upcoming vehicles statcards

howdy!
so, after a long time harping, and kavetching,
phil. one of the locals, has begun work on the new old-school statcard for staggered activation.
we only had the turbolaser turret until recently,
and I'm still looking for some token overlays to make it look real nice,
but here's a few WiPs.

 

We're playtesting these at the moment, hence the blank SA's and omitted Staggered Activation overlay.
These are print-ready and are 2 regular statcards combined. we'll see how they print, and may make printing accomodations for the split down the middle.
however, these should be much easier to store, and we only lose 8% or so of the area compared with that irregular sized actual staggered activation card.

We will be making turrets, emplacements and all with the staggered activation jumbo card format too. the Turbolaser will come in different varieties.
For Staggered Activation 1, you could fit that onto a regular statcard, for things like a turret emplacement.

Hopefully, we'll be able to make flyers and tile wars all work in a staggered activation way.

The Ultimate Game Controller

Howdy!

so, this was a recent topic of discussion at freethinkers,
and I found it profound on a number of levels.
It is guaranteed to induce an existential crisis.

Imagine, a custom reprogrammable controller,
a memristor controller, which you can program read-writably,
so as you can set the time interval, and you can share these programmable settings with friends via an SD chip reader or microSD...

|concept sketch humorous comic-book-fake-ad image pending|

I call it "The Ultimate Un-Useless Controller"
or, the Chindogu controller,
and the premium decadent version would be, the Oblomov
or "the existential crisis"

Are you sick of having to push buttons for your videogames?
Are you sick of paying for content hidden behind a microtransaction paybarrier?
it's a thing of the past! now, you just do it once, and let the AI controller work with the AI in your game, to complete it all for you!
 Now you can get on with life and let the unuseless machine mine itself, you can watch the world of world of warcraft and a lets play review, regurgitate that.
------

as humorous as that was,
I can see this would actually have some utility in some RC and starfighter game controllers;
the controller could be fed telemetry from damaged flight mode, and allow you to 'limp' more effectively when the vehicle in game is damaged, without the tedious 'wiggle' of the reaction sticks etc.
this controller is mounted on a gyroscopic arm, and the controller is self-righting, and can be configured to record precisely the piloting movements (see Laredo in Galaxy Quest hehe).

I also see an immediate application in Music, as evidenced by Ben Heck keyboard...
in moog and random pattern recognition between OEIS and other sequencing sources...
even simulating that random error rate.
particularly, a memristive halbach thomson's lamp switch: memXORiff gate entanglement could allow other patterns and timings than just the thomson's lamp, all within the same circuit without needing a whole heap of other gates and modules.
its a musical "typewriter's paradox"... 

dang, thanks L Chua, A Nugent and H deGaris!
you hinted at all of that, and more, and made it possible!

Treknological bashes

Howdy.
apologies for not making more content here publicly available.
I intend to redress that at some point.

I digress,
after a Trek RPG session,
I've managed to take some concept kitbashes from the other players.
and, they're happy to share it with folks so, here goes;

a Strider/Akula/Akyazi saucer, with a Saladin or Apollo nacelle and hull.

|image pending|

a Jester class saucer,
with a saladin nacelle.

Above: an oberth-Saladin hybrid project, I'm wondering what a deflector in the middle might look like.

an Ent-F hull with the Legacy style nacelles and saucer.
|image pending|

More to follow soon I hope,
as one of the locals is something of a great kitbasher or artist to be kind enough to share these images.

disclaimer;
trek is a roddenberry CBS thing, distinctive likenesses remain theirs - this is from a pen and paper FASA roleplaying game and the new modiphius trek game, so it's all good.

Reflections on Netiquette and forums

Hi there folks.

Today was unfortunate, and a clear signal that
I need to change where and how I spend my time online.
This will mean I no longer feature FO4 related content here or elsewhere.
Any mods involved with me, will never be hosted at that domain.
I will not deal with that forum in the future.
Apologies to third parties and mod projects I was involved in ---
any future involvement will need to take place at other locales.
You have methods and means of reaching me, as many of you already have (and I am appreciative of. thank you for your support in this testing time).

It's not you or I, it is very much them.
There was never a we or an us, it was
one rule for some users, another rule for other users.

At a popular gaming-mod hosting site,
I was harassed and intimidated via PM and via public post,
for incorrect formatting and 'weird' expression of ideas. Publicly, just shy of being told to "shut up and leave".
specifically, my sentences were graded for having not been formatted in a
justified and 1.5 line space manner. I was unaware that it was so formal a context, and was unaware of constraints.
My psychological mindstate was also 'evaluated', by persons grossly unqualified to do so.
(I was mocked for having a william shatner style of speech, and for being long-winded, by several users).

When I politely requested people refrain from that abhorrent conduct,
and asked those people for an apology, for delimiting my free speech
and telling me how to conduct myself... they had a second bite at the cherry.
I responded to their public admonishment in kind.
I have screenshots of all correspondence and the website, in addition to the wayback machine.
I am 100% in the right on this issue, I have sent that matter to others for review.

I was then banned for being a 'spambot/flame griefer'.
My contributions and content was deleted. summarily, without possibility for review or further correspondence.

Several former fellow users felt the need to refer that matter for review.
As a result,  I am no longer wanting to be in those spaces.
They "win" - it is their name on the door,
and they can't handle 'weird' or 'different'.
It is their loss - they lose what I brought to the table - I know they said it was useless and nothing,
though the collaborations and friends I made prove quantifiably otherwise.

They are YOLO TLDR, and are reading-averse. That is not my issue in the slightest.
they're happy to sit through hundreds of hours of advertisements elsewhere, but cannot skip past
890 words which aren't formatted to their satifaction?
and I'm the bad guy for having pointed that out?

Let me be clear.
At the first instance, I requested people utilize the Private Message feature,
to provide feedback of a critical nature. They insisted on ignoring my wishes or requests,
in flagrant disregard for other people or their feelings - in short, they were quantifiably inconsiderate.
After having a Code of Conduct and Terms of Service leveraged against me,
I then proceeded in kind and by the book.

I never told them how they may speak, or where they could post what.
I didn't come to them, and admonish their conduct.
I didn't cyber stalk them across EVERY FREAKIN THREAD, and no-one held a gun to their eyes and forced them to read whatever I contributed.
They could have ignored me... they chose to be that way, and to go on a vendetta.

------
I feel strongly that a cliquish culture exists there,
it is that insidious hipster-gamer-poser subculture - sorta like morality or fashion police,
thought police etc.
and that these people misrepresented the way in which they conducted themselves.
Just to get rid of that "improperly formatted writing..."
how pathetic. that is the height of fascism,
and enjoy that while you can.
some people, they do 2 or 3 things, and they suddenly believe
they have powers to impose things on other people...

well guess what, you don't.
You do not have the right to tell me how I may speak, if I am not doing any harm,
and no-one else complains...
you do not have the right to be a grammar-aryan and fascist, and tell me in my recreational spaces,
how I must conduct myself. that is a blatant Is/Ought paradox...

in over 20 years of internet and real-world customer service relations,
I have NEVER had such poor service or conduct,
and never experienced such overt censorship in my life.

They don't know me. They don't 'care' about me, as a fellow user or even as a human being.
it was all a pretense to get rid of an inconvenience from 'their' place.
Even the elderly behave better than this when staking out their 'territory'.

-----
Onwards and upwards.
I am glad I have an answer, and will certainly inform my praxis in other areas
based on this dreadful learning experience.

Good riddance to bad company,
and hopefully other mod-places are more of that collaborative and fun environment which initially was the appeal of other forums and places.
There is a world of options out there, and I frankly don't need that
crud in my YOLO TLDR.

odd fringes near twilight in-game

I had some issues recently after uprating NMM to the present version,
though most were easily solved.

except this one.
notice a weird fringe on the edges of the power pole, the roof of the red rocket spa,
and the roof of the manager's penthouse?
it only appears for ~1hr in game near twilight.




Above: a screen cap of early red rocket spa (PC version).
foreground - managers house rebuilt into 'penthouse'
midground left - inner wall and over-ramp prior to no-clip internal elevator overhaul... 'any door anywhere' is an awesome mod! - make the above-ground internal portions ploppable, and only the 'balconies' external - you save a lot of space and get more frame rate.
background center - the above-ground portion of Red Rocket Spa and Resort...
middle, near red-rocket sign - nothing is in that shipping container that you cannot see the garage anymore because of...

I'm thinking this could be a few things;
as I've tried porting this save to other systems to test it in higher end and lower (if you can believe it)
than the system this one is from...
and it could be -
a sign the graphics card of this 2011 computer from which this screendump is on its way out, or worse... the processor cores could have an issue...
worse case scenario.

or, it could simply be associated foible with the
'cel shader mod' which enhances the cartoony features.

we'll figure it out soon enough!
once we figure this one out,
I can troubleshoot the General Atomics Galleria mod.

NB:
here's a few 'any mod any weapon' combos.
Any Mod, Any Weapon is by far one of the most awesome FO4 mods yet known.

 Above: the best pocket plasma chaingun in the game?
59 or 81 round magazine... 1 in 4 shots is free, and you've got a 1 in 16 chance per shot of 'goo-ify',
in addition to 1 in 8 magazines being refilled free...
without the scope or sights, this is 2.5lbs.

the game gets confused as to what color the puddle/ash oughta be - blue or green?

 Above: "Dirty Harold", it can be possible to mod it so it has 2 unique features + kellogg's sidearm + 4 mod slots... that makes this a portable fatman with no collateral damage...
survival mode and "any mod any fail" + weapons durability and 'unreliable ammo" mods,
still, this is one of the better weapons. easier to repair than piperifles, mostly.

 Above: "The Baker's Dozen" - none of that flimsy wooden crud...a full charge can take down a deathclaw. with the EC pack, it gives you a very high fire rate, but burns through ammo cells.
with the EC backpack... you burn through fusion cores slowly, and power cells quickly... you will definitely injure friendlies when this is on 'full auto' mode.

 Above: "you get my point" - this can add cumulative damage per consecutive hit on target, and stun or +50% limb damage. a very nice weapon, and the unfolding animation is pretty funny. it has an 8ft reach, 6ft more than the regular ripper.

 Above: an old friend. the Varmint Slayer rifle returns.
you can get versions that have 2 legendary slots + Reba II's stats.
I still prefer this version though as I lucked out and got a suppressed suppressor variant.
ultra quiet, perfect for survival mode...
though, on survival mode, this is a difficult implement to keep repaired...

bounty posters misc 2

Howdy,
here's a couple of rough bounty posters from local RPG.
Folks enjoyed playing these encounters, so hopefully you'll enjoy them as well.

They're decoupages adapted from the sketches under cca3 at dA.
the robobrain sketch is by user 'octo_three"
the protectron sketch is by user "twisted_little_mind"
I believe both are now defunct accounts.
the font is "FETTECKE FETT" - the idea being it's either from a damaged typewriter, or a post-war block-writer.

Feel free to use these as prompts for your own RPG scenario, or to add weathering etc. Printing them out and roughing them up by folding them, teabag etc really makes these look like they're printed as a palimpsest over old newspaper and old-ish - a local gamer did just that, and it looked EXCELLENT!

nb: I do not own fallout or related things, these are shared for fans for fan use etc.
Bethesda or H Ellison or somebody owns fallout itself.
Support official fallout-y things, and H Ellison.

 Above: Rusty is a scrap robot from the pre-war, who's had a torturous life.
the rust (robo-arthritis) and Rusty's morals mean that Rusty now
just wants to see whats at the bottom of Boston Bay. (in a nod to Bicentennial Man).
Maybe the Tea is still there...
Rusty travels slow, even for a protectron.
Rusty's maker though will front a lot of caps to have rusty returned.
You can;
-say that you couldn't find rusty, and return a piece of rusty to the quest giver.
-defeat rusty and hand over a piece of rusty for 200 caps,
or with C 10,
-you can convince Rusty to go home and collect 3000 caps.

(Rusty is valuable for a few reasons, which the player can use to leverage against the owner;
beneath all the parts, Rusty is an ex-pre war military protectron, or a 'vet'...
The current owner is not the original owner of Rusty...
Rusty knows a few access codes and loadouts of various places.
Rusty's arm functions as a PipBoy for various locations - hence, will protect the wielder from being attacked thanks to the friendly FoF transponder)
Rusty makes for an interesting companion also.)

Above:
Nancy is a pre-war robo-brain... a secretary from before the great war,
she had a gift for organizing and working under tight deadlines or difficult situations...
she may have been an attache at Anchorage.
 She was part of a program to retain talent in the event of disaster, for continuity of service.
 over time she has become no-longer solely in control of her body...
If Nancy is not in control of her body, then... who is?

The player arrives at a settlement to find this notice.
the residents hear noises in the night, often a woman shouting or apologizing...
the residents believed it to be a deathclaw, until sending out hunting parties,
 they'd seen it for themselves.
A large robo-brain unlike others previously seen.

The town asks the player character to slay this 'beast'.

The player can;
- destroy Nancy, and bring back the brain-dome for the reward. negative karma, though increased settlement affiliation (discount to the stores at that settlement)
- using electrical or ion attacks, immobilize Nancy and have a conversation -
she will tell her side of the story,
and the player will be able to trace the signal.
The signal comes from either -
a raider settlement using Nancy to soften up targets before raiding them,
or, an unattended child in a base.
or, the institute.

Nancy is then able to be 'repaired', so she once again has control over her own body.
Nancy is then available as a player companion.
returning to the settlement where the quest is issued will lead to dialog;
nancy will speak with a settler and apologize for 'what happened earlier, she wasn't herself'.
nancy will then give the settler a potplant with a wilted plant,
or an empty vase.
-----

Thanks again to Phil, Peter and Morgan.
RPGing is fun, and you made FO:RPGing even more fun!

Intermittent SWMinis statcards cont.

Sometimes,
stat-blocks come along that folks make,
and those stats need a card to match the awesome.

So, here's a couple from SWMgamers or from SWMbloomilk.

DUM(b) series droid, based on awesome stats by General Grievous of bloomilk.

 above: a crude adaptation, though it'll do. Paratus-mirror squads all shriek in terror, and are suddenly silenced by this piece.
DUM droid, or... doombringer?

 Repeating Blaster Turret Emplacement, by local gamers.

Annihilator Droid, B series.

General Rohm Mohc, Eccentric Genius
coming soon.

Anti-Materiel Flak Emplacement

Desert Hopper/Average Airspeeder

Wookie Ornithopter

Sluggakken Matriarch.

-----

Can I also take a moment,
to thank everyone who's been downloading and playtesting the statcards.
between here, bloomilk and imgur/tumblr, its nearly 80k - wow!
The local game group and I, it's phenomenal to see so many folks enjoying and improving muchly,
these cards we cobble together.
I'm impressed with the ideas the local brains trust comes up with,
and phil deserves a shoutout for the photoshopping.

Would a different format for basic card layout be something folks would want?
more shadows or embossing for the layers?
anistropic front plates/art panels for the rare or super-rare cards?

This game can be very cheap to get into -
under $10 USD covers nice quality tokens and all statcards,
and for $50USD, you can make very nice custom miniatures with bases,
and from there, its up to you to play as you like it.

There is a lot of life in SWMinis yet, and a lot of people are discovering the game,
so I hope this translates into even more custom stuff in the near future!

Low Res Bounty Hunter Gameplay 1

Howdy!
I've posted this elsewhere also, though to celebrate the re-release of Bounty Hunter,
we've got this alternate ending on Bogden: what if Montross had won instead of Jango?

Above: This alternate ending was humorous, as were other outtakes.

It kinda makes me wish that choices actually mattered in this game, and that there were sandbox elements... and before you start, Spiderman 2 and JK:JA were of the same era...

Sadly, only the PC version has a loyal modding community which has brought the graphics up to par with the state of the art in visuals... I will be sharing soon a montage vid which compares Boba in the new Battlefront, to Jango from Bounty Hunter...
People were complaining that the New Boba has lame powers compared to this game. I agree to an extent, though the new boba has 8 times the flight time.

If only Boba could use his flamethrower more like Jango can in this game - that'd be awesome!

A few friends have noted a 'continuity thingy" with Bounty Hunter...
prior to having been to Kamino, Jango utilises Kaminoan Sabre Darts as a weapon in Bounty Hunter... this would either make for a nice coincidence, or Kaminoan Sabre Darts are more common than Dex led Obi-Wan to believe...


Disclaimer: footage above from SW:Bounty Hunter, you can get on PS4 and PC(HD) now! Get it now, before the new Fett film makes it kitschy-expensive.
star wars elements were property of Lucas and Lucasarts, before the dark times, before the Disney...
this footage is used for the purposes of critique and review, as per Berne Convention and Copyright Act '68, so Infudgement Enforcers fear not! I bought this re-release, and the original, and the comics etc...

composite experiments 2

Hi all!
recently, a composite image craze is taking the model making world by storm.
So, I tinkered a little and came up with these for the tetrahedron.

 Above: Tetrahedron (tactical form) explores a nebula near the Nekrit Expanse.
Nebula background is a remix modified from "Spectral Scent" by aRchAng3lZz of devart, under CCA 3. Visit aRchAng3lZz and support them so as they can keep making space stuff!

Above: again with the 'special' effects - this time, an attempt at spherical lens distortion, motion blur and the 'transwarp tunnel' effect. Is the tetrahedron emerging from a transwarp conduit, or transwarping away to report a threat to the collective?

Again, special thanks to Mark 'Jim Kirk' and DefiantClient for their how-to guides,
and extra special thanks to aRchAng3lZz, who makes outstanding spaceart and needs more support to make even more space concepts.

intermittent statcards 12

Howdy!
a few new-ish statcards are headed your way, care of the local game group and their awesome ideas.
If you've got some ideas, be sure to send them this way in the form of comment or a private message

without further ado; Duros Slicer v2.7

Above: The Duros are some of the few species capable of holding interstellar co-ordinates in their minds, in thanks to their Eidetic memory and 'knack' for maths and astrophysics.
most other species require specialised astrogation buffers or astromech droids to hold hyperspace co-ordinates, or the Force, to navigate vast interstellar distances.

Restraining Bolt was found during playtesting with save 11 to be too annoying, so this was lowered to save 8 and found to be just annoying enough hehe (usually, it was a Gonk droid that was hit with the restraining bolt to prevent extra attacks etc.

intermittent statcards pt 11

Howdy,
here's a few more custom statcards!
Thanks for the renewed interest also - I'm pleased to say that on bloomilk it has exceeded 30 000 page view, elsewhere it is ~48 000 and downloads per statcard stays high around ~100/month
which is pure awesome! Thanks for enjoying some statcards.
If only you'd leave feedback or requests, or even better, links to your own statcards and custom minis! Especially for any concrit feedback you may have... because you've got some great ideas out there.

 Above: A Gundark Alpha Pack Leader, v2.0

Locals were complaining that there weren't many critters, and that the damage output of existing critters hasn't kept pace with the state of the power creep in the main 'competitive' game... voila! this thing turns the 22 point CotF Gundark into a 180Dmg melee beast!

Above: a rare Octuptarran.
Ocula was an awesome thing from "Small Soldiers" - looking like a cool-er variant of Larvox (that is, until the GL movie version of Larvox) - and, since the Octuptarra droid looked a lot like Ocula,
it only made sense to make an 'Octuptarran" resemble the droid.
The back story is fluff, but paints the Skakoans (Wat Tambor etc) as being techno-slavers, who tinkered to make the "Octuptarrans", as distinct from the Argus-Panopticles style monsters or the Medusa styled monsters which in the 'canonical' universe, lead to the name of the Octuptarra Droid.
The Skakoans also meddled with the Nelvaan warriors, and perhaps the sudden Skakoan fascination with GMO stemmed from Darth Plagueis? (who had manipulated the IGBC for a long time, prior to Palps becoming involved...)

Above: A request for a while now... a Desaan to rival the Katarn-BattleMaster.
Fringe and not sith, because Desaan was not really Imperial nor Sith... he was a warlord all his own.
Tavion will be Sith Faction though.

EDIT:
prototype card layout for Sith (NJO era)