words, I am here to talk, relax, and have fun. Not to make enemies.
     
    If the time ever comes that I do not respect you, I will not fight you. I will not argue with someone for whom I have no respect, whose views, desires, and feelings hold no value for me. I will ignore them. I will give such a person up as a lost cause, and happily avoid the irritation they brought me.
     
    So unless the time comes that I never reply to anything you say, never visit your blog, and never argue with you, know that I respect you. I may not be your friend, I may not agree with you on anything, you may not even like me, but I would rather have you as a friend than an enemy, and if, by some chance, all the people who are so much better at being human and nice and comforting than I am have disappeared, know that, if you need it, I will try to have something good to say. I will try, in the small ways available to me, to make your day better.
  13. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    This is one of those times when the fact that I am incompetent to install a moderator for Minecraft, much less make one, really frustrates me.
     
    See, I had what I consider to be an awesome idea for a moderator to use in Survival mode. Basically, the idea is that Creepers would be modified to no longer take fire, explosion, or fall damage, so they explode, then just go ahead and do it again. And again. And so on until you manage to kill them. Increasing their base health to around what Endermen have would also be good for this idea. Giving 1 Creeper in every 10 the ability to teleport like an Enderman would, of course, be overkill, so if I was making this moderator I'd do it.
     
    Sadly, I am, as stated above, incompetent to make or even install a moderator for Minecraft. So this isn't going to happen.
     
    So I guess I'm just venting frustration/giving you a glimpse of the horrorterrors I'm unleashing on an alternate Minecraft-playing universe.
  14. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    The actor [Gal Gadot] that is slated to play Wonder Woman has confirmed that she is undergoing some serious training/physical conditioning for the movie.
     
    Training that involves swords.
     
    I may still have some doubts about her acting ability, based on what I know her to have been in - the Fast & Furious franchise isn't exactly known for nuanced performances, or actors capable of the like, but...
     
    Well, if the long list of training material is any indication of her role in the movie - a list including swords, Kung Fu, swords, Ju-jitsu, and freaking swords you guys - then Wonder Woman is going to be a pretty entertaining character in a braindead action movie about Batffleck and some neck-snapping enthusiast wearing Superman like a cheap suit.
  15. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    In an effort to get some more productive work done than wandering and dying in search of a mesa biome, I elected to hunker down by my river and fish.
     
    This was, on the whole, an excellent idea, considering the fishing rod I dredged up - Unbreaking III, Lure II, Luck of the Sea II.
     
    Clearly, great Cthulhu would like a favor in return for his generosity. Perhaps a temple is in order.
  16. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    The following is a brief overview of the technologies you can expect everyone to have.
     
    ---
     
     
    Every race has access to the following technologies; this means they have the science and industry needed to mass-produce, use, and understand them.
     
     
    Scanners
     
     
    Electromagnetic sensors: From radio waves all the way up to X-Rays, every race has an understanding of how to build these. These include devices such as infrared scanners, radar, LIDAR, and the like.
     
     
    Gravimetric Sensors: Finely calibrated, sensitive pieces of machinery which track changes in gravity. Subtle changes can only really be noticed over the course of months, but using these is critical to getting a general idea of a star system’s setup. Every ship should carry one.
    Note: Gravity waves travel at the speed of light.
     
     
    Magnetometric Sensors: Scanners that detect magnetic fields. These are good for picking up ships using Fusion reactors, and especially Ramjets, which always involve a massive magnetic field. However, Magnetometric Sensors are easy to distort and confuse.
     
     
    Cameras: Able to detect on all spectrums of light, not just visual, and easy to equip with a zoom lens, cameras are critical to a ship because they allow a ship to be built without fragile portholes.
     
     
    Reactors
     
     
    Every race has the technology to produce Nuclear Fission and Fusion based reactors, of varying design dependant on needs. Fusion Reactors peak at 300 watts per cubic meter.
     
     
    Weapons
     
     
    Lasers: Firing electromagnetic radiation on any part of the spectrum, Laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Lasers are the boring but practical choice for weapons in space; long range, lightspeed projectiles, and moderate damage. Their only downside is that the high heat lasers go through means they require constant repair and maintenance. These lasers are all approximately 99.6% efficient, leaking only .004 of their energy as waste heat. However, since gigawatts of power are being pushed through these lasers, this still means they produce a lot of heat.
     
     
    Kinetic Weapons: All races have the technology to create Magnetic Railguns as well as conventional explosive-powder based guns.
     
     
    Blasters: A Blaster is essentially a railgun, but rather than a solid shell, it fires a high-velocity ball of plasma. Short range, but high damage capabilty, as a general rule.
     
     
    Missiles: Every race has the technology to create guided missiles; these can have chemical warheads, but a Nuclear Shaped Charge is preferred, and of course every race can create these.
     
     
    Hyperwave
     
     
    Hyperwaves are a strange thing; they behave like electromagnetic radiation in most ways, aside from moving roughly forty times the speed of light. However, they are only stopped by very few materials; Neutronium, Degenerate Matter inside of stars, and Stasis Fields, to name a few. Most usefully, however, a Lithium crystal antenna can be used to project them and pick them up. Thus, Hyperwaves are useful for communication systems, but only useful for sensors if one is hunting Stasis boxes.
     
     
    Computers
     
     
    Computer science is essentially over. Computers have reached their peak speeds. These speeds are so fast that the modern measure, FLOPS, is pointless because the numbers are laughably high. However, any equation can generally be solved by a computer faster than it takes to program it.
     
     
    Other Tech
     
     
    All races have access to any technological idea that was invented before 2000 in the real world.
  17. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    This document outlines the resources in Starscape, and how you acquire or spend them.
     
    ---
     
     
    Starscape features only two Resources; Money and CHON. Money is a representative value of how much of an empire’s economy something takes to build and support, while CHON(Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) represents how much a ship takes at creation, and needs periodically.
     
     
    These resources are gathered on Planets, Moons, Asteroid Belts, and generated in Habitats.
     
     
    Planets
     
     
    While a very wide class of object, planets can be grouped into a number of distinct classes. For the purposes of this game, Planet and Moon are interchangeable; the only difference is that Planets orbit a star, and Moons orbit a planet. Each class of planet is followed by a real-world example, and then the basic Resource values it produces. Anything that produces or consumes resources produces or consumes those resources every five days.
     
     
    Airless: Barren chunks of rock, usually large enough to pull themselves into a sphere but too small to hold a substantial atmosphere. Airless worlds are valuable for manufacturing, thanks to their free and abundant Vacuum, highly useful for industries, and low gravity. A good example is Earth’s Moon. Your species may not have its Homeworld on an Airless World.
     
     
    Money: 3
    CHON: 0
     
     
    Reduced Atmosphere: Thin atmosphered worlds, smaller than a terrestrial world, with lower gravity, less capable of holding an atmosphere, and only rarely having a planetary magnetic field. Reduced Atmosphere Worlds can be colonized with the appropriate measures to keep air pressure strong, such as underground habitats or pressure domes. Many Reduced Atmosphere worlds are actually large enough to hold an atmosphere, but had it blasted away in wars of eons past. These planets are particularly enticing to archeologists, and treasure hunters, who hope to find the occasional sample of technology from ancient empires. Mars is an example of an average Reduced Atmosphere world.
     
     
    Money: 2
    CHON: 1
     
     
    Terrestrial World: Rare and valuable, but heavy and hard to lift goods off of, Terrestrial Worlds are always found with a thick atmosphere, and almost always found with oceans or ice caps, depending on the temperature. Rich in fissile materials, heavy metals, and organic substances, Terrestrial Worlds also make better living space than any other class of planet, provided the atmosphere suits one’s needs and they fall within a species’ preferred temperature range. A vast majority of races evolve on these worlds, as they also produce more life than any other sort of planet. Earth is a typical example of Terrestrial Worlds.
     
     
    Money: 5
    CHON: 3
     
     
    Pressure Cookers: Hot, dense, with extreme atmospheric pressure, moderate to heavy gravity, and often close to a system’s sun, Pressure Cookers are created when a planet’s atmosphere exhibits a Greenhouse Effect, retaining heat faster than it loses it. Aside from making wonderful trash dumps, Pressure Cookers often have useful elements which can be harvested from their upper atmosphere. They can have valuable minerals on the surface below, but these are difficult to reach given the rest of the world’s traits. Venus is a typical Pressure Cooker, though not all share the planet of love’s corrosive atmosphere.
     
     
    Money: 0
    CHON: 2
     
     
    Ice Balls: Cold, small gas giants commonly found at the edge of star systems, Ice Balls are around the middle of size as far as planets go. Ice Balls are mostly useful for the elements which can be scooped from their upper atmosphere, and occasionally for the valuable metals found on their moons. Neptune is a typical Ice Ball.
     
     
    Money: 1
    CHON: 2
     
     
    Gas Giants: Massive, not very dense, taking up a large chunk of a solar system’s mass, Gas Giants are what they say; gigantic planets made up of gases. Often, a Gas Giant’s gravity allows it to capture dust and asteroids, leading to thick systems of moons and beautiful rings. Gas Giants are excellently useful for industrial purposes, as their moons often contain useful metals, and even fissile materials. The atmospheres of the Gas Giants themselves, however, are where the real riches can be found, mining and refining useful gases. Saturn is an excellent model Gas Giant
     
     
    Money: 2
    CHON: 5
     
     
    Proto-Stars: The largest class of planet, a Proto-Star is a Gas Giant of exceptional size, known because they emit more heat than they absorb. Proto-Stars are often just a few masses short of becoming a Dwarf Star, and can actually be made into Dwarf Stars artificially if Fusion is ignited in their core. Proto-Stars feature the same attractions as Gas Giants, though their higher gravity makes elements more difficult to recover from the atmosphere.
     
     
    Money: 2
    CHON: 4
     
     
    Other Features:
     
     
    Asteroid Belts: Leftover detritus from the formation of a solar system, Cosmologists are interested in Asteroid belts because the thinner they are, the older the system is. Merchant corporations are interested in Asteroid Belts because they provide all the advantages of an Airless World without being so heavy that it’s expensive to lift ships off of them. Asteroid Belts are often critical to a system’s economy, however, they are dependant on planets for organic elements.
     
     
    Money: 4
    CHON: 0
     
     
    System Upgrades
     
     
    System upgrades are constructs you build to make your system more effective at its industrial tasks, add new capabilities to your system, or protect it better. Each System Upgrade costs a fixed amount to build for a fixed time; once complete, it has a Resource effect. This is written in the format.
     
     
    Build Cost/Time(In real-world time)
    Resources
     
     
    The Resource effect, if positive, means that this upgrade produces resources. If negative, it means this upgrade is a draw on resources.
     
     
    Interstellar Launch: An Interstellar Launch takes the form of either a Launching Laser, which propels Light Sail Craft to enormous speeds by means of hitting the Light Sail with a laser, or a Mass Accelerator, which uses magnetic rings to do the same. They are necessary for use of the Superlight Drive.
     
     
    10 Money, 1 CHON/10 Days
    -2 Money
     
     
    Floating Habitat: Space stations, floating in space. Valuable for industry or farming, and especially useful because their goods do not have to be shipped out of deep gravity wells. Floating Habitats are very fragile.
     
     
    4 Money, 4 CHON/5 Days
    +1 Money OR +1 CHON
     
     
    Defense Stations: Armed defense stations use the Ship profile, and are essentially spaceships with less engines. Use the Ship profile for these.
     
     
    Shipyards: Space stations, designed to both fabricate ships from raw materials and assemble ships which were built on the ground; Shipyards are critical to producing any sort of Space Navy. For each Shipyard a system has, it can produce one Starship at a time. You can only have one Shipyard for each Population Level in a system(Example, if a system contains a Terrestrial World with 4 population and an Airless World with 2, you can have 6)
    5 Money, 2 CHON/5 days
    -1 Money
     
     
    Planetary Upgrades
     
     
    Planetary Upgrades are constructed in much the same way as System upgrades. However, they are obviously attached to a specific planet. Otherwise, they are identical.
     
     
    Space Elevator: A set of long cables placed on a world’s equator, used to cheaply ferry goods and supplies from the planet’s surface to space.
     
     
    6 Money, 1 CHON/10 Days
    +3 Money
     
     
    Tiara Ring: Multiple Space Elevators around a planet’s equator, connected to an artificial ring around the planet, whose spin counterbalances the planet’s gravity to make Zero-G. Requires at least two Space Elevators before construction.
     
     
    4 Money, 1 CHON/10 Days
    +6 Money
     
     
    Developed Factories: Your planet has been colonized long enough that it has a sizeable industrial presence. This upgrade may only be built once for each Population Level, beginning at Outer World. Your Homeworld starts with three levels of this, for a total of +6.
     
     
    5 Money, 1 CHON/5 Days
    +2 Money
     
     
    Developed Farmland: Counterpart to Developed Factories, Developed Farmland allows a world to put out a massive amount of food and other vitals, allowing it to contribute directly to the space effort. This upgrade may only be built once for each Population Level, beginning at Outer World. Your Homeworld starts with three levels of this, for a total of +6.
     
     
    1 Money, 5 CHON/5 Days
    +2 CHON
     
     
    Population
     
     
    A planet’s population is divided into abstract “Levels” These levels are used to represent massive increases of population. There are no set in stone numbers on how populous a planet is, because how are the slow-reproducing sentient whales, the slaughtering rat people, and the race of sentient Nanotech supposed to use the same scale?
     
     
    Level 0: Colony. Planets begin their colonization at this level. Here, a population is beginning to eke out an existence, often living in a single city.
    Level 1: Protectorate: The population is expanding, growing and slowly bending the planet’s environment to their will.
    Level 2: Outer World: Your people have colonized much of a continent, and now the world is able to significantly contribute to your species. If contact with the rest of the species has been intermittent, it may have begun developing its own culture as well.
    Level 3: Inner World: An Inner World is an industrial and economic power, able to maintain a small spacefleet of its own.
    Level 4: Core World: The Core Worlds are the oldest, most settled worlds in an empire, often including a species’ Homeworld, Core Worlds are industrial powerhouses, dominating the local economy, and often having every continent on the world be settled. Your Homeworld begins as a Core World.
     
     
    Now, with that outlined, the question is, how do you get from one to the next? Obviously, this includes reproducing, raising the new adorable little baby alien monsters, teaching them to be productive citizens, and providing housing and jobs for them. This is represented in game by a single action a planet can take, known as Go Forth And Multiply
     
     
    Each species will have a different timespan they have to spend increasing a world’s population; the slaughtering rat people will reproduce far faster than sentient whales, and such. To that end, when you make your species, I will tell you the length of time and economic costs this action has on your world.
     
     
    Strip Mining
     
     
    Strip Mining is the opposite of colonizing in many ways; it’s not intended to produce a sustainable, long term population, but merely to get at what resources are easily available and move on.
     
     
    When you begin Strip Mining a planet, its resource production is normal for the first five days, and then doubled. However, after thirty days the planet is Depleted; it cannot be Strip Mined further, and if it is colonized, will produce half as much resources as before.
     
     
    Treasuries
     
     
    Resources can be stockpiled, money stored in bank vaults, and CHON elements kept in vats. If a system is not building anything at any given time, its production automatically goes into your Treasury. For example, say you have an Airless World, which produces three Money per turn. You can feed that money directly into building spaceships of some sort, or you can save it up. In that case, it is sent to your nation’s treasury, and can be spent later, and in other places. Resources can be spent all at once, or, if you’re building things, spent in increments, like spending three Money in a week on building a scoutship.
     
     
    Producer-Ships
     
     
    Producer ships have two functions; they can sustain a species on an Exodus Fleet by producing food and manufactured goods, and they can serve the same function for Deep-Space fleets in unknown or hostile territory. To that end, Producer Ships are vital for invasions, embargoes, and occupations. However, their massive size makes them vulnerable.
     
    Producer ships work very simply; you feed them a resource, and they give you more of that resource. However, the resources they produce can only be devoted to Upkeep of ships. The numbers vary depending on the size; I’ll tell you when you submit the profile. Producer ships come in two varieties, Forgeships and Garden Ships. Forgeships work with Money, and Garden Ships with CHON.
  18. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    This document gives a pretty good overview of the principles of shipbuilding.
     
    ---
     
     
    Spaceships vary wildly in their designs, based on their intended function, however, they can generally be classified according to their size and intended function. However, there are no standard ship classes; if you like, a good general principle is to build your ships along real-world Navy ship designs. However, your species’ biology and culture will influence this, and you’re free to design your ships however you like.
     
     
    Ship classes in this format
     
     
    Name:
    Description:
    Reactor:
    Propulsion:
    FTL Drive:
    Armament:
    Defensive Systems
    Detection Systems:
    Cost:
     
     
    You fill out every detail except the Cost, and send it to me in a PM; I’ll look it over, and if it looks good, fill out the cost.
     
     
    SHIPBUILDING CONSIDERATIONS
     
     
    You are not expected to know everything about a spaceship’s design. You’re not an engineer, after all. However, you should understand these basics of what spaceships are like, and how to build them.
     
     
    Power and Thrust
     
     
    The first step in designing your ship’s power system is picking its Reactor. Much like real world Naval ships, a spaceship needs a massive reactor. However, in space, a reactor is far more important, because it is usually also your main Propulsion system. The following are a list of a few basic Reactor types; feel free to pick from these, or choose your own system.
     
     
    Nuclear Fusion Reactor
     
     
    Your basic Fusion Reactor uses either lasers or magnetic pinches to force atomic nuclei to fuse, which produces a massive amount of energy and heat. Reaction mass(Hydrogen, Water, Deuterium, and Helium-3 are all common choices) is fed into the fusion reaction slowly enough that it is self-sustaining. This energy can be captured, the heat this reaction gives off used to produce power with temperature differentials. To produce thrust with one of these reactors, the reactor is simply opened to space; White hot streams of post-fusion gas race out into the night, propelling the ship forward. This reactor requires light elements to be fed into it as reaction mass, and thus increases the CHON cost of maintaining the ship.
     
     
    Ramjet
     
     
    A Ramjet is a Fusion Reactor, with the addition of enormous, kilometers-wide magnetic “sails” which, as a ship travels, capture free-floating hydrogen in space, and force it down into the ship’s reactor for use as Reaction Mass. Originally, Ramjets were designed as the best design for a slower-than-light ship, and were probably used if your species launched any. The advantage of a Ramjet is that its reactions get more and more efficient the faster a ship is going, and, more importantly, it does not require fuel to be carried with it. However, they are expensive to build and maintain, increasing the Money cost of ships they’re used in.
     
     
    Gravity-Trail Propulsion: An option only available to species who have Artificial Gravity, Gravity-Trail Propulsion is an excellent option for propelling a ship; a gravity field is generated in front of the ship, strong enough that the ship “falls” directly forward. Gravity-Trail Propulsion is useful because the gravity waves it produces are difficult to detect, and the ship itself produces no bright Fusion Flares or other telltale signs of existence, making this one of the few options for a Stealthy ship.
     
     
    Laser-Reaction Drive: Essentially, this drive is a fusion drive which emits its Fusion Flare in the form of a laser. There are two advantages to this type of drive; one, its drive can be used as a long range signaling device. Two, it can be used as a close range weapon, as this laser is incredibly powerful. These drives are more expensive to build than Fusion drives.
     
     
    ORION Drive: Explode nuclear warheads behind an extremely thick shell built into your ship. Propel yourself with nukes. What more do you want from life? An ORION drive can be made far more useful by coating the shell in a Stasis Field, increasing the efficiency to nearly 100%.
     
     
    Ballistic Sling: A Ballistic Sling isn’t a power production method, or a drive, per-se, but a means of getting from place to place. Using conventional rocket fuels to give an initial boost, or other low-intensity drive methods, a ship travels a long, slow, leisurely curve through a solar system, ending at its destination. These systems are useless for going anywhere but the place you actually planned on ending up, as there’s no steering and no power. However, these systems are also essentially free. For this reason, they’re popular when launching colony ships from one planet to another planet in the same system. This is the method that most Real-World deep-space spacecraft use.
     
     
    Defense
     
     
    Every spaceship needs armor, even if it’s just there to hold in the atmosphere. The most basic spaceships use metal layers, often Steel or Aluminum. Some spaceships, especially those preferred by races with more advanced material science, prefer Aerogel or Foam Aluminum armor, but armor is all essentially the same; a solid material designed to take impacts and energy, to keep the structure intact.
     
     
    Interceptors are a critical system for defending your ship from missiles, because missiles, while slow, have insanely high damage if they do score a hit. Interceptors can come in the form of tiny kinetic-interceptor counter-missiles, bullets, or laser beams. All are about equally valuable. The effectiveness of these interceptors depends on how far away the missiles are launched.
     
     
    Energy shields are, in the time of Starscape, mostly science fiction. The closest thing available is a large Magnetic Field, probably made with the same projectors the ship uses in a Ramjet. This Magnetic Field serves to deflect incoming plasma and particle beams. If dust and iron filings can be held in the field, it will actually serve as an effective shield against laser beams, relativistic-velocity kinetics, and missiles.
     
     
    The above idea of a magnetic shield can be combined with a Flak Barrier, essentially a set of cannons that set up a spherical shell of explosions around the ship. This, filled with iron filings held in place by a field, provide a good, if temporary, shield against nearly everything.
     
     
    Detection Systems: See the “Scanners” section of the Technologies post. Most ships will have all of those.
     
     
    Other Considerations
     
     
    Venting Heat: Spaceships build up heat while in space, and have to lose it somehow. Without an atmosphere, you can’t just vent heat to the air, so a ship must use Radiators. These aren’t the big, orange glowing things on the Venture Star in that one James Cameron film, but rather, a Radiator in use on a spaceship is a big sheet of aluminum, painted white, and run through with tubes of water or some other liquid. The tubes carry heat to the radiators, and the radiators bleed off their heat as light. However, these radiators are fragile. Pieces of shrapnel from missiles and destroyed spaceships could ruin them. Thus, in a fight, these radiators must be retracted to keep from being ruined. As all ship’s operations produce heat, a ship’s endurance is mostly determined by the heat tolerance of the crew, more than its ammunition supplies and reactor.
     
     
    Atmospheric Entry: A ship’s gravity and pressure tolerances will determine what sort of planet it can land on. The Discovery from 2001: Space Odyssey might be able to handle the pressure on Earth, but its long, tube shaped structure would snap in half under the gravity. By contrast, the NASA Space Shuttles could fly on Venus’ low gravity without a problem, but would be crushed like little origami frogs by the pressure on Venus’ ground level. As a general rule, a smaller ship can handle less gravity, and a better armored ship can handle more pressure.
  19. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    The following is the list of traits that can be selected at the beginning of Starscape II. Choose carefully for maximum coolness.
     
    ---
     
     
     
    Races get 6 points. This list is a work in progress. If you have ideas for other traits that should be available, write them up and send them to Xomeron!
     
     
    Trait: Cost: Description
     
     
    Physical
     
     
    Natural Radios: 1: Your species has either evolved naturally, or altered itself to include, natural radio antennae, obsoleting spoken words and allowing for near-telepathy.
     
     
    Predatory Physiology: 1: Your species is evolved to kill and eat its prey. They are better built for war than the average omnivorous species, perhaps including deadly claws and fangs, keen senses, and possibly an instinctive understanding of pack tactics.
     
     
    Natural Flight: 1: Whether by wings or by inflatable body parts, or something similar, your species is capable of flying on its homeworld. Varying gravity and air pressure will decide whether they can fly on other worlds.
    Hazardous Environment: 2: Your species evolved in and is used to a decidedly hostile environment. Perhaps they are tundra dwellers, living at temperatures far colder than water’s freezing point. Perhaps they breathe sulphuric acid and evolved in temperatures hot enough to melt lead and pressures strong enough to crush other races. Whatever the case, their ideal planet is decidedly unsuited to inhabitation by other species.
     
     
    Aquatic: 1: Your species lives in water. Their ships are by necessity heavier than other races, but can take far stronger acceleration, and are tougher. They are at home in their natural environment, but awkward on land, and the same is true of land dwellers in their realm. When combined with Hazardous Environment, your people live in water that is thickly contaminated with something hazardous to other races, or perhaps dreadfully cold or hot. Gills are an option, or your species could be air breathers, like whales and marine reptiles..
     
     
    Amphibious: 2: Your species is equally at home in water or on dry land. All the aspects of Aquatic plus all the aspects of landdwellers.
     
     
    Extra Limbs: 1: It’s no accident that the vast majority of species in the galaxy have two arms and two legs. Yet those that have extra can sometimes find themselves at a decisive advantage.
     
     
    Engineered For War: 3: Your species has altered or discarded its normal bodies, and given its soldiers something greater. The specifics are up to you, but your species features a caste entirely devoted to war. Possibly cybernetic soldiers built from the ground up, or mindless soldier clones, or insectoid Warrior Drones.
     
     
    Popsicles: 1: Your species is capable of surviving being frozen solid, like some species of terrestrial frogs and insects. Aside from giving you something to do during the winter, it allows your species to survive cryogenic freezing.
     
     
    Technical
     
     
    Artificial Gravity: 3: Your species has discovered and mastered the art of manipulating gravitational fields. This is easily one of the most important milestones a species can cross. The limits of Artificial Gravity’s effects on warfare and engineering are only limited by your imagination. However, Artificial Gravity is limited by power. When an Artificial Gravity field is set up, it is always a sphere. If the sphere is made larger, the power draw increases along the Square/Cube law; the Power draw is the cube of the square root of the size increase, making large Gravity fields very impractical.
     
     
    CHON Independent Environments: 1: Your species has mastered the art of making spaceships their own self contained ecosystem. Your ships are not dependent on constant resupply of CHON from planets and outposts. This is a necessity if you want to launch Deep Space missions without using the Skip Drive. CHON Independent Environments does not mean your ships don’t need CHON for reaction mass, if you use Fusion reactors.
     
     
    Stasis Field: 2: Your species has discovered(or perhaps looted the knowledge of) how to set up The Stasis Field. The Stasis field has two functions; first, it serves as a perfect reflector, reflecting 100% of all Electromagnetic Radiation. Second, time does not pass within a Stasis Field, making it the perfect system for preservation. Stasis Fields are occasionally found, and are very valuable, because they can contain ancient technology from empires of the Ancients
     
     
    AI Systems: 1: Your species has created A.I. systems advanced enough to control and regulate their ships systems.
     
     
    Mecha: 1: While not necessarily practical, your species has recognized the sheer cool factor of giant robots carrying weapons around. Battlemechs, Power Armor, Battle Droids. and Giant Robots are all made available with this advancement.
     
     
    Genetic Masters: 2: Your species has spent a great deal of time and effort learning the art and science of modifying their own biology. They can create specialized bodily forms for different situations. Purchasing this advance also reduces the cost of taking Engineered For War, Amphibious, and Biotech traits by 1
     
     
    Biotech: 2: Your ships, stations, and weapons are made of flesh and bone, not metal and plastic. Your tech is far cheaper to produce than most races, but require a large investment of CHON, and grow more slowly.
     
     
    Advanced Cybernetics: 1: Your species has developed, researched, and begun mass producing artificial limbs and computerized substitutes for lost limbs, organs, and the like. You have also learned to upload a brain and consciousness to computers, or enhance a brain with computerized implants, though it’s likely not a common process. If you use Biotech, this is instead the ability to regrow entire lost body parts, or grow generic body parts and then attach them to new bodies.
     
     
    Faster Than Light Drives(At least one is highly recommended)
     
     
    Warp-Tunneling Drive: 1: The Warp Tunneling Drive accelerates a ship to roughly ninety six times lightspeed, traveling in a straight line until the power is cut. If a ship begins their path in a large gravity field(such as that of a planet) the Warp-Tunneler Drive simply will not start. If a ship’s path intersects such a field, however, the ship, in its strange state of faster-than-light travel, will not survive the gravity, and be shorn apart into constituent molecules. One must be careful to appear off the plane of a solar system or at the edge of one, to avoid these “Holes”
    A Warp Tunneling Drive is about 1000 cubic feet(the size of your average bedroom)
     
     
    Skip Drive: 2: The Skip Drive forces the mass it launches into a strange, difficult to understand dimension dictated by mass quantum effects. When it reemerges less than a second later(whether the moment of transfer is instant or just very short is debatable) it can emerge anywhere in the universe, provided the place that it emerges is free of strong gravity fields and dense masses. Should it emerge in a strong gravity field, it will simply not come back together properly, and reappear in a burst of protons, electrons, and neutrons. If it intersects a dense mass such as an asteroid, the atomic nuclei will probably overlap, destroying both masses in a Nuclear Fusion reaction. This is unpleasant for all involved. A Skip Drive is about 800 cubic feet(a small bedroom)
     
     
    Hyperdrive: 1: Hyperdrive is a very strange device. It takes the ship it is using out of our universe, and places it in a universe that is astrographically identical, one thousandth the size, , and follows very different lays of physics. While accelerating, a ship’s speed increases not linearly, like in the real world, but exponentially. The longer you stay in Hyperspace, the faster your ship moves. Aside from that matter which originates in Hyperspace, matter can only exist in Hyperspace for a short time before it flies apart, individual electrons accelerating out of their orbits, causing the matter to disintegrate. By maneuvering about in this micro-universe, a ship can cross interstellar distances on conventional thrusters, and then return to normal space. The Hyperdrive must be kept at around 400 degrees Celsius while in Hyperspace, or else the effect will fail. A Hyperdrive consists of a wire mesh running along the armor of the ship. Momentum is not conserved when transferring between Hyperspace and Normal Space(the proper word for this is “Tearing Through”)
     
     
    Superlight Drive: 1: The Superlight Drive suspends two commonly held “laws” of physics. E=mc^2 and Inertia. In short, they allow a ship to break lightspeed in space on conventional power. However these ships must be traveling at .05c before the Superlight Drive can be initialized, likely with a Launching Laser or Mass Accelerator(See “Interstellar Launch”) A Superlight drive is an object about the size of a desktop computer that is clipped to any part of the ship’s mass.
     
     
    Industrial
     
     
    Colonized Asteroid Belt: 1: Your people have, over the course of the centuries since it became possible to leave your homeworld, colonized and developed an Asteroid Belt in your system, providing an economic boost. This advancement may be taken multiple times.
     
     
    Extra Planet: 2: Whether by terraforming, or just luck, your home system contains an extra world inhabited by your species. This advancement may be taken multiple times.
     
     
    Colonized Gas Giant: 1: While Gas Giants are an incredibly hostile environment to most living things, they have their uses. A Colonized Gas Giant is actually the moons and rings of a gas giant, along with stations placed in the upper atmosphere to gather valuable gases. This advancement may be taken multiple times.
     
     
    Extra Colonized System: 3: By using slower-than-light “Generation” or “Sleeper” ships, your species has colonized a planet in a nearby star system.
     
     
    Interstellar Launch: 1: An Interstellar Launch takes the form of either a Launching Laser, which propels Light Sail Craft to enormous speeds by means of hitting the Light Sail with a laser, or a Mass Accelerator, which uses magnetic rings to do the same. They are necessary for use of the Superlight Drive.
     
     
    Homeworld Space Elevator: 1: A set of long cables placed on your homeworld’s equator, used to cheaply ferry goods and supplies from the planet’s surface to space. See the “Resources” document. This advancement may be taken multiple times.
     
     
     
    Social
     
     
    Fleetborn: 1: Your race is perhaps on a long lost exodus from your home stars, or perhaps they simply evolved out in the cold and the empty. Stranger things have happened. Your people have no homeworld, but begin the game with a motley assortment of warships and Producer Ships.
     
     
    Perfect Dictatorship: 1: A Perfect Dictatorship is an incredibly valuable asset for a species in space. When the government controls the entire economy, it can produce spacecraft At-Cost, without worrying about giving profits to Shipbuilding corporations. A Perfect Dictatorship may well be a Hive Mind, insectoid Queen bugs giving commands to the Drones, or simply an excellently crafted system of controlling the populace.
     
     
    Transhuman Society: 4: Your people have long since evolved beyond the need for physical bodies, existing entirely as AIs in Cyberspace. Your people are entirely independent of physical bodies, though they can have some in biological or robotic form. Their spaceships are crewed not by bodies on the ships, but are simply inhabited by the species’ personality. When combined with Perfect Dictatorship, this can represent an entire planetwide empire which is controlled by one single personality that can be everywhere at once.
     
     
    Proud Warrior Race: 1: Your race honors and respects its Warrior class greatly. You will rarely have a shortage of volunteers for your military, and the Military has the right to do quite a bit without oversight from Civilians.
     
     
    Technolepathy: 2: The logical extension of The Internet, and a step on the way to Transhuman Society, Technolepathy allows your people to instantly communicate with each other with an internet-like system, and control technology with the same.
     
     
    Empathy: 1: Your species has evolved a specialized, unique system(perhaps pheromones or a subtle body language) that allow it to instinctively understand the feelings and emotions of one another. This obviously does not function on other races.
     
    Single Mind: 2: Regardless of the mechanics of how, your species’ bodies are all extra limbs of a single, controlling hive mind, perhaps using natural Hyperwaves to communicate between body parts. This is the most controlled society possible, a single entity making up an entire race.
  20. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    'Ello. This is where I'll be dumping all of my stuff for the COTRPG Starscape, which presently promises to bloom into a massive war with everyone annihilating everybody.
     
    In the interim, I'll kick things off with the information this entry is for.
     
    Main Species Profile
    Species Name: Diemawr
    Description:
    -Physical: The Diemawr are a physically powerful race, and their somewhat brutish appearance can be off-putting to some. Despite this, they are a very dexterous race, with their hands bearing four fingers and two thumbs each. The Diemawr are, like many sapient races, bipedal, with the opposable toes on their five-toed feet giving away their arboreal ancestry. Their tails, at five feet in length, are fully prehensile, with tiny barb-like scales along their length to aid in gripping. The head of a Diemawr is somewhat frightening to those who are not accustomed to the sight - so much so that Diemawr warriors often elect to not wear helmets in ground combat, to aid in psychological warfare. The head is very boxy in shape, with a broad, squarish snout. The nostrils are bony and rather large, with the nose connecting directly to a fleshy air-sac above the snout. Behind the air-sac is a bony plate that covers the top of the cranium, with two blunt horns protruding near the back of the plate. The large eyes of the Diemawr are located just at the front of the cranium, with cat-like pupils. Behind the plate, an array of protofeather-like quills jut out from the head, and the grooming of these quills is a matter of great pride for Diemawr. The torso of the Diemawr is rather broad and stocky, with strong, thick bones and heavy musculature. Overall, a Diemawr is only four feet tall at the most, which puts these clever reptiles just a little below the average height for spacefaring species.
    -Psychological: Many a careless sociologist has dismissed the Diemawr as a simple, brutish "warrior race", when, in fact, their culture is much more interesting than that. The Diemawr place great emphasis on personal pride and accomplishments, and are taught from an early age that the success of an individual helps push the species as a whole forward, while a careless or lazy member of the race drags them all down. As a result, any Diemawr that does not wish to be made a pariah strives to achieve as much as possible in their chosen field, which leads to fierce competition for work in all fields - the sciences, the arts, politics, even service jobs see heated competition between potential workers. As a result, any accomplishment made by another race can be expected to be seen as a direct challenge to the Diemawr, and will certainly be met with an attempt at something bigger and better.
    -Government: The Diemawr are led by a Lord President and a 150-member Conclave. Members of the Conclave are elected directly by the people every five years, while a new Lord President is elected upon the death of the reigning Lord President. The Lord President handles external policy, appointing military leaders and deciding on both diplomacy and warfare. The Conclave gives their advice to the Lord President on these matters, but their real responsibility is internal affairs. Political parties are absent, with all candidates standing alone and on their own personal qualifications. All politicians are career politicians, and study history, philosophy, and military tactics for years before they run for major office. Local conclaves exist for any community large enough to be named, and, as would be expected, these conclaves only decide on local matters too small for the Conclave to preside over.
    History: The Diemawr started civilization as a tribal race that had just decided to give life outside of the trees a try. By lucky coincidence, they evolved on a planet with a single large continent, limiting the possibilities for internecine warfare. Less then 5,000 years into their history, the Diemawr had unified into a single federated system, roughly identical to the one still in use today. While large-scale disputes continued to occur - any species without them is most likely extinct - the Diemawr used the two-thousand year period between unification and the present day to refine the artistic and scientific aspects of their culture. By the time a manned probe had visited the very bottom of their homeworld's great global ocean, they knew there was only one place left to go - space.
    Homeworld Name: Diemwnt-Cwn The name is the same as the name given to the vast forest that served as the original home for the Diemawr, in the language that became the dominant business/diplomatic tongue for the Diemawr. Any resemblance between this language and Welsh is purely spot-on, these are seriously Welsh-speaking aliens, and any resemblance between this planet's name and the name of a David Bowie album (in Welsh) is purely awesome.
    Homeworld Location: Sector 2, System 12. If it's not too much bother, I'd like take the 2 colonial systems option, and snag 11 and 13 as a result.
     
    Ship Classes
     
    Class Name: Brawd-dur
    Class Size: Medium
    Class Function And Description: The Brawd-dur is specialised for the task of eliminating large targets that would present too great a threat to other units. Because of its singular weapon system, the Brawd-dur has to carry extra armor, and, to make it somewhat defensible on its own, reinforced turret-rotation equipment to provide the ship with a 32,400-degree firing arc. (360 lateral, 90 vertical)
    Class Weapons: Solet heavy armor (2), Reinforced Turret (1), Dur-Llaw Duw (1)
     
    Starbase Classes
     
    Class Name: Carreg-dur
    Class Size: Starbase
    Class Function And Description: Robust orbital-defense station, meant to hold off an invasion with minimal support from mobile forces. The Carreg-dur is an automated military satellite locked in geostationary orbit. It receives its orders from command-stations located on the planet below, and each Carreg-dur starbase serves both to detect an approaching threat and as the most reliable means of dealing with it.
    Class Weapons: Solet heavy armor (3), Dant-a-Grafanc (5), Gwaed-a-Dur (1), Fighter Bay (1)
     
    Weaponry and Equipment
     
    Bah, I'll get to this bit later.
  22. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    So I was showing off my grand sand-trap to a friend today - hmm. Before I say what happened, I should probably go over what was supposed to happen.
     
    In a subterranean complex, I built a large domed room with the floor open to the Void. I then went around the perimeter of the room, placing pistons on one long circuit, with Repeaters used as the only direct redstone contact for each and every piston, and occasionally using a Repeater-and-wire loop on the outside of the circuit to extend the energy flow. At the beginning of the circuit, near the switch, is a piston-based door that's closed when the circuit is on, and open when it isn't.
     
    On each of the perimeter pistons, I placed a block of stone and a torch, and then proceeded to build a sand-dome held up by the torches. The plan was for the dome to collapse when the switch was flipped to open the door, barring the way to incautious adventurers.
     
    Instead, precisely nothing happened. The input stopped mattering, because the circuit stayed on even when it was off.
     
    Advice for how to fix this circuitry error would be much appreciated.
     
    UPDATE: Problem fixed via good-old double-inverters, and basically switching things around to get my circuit to bear less resemblance to a waffle. I still am not sure whether the monstrosity I originally created was a true Illogic Circuit or merely an astronomically slow Clock Circuit.
  23. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    ...and Star Trek Colon Into Darkness becomes a much better movie. Why?
     
    1.
    That's the Captain speaking, right there.
     
    2.
    "Khan" was basically the hero anyway - he exposed a corrupt, war-mongering admiral, went toe-to-toe with the Federation to save his friends, and got shot in the back by Kirk and Scotty. Keep Burgerking Custardbath in the role, and it's just Sherlock Goes to Space with thirty minutes of desperately scrambling to make him the villain at the end.
     
    Swap Mal in, and it's just another day at the office.
     
    3.

    [All glory to the greatest webcomic on Earth. Fan poster by offsite artist deino-erd.]
  24. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Since Xom (or, if you like, King of Shadows, though that only applies to shadows inside of time, so I'm quite out of his jurisdiction) is deathly allergic to blogs, I'm going to be helpful and post the Syrrinx tech he's provided specs on in this blog entry.
     
    SHIPS
    Class Name: Elemental
    Class Size: Fighter
    Class Function And Description: Space Superiority Fighter, meant to destroy enemy fighters and bombers, and provide close support to Syrrinx Ground Troops. Trans Atmospheric.
    Class Weapons: Three Rotary Missile Launchers
     
    Class Name: Changeling
    Class Size: Small
    Class Function And Description: Stealth Ships. Equipped with a Cloaking Device. Designed for firing on far-away targets in hit-and-run attacks. Its railgun is far better at range than RMLs are due to their higher shell velocity, at the expense of rate of fire. It is also much slower than a Hobgoblin due to a higher mass.
    Class Weapons: 1 Railgun, 2 Rotary Missile Launchers, 1 Cloaking Device
     
    Class Name: Hobgoblin
    Class Size: Small
    Class Function And Description: MISSILE BOATS DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA
    Class Weapons: 7 Rotary Missile Launchers
     
    Class Name: Harpy
    Class Size: Medium
    Class Function And Description: Built on the Faeire chassis as a Battlemech Deployment vehicle. Mechs are shot from the ship through a large cannon on the nose of the ship. Going down in metal-foam lined drop pods with large retro-thrusters, the mechs can land safely using carefully computed trajectories, letting them come down at the same time in precise areas.
    Class Weapons: One Dropship Bay, 5 Rotary Missile Launchers
     
    Class Name: Sprite
    Class Size: Medium
    Class Function And Description: Force Projection; meant to get fighters onto the battlefield and provide a core for their operations.
    Class Weapons: One Carrier Bay, 5 Rotary Missile Launchers
     
    Class Name: Faerie
    Class Size: Medium
    Class Function And Description: Battlecruiser. Designed for hunting other Cruisers. Its heavy weapons load is excellent at hunting cruisers, and Faeries work well with Sprites Capable of damaging Large ships in a one-on-one fight.
    Class Weapons: 2 Railguns, 2 Rotary Missile Launchers
     
    Class Name: Kraken
    Class Size: Large
    Class Function and Description: Carrier. Brings a full wing of fighters to the battle, and is a deadly ship all its own, the Kraken is primarily used for force projection; swarming enemy ships with a horde of fighters.
    Class Weapons: 1 Carrier Bay, Four Rotary Missile Launchers, 1 Starcannon, Antiproton Gun
     
    Class Name: Dragon
    Class Size: Large
    Class Function And Description: Dreadnought. Visually resembling a cinderblock mating with an angry cathedral, the Dragon is designed for bombarding enemy cities, Starbases, and other Battleships, a Dragon will inevitably be the focus of any battle it is present on, for it can turn the tide of entire wars.
    Class Weapons: 1 Starcannon, two Railguns, 1 Point-Defense Network, Antiproton Gun
     
    Class Name: Wyvern
    Class Size: Large
    Class Function and Description: Missile Boat, Fighter/Small ship hunter. Mounts several Rotary Missile Launchers. Built on the hull of a Dragon, but the removal of the Starcannon allows for an oversized engine, allowing the ship to accelerate unreasonably fast; at similar rates to a Small ship, in fact.
    Class Weapons: Antiproton Gun, 15 Rotary Missile Launchers
     
    Class Name: Harnos
    Class Size: Starbase
    Class Function And Description: Repair and heavy fire support of Syrrinx ships in orbital operations; reload and protection for Fighters.
    Class Weapons: 16 Rotary Missile Launchers, 1 Point Defense Network
     
    WEAPONS
    Name: Autocannon
    Weapon Size: Small
    Mechanics: Similar to a modern tank gun, with an automatic loading system. Fires 30 Shells per minute. Can fire a variety of shells, most commonly used with a penetrating tip.
    OBSOLETE
     
    Name: Rotary Missile Launchers
    Weapon Size: Small
    Mechanics: Fires a whole lot of tiny, guided, antimatter tipped missiles to overwhelm anti-missile defenses with sheer numbers. 0.1 Kiloton yield.
     
    Name: Railgun
    Weapon Size: Medium
    Mechanics: Uses magnetic pulses to fling a shell at 3000 m/s with a depleted uranium tip. Kinetic energy immense.
     
    Name: Starcannon
    Weapon Size: Large
    Mechanics: Uses magnetic pulses to fire what is essentially a thirty gigaton nuclear fusion bomb, fused to go off a moment after impact and designed to take the impact undamaged Capable of destroying large cities and blowing massive holes in enemy formations. Not capable of one-shotting battleships, but it will nicely damage them. Requires a long recharge time for the magnetic coils after firing.
     
    Name: Antiproton Gun
    Weapon Size: Superweapon
    Mechanics: Fires a constant stream of negatively charged antimatter particles. As these particles travel through space, they spread out due to mutual charges repelling each other. Thus, while a tight beam leaves the barrel, a large cone hits the target. Best used against large clouds of small ships, to that effect.
  25. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Today, I'm going to do a one-off feature - my "Premier" Membership runs out on the 28th, and I'm undecided on the matter of actually buying it when that happens.
     
    The purpose of this Tech Highlight is to point out the very real possibility of practical electric vehicles. The Tesla Roadster takes approx. 3.5 hours to charge, and, on a full charge, can go for about 245 miles - not too shabby, considering that other electric cars can take about 20 hours to charge and still don't go as far as the Tesla Roadster, but it still sounds pretty bad for a long trip - driving halfway there and then having to stop for 3.5 hours doesn't sound very good.
     
    But, when you consider that they've been able to get solar panels to achieve about 21% efficiency in commercial applications, it's easy to see how a solar cell on top of the car could help prevent the battery from ever quite falling to zero, getting rid of the annoying stop in the middle of a trip - and possibly accelerating charging when you are stopped. If you want to make things just that little bit better - or throw in a supplementary system for conditions where you don't exactly have the optimal amount of sunlight - then a small wind turbine powered by the wind flowing over the car just might be ideal. Now, of course, neither of these supplementary systems are efficient enough to power a car on their own, but they don't have to - the core of the power system will be the energy you get from the power grid, which hopefully has something like a nuclear power plant instead of a coal-fired power plant at the center of it all. The solar cell and wind turbine are there to extend the life of the main battery.
     
    This concept, I think, is what the future of high-tech energy systems will look like - a central, reliable system supplemented by things designed to make it all work just a little bit better.
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