| --- Log opened Fri Mar 09 00:00:56 2007 |
| 00:14 | < Janus> | Final Question (pfft), would there be any reason to keep the past positions of particle points, say, 2 or 5 steps in the past? |
| 00:15 | <@Vornicus> | some. |
| 00:16 | <@Vornicus> | You get tails that way, obviously, and many RPGs (see Chrono Trigger) would make following characters take the same path as the main character, just a few steps behind. |
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| 00:17 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has joined #code |
| 00:18 | < Janus> | Alrighty. But would there be any use for a soft bodie's membrane vertices? |
| 00:20 | | * Janus will need at least two arrays of vertices, so the calculations don't get mangled, from reading and writing to the same set. |
| 00:22 | | * Janus is also just itching to write "Vertex *** node;" |
| 00:23 | <@ToxicFrog> | A two-dimensional array of pointers to nodes? |
| 00:23 | <@Vornicus> | Woo, three star code.. |
| 00:24 | <@Vornicus> | For a soft body, though, idunno. |
| 00:25 | | Derakon [~Derakon@Nightstar-12737.sea2.cablespeed.com] has joined #code |
| 00:25 | < Janus> | The first star is because they're dynamically allocated, then another because there's a lot of them. The third would be so it can switch between one buffer to another in a cycle. |
| 00:25 | | * Derakon grumbles at his bus error. |
| 00:25 | < Derakon> | It's always a bad sign when the address for a variable magically changes from 0x1159208 to 0x98. |
| 00:26 | <@ToxicFrog> | Janus: that doesn't make any sense. |
| 00:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | ** does not mean "lots" |
| 00:27 | < Derakon> | ...oh, *duh*. Of course it went out of scope! |
| 00:27 | | * Vornicus points and laughs at Der. |
| 00:27 | | * Derakon thwaps himself with the Big Book of How Memory Works. |
| 00:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | It means either a pointer to a pointer, an array of pointers, a pointer to an array, or a two-dimensional array. |
| 00:27 | <@McMartin> | Are you returning pointers to stack variables? |
| 00:27 | < Derakon> | No, McM. |
| 00:27 | < Derakon> | Er, wait, actually...this should work. |
| 00:28 | < Derakon> | In my class, I have vector<SDL_Surface*> currentFrames for hackish reasons. |
| 00:28 | < Derakon> | In my constructor, I instantiate it: currentFrames = vector<SDL_Surface*>(); |
| 00:28 | < Janus> | Alright, an array of pointers then. |
| 00:28 | < Derakon> | As soon as I exit the constructor, ¤tFrames = 98. |
| 00:28 | < Derakon> | Er, 0x98. |
| 00:28 | <@McMartin> | That looks like a dead stack reference to me... |
| 00:29 | < Derakon> | It certainly causes a bus error when I try to use it later. |
| 00:29 | < Derakon> | The normal address is 0x1159something. |
| 00:31 | < Derakon> | Why would currentFrames' memory get invalidated, though? I have plenty of other vectors in that class that work just fine. |
| 00:31 | | * Derakon also notes that he does not actually have to do the explicit instantiation in the constructor; dunno what he was thinking when he added that. |
| 00:31 | <@McMartin> | Shouldn't the constructor initialize it in the prelude? |
| 00:32 | < Derakon> | Right. |
| 00:32 | <@McMartin> | class Foo : currentFrames(), etc |
| 00:32 | < Derakon> | You don't even have to do that explicitly. Since it's a base object of type vector<SDL_Surface*>, instead of a pointer itself, it automatically gets the default constructor applied to it. |
| 00:33 | <@McMartin> | Right. |
| 00:33 | <@McMartin> | If you neeed arguments, though, the code you described oughtn't to work. |
| 00:33 | < Derakon> | So what I'm seeing here is that a member field of a class is getting garbage'd as soon as the constructor finishes. |
| 00:33 | | * Derakon shall return in a moment with a pastie. |
| 00:35 | | gnolam [Lenin@Nightstar-13557.8.5.253.se.wasadata.net] has quit [Quit: Z?] |
| 00:36 | < Derakon> | http://pastie.caboo.se/45732 |
| 00:37 | < MyCatVerbs> | Damn, and there I thought you were referring to your dinner. |
| 00:39 | < Derakon> | Oh, no. Though I did sate my hunger earlier with a fourth of pie. |
| 00:41 | | MahalBedd is now known as Mahal |
| 00:51 | < Derakon> | So, um, any ideas? ¬.¬ |
| 00:51 | <@McMartin> | Not really, especially since I don't see the relevant code anywhere. |
| 00:51 | <@McMartin> | And because STL is full of hatred and spiders |
| 00:51 | < Derakon> | What would you consider to be the relevant code? |
| 00:52 | <@McMartin> | ... also, um, is it vector<SDL_Surface *> or vector<SDL_Surface *> *? |
| 00:52 | < Derakon> | It's the latter if you want a pointer to a vector of pointers to SDL_Surfaces. |
| 00:52 | < Derakon> | Which I don't. |
| 00:52 | < Derakon> | I just want the vector itself. |
| 00:53 | <@McMartin> | And the field itself is remapping, while the whole object is fine. |
| 00:53 | <@McMartin> | The declaration of the class that declares currentFrames would be nice. |
| 00:53 | < Derakon> | Just a sec. |
| 00:54 | < Derakon> | http://pastie.caboo.se/45735 |
| 00:55 | < Derakon> | Okay, it's not just currentFrames. The entire object is being invalidated. |
| 00:56 | <@McMartin> | Can you run it in purify and look for buffer overruns? |
| 00:56 | < Doctor_Nick> | you know whats good |
| 00:56 | < Doctor_Nick> | cottage cheese and balsamic vinegar |
| 00:56 | < Derakon> | Okay, I fixed it. |
| 00:56 | <@McMartin> | ? |
| 00:57 | <@McMartin> | What was it? |
| 00:57 | < Derakon> | You really shouldn't be transferring control of the program to Lua from the World constructor. |
| 00:57 | < Derakon> | So I return from the constructor, and *then* pass control. |
| 00:57 | < Derakon> | Ack, page. BBL. |
| 00:59 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...calling into Lua from the constructor shouldn't have any ill effects. |
| 00:59 | <@McMartin> | It's C++. |
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| 01:04 | < Derakon> | What'd I miss? |
| 01:04 | <@Vornicus> | nothing. |
| 01:04 | < Derakon> | Righto. |
| 01:04 | <@ToxicFrog> | <Derakon> Ack, page. BBL. |
| 01:04 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> ...calling into Lua from the constructor shouldn't have any ill effects. |
| 01:04 | <@ToxicFrog> | <McMartin> It's C++. |
| 01:04 | <@McMartin> | Hum. I have a question about the Monty Python Tactic. |
| 01:04 | < Derakon> | Yesh? |
| 01:04 | <@McMartin> | Why is it more imba in EV than in Star Control? |
| 01:05 | < Derakon> | Imba? |
| 01:05 | < Derakon> | Imbalancing? |
| 01:05 | <@McMartin> | Yes. |
| 01:05 | <@McMartin> | (SC's version is "The ship that can force the other to chase it has the advantage") |
| 01:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | Monty Python Tactic? |
| 01:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | Oh. |
| 01:05 | <@Vornicus> | A couple of reasons |
| 01:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | Bravely run away away. |
| 01:05 | < Derakon> | Partiall I suspect that's due to granularity of control. It's a lot easier to closely match velocities with a ship in EV. |
| 01:05 | < Derakon> | There's an autopilot that will aim you within 10° or so of your target, too. |
| 01:06 | < Derakon> | Also, the player's ship is frequently faster than his opponents are. |
| 01:06 | <@Vornicus> | Also, the standard tactic for all but capital ships is indeed to give chase. |
| 01:07 | <@McMartin> | Aha. That would be the primary key. |
| 01:07 | <@McMartin> | Most SC ships will break off a chase if it's just getting them pounded, unless breaking away is fatal too. |
| 01:07 | <@McMartin> | Which is, admittedly, unnervingly often. |
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| 01:07 | <@McMartin> | But the tactic against the Terminator is "never let it close". |
| 01:07 | < Derakon> | EV ships are, frankly, not especially intelligent. |
| 01:07 | < Derakon> | They make up for this by outnumbering the player. |
| 01:08 | <@McMartin> | Aha. |
| 01:08 | <@ToxicFrog> | EV needs more vicious Freespace-style cluster missiles ?? |
| 01:08 | < Derakon> | Terminator is the Yehat ship, right? |
| 01:08 | <@McMartin> | I get the impression that player-controlled fighters can reliably defeat frigates? |
| 01:08 | <@McMartin> | Yeah, Yehat Terminator. |
| 01:08 | < Derakon> | Depends on which in the trilogy, McM. |
| 01:08 | <@McMartin> | Also |
| 01:08 | < Derakon> | It's really dicey in EVC and pretty dodgy in EVO too, but downright trivial in EVN. |
| 01:08 | <@Vornicus> | In the hands of a good player, play-controlled fighters can reliably defeat /battleships/. |
| 01:08 | < Derakon> | EVN is easy. |
| 01:09 | <@McMartin> | I seem to recall an abuse involving afterburners making turrets useless, as well. |
| 01:09 | <@Vornicus> | ...though I wouldn't try it against the Aurorans or Polarans. Ow. ;_; |
| 01:09 | < Derakon> | Player-controlled fighters can defeat entire planetary defense forces if they're patient. |
| 01:09 | <@McMartin> | Someone in my lab was discussing it. |
| 01:09 | < Derakon> | In EV? |
| 01:10 | <@McMartin> | I believe so, yes. |
| 01:10 | < Derakon> | Probably has something to do with how turrets track. |
| 01:10 | < Derakon> | Turrets have a current aiming angle and a rotational speed. |
| 01:10 | <@McMartin> | Something about using the auto-decel that occurs when afterburners turn off. |
| 01:10 | < Derakon> | ...that I haven't heard of. |
| 01:10 | <@McMartin> | Which means you can strafe while accelerating on an angle you aren't facing. |
| 01:10 | <@McMartin> | So they'll continually overshoot you. |
| 01:11 | <@Vornicus> | ...wackywacky. |
| 01:12 | <@McMartin> | Also, regarding hyperspace |
| 01:12 | <@McMartin> | ... actually, that might work better as a post. |
| 01:12 | < Derakon> | Heh. |
| 01:12 | <@McMartin> | But you want to support all three of the standard FTL systems. Hyper is the only one that's any work. |
| 01:13 | < Derakon> | Hyper, jumping, and...? |
| 01:13 | <@Vornicus> | "all three"? |
| 01:13 | < Derakon> | Just Really Fast Engines? |
| 01:13 | <@Vornicus> | what Der said. |
| 01:13 | <@McMartin> | "Warp" is the usual name for tha tone. |
| 01:14 | <@Vornicus> | ah. Hyper, Jump, and Warp. |
| 01:14 | | * Derakon ponders having a policital faction manned by copies of Leonard of Quirm. |
| 01:14 | | * ToxicFrog can think of at least three distinct flavours of Jump |
| 01:14 | <@Vornicus> | There's also Gate. |
| 01:14 | <@ToxicFrog> | Gate is one of them. |
| 01:14 | <@Vornicus> | What's the others? |
| 01:14 | < Derakon> | Gate, Arbitrary P2P, and Pre-Pathed P2P. |
| 01:14 | <@ToxicFrog> | Alderson is another (you can only jump at specific points, but the jump does not require external hardware and thus cannot be destroyed) |
| 01:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes, what Der said. |
| 01:15 | <@Vornicus> | Alderson is Pre-Pathed? |
| 01:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | Well, Alderson is point-to-point, for fixed points. |
| 01:15 | < Derakon> | Anything that places restrictions on start or endpoints is effectively pre-pathed. |
| 01:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | Ie, you can't jump from arbitrary locations; you have to go to point X in order to jump to point Y, and vice versa. |
| 01:16 | <@McMartin> | Gate is a form of Jump or hyper. |
| 01:16 | <@ToxicFrog> | However, unlike Gate, it doesn't require an external implacement. |
| 01:16 | <@McMartin> | Nonlinear computed Hyper could be entertaining. |
| 01:16 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...good point. Gate is really more of a modifier. |
| 01:16 | <@ToxicFrog> | Cf B5, which is Gate Hyper. |
| 01:16 | <@McMartin> | B5 uses gated H... yeds |
| 01:16 | <@McMartin> | B5 also uses linear computed hyper, though. |
| 01:16 | <@Vornicus> | Cowboy Bebop uses Gate Warp. |
| 01:16 | < Derakon> | Anyway, the main reason I want to have SC2-style hyper is to preserve a practical implementation of time. Well, and to allow for pursuit between systems. |
| 01:16 | <@ToxicFrog> | 'linear computed hyper'? |
| 01:16 | <@McMartin> | Big ships can generate their own gates |
| 01:17 | <@ToxicFrog> | What makes it linear? |
| 01:17 | <@McMartin> | And if you gate out halfway between two star systems, you end up roughly halfway between the two systems. |
| 01:17 | < Derakon> | So hyperspace maps linearly to realspace. |
| 01:17 | <@McMartin> | This is officially Not True in Star Control. |
| 01:17 | <@Vornicus> | SC2 technically uses nonlinear hyper in that sense then. |
| 01:17 | <@McMartin> | Quite so. |
| 01:18 | < Derakon> | Every time someone catches up to you, you end up in a place with a planet or sun. ¬.¬ |
| 01:18 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...how so? |
| 01:18 | <@McMartin> | However, Hyper is TrueSpace measurable with the right equipment, and hyper distances are Galactic Standard. |
| 01:18 | <@ToxicFrog> | I mean, how is SC2 hyperspace nonlinear? |
| 01:18 | <@McMartin> | The closest star to Sol, Hyperspatially, is Sirius. |
| 01:18 | <@ToxicFrog> | Wacky. |
| 01:18 | <@McMartin> | Also, the manual sez. |
| 01:18 | < Derakon> | Good ol' manual. |
| 01:18 | <@Vornicus> | I think my favorite section of EVN's hyperspace network is the K systems. |
| 01:19 | <@ToxicFrog> | Vornicus: does it still count as warp if you can't physically interact with the universe? |
| 01:19 | <@Vornicus> | TF: I don't know, but I've never seen a warp collision in Star Trek. |
| 01:19 | <@ToxicFrog> | Because Bebop warp appears to constrain you to electromagnetic radiation only except at Gates. |
| 01:19 | <@McMartin> | (The manual also implies that the star they're calling Sirius isn't actually the one Earth Astronomers call that.) |
| 01:19 | <@ToxicFrog> | Hmm. Alright, I guess it does. |
| 01:20 | <@McMartin> | I'm talking implementation here, really. |
| 01:20 | <@McMartin> | The difference between Warp and Hyper is that going to Hyper changes the map~ |
| 01:20 | < Derakon> | Warp just moves you very quickly through realspace. |
| 01:20 | <@McMartin> | Or "on the same map". |
| 01:20 | < Derakon> | Right. |
| 01:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | So, Bebop is gated warp, Trek is ungated warp, SC2 is ungated nonlinear hyper, B5 is gated linear hyper... |
| 01:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes. |
| 01:20 | <@McMartin> | SC2 is three-level nonlinear hyper. |
| 01:21 | < Derakon> | There's also Quasispace. |
| 01:21 | <@ToxicFrog> | I consider levels to be implicit in hyper` |
| 01:21 | < Derakon> | Which is hyperspace for hyperspace. |
| 01:21 | <@McMartin> | The H/Q split is decidedly nonlinear, and you have proper coordinates in both places. |
| 01:21 | <@McMartin> | HypoSpace isn't reachable and only exists in fanon. Mostly. |
| 01:21 | <@ToxicFrog> | For that matter, SC2 has both kata- and ana-hyper. |
| 01:21 | <@McMartin> | Though it's still the most straightforward reading of the Orzish. |
| 01:21 | < Derakon> | Hypospace? O_o |
| 01:22 | <@Vornicus> | *below* |
| 01:22 | < Derakon> | Oh, right. |
| 01:22 | <@McMartin> | Arilou are from *above*. Orz are from *below*. |
| 01:22 | <@McMartin> | *Below*'s fanon names include HypoSpace and DemiSpace. |
| 01:22 | < MyCatVerbs> | So, uh, what's Freespace? |
| 01:22 | | * Derakon was thinking that the next logical space would be Hippospace. |
| 01:22 | <@McMartin> | I forget how Freespace works. |
| 01:22 | <@McMartin> | Wing Commander was ungated jump. |
| 01:22 | <@ToxicFrog> | Freespace is odd. |
| 01:22 | < MyCatVerbs> | How about Elite? |
| 01:23 | <@Vornicus> | Then there's MIGE, which some wacky Jump trick - you jump between like gravity contours. |
| 01:23 | <@McMartin> | Well, we've pretty much partitioned it, MCV, why don't you tell us~ |
| 01:23 | <@McMartin> | Hmm, yes. |
| 01:23 | <@ToxicFrog> | Vornicus: where do you think I got Alderson from? |
| 01:23 | <@McMartin> | Jump gets a free/point/gate, not just gated/ungated. |
| 01:23 | < MyCatVerbs> | McMartin: I don't know, I haven't played 'em. >> |
| 01:23 | <@Vornicus> | Chalain was talking about making a game with MIGE jump physics. |
| 01:23 | <@McMartin> | Free Jump is imbalanced, so. |
| 01:24 | <@Vornicus> | McM: it is a Very Short War. |
| 01:24 | <@McMartin> | Hmm. |
| 01:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | Anyways. Freespace appears to be freejump over short distances for strike craft, Alderson jump for intersystem travel. |
| 01:24 | < Derakon> | Teraport wars! |
| 01:24 | <@McMartin> | Gate and Point are orthogonal |
| 01:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | Short distances are, at most, insystem. |
| 01:24 | <@McMartin> | You could have gates anywhere, or only at points where gravity is right. |
| 01:24 | <@McMartin> | TF: And not too near gravwells. |
| 01:24 | < Derakon> | Alderson drive...that was the Horatio Hornblower IN SPAAAACE novels, right? |
| 01:24 | <@McMartin> | No, that was MIGE. |
| 01:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | So strike craft will Alderson via carrier, then freejump to points of interest in the system and jump back when finished. |
| 01:24 | < Derakon> | MIGE = ? |
| 01:24 | <@McMartin> | Named for a Mr. Alderson at JPL, whom Niven consulted. |
| 01:25 | <@ToxicFrog> | Mote In God's Eye. |
| 01:25 | <@McMartin> | Mote in God's Eye |
| 01:25 | < Derakon> | Ahh. |
| 01:25 | <@McMartin> | Now invoked three times |
| 01:25 | <@Vornicus> | Fuckers. |
| 01:25 | <@Vornicus> | Typing too fast. |
| 01:25 | <@McMartin> | The Honor Harrington novels use hyper. |
| 01:25 | < Derakon> | Heh. |
| 01:25 | <@McMartin> | "Warchowski sails". |
| 01:25 | < Derakon> | I'm not talking Honor Harrington... |
| 01:25 | <@McMartin> | ... Honor Harrington is Horatio Hornblower IN SPAAAACE. |
| 01:25 | < Derakon> | This was a different Horatio Hornblower In Space set of novels. |
| 01:25 | <@Vornicus> | Schlock is Freejump. I'm not sure what Freefall is. |
| 01:25 | < Derakon> | Freefall is expensive, whatever it is. |
| 01:25 | <@McMartin> | How does Schlock avoid the Very Short War? |
| 01:25 | <@Vornicus> | (mostly because we haven't seen it) |
| 01:26 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: denial fields. |
| 01:26 | < Derakon> | Teraport area denial. |
| 01:26 | <@Vornicus> | Schlock avoids it with highly effective denial. |
| 01:26 | <@ToxicFrog> | You can block the freejump if you have the right tech. |
| 01:26 | <@Vornicus> | And since it's open source, everybody has it. |
| 01:26 | <@McMartin> | Or rather, everyone who didn't has already been exterminated~ |
| 01:26 | <@ToxicFrog> | This did not stop a large number of small and very short wars springing up between the teraport being invented and the denial system showing up~ |
| 01:26 | <@Vornicus> | heh |
| 01:27 | <@McMartin> | I really should read SM in its entirety. |
| 01:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | Derakon: can you remember any character or author names? |
| 01:27 | < MyCatVerbs> | I'd rephrase that as *very* large and *very* short. |
| 01:27 | < Derakon> | No... |
| 01:27 | < Derakon> | The main thing I remember is that the primary enemy was Giant Space Blobs. |
| 01:27 | <@Vornicus> | Then Spider & WEb has Gated Jump, Lost In Space has Experimental Hyper used to make Gated Jump... |
| 01:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...Giant Space Blobs. |
| 01:27 | < Derakon> | Which were attracted to the fields emitted by the FTL drives. |
| 01:27 | <@Vornicus> | It's the DaMEs! |
| 01:27 | <@McMartin> | DaMEs? |
| 01:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | SPACE SHOGGOTHS |
| 01:28 | <@McMartin> | Dude, the Shoggoths were officially from Pluto. |
| 01:28 | < MyCatVerbs> | INVISIBLE SPACE SHOGGOTHS! |
| 01:28 | <@Vornicus> | Dark Matter Entities - creatures made of dark matter, the size of Jupiter. |
| 01:28 | < MyCatVerbs> | With gravity cannons. |
| 01:28 | <@McMartin> | They're already Space. |
| 01:28 | <@McMartin> | ... er, wait. |
| 01:28 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yeah, but it doesn't count as IN SPAAAACE until you go extrasolar~ |
| 01:28 | < Derakon> | The first novel has the entire command crew except for the lead being killed by a software bug (causing a thrust miscalculation, smushing them into gooey homogenous paste), so the lead takes over despite being an ensign. |
| 01:28 | <@McMartin> | I may be confusing the Shoggoths with the Mi-Go. |
| 01:28 | < MyCatVerbs> | Er, sorry, what's the distinction between Hyper and Jump, please? |
| 01:28 | < Derakon> | Hyper is another layer of space. |
| 01:28 | <@ToxicFrog> | MyCatVerbs: jump is point to point. |
| 01:28 | <@McMartin> | Jump takes no time. |
| 01:28 | <@ToxicFrog> | Turn on drive here, show up over there. |
| 01:28 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: I would disagree. |
| 01:28 | | * MyCatVerbs nods. And hyper? |
| 01:28 | <@McMartin> | Asmiovian "hyper" is really a jump drive. |
| 01:28 | <@Vornicus> | What they said. |
| 01:28 | <@ToxicFrog> | Jump is allowed to take no time. |
| 01:29 | < Derakon> | Er, right, they have it right. |
| 01:29 | <@McMartin> | Well, I'm going by gameplay effects. |
| 01:29 | < MyCatVerbs> | Ah, hyper is tunnels? |
| 01:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | There are implementations where it takes time. |
| 01:29 | <@McMartin> | Hyper is "you leave this universe and travel around in another dimension, then pop back elsewhere." |
| 01:29 | <@Vornicus> | Hyper is semi-standard navigation through a free or tunneled space using a special drive. |
| 01:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | Tunnels, assuming you can't change them in midflight, are a type of jump that is non-instantaneous. |
| 01:29 | < Derakon> | And warp is simply moving really fast through realspace. |
| 01:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | Possibly a sidespace drive. |
| 01:29 | <@McMartin> | TF: Hmm. I'd call tunnels hyper, though I admit they have the same effect as Jump. |
| 01:29 | <@Vornicus> | The "Transwarp Corridor" from Star Trek Voyager is a form of hyperspace. |
| 01:29 | <@McMartin> | Heh. |
| 01:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | Hyper is moving "up" or "down" layers of reality where, depending on you look at it, either things are packed tighter together or c is higher. |
| 01:30 | <@McMartin> | "In hyper, the protagonist is conscious." |
| 01:30 | < Derakon> | TF: or, in a short story I read once, c is *lower*. |
| 01:30 | | * MyCatVerbs ponders. |
| 01:30 | < Derakon> | And thus the hyperspace research teams on Earth are really just a massive coverup to keep everyone on the dying planet from rioting. |
| 01:30 | <@McMartin> | MCV: This is a partition we're imposing for game design purposes. |
| 01:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...hmm. I think this means the Cherryh drive is technically computed Warp. |
| 01:30 | < MyCatVerbs> | So, uh, what would Guild Navigators be? |
| 01:31 | < Derakon> | Soft sci-fi. |
| 01:31 | <@McMartin> | I don't remember the way journeys actually were experienced in Dune. |
| 01:31 | <@McMartin> | I'm not sure whether my Lorenz Inversion Drive is warp or hyper. |
| 01:31 | <@Vornicus> | Jump, I believe. |
| 01:31 | < MyCatVerbs> | I think it was jump, but with incredible drugs. |
| 01:31 | <@McMartin> | I think the LID is warp by our game design standards, though. |
| 01:31 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: if it's tunneled hyper because you don't have the tech to make untunneled hyper, it's hyper; if it's tunneled through sidespace, and thus a fixed path, it's jump. |
| 01:31 | <@Vornicus> | This is the most entertaining conversation I've had in a while. |
| 01:31 | <@ToxicFrog> | This gets kind of fuzzy in some cases, though. |
| 01:31 | <@McMartin> | TF: I'm again thinking of game design. |
| 01:31 | <@ToxicFrog> | For example, Freespace. |
| 01:32 | <@McMartin> | Or Privateer. |
| 01:32 | < Derakon> | ...McM, you're brilliant! Game design, yes! |
| 01:32 | <@McMartin> | "From this system you can go to these other three." |
| 01:32 | < Derakon> | Trader ships that use the corridors! Pirates that camp them! |
| 01:32 | < MyCatVerbs> | I wonder if I'm the only Vangers player here...? |
| 01:32 | <@ToxicFrog> | Which is clearly gated, but it's unclear whether it's tunneled gated hyper, gated warp a la Bebop, or non-instantaneous gated jump. |
| 01:32 | | * Derakon coughs. |
| 01:33 | < MyCatVerbs> | (Vangers was: fixed point-to-point jumps, powered by huge cells embedded inside PCs' and NPCs' vehicles.) |
| 01:33 | <@McMartin> | (I never played that, but that sounds like Wing Commander) |
| 01:34 | <@McMartin> | (gateless point jumps work well for stories but are best abstracted in games) |
| 01:34 | < Derakon> | Anyway, part of my motivation to move to a hyperspace for my game, as opposed to pathed jumping, is because I find pathed jumping tedious, and methods that speed it up make fights too easy to flee. |
| 01:34 | < MyCatVerbs> | With cryptographic locks on each gate. Aaaand there were Spooky Fuck-off Doomsday artifacts involved which were ridiculously powerful, with various frighteningly dangerous powers. |
| 01:34 | <@McMartin> | Oh, right. |
| 01:34 | <@McMartin> | For your game. |
| 01:34 | < Derakon> | Therefore, have entry to hyperspace be a slow process (making fleeing slow) while allowing you to skip passing through systems you don't care about. |
| 01:35 | <@McMartin> | I'm mainly saying it shouldn't be hardcoded into the engine. |
| 01:35 | < Derakon> | Well, it's going to be in the Lua... |
| 01:35 | < MyCatVerbs> | One of which was unbounded (space, time, power) jumping to any planet you had the gate code for. |
| 01:35 | < Derakon> | The engine is for handling assets. |
| 01:35 | <@McMartin> | Then Life Is Good (tm) |
| 01:35 | < Derakon> | I may need to institute an SC2-style "you got yanked back to realspace" thing for allowing hyper ambushes. |
| 01:36 | < Derakon> | Or alternatively, all of hyperspace is one big system you can fight in. ¬.¬ |
| 01:36 | <@McMartin> | The official excuse for that was gravity wells would pull you into realspace. |
| 01:36 | <@McMartin> | Even the ones caused by ships. |
| 01:36 | < Derakon> | The problem there is that ambushes should be arbitrarily locatable. |
| 01:36 | < Derakon> | ...ah. |
| 01:36 | <@McMartin> | The gratuitous planets you found in deep space were mainly because the engine says there's always a planet~ |
| 01:36 | | * Derakon nods. |
| 01:37 | < Derakon> | Alternatively, there's a lot of Pearson's Puppeteers out there. |
| 01:37 | < Derakon> | Er, Pierson. |
| 01:38 | <@McMartin> | Rosettes should produce holes the same way ships and stars do. |
| 01:38 | < MyCatVerbs> | Pierson's Puppeteers carrying high-throughput energy emitting implements of supposedly bening purposes! =D |
| 01:38 | < Derakon> | They're flashlights, Cat. |
| 01:38 | < Derakon> | And fair point, McM. |
| 01:39 | < Derakon> | Though I kinda figured it was the stars that created holes. |
| 01:39 | <@McMartin> | ... and so should the planets you fight around. |
| 01:39 | | * Vornicus ponders. |
| 01:39 | <@Vornicus> | Oh, I've got an ideaaa... |
| 01:39 | | * McMartin waves his hands rapidly. "Pay no attention to the amnesia-inducing angry llama behind you" |
| 01:39 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: what if you make the entire hyperspace section act exactly the same as the normal universe (can fight in there, can fart about and waste time there, etc) but with points that you can drop back into real space in and the whole thing's like a big plumbing level - s'all a maze of pipes and tunnels. |
| 01:39 | < MyCatVerbs> | *benign |
| 01:39 | <@Vornicus> | ...except that MCV beat me to it. |
| 01:39 | < Derakon> | That was more or less the idea, Cat. |
| 01:40 | < Derakon> | 5:35 PM: Derakon: Or alternatively, all of hyperspace is one big system you can fight in. ¬.¬ |
| 01:40 | < MyCatVerbs> | Vornicus: that's 'cuz the tubular-spiderweb idea is totally grody and awesome and great minds have a tendency to think alike. |
| 01:40 | <@McMartin> | Check aoanla's comments on higher-dimensional combat, eidly. |
| 01:40 | < MyCatVerbs> | Vornicus: that would explain why *you* came up with it. My own arrival at the same point is entirely anomalous. |
| 01:40 | <@Vornicus> | Better yet, don't, your brain will break. |
| 01:41 | < Derakon> | I wasn't aware I had caps friended. O_o |
| 01:41 | < MyCatVerbs> | Will? Past tense, yo! Mes neurons sont fucked. |
| 01:41 | < Derakon> | Or, um, where are these comments? |
| 01:41 | <@McMartin> | On his own LJ, long ago. |
| 01:41 | | * McMartin pokes |
| 01:42 | < Derakon> | Waugh, his LJ has a weird hovering bar thingy. |
| 01:43 | <@McMartin> | Yes. |
| 01:43 | <@McMartin> | I found the link, one moment |
| 01:43 | <@McMartin> | http://aoanla.livejournal.com/119966.html?nc=17 |
| 01:43 | < Derakon> | Is the number-of-comments flag there just so you can tell at a glance if there are new comments? Seems kinda pointless otherwise. |
| 01:44 | <@McMartin> | Yes. |
| 01:46 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes. It's actually a configurable option. |
| 01:46 | | * Derakon reads, nods, will ignore for sake of gameplay. |
| 01:46 | <@McMartin> | "In Hilbert Space, No One Can See You Scream" |
| 01:47 | < Derakon> | Though I might be willing to play with weapon ranges, speeds, etc. when in hyper. |
| 01:47 | < Derakon> | The trick being having weapons that are still usable in both hyper and realspace, or else people will ignore the half-utility guns. |
| 01:48 | <@McMartin> | Yeah |
| 01:50 | < Derakon> | Perhaps just all weapons move really slowly in hyper, since they lack hyper engines? ¬.¬ |
| 01:57 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: how about having some weapons behave in spectacularly different fashions in hyper? Like, add some handwavium which causes hyperspace walls to distort or generate huge explosions or something when fired upon with certain types of beam weapons? |
| 02:00 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has quit [Connection reset by peer] |
| 02:00 | < Derakon> | ...well, so much for responding to that. |
| 02:01 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has joined #code |
| 02:01 | < Derakon> | Got your question, MCV, and I've considered it. |
| 02:02 | < Derakon> | The problem is not so much in doing that, as in doing it in a way that maintains consistency without promoting redundancy. |
| 02:02 | < Derakon> | Argh, paged. Will return. |
| 02:03 | | * Janus reads it all. |
| 02:04 | < Janus> | Would hyperspace be a boolean, "You're in, or you're out" type of deal? There could probably be some gray area in there if you could represent it well enough. |
| 02:07 | < Derakon> | Okay, I'm back. |
| 02:08 | < Derakon> | Anyway, for example, I could have hyperspace be a fluid space of sorts, to represent the increased "density". Then beam weapons could instead shove large quantities of heated fluid at opponents, and particle weapons could create ripples as they pass or something. |
| 02:08 | < Derakon> | But then all weapons effectively end up doing the same thing. It's a tricky thing to balance while keeping things interesting, when I'll have enough trouble just coming up with unique weapons for realspace. |
| 02:09 | < Derakon> | And Janus: hyper and realspace are planned to be distinct. You will need to perform a specific, slow action to transfer from one to the other. |
| 02:09 | < Janus> | Fair enough~ |
| 02:10 | < Derakon> | My original goal in introducing hyper is to remove the tedium of EV-style travel (where you must repeatedly jump into a system, only to immediately jump out again) without allowing the player to easily escape all combats or avoid all possible chokepoints. |
| 02:11 | | Janus [~Cerulean@Nightstar-10302.columbus.res.rr.com] has quit [Quit: Connection reset by peer] |
| 02:11 | <@ToxicFrog> | EV hyper became so much less annoying once you had the multijump system. |
| 02:11 | <@ToxicFrog> | Well, EVN. |
| 02:11 | < Derakon> | Thus, to enter hyper, you must bring your ship to a relative halt, open a portal to hyper, and pass through. |
| 02:11 | < Derakon> | And the multijump is only available to one government, and is an exemplar of what is wrong with EV travelling. |
| 02:11 | < Derakon> | To wit: its primary use is to reduce tedium for the player. |
| 02:12 | < Derakon> | I say, why not remove that tedium for everyone? |
| 02:12 | <@ToxicFrog> | Indeed. |
| 02:15 | < Derakon> | The purpose for the relative halt, notably, is to allow other ships to pummel on you for a bit. Also, all ships have maximum speeds to make gameplay remotely reasonable, so this isn't normal physics anyway. |
| 02:15 | < Derakon> | Unless EV-style systems have *gobtons* of radiation in them. |
| 02:16 | <@McMartin> | Then you could bank with sails. |
| 02:17 | < Derakon> | And I flatly refuse to have spaceships that bank into turns. ¬.¬ |
| 02:18 | <@McMartin> | http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38069 |
| 02:18 | | * Derakon idly eyes this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette and wonders how in blazes it could possibly be stable. I mean sure, equilibrium as long as all planets are equidistant, but it surely is an unstable equilibrium? |
| 02:22 | | ChalcyCooking [~Chalceon@Nightstar-869.bitstream.orcon.net.nz] has quit [Quit: rebooting] |
| 02:23 | | Mahal is now known as MahalErrands |
| 02:24 | <@Vornicus> | Der: check out the java applets on the external links |
| 02:26 | | Chalcedon [~Chalceon@Nightstar-869.bitstream.orcon.net.nz] has joined #code |
| 02:26 | | mode/#code [+o Chalcedon] by ChanServ |
| 02:26 | < MyCatVerbs> | Heehee. |
| 02:26 | | ReivClass is now known as Reiver |
| 02:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | Derakon: actually, if we assume no artificial gravity, banking into turns is easier on the pilots. |
| 02:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | "pulls" them down rather than sideways. |
| 02:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | Although, in practice, this is not so much "banking" as "rolling so that you're always pitching instead of yawing" |
| 02:28 | < Derakon> | That assumes that the pilots are under thrust as they turn, though. |
| 02:28 | < MyCatVerbs> | So, one of the effects you get basically for free in computational physics is a test of numerical instability. I mean, any system you construct is going to have random jitter introduced down in the 22nd/23rd bit or so, 'cuz you're just using single-precision floating point arithmetic. |
| 02:28 | < Derakon> | If you just stick your pilot at the center of gravity of the ship, then turning has little effect on him. |
| 02:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...er. |
| 02:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | If they aren't under thrust, turning won't alter their trajectory anyways. |
| 02:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | And "banking" becomes kind of meaningless. |
| 02:29 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: ...I see your point, but pilots aren't point masses. |
| 02:29 | < Derakon> | Exactly! |
| 02:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | ... |
| 02:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | I think we have a miscommunication here. |
| 02:29 | < Derakon> | And I'm aware, Cat, but turning while not under thrust depends then solely on the rate of turning, not on anything else. |
| 02:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | If you are under thrust, you have justification for banking. |
| 02:30 | < Derakon> | TF: in EVN, some ships have banking animations for when they turn. |
| 02:30 | < Derakon> | Regardless of thrust. |
| 02:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | Aah. |
| 02:30 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: so you could quite easily test the stability of a Klemperer rosette by simulating one in a newtonian program. If it's naturally unstable, the errors resulting from the finite size of your CPU's floating point unit will rapidly compound and cause the system to fall apart. |
| 02:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes. |
| 02:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | That's because EVN has Issues. |
| 02:30 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: whereas mechanically stable systems will tend to correct for those errors. |
| 02:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | ISTR EVN having space friction, although I may be mixing it up with another game. |
| 02:31 | < MyCatVerbs> | Sorry, what does EVN stand for, please? |
| 02:31 | < Derakon> | You recall incorrectly, TF. |
| 02:31 | < Derakon> | Escape Velocity: Nova. |
| 02:31 | < MyCatVerbs> | Aw, bummer. Never even *heard* of that. >_> |
| 02:31 | < Derakon> | EVN does have maximum speeds, and if you exceed them, then you are brought down to your max. |
| 02:31 | < Derakon> | But it is otherwise basically inertial. |
| 02:31 | <@ToxicFrog> | Aah. |
| 02:32 | <@ToxicFrog> | Maximum speeds == WEAKSAUCE, but yes, I'm clearly thinking of some other game. |
| 02:32 | <@Vornicus> | Spaaaaaaace friiiiiiiiiiictioooooooon! |
| 02:32 | <@ToxicFrog> | MyCatVerbs: 2d, top-down Privateer, except without Privateer's, what's the word, fun. |
| 02:32 | < Derakon> | Maximum speeds == playability. |
| 02:33 | < Derakon> | Every space game I've played that didn't have maximum speeds also did have a toroidal universe, and then had issues with collision detection once you hit .1c or so. |
| 02:34 | < MyCatVerbs> | ToxicFrog: ah, so. Why is it being discussed if it is hated? >_> |
| 02:34 | < Derakon> | TF likes getting his hate on. I and Vorn think they were halfway decent. |
| 02:34 | <@McMartin> | Privateer was terrible. |
| 02:34 | < Derakon> | Also, they have a significant third-party content community. |
| 02:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | In fairness, it should be noted that I only played EV:N. |
| 02:34 | < Derakon> | EVO is the best of the series, IMO. |
| 02:34 | < MyCatVerbs> | ...you could just say that all the ships run on ramjets. |
| 02:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | It is entirely possible that EV and EVO were better. |
| 02:35 | < MyCatVerbs> | And have the ramjets spontaneously explode for no reason once the player hits .1c/ |
| 02:35 | <@McMartin> | Well, Privateer was reasonable, unless you wanted to play the game they designed. |
| 02:35 | < MyCatVerbs> | Thus entirely removing your collision detection problems. |
| 02:35 | < Derakon> | EVC was good when it came out, but that was eleven years ago, and it hasn't aged as well as it could have. These days, I'd consider it a pretty sparse game. |
| 02:35 | <@McMartin> | They went out of their way to make it impossible to do this. |
| 02:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | EVN, however, requires beatings for ensuring that, without a spoiler guide, you will end up playing the least fun story branch in the entire game. |
| 02:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | With no chance of escape. |
| 02:35 | < MyCatVerbs> | McMartin: please elaborate? |
| 02:35 | <@McMartin> | TF: How you can offer Privateer up as an example of excellence given this complaint baffles me. |
| 02:36 | <@McMartin> | MCV: Privateer, you go and run missions and stuff, or do odd jobs to build up your civilian craft into a mercenary one. |
| 02:36 | <@McMartin> | There's also a plot. |
| 02:36 | <@McMartin> | The plot exists as missions that you can do. |
| 02:36 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: to be perfectly honest, I've only played a few hours of Priv due to constant stability woes. |
| 02:36 | <@McMartin> | If you ever, for any reason, do not perfectly fulfil a mission, the plot is permanently derailed and you can never get back on it. |
| 02:36 | <@McMartin> | It will, however, let you run around and do odd jobs for as long as you want, afterwards. |
| 02:36 | <@ToxicFrog> | However, at no point in that time did it take away all of my stuff and tell me to do the bidding of an asshole for the next twenty missions. |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | My experience with Privateer went like so: |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (a) mess around a little. |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (b) Blow my first mission. |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (c) Play 15 hours getting a cool ship. |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (d) Find nothing |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (e) Check spoiler guides. |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (f) learn I needed to start over from scratch. |
| 02:37 | <@McMartin> | (g) Uninstall |
| 02:37 | <@ToxicFrog> | Aah. |
| 02:37 | <@ToxicFrog> | And yes, that's a serious, lobster-worthy flaw. |
| 02:38 | <@ToxicFrog> | I would still rather blow the main plot and then noodle around becoming a demigod a la Morrowind than play the main plot and wish with every fibre of my being that I could blow it, however. |
| 02:38 | < Derakon> | Are these magnetic lobsters? |
| 02:38 | <@McMartin> | (h) Return six years later and get stuck on an unreasonable series of escort missions. |
| 02:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | I kept playing, in the hopes that it would get better, but it never did. |
| 02:39 | < MyCatVerbs> | OH GOD, ESCORT MISSIONS |
| 02:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | And then I checked a spoiler guide, which basically said "you're fucked, start over and don't do anything obvious this time" |
| 02:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | draymans ;.; |
| 02:39 | <@McMartin> | MCV: I note that WoW: The Burning Crusade has the Best Escort Mission Ever. |
| 02:39 | <@McMartin> | Despite not playing it. |
| 02:39 | < MyCatVerbs> | Game designers, please save us the trouble and clamp magnetic burning lobsters to your nipples in advance? |
| 02:39 | < Derakon> | I'll note that I never accidentally triggered the Vell-Os storyline, TF. |
| 02:39 | <@McMartin> | (Hate Draymans) |
| 02:39 | <@Vornicus> | Define Best Ever. |
| 02:39 | <@McMartin> | Vornicus: "Cause Warcraft III." |
| 02:40 | < MyCatVerbs> | McMartin: O'RLY? It's possible to make them not suck? |
| 02:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | Draymans are hilarous when a Kilrathi fighter collides with them and they say "I've blown up an enemy fighter!" |
| 02:40 | < Derakon> | Argh, page. >.< |
| 02:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | However, this happens about 1 time in 8,976 tries. |
| 02:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: I do not consider this a good outcome~ |
| 02:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | MyCatVerbs: definitely. |
| 02:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | I cite as evidence Resident Evil 4. |
| 02:41 | <@ToxicFrog> | And some Freespace missions, although by no means all of the escort missions. |
| 02:41 | <@McMartin> | His first action after you save the guy you're saving is to sucker punch the local guards so that he can loot the armory. |
| 02:41 | <@ToxicFrog> | The Suicide Kings missions in particular were distilled awesome. |
| 02:41 | <@McMartin> | Basically, escort missions fail to suck when your charge is not actively suicidal and made of tissue paper. |
| 02:41 | | * McMartin will also casually cite All Of Ico. |
| 02:41 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes. |
| 02:42 | <@McMartin> | And perhaps a third of PoP:SoT. |
| 02:42 | <@ToxicFrog> | RE4 also gets extra points for the fact that, when you hit the 'aim' key, Ashley's immediate reaction is "clear the line of fire" |
| 02:42 | <@McMartin> | Though at least one of those was seriously aggravating. |
| 02:42 | < MyCatVerbs> | McMartin: I'm not sure, does Ico count? |
| 02:42 | <@ToxicFrog> | Which she does by running behind you if possible, and ducking or taking cover if not. |
| 02:43 | <@ToxicFrog> | I still need to play Ico ;.; |
| 02:43 | <@McMartin> | Ico's primary goal is "save the girl from the shadow demons so that the two of you can escape" |
| 02:43 | < Derakon> | I'll need to think some on how to implement escort missions in my game. |
| 02:43 | < Reiver> | Escort missions are okay. |
| 02:43 | < Reiver> | If your escortee is intelligent. |
| 02:43 | < Derakon> | In EV (all versions), they were trivial because you could always jump out before someone seriously hurt the escortees. |
| 02:43 | < Reiver> | But so very very many games decide to make the mission hard by making your escortee moronic. ¬¬ |
| 02:44 | <@McMartin> | I think it's more that AI Is Hard, Reiver. |
| 02:44 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: but making non-suicidal/non-moronic ally AI is hard. |
| 02:44 | < Reiver> | ...You make a valid point, but I've seen ones where the escortee seems actively stupid, even compared to the attackers. |
| 02:44 | <@McMartin> | CoX has "escort" missions, but when the escortee does more damage than I do, "escort" is an odd choice of term. |
| 02:45 | < MyCatVerbs> | I'm afraid the only way I've ever seen to do it that wasn't ridiculously impossible was the (one) escort mission in OpFlash, where they gave you a radio so you could order the trucks to halt or continue at any time it became neccessary. |
| 02:45 | <@McMartin> | Well |
| 02:46 | <@McMartin> | "Make them warriors too" is one way. |
| 02:46 | <@McMartin> | That's what CoX and TBC did, basically. |
| 02:46 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: this is partially because it's easier to write good enemy AI than good ally AI. The enemy AI only has to cooperate with other NPCs - all of whom can be written to automagically know one anothers' intentions. |
| 02:46 | < Reiver> | I suppose so. |
| 02:46 | < Reiver> | Still. |
| 02:46 | <@McMartin> | RE4 can read the player's intention via the interface. |
| 02:46 | <@McMartin> | You can't shoot before aiming, so "aim" means "Battle time, GET OUT OF THE LINE OF FIRE" |
| 02:47 | < Reiver> | Having your 'escortee' - a person - walk along a predetermined path is only acceptable if you're meant to be protecting the president with a silenced sniper rifle~ |
| 02:47 | < Derakon> | Escort missions in the EV series either are "here, have some backup for your big fight, we don't really care if they die" or "protect these combat-worthless freighters to their destination or fail". |
| 02:47 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: whereas the ally AI has to cooperate with someone who has entirely unknown intentions. Oh yeah and also? It's possible to carefully lay down bits and pieces of scripted sequences and the like to "rig" the enemy AI to appear clever. |
| 02:47 | < Reiver> | True. |
| 02:47 | < Reiver> | Can't do that with allies. |
| 02:47 | <@McMartin> | Well |
| 02:47 | <@McMartin> | You can script chases and stuff |
| 02:47 | < MyCatVerbs> | The ally AI is gonna need to be almost entirely in-anger calculation. |
| 02:47 | <@McMartin> | (Make the enemy idiots too) |
| 02:48 | < MyCatVerbs> | McMartin: I do rather like that idea. The "aim means GTFO the way!" bit, I mean. |
| 02:48 | | * McMartin has a continuing hatred for RE and all it stands for, so he has only seen RE4, not played it. |
| 02:48 | | * Derakon must away for a bit. Ta! |
| 02:48 | | Derakon is now known as Derakon[AFK] |
| 02:49 | < MyCatVerbs> | I bet you could do an escort mission in something like Deus Ex quite happily, too, stemming from the fact that Deus Ex actually paid attention to such social faux pas as running around civilian buildings with an automatic rifle aimed at random peoples' heads. |
| 02:49 | | * McMartin nods |
| 02:49 | < Reiver> | Freespace did okay escort missions |
| 02:49 | <@McMartin> | Deus Ex is on my list of games I Really Need To Play. |
| 02:49 | <@McMartin> | Especially since I skip FPSen for the most part. |
| 02:49 | < MyCatVerbs> | So, gun hidden in pocket means, "walk along," gun drawn means, "get the fuck down, hide behind something."" |
| 02:49 | < Reiver> | "You're a fighter, you need to protect the convoy. No, the convoy of freighters can't dodge, so do your job." |
| 02:49 | < MyCatVerbs> | McMartin: ahhh. Do not expect a Quake. =D |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | MCV: This is, in fact, why I Need To Play Deus Ex. |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | Well, one of two reasons. |
| 02:50 | < MyCatVerbs> | You *can* actually play it (and win) while doing so. |
| 02:50 | < Reiver> | Deus Ex => "Why do I keep shooting the roof? Oh, right. I don't have twenty million skills in Assault Rifle yet." |
| 02:50 | < MyCatVerbs> | But you won't enjoy it. Only small children with no appreciation for the narrative ever do that. |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | The other is the general Air of Mystery that surrounds me. |
| 02:50 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: pppfffft, you play with assault rifles? Wuss. |
| 02:51 | < Reiver> | MCV: No, but I gave it a shot once~ |
| 02:51 | < MyCatVerbs> | Deus Ex => "Sneaky sneaky stabbity fucking stab, motherfucker! Yaaay, the red stuff comes out!" |
| 02:51 | < Reiver> | Well, my mate did. I couldn't run it at the time. |
| 02:51 | <@McMartin> | I thought Real Men Only Used Psi~ |
| 02:51 | < Reiver> | MCV: The nice thing about Deus Ex is /you don't have to/. |
| 02:51 | < MyCatVerbs> | Actually, you can play it basically how you like. |
| 02:52 | < MyCatVerbs> | Yeah, that's the cool part. You can pretty much win the game using nothing but *flamethrowers*. |
| 02:52 | < Reiver> | I think he'd done it as a Sneaker, was now trying to do it as a One Man Tank. |
| 02:52 | < Reiver> | AKA "Right, I've been Splinter Cell. Lesse if I can be Terminator." |
| 02:52 | | * ToxicFrog played it Thief-style the first time, Quake-style the second time, Let's See How Much We Can Break This the third time. |
| 02:52 | < Reiver> | ...Sounds like my friend, TF. |
| 02:53 | < MyCatVerbs> | First time I played, I did it as stereotypical boring There's A Sniper Rifle In My Pocket agent. That's the easy way to win it. |
| 02:53 | <@ToxicFrog> | Sadly you can't play it entirely negotiator-style, you need at least some stealth or combat. |
| 02:53 | | * Reiver wonders if that isn't like, a pattern~ |
| 02:53 | <@ToxicFrog> | Reiver: a lot of people seem to have played it Quake-style first. |
| 02:53 | < Reiver> | TF: Yeah, and a lot of people try to play Rainbow Six like it's Halo 2. |
| 02:53 | < MyCatVerbs> | Later, I tried dumping rifles entirely and using only pistols. Belive me, it's basically impossible to run out of 10mm ammo, especially when everything can be skullcapp'd in one shot. =D |
| 02:53 | <@ToxicFrog> | Me, I see a crossbow and a blackjack and I think "a throne room. How portentious can you get?" |
| 02:53 | | * McMartin would want to be a Man In Black. |
| 02:53 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...er. |
| 02:53 | <@ToxicFrog> | Pretention. |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | *Pretentious. |
| 02:54 | < MyCatVerbs> | ...blackjack? Where? |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | Symbol table issues for a moment there. |
| 02:54 | <@McMartin> | Which means, yeah, I'd probably be going the "pistols see some use, but I am not played by The Rock" |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | MyCatVerbs: well, the stun baton. |
| 02:54 | | * McMartin really needs to subscribe to Game Tap at some point |
| 02:54 | < MyCatVerbs> | Oooh yeah. |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | Also. |
| 02:54 | <@McMartin> | For Sam and Max and Uru |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | Best mod ever? |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | Flare darts ignite targets. |
| 02:55 | < MyCatVerbs> | My current favourite way to play is to use the huge fuck-off sword as a primary weapon for killing basically everyone. |
| 02:55 | <@ToxicFrog> | I always wondered why flare darts were so incredibly rare when they were basically completely useless. |
| 02:55 | <@ToxicFrog> | But once you modify them so that they can set stuff on fire.. |
| 02:55 | < MyCatVerbs> | And secondary weapon being the stun prod for secretaries and the like 'cuz I din' wanna murder innocent people. |
| 02:55 | <@ToxicFrog> | I just used the sword as a lockpick~ |
| 02:55 | < MyCatVerbs> | Hahah, nice. =D |
| 02:56 | < MyCatVerbs> | I hated how few doors and stuff could actually be smashed with it. The "door strength" mechanism seemed kinda broken to me. |
| 02:56 | <@McMartin> | 18:55 < MyCatVerbs> And secondary weapon being the stun prod for secretaries and the like 'cuz I din' wanna murder innocent people. |
| 02:56 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Pick up the body, raise it overhead and hurl it off the catwalk to the floor below. Ideally, it will land on the secretary's desk, causing her to freak out and call security." |
| 02:56 | <@McMartin> | This was one reason Crusader bugged me. |
| 02:57 | < MyCatVerbs> | It was like, in Hong Kong, almost all doors were smashable because that was the level where you first got access to full-size swords. |
| 02:57 | < Reiver> | Crusader? |
| 02:57 | <@ToxicFrog> | MyCatVerbs: D-Tooth + maxed Melee Weapons + Combat Strength cybergoodies will, I think, break anything of str 80 or less. |
| 02:57 | < MyCatVerbs> | But then for the entire rest of the game, doors could be removed by and *only* by explosions. And all explosions had exactly equal effects. |
| 02:57 | <@ToxicFrog> | Which includes most late-game doors. |
| 02:58 | <@ToxicFrog> | Sadly, playing S@N style requires you to take heavy lifting instead of combat str, making the D-T much less useful as a lockpick. |
| 02:58 | < MyCatVerbs> | Oh? Perhaps I should play with that again to see. |
| 02:58 | <@ToxicFrog> | On the other hand, it also features "turn on your defence system, and watch as the tower explodes with the power of your mind" |
| 02:59 | < MyCatVerbs> | Anyway, max'd ancient-weapons and combat-strength let you chop sentry turrets and security cameras apart in one swipe, so s'all good. |
| 02:59 | <@ToxicFrog> | As well as the entire Ascension of Saint Paul chapter, which is possibly the best game-related thing ever written. |
| 02:59 | < MyCatVerbs> | Er, what's S@N style refer to, please? |
| 02:59 | <@ToxicFrog> | Sunglasses at Night. |
| 02:59 | <@ToxicFrog> | IT-HE's take on Deus Ex. |
| 02:59 | <@ToxicFrog> | You may recall them from other things such as the Hacker's Guide to Sin, Ocean Travel Without A Boat (Ultima IX done backwards), and Ultima IV Drug Nightmare. |
| 03:00 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...or was it Ultima VI? |
| 03:00 | <@ToxicFrog> | Whichever, it was hilarious. |
| 03:00 | <@McMartin> | "As a Cyborg's kneecap, you will serve SHODAN well." |
| 03:00 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has quit [Quit: Reconnecting] |
| 03:00 | | * ToxicFrog blinkblinks |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | Area 51 is totally Soulforge Cathedral. |
| 03:01 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has joined #code |
| 03:01 | <@McMartin> | ? |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: have you played Thief II? |
| 03:01 | <@McMartin> | No |
| 03:01 | < MyCatVerbs> | Dammit. Fuck you, overspecc'd DSL. |
| 03:01 | <@McMartin> | Nor Theif 1 |
| 03:01 | < MyCatVerbs> | Anyway. What's S@N style, please? |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <MyCatVerbs> Er, what's S@N style refer to, please? |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> Sunglasses at Night. |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> IT-HE's take on Deus Ex. |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> You may recall them from other things such as the Hacker's Guide to Sin, Ocean Travel Without A Boat (Ultima IX done backwards), and Ultima IV Drug Nightmare. |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> ...or was it Ultima VI? |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> Whichever, it was hilarious. |
| 03:01 | <@ToxicFrog> | <McMartin> "As a Cyborg's kneecap, you will serve SHODAN well." |
| 03:02 | <@ToxicFrog> | It's a complete walkthrough that aims to break the game as much as possible. |
| 03:02 | | * MyCatVerbs is hit with the compulsion to look that up. |
| 03:02 | <@ToxicFrog> | Not safe to read until you've completed the game at least once, but very, very, very, very entertaining. |
| 03:02 | <@ToxicFrog> | www.it-he.org |
| 03:03 | <@ToxicFrog> | I also strongly recommend their writings on System Shock 1, Arx Fatalis and most of the Ultima games. |
| 03:03 | < MyCatVerbs> | BWAHAHAHA! |
| 03:03 | < MyCatVerbs> | Just the opening sentence along has me suckered in. |
| 03:04 | <@ToxicFrog> | I actually didn't use the Defence System at all until, I think, my second or third run through the game. |
| 03:04 | < MyCatVerbs> | OMFG, this is like six different kinds of concatenated awesome. Thank you for showing me this. |
| 03:04 | <@ToxicFrog> | Since the Spy Drone is about six billion times more useful for a stealth character. |
| 03:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Start up and talk to Paul. He will offer you three choices of weapon - a tranquiliser, a sniper rifle and a GEP launcher. |
| 03:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | Paul, being a very pacifistic killing machine, prefers the tranquiliser. |
| 03:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | If you ask for the sniper rifle he becomes irritable and says that you can't just go round killing people. |
| 03:05 | <@ToxicFrog> | The first two weapons we can easily get off the dead terrorists, so ask for the rocket launcher. Interestingly, Paul approves of this.. the idea that we are going to use it on people has obviously not entered into his darkest dream." |
| 03:06 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...oh man |
| 03:06 | <@ToxicFrog> | Last time I checked, The Fourth Coming wasn't finished yet. |
| 03:06 | < MyCatVerbs> | Bweehehehehe. |
| 03:07 | < MyCatVerbs> | Well, Spy Drone isn't *neccessary*. The game does give you enough grenades to remove pretty much all the bots that appear in it. |
| 03:08 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Oh dear, your legs have fallen off again." |
| 03:08 | | Doctor_Nick [~fdsaf@Nightstar-1992.9-67.se.res.rr.com] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 03:08 | <@ToxicFrog> | Well, yes, but grenades are nonstealth. |
| 03:08 | < MyCatVerbs> | Pop out from behind something, chuck a 'nade and fuck off really quickly does tend to work, provided you have the speed mod to be able to reach -quickly- somewhere the guards won't/can't think to follow you. |
| 03:08 | <@ToxicFrog> | Furthermore, Aggressive Defence is mostly only useful if things are shooting explosives at you. |
| 03:08 | <@ToxicFrog> | And if this occurs, stealth has failed. |
| 03:08 | < MyCatVerbs> | Nuhuh. It works on the plasma guns, too. That is hilariously unbalenced. Makes 'em totally useless. |
| 03:09 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: anyways. The final mission of Thief II is "Sabotage at Soulforge" |
| 03:09 | <@ToxicFrog> | The final areas of Deus Ex, Area 51, have a number of thematic similarities. |
| 03:09 | <@ToxicFrog> | Including spiderbots. |
| 03:09 | < MyCatVerbs> | Wait, when you say stealth, are you referring to, "never be spotted, ever?" |
| 03:09 | < MyCatVerbs> | 'Cuz I usually play stealth as, "never get *shot*, ever." |
| 03:10 | < MyCatVerbs> | As in, I don't mind being spotted so long as it's by someone who is about to have a D-T through their neck before they have time to so much as draw their gun, let alone aim it. |
| 03:10 | <@McMartin> | Oh, hey. |
| 03:10 | <@McMartin> | it-he explains my first and last experience with Ultima 6. |
| 03:10 | <@McMartin> | Under "Why Kill Lord British" |
| 03:10 | < MyCatVerbs> | Oh and I did make one exception for that Rooks gang. Put the whole lot of 'em to sleep with the stun prod. Turns out they're *really* poor shots. Heheheh. |
| 03:11 | <@ToxicFrog> | MyCatVerbs: "never give anyone a chance to shoot you" |
| 03:11 | <@ToxicFrog> | Ideally by never being seen, but this isn't always possible. |
| 03:11 | < MyCatVerbs> | Ah, cool, same. |
| 03:11 | <@ToxicFrog> | Regardless, if Aggressive Defence comes into play, someone has had a chance to shoot at you. |
| 03:11 | | * Vornicus needs to play Thief. |
| 03:11 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Board the sub, and make your way to the Captain's quarters. Play back the holographic recording of Simons and shoot it in the head two or three times. It will escape." |
| 03:12 | < MyCatVerbs> | Literally I just ran around in circles, jumping up and down, about ten metres away from a gang member with a pistol. Couldn't hit shit. Just waited for him to have to reload, then walked over and made with the sleepy-byes. |
| 03:12 | < MyCatVerbs> | Niiice. |
| 03:12 | <@ToxicFrog> | Vornicus: yes. |
| 03:13 | < MyCatVerbs> | ToxicFrog: does stuff like dropping a gas grenade on the floor, activating the poison resistance mod then walking over and hacking everybody into bloody chunks count? I did a lot of that. |
| 03:13 | <@ToxicFrog> | "You can 'pay' for entrance to the Paris nightclub with a dead MJ12 trooper. This will cause the doorman to flee, thus opening passage into the club." |
| 03:13 | <@ToxicFrog> | I never used the poison-resist cybermod. |
| 03:13 | < MyCatVerbs> | It just stops the couple points per second of damage from the gas. |
| 03:14 | < MyCatVerbs> | Saves the odd medikit or can of booze here and there. *shrug* |
| 03:14 | < MyCatVerbs> | Much cheaper than using a regen mod to pick the health back up, too. |
| 03:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | "If the act of going into the subway is boring, you can make it more fun by carrying a dead MJ12 commando or something into the subway with you. This always gets the police very excited." |
| 03:15 | < MyCatVerbs> | ToxicFrog: also, another common tactic was to burst into rooms containing (up to) three sitting, talking MJ12 troopers and cutting them all down with the Dragon's Tooth really, really swiftly. |
| 03:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | Regen mod, however, is more generally useful. |
| 03:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | It's better to sneak in and destroy the chairs without being noticed. |
| 03:15 | < Reiver> | You can only have the one mod, yes? |
| 03:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | Reiver: only one mod per slot. |
| 03:15 | <@ToxicFrog> | Nine slots. |
| 03:16 | <@ToxicFrog> | Head, eyes, 3x torso, 2x skin, arms, legs. |
| 03:16 | < MyCatVerbs> | Number one would be dead before he managed to stand up. Number two would die halfway through pulling his weapon out. It'd be a race between me and the last guy for the few milliseconds difference between he-dies and I-take-damage. |
| 03:16 | < Reiver> | Aha. |
| 03:16 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has quit [Connection reset by peer] |
| 03:16 | <@ToxicFrog> | Each hardpoint has twice as many possible mods as slots, so in any given game you'll get at most 50% of the different cybermods. |
| 03:17 | < Reiver> | So you could have a Regen and a Poison, but it would mean you didn't have a Breather or something? |
| 03:17 | < Reiver> | Will those cybermods end up max'd? |
| 03:17 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Try and get it so that the cat is on the hatch when you open it. This will wedge the cat in mid-air above the tunnel entrance. Now stick the cat with a tranq dart. They will now utter three highly obscene curses in the Hero's Tongue and promptly fall into the tunnel with an angry yowling noise." |
| 03:17 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...how do you mean? |
| 03:17 | | MyCatVerbs [~mycatownz@Nightstar-379.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk] has joined #code |
| 03:17 | <@ToxicFrog> | Which cybermods you upgrade is up to you. |
| 03:17 | <@ToxicFrog> | It's not possible, IIRC, to max all of them without cheating, but you can come close. |
| 03:18 | < Reiver> | Ah. OK. |
| 03:18 | | Annath [BlueTiger@Nightstar-567.natsoe.res.rr.com] has joined #Code |
| 03:18 | <@ToxicFrog> | And yes. I generally choose Regen, Power Recirculator and I forget the last one for the torso slots. |
| 03:18 | | Annath [BlueTiger@Nightstar-567.natsoe.res.rr.com] has left #Code [] |
| 03:18 | < MyCatVerbs> | Aqualung? |
| 03:19 | < MyCatVerbs> | 'Cuz that was the alternative to poison resist, unless you waited a *long* time to find one of the duplicate canisters. |
| 03:19 | <@ToxicFrog> | No, not Aqualung, it's useless. |
| 03:19 | <@ToxicFrog> | Even if you don't pump Swimming, Regeneration covers for it. |
| 03:19 | <@Vornicus> | Which game is this? |
| 03:19 | <@ToxicFrog> | Deus Ex. |
| 03:19 | <@Vornicus> | ah |
| 03:19 | < MyCatVerbs> | Vornicus: Deus Ex, the original. |
| 03:20 | < Reiver> | Dues Ex Deus! |
| 03:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | Oh my god. |
| 03:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | I have to try this. |
| 03:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Once you've freed Tiffany, keep the dogs around. This has side-effects in that when they try to eat her you will find her running away from the helicopter instead of into it. |
| 03:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | If possible try to lead one of the dogs into the chopper area so they try to eat Tiffany. This can cause Jock to forget about her, leaving a lovely scene of her being chased across the garage by a pack of hungry dobermen while you fly off into the sunrise." |
| 03:21 | < Reiver> | |
| 03:21 | < Reiver> | Right. |
| 03:23 | <@ToxicFrog> | Aha. |
| 03:23 | <@ToxicFrog> | Further Drug Experiments was U7. |
| 03:23 | <@ToxicFrog> | http://www.it-he.org/u7_drugs.htm |
| 03:23 | | * Vornicus should play the various Ultima games. |
| 03:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | JM: You've already got too many drugs there. That's enough to destroy |
| 03:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | your body, to say nothing of your mind. |
| 03:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | IM: It will destroy his mind AND his body. And probably anyone nearby! |
| 03:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | "Now, as we can see, Iolo is certainly not well. In fact he is virtually dead with no hope of recovery.. any attempt to heal him will be useless as he now has a maximum HP of 1. |
| 03:24 | <@ToxicFrog> | Moving on, the Avatar is still at 30. Now that's very interesting. We seem to have a confused drug message coming from Origin.. "you can take as many drugs as you like as long as you're the Avatar"..?" |
| 03:25 | | BlueTiger [BlueTiger@Nightstar-567.natsoe.res.rr.com] has quit [Quit: Yay for juvenile space jokes!] |
| 03:26 | <@ToxicFrog> | The Ultima games never really grabbed me. |
| 03:27 | <@ToxicFrog> | Although in Ultima Underworld this is more the interface than anything else. |
| 03:27 | | * MyCatVerbs aims mpd at the Dark Side of the Moon. |
| 03:28 | < MyCatVerbs> | Now all I need are some drugs... *sigh* |
| 03:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | If you haven't already done so, find Lord Michael and get the grapple from him. This is very quick and easy to do: |
| 03:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | First, you take a very large sledgehammer. |
| 03:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | Next, you keep hitting Lord Michael with it until the grapple falls out. |
| 03:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | Finally, you grab it and run like hell before the lynch mob catches you. |
| 03:36 | | Chalcy [~Chalceon@Nightstar-869.bitstream.orcon.net.nz] has joined #code |
| 03:37 | | mode/#code [+o Chalcy] by ChanServ |
| 03:38 | | Chalcedon [~Chalceon@Nightstar-869.bitstream.orcon.net.nz] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 03:46 | <@McMartin> | "By now, I was out of drugs. Which sucked." |
| 03:48 | | Derakon[AFK] is now known as Derakon |
| 03:48 | < Derakon> | http://steampunkworkshop.com/images/Kb41.jpg |
| 03:49 | <@McMartin> | Sweet. |
| 03:50 | < Reiver> | Is that real or CGI? |
| 03:50 | < Reiver> | I can't tell. |
| 03:50 | < Derakon> | It's real. |
| 03:50 | < Reiver> | ...Functional? |
| 03:50 | < Derakon> | He took an IBM Model M and replaced everything except the interior apparatus. |
| 03:50 | < Derakon> | Yes. |
| 03:50 | < Reiver> | Wow. |
| 03:51 | <@ToxicFrog> | He wins. |
| 03:51 | < Derakon> | Here's the full link: http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml |
| 03:51 | <@Vornicus> | It's Steampunk-a-rific. |
| 03:55 | < Reiver> | Wow. |
| 04:16 | < Derakon> | This is a new one on me: |
| 04:16 | < Derakon> | terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::logic_error' |
| 04:16 | < Derakon> | what(): basic_string::_S_construct NULL not valid |
| 04:17 | <@ToxicFrog> | |
| 04:17 | <@McMartin> | *** You have won *** |
| 04:17 | <@McMartin> | Tell him what he's won, McM! |
| 04:17 | <@McMartin> | You have won: hours of picking through .h files figuring out WTF STL is doing! |
| 04:18 | <@McMartin> | (My guess; initializing from a C string that is a null pointer) |
| 04:18 | < Derakon> | Yay! I'm gonna go ta Disneyland! |
| 04:18 | <@McMartin> | I'm mostly astonished there aren't 7 levels of template instantiation there. |
| 04:18 | <@McMartin> | That should be at least basic_string<basic_char<uint8> > |
| 04:20 | <@ToxicFrog> | Welcome, Derakon, to STL Hell. |
| 04:20 | <@McMartin> | And since it's an exception, you get no backtrace! |
| 04:20 | < Derakon> | I rather think the answer is simpler than that, though... |
| 04:21 | <@ToxicFrog> | Seeing things like this makes me newly glad that We Don't Use The STL in SGOS, and use templates only rarelt. |
| 04:22 | <@ToxicFrog> | Although the /reasons/ for this are less than good, I like the end result! |
| 04:22 | < Derakon> | I should probably be not loading 78 images every time I start the program, though. |
| 04:22 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...why not? |
| 04:22 | < Derakon> | It takes time. |
| 04:23 | < Derakon> | ...yeah, this is happening in my Sprite constructor. I ganked approximately 60% of the code out of this class, so it's no surprise it doesn't work any more. |
| 04:24 | < Derakon> | ...oh, duh. You can't use array-style indices on a map. |
| 04:24 | < Derakon> | That's the other thing I changed. |
| 04:25 | <@McMartin> | "basic_string::_S_construct NULL not valid" totally clarifies that. |
| 04:25 | < Derakon> | Well, it's a map of strings to animations. |
| 04:25 | | Vornicus [~vorn@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 04:25 | < Derakon> | Ooh, there's a fun compile error: |
| 04:25 | < Derakon> | sprite.cpp:26: error: 'class std::map<std::string, Animation*, std::less<std::string>, std::allocator<std::pair<const std::string, Animation*> > >' has no member named 'first |
| 04:26 | | * ToxicFrog vomits black, acidic bile from his eye sockets |
| 04:26 | < Derakon> | Where's your sense of adventure? |
| 04:26 | <@ToxicFrog> | Writing dynamic linking code for Total Annihilation in 80x86 ASM. |
| 04:27 | < Derakon> | Hmm...that didn't fix the problem. Though I did get to write this line: |
| 04:27 | < Derakon> | boundingBox = _animations.begin()->second->getBoundingBox(); |
| 04:28 | < Derakon> | Ahh, there we go. The other thing is changing the index into which animation I'm currently using from an int to a string. Now I get a normal, happy segfault. |
| 04:29 | <@McMartin> | Derakon: That's more what I'd expect~ |
| 04:29 | | BlueTiger [BlueTiger@Nightstar-567.natsoe.res.rr.com] has joined #Code |
| 04:29 | <@McMartin> | Though it didn't fully expand std::string into the 9 or 10 instantiations it has under the hood |
| 04:29 | <@McMartin> | Go typedef resolution! |
| 04:30 | < Reiver> | 80x86? |
| 04:30 | | * Reiver knows x86 architecture - what's the 80? |
| 04:30 | <@McMartin> | The two numbers before the x. |
| 04:30 | <@ToxicFrog> | The full name of, say, a 486 is "Intel 80486" |
| 04:30 | < Reiver> | ...OK |
| 04:31 | <@McMartin> | The first chip was 8086 |
| 04:31 | <@McMartin> | There was also an 8-bit version, the 8088. |
| 04:31 | < Derakon> | Catchy number. |
| 04:32 | < Reiver> | And they've kept the 80 prefix ever since? |
| 04:32 | <@McMartin> | Yes. A competitor made a chip based on the 8086 you may have heard of. |
| 04:32 | <@McMartin> | The "Z80". |
| 04:32 | <@ToxicFrog> | Then there was the 80186, the 80286 (286), the 80386 (396), the 80486 (486), and the 80586 (Pentium) |
| 04:33 | <@ToxicFrog> | And then the 80686. aka the PPro/P2/P3. |
| 04:33 | < Reiver> | (P3 was a 686?) |
| 04:34 | <@McMartin> | IIRC, the later Pxen up through P4 were mostly different with respect to things like cache handling. |
| 04:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | P4 was actually a new architecture. |
| 04:34 | <@McMartin> | P4 was a different arch. (Xeon?) |
| 04:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | Internally called P68, it doesn't have an official -86 number. |
| 04:34 | < Reiver> | Aha. |
| 04:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | Its name is Netburst, which shall forever be associated with shitty performance/clock and performance/power~ |
| 04:35 | < Reiver> | Hey now. |
| 04:35 | < Reiver> | It got really high clock speeds! |
| 04:35 | < Reiver> | (Shame they didn't do anything...) |
| 04:35 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes. Which just about brought it to the performance of competing processors clocked at half that. |
| 04:35 | < Reiver> | (And thus, the Athlon X00+ XP was born to fight back in the numbers war~) |
| 04:36 | <@ToxicFrog> | At twice the power draw and heat output. |
| 04:36 | <@ToxicFrog> | And 110% the price. |
| 04:37 | <@ToxicFrog> | Anyways. |
| 04:37 | | * McMartin bashes people with the Clock Speeds Are Pointless stick. |
| 04:37 | <@ToxicFrog> | TA, I believe, targets the 80586. |
| 04:37 | < Derakon> | ...this is the best sign ever: http://webcomicsnation.com/spike/Templar/series.php?view=single&ID=57195 |
| 04:37 | <@ToxicFrog> | McMartin: that was rather my point. |
| 04:37 | | * McMartin geezes, remembering when the 286/33 and 386/33 sold head to head. |
| 04:37 | < Derakon> | They're not *entirely* pointless, McM, assuming you have a digital processor, but they aren't the be-all and end-all. |
| 04:37 | < Derakon> | Not by a long shot. |
| 04:38 | <@McMartin> | They're only meaningful when everything else is held constant. |
| 04:38 | <@ToxicFrog> | Derakon: I believe the point is, they're pointless when comparing different architectures. |
| 04:38 | <@McMartin> | Quite. |
| 04:38 | < Derakon> | Fair. |
| 04:38 | | * McMartin heads off for some r0xx0r before it becomes to late to do so politely. |
| 04:38 | <@ToxicFrog> | A P4.C clocked at 3GHz will outperform one clocked at 2GHz, all else being equal. |
| 04:38 | | * Derakon wants to see an entirely analogue processor, idly. |
| 04:38 | < Reiver> | ni McM! |
| 04:38 | < Derakon> | Seeya, McM. |
| 04:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | Indeed, I think that was also Reiv's point. |
| 04:39 | < Reiver> | TF: 'twas. |
| 04:39 | < Reiver> | Well, sort of. |
| 04:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | You can't make meaningful clock speed comparisons, but Intel was spinning like it was. |
| 04:39 | < Reiver> | That was the one, yes. :) |
| 04:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | Thus, the AMD naming convention of Athlon [modifiers] [number]+ |
| 04:40 | < Reiver> | And previous to it, if not actually accurate, it had provided a sort-of-useful rule of thumb. |
| 04:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | Where the [number] is "this processor will outperform an Intel processor clocked at [number] MHz" |
| 04:40 | < Reiver> | A 1.2GHz Thunderbird was at least roughly comparable to a 1.2GHz PIII, so to speak. |
| 04:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | Not that that's the official meaning, but it's a good rule of eye. |
| 04:41 | < Reiver> | Then the P4 came out, with the sole purpose of Really High Numbers and, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing else~ |
| 04:41 | < Reiver> | But the public had become fixated on Numbers. |
| 04:41 | < Derakon> | The public likes easy metrics. |
| 04:41 | < Reiver> | So, the Athlon spun the numbers in their own little way. ¬¬ |
| 04:42 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: don't forget Not Having A Barrel Shifter, so lots of previously fast algorithms suddenly start behaving mysteriously shit. |
| 04:42 | < Derakon> | This is why cars spun the horsepower numbers for a while, too. |
| 04:42 | < Reiver> | Barrel shifter, MCV? |
| 04:42 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: oooh, and Having A Ridiculously Long Pipeline, so that every last fucking if statement in any program instantly becomes a bottleneck. |
| 04:42 | <@ToxicFrog> | Really, though, the entire x86 architecture is a horrible mistake abetted by some asshats at IBM, and we should throw it out and replace it with something based on the MC68K. |
| 04:43 | <@ToxicFrog> | Which is what the IBM PC originally wanted anyways, so everyone wins. |
| 04:43 | < Reiver> | TF: Good luck with that~ |
| 04:43 | <@ToxicFrog> | *IBM PC devteam |
| 04:43 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: it's a device for doing bit-shifting in one clock cycle. Quite expensive in terms of the amount of logic you need to build one. |
| 04:43 | < Reiver> | Also the problem is, uh |
| 04:44 | < Reiver> | MC68K was a better architecture Back Then - but much like Electric vs Petrol engines, the Petrol ones have now had a hundred years of fine-tuning that need to be competed against. >.> |
| 04:44 | < MyCatVerbs> | *HOWEVER*! Without one, everybody's crypto algorithms are neccessarily destined to run slower than baked shit. |
| 04:44 | < MyCatVerbs> | So on balence it's rather neccessary. |
| 04:45 | < MyCatVerbs> | Ehhh, you'd be surprised at how much effort's been put into electric motors, too. But mostly fixed industrial ones, arrr. |
| 04:45 | <@ToxicFrog> | Reiver: PPC, then. |
| 04:45 | < MyCatVerbs> | ToxicFrog: oooh, POWER! <3 |
| 04:45 | < Reiver> | PPC? |
| 04:45 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: PowerPC. Or, Hell, POWER architecture. |
| 04:45 | | * Derakon gets another bus error, yay! |
| 04:45 | < Reiver> | Oh, /that/. |
| 04:45 | < MyCatVerbs> | Yes, *that*. |
| 04:46 | < Derakon> | I.e. the thing that Macs used to run on. ;.; |
| 04:46 | < Reiver> | You mean the architecture that Motorolla failed to scale in power/cost effectiveness enough to stay in the competition? >.> |
| 04:46 | < MyCatVerbs> | Modern POWER chips have fucking ridiculously wide pipelines. |
| 04:46 | < Derakon> | Unfortunately, the x86 architecture had several times more R&D spent on it geared towards general-purpose computing. |
| 04:46 | < MyCatVerbs> | IBM runs them at 2GHz and at that rate they benchmark about the same as high-end Opterons. |
| 04:47 | < Derakon> | They also run bloody hot, though. |
| 04:47 | < MyCatVerbs> | (Er, slightly lower, actually.) |
| 04:47 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: shurely not? They have such dinky clock rates! |
| 04:47 | < Derakon> | I like the concept and the overall design, but the practicalities, in comparison to what the x86 can achieve, aren't there yet. |
| 04:47 | < Derakon> | Why do you think Apple never had a G5 laptop? |
| 04:48 | < MyCatVerbs> | Excuse me? The practicalities are very much in favour of PPC when you take things like the register quantity and so on into account. All x86 has behind it are sheer quantities of engineers. |
| 04:48 | < Derakon> | (One thing I find particularly ugly about the x86 is the eight, count 'em, *8* registers. |
| 04:48 | < Derakon> | Right, MCV. |
| 04:49 | < Derakon> | The PowerPC has more room to grow, but not enough engineers driving that growth. |
| 04:49 | <@ToxicFrog> | Occasionally I will spend a few minutes mocking the P4 for having fewer registers than a 68k. |
| 04:49 | <@ToxicFrog> | It makes me feel happy. |
| 04:49 | < MyCatVerbs> | About the only advantage x86 has over any other given ISA is the fact that its variable-length instruction set turns out to be pretty compact, allowing very tight instruction caches. |
| 04:49 | < Derakon> | And that it has legions of engineers optimizing the hell out of it. |
| 04:49 | | * Derakon takes a moment to snerk at Freefall. |
| 04:50 | <@ToxicFrog> | This is, however, marred by the fact that it's a variable-width instruction set. |
| 04:50 | < MyCatVerbs> | OTOH, considering how many of those instructions are often wasted on useless tripe like shuffling registers around to cope with the fact that you only have a handful of the goddamn things, that goes out the window. :/ |
| 04:50 | | * Derakon is not generally impressed by compactness arguments in this day and age. |
| 04:50 | < Derakon> | Basically, what you're seeing here is inertia in action. |
| 04:50 | <@ToxicFrog> | Really, what I need to do is go back in time and sour the memory-cell deal between IBM and Intel. |
| 04:51 | < MyCatVerbs> | Bah, humbug. |
| 04:51 | < Derakon> | If Intel were to switch to developing PowerPCs, then in the long run they could make a better product. But there's factories to be re-tooled, engineers to re-train, basically massive changeover costs. |
| 04:51 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: engineers to re-train? Nahhh, the hardware guys aren't going to suddenly become useless just because you switch the spec you're working on. |
| 04:51 | < MyCatVerbs> | ...heh. It'd be hilarious if Intel decided to implement SPARC. XD |
| 04:52 | < Derakon> | They won't be *useless*. |
| 04:52 | < Derakon> | But they won't be as good as they are at the x86. |
| 04:52 | < Derakon> | Like, say, I'm a CompSci guy who's good at data mining and complex system analysis. Throw me at a hard AI problem and it'll take me a while to get up to speed. |
| 04:52 | < Derakon> | Well, bad example. |
| 04:52 | < Derakon> | Um, throw me at compiler optimisation. |
| 04:53 | < MyCatVerbs> | There's nothing special about the x86 that makes it radically different to design implementations of other than its shiteness and kludginess. Or at least, there's nothing you'd need to know how to do to implement a PPC chip that you wouldn't have picked up implementing something awful like x86. |
| 04:53 | < Derakon> | There is still non-trivial ramp-up time. |
| 04:53 | < Derakon> | Want a different example? Take a cabbie from New York and put him in L.A. |
| 04:53 | <@McMartin> | Indeed. Cycle-counting still happens. |
| 04:54 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: yesh, but the analogy breaks down because h/w designers are not working on a fuzzily designed problem like software designers do. |
| 04:54 | < Derakon> | I am not arguing that point. I am simply saying that they will need ultimately non-productive (or less-productive) time to get up to speed. |
| 04:54 | < MyCatVerbs> | Instead, they're implementing circuitry to do transformations that are mathematically well defined. |
| 04:55 | < MyCatVerbs> | Fully defined, even. Otherwise no one's bloody programs would ever run. |
| 04:55 | < Derakon> | I am aware of what hardware designers do, if only at a high level. |
| 04:55 | < MyCatVerbs> | I'm not seeing any potential for ramp up beyond the "build one from scratch" factor. |
| 04:56 | < Derakon> | Back to the cabbie example. A cabbie with a GPS can take anyone anywhere without having been there before, yes? |
| 04:56 | < Derakon> | Butu a cabbie who knows the roads without needing the GPS will do a better job. |
| 04:56 | < Derakon> | s/Butu/But/ |
| 04:57 | | BlueTiger [BlueTiger@Nightstar-567.natsoe.res.rr.com] has quit [Quit: ] |
| 04:57 | < MyCatVerbs> | No, this analogy still sounds like complete crap to me. |
| 04:57 | < Derakon> | Intel's engineers know the x86 chip design very well. They know what works and what doesn't. Incremental changes are easy to do. |
| 04:58 | < Derakon> | Move them to working on the PPC architecture, and they lose the advantages that familiarity gives. |
| 04:58 | < Derakon> | I'll grant that the costs would be comparatively less if they scrapped everything and started over; then you're just applying fundamentals. |
| 04:58 | < MyCatVerbs> | What advantages? They spend *all* of their time working on small parts of a perfectly defined spec at a time. Each small part is an entirely seperate project to every other. |
| 04:58 | < Derakon> | But for working with a system that is new to you, before you can make changes, you must first understand how the system works. |
| 04:59 | < MyCatVerbs> | The only real difference going from CISC to RISC would make is that the large scale picture would be different. Almost all the individual engineers' work would still be almost exactly the same. |
| 04:59 | < Derakon> | So you think there is no advantage whatsoever to a general knowledge of the overall system? Nothing to be gained from, say, looking at the overall pipeline and checking how the different components interact? |
| 04:59 | < Derakon> | Holisticism has value. |
| 05:00 | < MyCatVerbs> | In addition to which, it's a moot point anyway. Unless you've been hiding under a rock for a few years, they're already shipping RISC chips. |
| 05:00 | < Reiver> | In that case, MCV, why did you just have this arguement? |
| 05:00 | < MyCatVerbs> | Your average x86 chip has for a few years now been largely made up of a RISC chip with a huge microcode & instruction decoding unit bolted to the side of it. |
| 05:01 | | Vornicus [~vorn@67.50.40.ns-3674] has joined #code |
| 05:01 | < MyCatVerbs> | So CISC->RISC wouldn't even be a change in approach *at all* aside from a massive reduction in the scale of the projects. |
| 05:01 | < Derakon> | I'll note for the record that my arguments were not specifically about chip architectures, but about expertise and the costs of context switching. |
| 05:01 | | Vornicus is now known as NSGuest-872 |
| 05:01 | < MyCatVerbs> | And I'm arguing that the costs of context switching are false, do not exist. |
| 05:02 | | NSGuest-872 is now known as Vornicus |
| 05:02 | < Reiver> | So what's your justification as to why they haven't changed yet, MCV? |
| 05:02 | < Derakon> | In all situations? |
| 05:03 | < MyCatVerbs> | The workflow for engineers in both cases is identical. The only changes that need to be made are in the instruction decoding and the microcode lumps, which would suddenly involve almost no engineers on account of having become far, far simpler. |
| 05:03 | < Vornicus> | yey my intarnewbs are back. |
| 05:03 | < MyCatVerbs> | They're still working on implementing fixed numerical tranformations - in most cases, *exactly the same* bloody algorithms. |
| 05:04 | < Reiver> | So what's your justification as to why they haven't changed yet, MCV? |
| 05:04 | < Reiver> | YAY VORN |
| 05:04 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: inertia. Also, most computer software doesn't ship with source code. |
| 05:04 | | * Vornicus wonders where they went. |
| 05:04 | < Derakon> | But if context switching is free, then inertia means nothing. |
| 05:04 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: probably some not-technically-competent management upstairs, too, otherwise P4 would never have happened. |
| 05:04 | < Reiver> | Are you kidding? |
| 05:04 | < Derakon> | Surely a company the size of Intel would realize the savings inherent in switching, and would be obligated by their shareholder agreements to make the switch. |
| 05:05 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: you're assuming they no that? |
| 05:05 | < Reiver> | The P4 was a success. |
| 05:05 | < MyCatVerbs> | ARGH, *know |
| 05:05 | < Reiver> | It sold lots of chips and kept their market share. |
| 05:05 | < Reiver> | Yes, it was shit. |
| 05:05 | < Reiver> | But it had the magic number that they needed to have in order to sell their chips. |
| 05:05 | < Derakon> | If you know it, MCV, then the engineers know it, and by now the management knows it. |
| 05:05 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: you kidding? They dropped the whole damn line of work as a dead end to concentrate on a beefed up P3 variant instead. |
| 05:05 | < Reiver> | MCV: And yet they kept their market share. |
| 05:06 | < Derakon> | MCV, you're looking at success from a technological standpoint, not from a business standpoint. |
| 05:06 | < Reiver> | Buisness wise it worked fine. |
| 05:06 | < Reiver> | Also, you mention 'inertia'. That's a contextual cost. |
| 05:06 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: telegram for you: they didn't need to do shit to keep their market share. No one else on the damn planet has the capacity and desire to even *make* enough chips to displace the desktop markets, let alone sell them. |
| 05:07 | < Derakon> | AMD. |
| 05:07 | < Reiver> | I daresay AMD would like a chance to try~ |
| 05:07 | < Derakon> | May be small, but every piece of marketshare they gain is taken from Intel. |
| 05:07 | < Reiver> | In fact I daresay AMD is the only thing that keeps Intel honest. |
| 05:07 | < Derakon> | It is *entirely* possible for Intel to *lose* marketshare, and that's what matters. |
| 05:07 | < MyCatVerbs> | They would've loved to. However, they've been physically incapable of doing that. Literally they simply did not ever have the fabrication capacity to fill the market. |
| 05:07 | | * Derakon notes that before one adds sprites to a layer, it is recommended that one create the layer. |
| 05:07 | | timelady [~romana@Nightstar-9473.lns10.adl2.internode.on.net] has joined #Code |
| 05:07 | < Derakon> | Ahh, but they can grow. And they have. |
| 05:08 | < Derakon> | And every time they grow, Intel loses a little more. |
| 05:08 | < Reiver> | If, as you say, Intel could get hold of an inherently superior chip technology with, as you say, zero cost inherent... they would have. They had to scramble to beat AMD with the Duo, they'd leap at the chance to bury AMD once and for all. |
| 05:08 | < MyCatVerbs> | They could've sold chips anyway while not throwing perfectly good man hours down a sucky hole like Netburst anyway. Instead, it would've been perfectly viable to make wide-pipe chips and sell them based on actual benchmarks. |
| 05:09 | < Reiver> | They have to beat AMD. Else AMD starts to chew up market share. |
| 05:10 | < Reiver> | It takes time for AMD to gain momentum from holding-pattern to advancing, but they did it for a while with the 64-bit, and they would try again in an instant. |
| 05:10 | < Reiver> | And the P4 gave High Numbers. |
| 05:10 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: they never could've sold it, though. Everyone wants x86 because x86 is what their software is written against. Hell, their management probably *clings* to x86 backward compatibility right now anyway, because of how keeping backward compatibility was one of the main driving forces that led to their current success. |
| 05:10 | < Reiver> | Ah! So in other words, you've been arguing about the Wonderful Merits of the architecture, with Zero Cost to change, when in fact the cost is in /reobtaining every x86 program ever/? |
| 05:11 | < Reiver> | I dare say, that counts as a contextual price. Just a small one~ |
| 05:11 | < MyCatVerbs> | Yes, but you can get High Numbers just by putting eight integer ALUs on one chip, clocking it low and telling the customer that it does two million times more additions per second than the competition. |
| 05:11 | < Derakon> | That's a silly argument, and you know it. |
| 05:11 | < MyCatVerbs> | Reiver: firstly, I din't claim zero cost to change. I said no loss of productivity. These are not the same things. |
| 05:12 | < Derakon> | 9:01 PM: MyCatVerbs: And I'm arguing that the costs of context switching are false, do not exist. |
| 05:12 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: I was talking about engineers' productivity, not company cash. |
| 05:13 | < Reiver> | Uh-huh. |
| 05:13 | < Reiver> | I daresay engineers productivity is hurt if they're unemployed~ |
| 05:14 | < MyCatVerbs> | The software cost only comes in because people are wankers and don't sell the source code, too. =) |
| 05:14 | | * Derakon facepalms. |
| 05:14 | < Derakon> | Sell it to whom? |
| 05:15 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: the same people who're buying the binaries? |
| 05:15 | < MyCatVerbs> | Or at least distribute bytecode instead of chip-specific stuff. Same effect. |
| 05:15 | < MyCatVerbs> | Same benefit, I mean. |
| 05:15 | < Derakon> | Assuming you're willing to eat the JIT compilation costs. |
| 05:15 | < MyCatVerbs> | Argh, fucking tired. |
| 05:16 | < Derakon> | But anyway. |
| 05:16 | < Derakon> | There's plenty of programs out there where the source code and the original maintainers are long gone. Sucks, but it does happen. |
| 05:17 | < MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: eh, you can usually write those off at program startup. Either that or supply a bytecode->machinecode compiler, keep the bytecode on backup tapes and install binaries on the machine. |
| 05:17 | < Derakon> | Anyway, I'm gonna go play Excite Truck. You two have fun. |
| 05:17 | < MyCatVerbs> | G'ni. I'ma sleep. |
| 05:17 | < Vornicus> | Is Excite Truck like Excite Bike? |
| 05:17 | < Derakon> | Er, kinda. |
| 05:18 | < Derakon> | It's ludicrously unrealistic, and the similarities roughly stop there. |
| 05:41 | | timelady [~romana@Nightstar-9473.lns10.adl2.internode.on.net] has quit [Quit: run away! run away!] |
| 05:48 | | * Derakon returns, having made marginal progress in trying to S-rank all the courses. |
| 05:49 | < Derakon> | Basically, the game is a racing game, except that your goal in each race is not just to win, but to accumulate as many stars as possible. You get stars for hitting other cars, making long drifts, staying in the air for a long time, cutting close to trees, and so on. |
| 05:49 | < Derakon> | Being first gives you 50 stars, which is a lot, but not nearly enough to achieve your goal for the course. |
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| 06:06 | | * Derakon eyes his program, tries to figure out why a sprite that otherwise seems to be fine isn't drawing to the screen. |
| 06:13 | < Derakon> | Ahh, there we go. Silly me initialized the sprite's scaling factor to 0. |
| 06:13 | | * Vornicus points and laughs. |
| 06:13 | | * Derakon whistles idly. |
| 06:17 | | * Vornicus reboots to apply insane numbers of patches. uptime: 115 days. |
| 06:17 | < Derakon> | Fun times. |
| 06:18 | | Vornicus [~vorn@ServicesOp.Nightstar.Net] has left #code [Leaving] |
| 06:18 | < Derakon> | Anyway, I am now successfully loading assets in the engine. Now I just have to finish making all the bindings between Lua and the engine so that Lua can do what it needs to do, and then I should be done mucking with the C++ until I need to implement collision detection. |
| 06:24 | | Vornicus [~vorn@67.50.40.ns-3674] has joined #code |
| 06:24 | | mode/#code [+o Vornicus] by ChanServ |
| 06:24 | < Derakon> | Wibbles. |
| 06:25 | <@Vornicus> | Thankies. |
| 06:28 | <@ToxicFrog> | Derakon: as far as bindings go, tolua++ is your friend. |
| 06:29 | <@Vornicus> | 23:29 up 10 mins ;_; |
| 06:30 | < Derakon> | Oh, bindings are easy. |
| 06:30 | < Derakon> | lua_pushcfunction(L, ScriptMaster::loadObject); |
| 06:30 | < Derakon> | lua_setglobal(L, "loadObject"); |
| 06:30 | < Derakon> | Then loadObject grabs the arguments it needs off the Lua stack. |
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| 06:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | The thing about tolua++ is that it automatically generates all the argument-grabbing clue code. |
| 06:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | *glue code. |
| 06:34 | <@ToxicFrog> | As well as bindings for class and struct data types. |
| 06:35 | < Derakon> | Eh; I have a working system here that I understand and that's simple; I'll stick with it. |
| 06:39 | < Derakon> | Wheebedtime. |
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| 09:14 | < Reiver> | Y'know what Opera needs? |
| 09:14 | < Reiver> | (This especially to TF) |
| 09:14 | < Reiver> | A way to search the trash can. |
| 09:42 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
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| 12:04 | | Netsplit DeepThought.NY.US.Nightstar.Net <-> Blargh.CA.US.Nightstar.Net quits: MyCatVerbs, Derakon[AFK] |
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| 17:14 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[afk] |
| 17:18 | | * ToxicFrog fiddles with his event handling code |
| 17:23 | | * Vornicus fiddles with shell script code, trying to see if he can make it do this. |
| 17:24 | | * Vornicus also has an idea about the resource card-back. |
| 17:24 | | MahalErrands is now known as Mahal |
| 17:25 | | * Serah pokes ToxicFrog. |
| 17:26 | < Serah> | Is ED209 in RoboCop 2 or 3? |
| 17:26 | < Serah> | ^_^ |
| 17:35 | < MyCatVerbs> | Serah: It was in the first one, I think there was something that looked like in in RoboCop 2. Haven't seen 3, myself. |
| 17:35 | | * Serah has the trilogy on DVD, borrowed from a friend, but see no point in watching any without the star in them. |
| 17:36 | < MyCatVerbs> | ooh, yesh, all three, according to WP. |
| 17:37 | < MyCatVerbs> | I think it was pretty much cameos-only in two and three, though. |
| 17:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...I have no idea |
| 17:40 | <@ToxicFrog> | Ok, I think I have it now. |
| 17:48 | | Mahal is now known as MahalBed |
| 18:20 | | gnolam is now known as Meh |
| 18:34 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
| 18:43 | <@jerith> | http://jerith.livejournal.com/31734.html |
| 18:44 | <@Vornicus> | jerith: text tools are asweome, aren't they? |
| 18:44 | <@jerith> | Indeed. |
| 18:45 | <@jerith> | I posted that to a local programmer's mailing list I'm on and got some more efficient ways of doing them. |
| 18:45 | <@jerith> | But I like actually using cat for its intended purpose for once... |
| 19:07 | | Forj [~Forj@Nightstar-869.bitstream.orcon.net.nz] has joined #code |
| 19:14 | | Chalcedon [~Chalceon@Nightstar-869.bitstream.orcon.net.nz] has joined #code |
| 19:14 | | mode/#code [+o Chalcedon] by ChanServ |
| 19:23 | | * Vornicus eyes, wonders how he managed to tyop "awesome" so badly. |
| 19:25 | <@jerith> | The s just moved a little to the left is all. |
| 19:29 | | * ToxicFrog eyes this solution to assignment 2 |
| 19:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | You move the tape? |
| 19:29 | <@ToxicFrog> | Madness. |
| 19:30 | <@Vornicus> | huh? |
| 19:31 | <@ToxicFrog> | Prove that a turing machine that supports (left reset, right) is equivalent to one that supports (left, right) |
| 19:31 | <@ToxicFrog> | Where "left reset" is "move to the left edge of the tape", ie, no capability to move only one square left. |
| 19:31 | <@Vornicus> | aha |
| 19:32 | <@ToxicFrog> | The answer basically boils down to "mark the current head location, then move the tape one cell to the right, then return to the mark" |
| 19:32 | <@ToxicFrog> | Which is equivalent to moving the head one cell to the left. |
| 19:33 | <@Vornicus> | are you allowed to move the tape? |
| 19:34 | <@Vornicus> | Seems like mving the tape one cell right is the same as moving the head one cell left. |
| 19:38 | <@ToxicFrog> | ...that's what I just said. |
| 19:38 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> The answer basically boils down to "mark the current head location, then move the tape one cell to the right, then return to the mark" |
| 19:38 | <@ToxicFrog> | <ToxicFrog> Which is equivalent to moving the head one cell to the left. |
| 19:38 | <@Vornicus> | No, no |
| 19:38 | <@Vornicus> | The one action "move the tape one cell right" |
| 19:38 | <@Vornicus> | None of that other crap. |
| 19:39 | <@ToxicFrog> | "move the tape one cell right" can be implemented by any turing machine that permits you to move the head one cell right. |
| 19:39 | <@Vornicus> | ...obviously I am confused. What does "move the tape one cell right" entail? |
| 19:41 | <@Vornicus> | because I'm imagining physically grabbing the tape and moving it. |
| 19:41 | <@ToxicFrog> | Aah. |
| 19:41 | <@ToxicFrog> | No, this has the same effect but does not actually directly move the tape. |
| 19:41 | <@ToxicFrog> | Basically, it applies T[i] = T[i-1] for each tape cell. |
| 19:42 | <@Vornicus> | aha |
| 19:42 | <@ToxicFrog> | So [XYZ ] becomes [ XYZ ] |
| 19:42 | <@ToxicFrog> | I'm not going to write out the entire state graph~ |
| 19:42 | <@jerith> | Isn't "move the tape one cell left" equivalent to "move the head one cell right"? |
| 19:44 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yes, which is why I'm not moving the tap left. |
| 19:44 | | * jerith nods. |
| 19:44 | <@ToxicFrog> | Also, moving the tape left is only reliable in a TM where the tape has infinite extent in both directions. |
| 19:45 | <@ToxicFrog> | Whereas the TM we're working with here is the classic one-head, one-tape, infinite extent to the right only flavour. |
| 20:34 | | Janus [~Cerulean@Nightstar-10302.columbus.res.rr.com] has joined #Code |
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| 22:30 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[T-2] |
| 22:34 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[zZzZ] |
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| --- Log closed Sat Mar 10 00:00:56 2007 |