Jump to content

HeavyMetalSunshineSister

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    436

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by HeavyMetalSunshineSister

  1. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    This is it.
     
    The thing absolutely none of you were waiting for. The thing even I wasn't waiting for.
     
    Because I had no idea it was happening until literally five minutes ago.
     
    Also because I'm a little slow up top.
     
    But yeah.
     

    The First Ever Madman-With-A-Box Drawing Contest,



    to be held from this point onward at no specific time interval.


     

    Basic Idea: Combine two animals that should never be combined, in a way that makes it clear that yes, they totally should be combined. For example, a turtle that is also an osprey. Don't use that one, that would be cheating.


     

    Entry Period: Until the end of the year. Seriously, go nuts. I'm in college and you're lazy, so I'm giving you plenty of time.


     

    Entry Limit: One per person, and each person has to have a unique idea - I would suggest that you announce your idea in the comments for this before you actually submit it, so no-one steals your idea.


     

    Rules:



    -All entries must be your own work.



    -All entries must combine two (2) animals that either really exist, really used to exist, or is part of an established mythos. This means that, if you truly feel like it, you could combine, say, a creature from H. P. Lovecraft's works and something from Doctor Who.



    -Entries may be drawn, and, in fact, probably should be drawn, but if you think you're slick, I guess you can try to Photoshop - just know that a sloppy job won't win. You have to convince me that this thing really is a turtle-osprey or whatever.



    -Concepts should be announced in the comments for this. It's not my fault if you get a great idea, never announce it, and then somebody else takes the idea.



    -All entries should be awesome.


  3. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Found myself in a Deep Ocean biome for the first time, and it's honestly kind of scary, swimming at the surface, looking down, and not being able to see the bottom.
     
    They need to add ocean-going hostile mobs now, just so you can get the experience of having a great white shark come rushing out of the depths, or even just see a faint hint of movement down there, and start fearing for your life.
     
    And once they add hostile ocean-going mobs, they need to give you an update or two to wait and be afraid of the water..
     
    ...and then they need to add a bigger boat.
     
    Anyway, great whites, giant squid, and maybe a couple of other nasties would really make the oceans more fun.
  4. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Decided to try my luck at finding a mesa in another world, just for giggles.
     
    Given the known incident with the 'indianajones' seed (spawned the player in a jungle, I thought maybe, just maybe, blackmesa would spawn me in, you know, a mesa.
     
    Nope, zombie dungeon.
     

  5. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    For a personal project, I find myself needing to know what ships of the medieval Chola Navy looked like - my particular interest rests with the Thirisadai and Vajara classes. My own searches on the topic have come up empty, for the most part. Accordingly, I am asking you to assist in this search, in the hopes that you might have better luck finding good sources than I have.
     
    To be useful, pictures of these ships should show them from the side, front, back or top. A view of the ship from beneath is unlikely but would be nice. Colour images are preferred, but black and white is acceptable as long as there is enough detail. Photographs are probably more than we could hope for, but don't ignore the possibility.
     
    If you choose to help with this, thank you. If you do not, it is not your project and you had no obligation to do so.
  6. 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.
  7. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Here's a beautiful thing that seriously just happened in Starscape.
     
    ->Discover a Ragnarok-proofed bunker on a recently-defeated enemy's planet.
    ->Manage to break into the bunker.
    ->Tick off heavily armored security drones, who start shooting at you.
    ->Throw a grenade at them. You're in the bunker. They're in the bunker. The grenade's in the bunker.
     

    This is now you.
  8. 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.
  9. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    As of today, I'm starting a little diary detailing odd moments in my Minecrafting experience, from my character's point of view. The first of these will come in a batch, while the rest are likely to come one at a time.
     
     
    ---Entry 1, January 16th
     
    It is now a week since I became sick of the sight of snow, and, in a fit either of brilliance or madness, abandoned the mainland in my small wooden boat - a boat I had not built, much less used, until about an hour before I pushed off from the shore. Fortunately for me, I appear to be a reasonably good shipbuilder, as I have yet to sink beneath the waves and meet my demise in the no-doubt-sincerely-sympathetic embrace of one of the many squid that seem to infest these waters.
     
    I sailed three days before I came across anything remarkable - an island! Sailing towards the little spit of rock protruding from the waves, I very nearly wrecked my precious boat upon the shore of what turned out, in fact, to be a wholly unremarkable island, but when I came upon it, the fact that it wasn't either snow, ice, water or lava had me jumping for joy.
     
    The night after I landed upon this little rock, I realized that I was in need of somewhere other than that rock upon which to sleep. Taking advantage of what is either a hole in the concept of sanity or the fact that I am apparently a wizzard, I eschewed the idea of building a house upon that miserable rock in favor of building a series of ice domes beneath the waves, and making my home there. It is from my house in the smallest of these domes that I write this diary now, though I am thinking that I may soon depart to further explore my world.
     
    ---Entry 2, January 21st
     
    Given the difficulty of locating my home beneath the waves by the light of the single candle that, at the moment, isn't even lit, I have shaped the island that first led me to this place into a pair of perfect triangles, the smaller of which points directly to my home. On the opposite side of my sunken villa is another of these island signposts, built up from the seafloor using either crazy-powers or wizzardry, as I have yet to decide which is responsible for the apparent viability of ice as a submarine building material. With these signposts in place, I am now prepared to sail into the east, sailing after adventure, the sun, and maybe something that isn't either a bloody barren rock or a river of fire carving its way through a snowy valley.
     
    P.S. - Why did I decide on ice, of all things? Glass is transparent too. I suspect shenanigans. Whether it is wizzardry or crazy that drives these shenanigans, only time and perhaps an errant luck-dragon will tell.
     
    ---Entry 3, January 25th
     
    I am now a few days out from my home, and no significant landmasses have been sighted, though various miserable spires of rock have greeted me. Very nearly wrecked the boat on the head of one of those blasted friendly squid. Nearly ready to call an end to this whole adventure thing.
     
    On the second day after leaving my home, I began to worry that I may not find it again. To this end, I have, using whatever breach in the laws of something or other (leaning towards wizzardry today), constructed two obelisks since then - one of obsidian, because I thought it would look cool, the other from the Glowstone I gathered the last time I got ideas of "adventure" into my head, because I'm relatively certain that a glowing pillar of rock would be hard to miss.
  10. HeavyMetalSunshineSister

    Clue

    By HeavyMetalSunshineSister,

    Rather a big fan of the movie Clue, but I've got strong opinions on the endings shown. Now, I understand it's meant to be truly ambiguous and, really, impossible to discern which is really the ending (the bit where it says one of them really is the real ending can be safely placed in the same category as communism, they're all equally right and wrong), but the third one, while entertaining, didn't convince me. For one thing, "Mr. Body"s motive for bringing them all there if he really is Mr. Body and not, in fact, Wadsworth, is suspect. Were he truly Mr. Body, and wishing to eliminate his spies, he would be more likely to take the option least likely to put himself at risk - not, as we see in the third ending, the one most likely to put himself at risk. Furthermore, what motive would "Mr. Body" if he really is the butler and not Mr. Body as he was shown to be in the unambiguous portions of the film, have to pretend to be Mr. Body, considering he was in a room full of people with perfect motive to kill him? No amount of money from his employer could be enough for that kind of suicide.
     
    Also, I firmly believe that only the true blackmailer could be that much of a sleazeball. He simply didn't have the personality for a butler - not deferential in the least, not polite, certainly not formal in any way. He did, however, have the personality of someone used to pulling the strings.
     
    I will reserve statement on whether I believe the first or second to be more likely. My goal here is simply to state that I believe the third ending to be the least probable (oh, and also to make sure my blog still works).
  11. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    So
     
    It's been a while. Things have gotten... kind of weird, since the last time I made a blog entry.
     
    I haven't composed a new piece of music in more than a year, thanks to my computer's speakers and headphone jack breaking - followed, back in May, by the computer itself. About to go ahead and install a couple of programs for that on this borrowed computer, once I can verify that the owner is cool with that.
     
    In less aggravating (but probably more important) news, some of you might have noticed I've flipped the gender marker on my profile. Not joking about that one, in case you were wondering. To be honest, I should have figured it out a bit before I did, but hey, I was busy.
     
    Lastly, to leave things on a light note, finally bought and played through The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Ghirahim's a pushover, Demise is a filthy cheater, the game itself honestly talks too much, and the whole thing leaves me yearning for Skyrim's world design - not heavily-modded Skyrim, either. Pure vanilla, with all of its failings and, as I judged it at the time, emptiness.
  13. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Turns out - and I am ashamed for not figuring this out earlier - narrow hallways are the perfect place to fight Wither Skeletons. You just string three blocks along at their head height, stand back, and hit them until they die. The only way it could be simpler is if someone had already placed the blocks for me.
  14. 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.
  15. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Some of you are probably aware of the Minecraft server that caters, in part, to BZP members. Most of you who are aware of that probably frequent the Minecraft topic in COT, and thus may be aware of the recent server crash.
     
    What you might not be fully aware of is the reason for this crash.
     
    A small group of players, led by Madufruit42 (The Invisible Noob) with some assistance from myself, MTMerrick (thoron) and a handful of others, were working on building a railway from Ga-Koro (not an exact reproduction of the Koro, mind - just a village based on it) to a planned train station that would connect Ga-Koro, Ta-Koro, and Ko-Koro. A moderator on that server - a non-BZP member - showed up, and began helping hollowing out the mountain for the train station. The problem has its roots in this - he decided, or so he told us, to use the World-Edit power-tools to hollow out the mountain faster, and warned us that this would cause some lag.
     
    We agreed to this, thinking that the lag would be moderate, and the net result would be beneficial.
     
    The server promptly crashed.
     
    A couple of hours later, the admin (Nav3taX) got the server back online, but with extreme lag. I happened to be in the right place to see what exactly had been done by the moderator "helping" with the railway.
     
    A giant ball of mushrooms had been placed in the air near the track. No hollowed-out mountain, just a great, pointless ball of mushrooms, which, being rather more difficult to render than, say, stone, lagged the server out and pretty much perma-broke it.
     
    The end result? The entire world had to be wiped, and a build-team is now being assembled to restore some sort of order.
     
    There are two possible explanations for why this happened - either the moderator was ignorant of the difficulties with rendering mushrooms, and was trying to be funny, or the goal was exactly what happened - the complete self-destruction of the server.
  16. 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.
  17. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    So, I liked X-Men Apocalypse. Haven't had more than a few hours for it to sink in yet, but, you know, so far so good.
     
    I like how the main villain's early actions make it understandable how someone could choose to follow him without personally desiring the end of the world. I mean... nuclear disarmament? Good start, buddy!
     
    But
     
    What if
     
    What if there were a story where some mighty immortal, trapped under rocks for literally thousands of years, woke up, got to see the world
     
    And had an overall positive reaction at first? Like,
     
    They saw cars, and were impressed with the speed at which a machine, unaided by any beasts of burden, could move
     
    And they saw trains, and got excited about trains, because trains are exciting
     
    And then planes. Wow, planes. Planes! If I were that old, and had been asleep that long, planes would blow my mind.
     
    And then someone tells them that smallpox isn't a thing anymore, and oh my good golly gumdrops, smallpox isn't a thing anymore! Again, coming from that far back in history, I'd be blown away.
     
    So they're impressed by that, and by the scale on which people live now (because Cairo ca. 1984 is much, much bigger than Cairo back when there were still working out the issues in pyramid-building), and at first this mighty, immortal ruler, this ancient world-ruler, is just walking around, taking in the sights, and they're thinking, y'know, this is good. I like what you've done with the place. A+ work, kids.
     
    And where they go from there kind of depends on the tone you want to set. Do they remain impressed? Do they decide that humanity, while it has progressed, still needs them at the helm for some reason? Do they see something, some darker side to this advancement, that convinces them that they need to do something big to change things?
     
    Can't really get into that last one without discussing what it is that would convince them that the world needs re-making, and I'm not in the mood to make it something ridiculous like Adam Sandler movies (though, to be fair, "burn the world" is a perfectly understandable reaction to Adam Sandler's financial success), so... yeah. Fun thing to think about.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    Yes, yes, I know. I'm a lazy sod and should be shot on sight for so terribly neglecting the Spotlight for this month. I know.
     
    On the plus side, I have great (if stupidly delayed news) for you all.
     
    On April 2nd (3rd in the States, aka where I'm at), Ian Anderson, frontman for Jethro Tull (you might recognize them as the legendary band behind albums like Aqualung, Thick As A Brick, and Stormwatch) released a sequel to Thick As A Brick, forty years after the release of the original. Owing to, from what I've heard from a couple ill-remembered sources*, a certain disinterest on the part of guitarist Martin Barre (who is doing his own solo tour and album, so fret not about him!), this album was released as an Ian Anderson solo album, but, with a full cast of other musicians assisting him, including a couple of full-time Tull members, Ian has managed to produce an album that is every bit as powerful as the original, if a little bit less nostalgic.
     
    Unlike the original Brick, TAAB2 is split into multiple tracks, each one outlining a different possible past for Gerald Bostock, whom you might remember as the fictional boy credited, on the mock-newspaper album sleeve of the original, with writing the lyrics to Thick As A Brick. The premise of this sequel album is, essentially, a musing on what might have become of the 10-year old boy, forty years later. It's an interesting question, and one that is answered in four different ways - he either ended up homeless, a corrupt banker, a preacher, a soldier wounded in action, or a shopkeeper with a fondness for model trains.
     
    If you enjoy progressive rock, or just liked the original Brick, I suggest you buy this album, as its feel is much more like classic Jethro Tull than Ian Anderson's solo albums in recent decades.
  21. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. HeavyMetalSunshineSister
    10. Inbred Chocobo Spies
     
    9. National Lampoon's Dog Hospital
     
    8. Invisible Landmine in the Outback
     
    7. Deep Space Spelling of the [consigned to an unpleasant afterlife]
     
    6. Shady Pachinko Encounter
     
    5. British Sushi - The Game
     
    4. Relentless Furry Dancers
     
    3. Olympic Ninja Desperados
     
    2. Children of the Cheese-Fight
     
    1. Flying Hamster Combat
     
    Honourable mention: Mario's Wrestling Power, Heavy Metal Sunshine Sisters, NCAA Dwarf Fiasco, Narcoleptic Harpoon - the Gathering Storm, Muppet NASCAR Overload
  25. 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!
×
×
  • Create New...