Friday, December 30, 2005
Archives
I really should fix the archives soon...Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:29 AM (0 comments)
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Hoax Museum
Hoax Museum - An often updated blog of oddball things (mostly hoaxes).
Wonder if I can get this as an RSS feed.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 10:32 AM (0 comments)
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Kevin and Kell site
While www.kevinandkell.com is down at the moment, the strips are actually up at a backup site.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 1:03 AM (0 comments)
Sunday, December 11, 2005
SageTV - bumping up the vid rate again
I'm still getting smaller then expected DVDs from my SageTV recordings. The raw MPEG2 file from the PVR is the correct size for a 3.5 hour recording, but after trimming commercials and cutting the shows, the DVDs are only ending up at 2.9-3.2GB for around 95min of footage. Which is around 30% less then I'd like (I'd like it to end up around 4.0GB, leaving me room for a few PAR2 blocks).
Right now, I have things set at 6800Kbps, so I think I'm going to bump up to 7500Kbps (VBR, with a max of 8Mbps, 384Kbps audio).
Previous:
SageTV Example (Jul 2005)
SageTV - Results at 6Mbps (Jul 2005)
SageTV - Video capture (Jul 2005)
Update: Bumping up to 7500Kbps VBR on the video capture settings is working well. I've had a few disks top out at 3.6GB and a few others bumped up against 4.1GB. Which is just about perfect. Now the only noise in my capture is from OTA interference.
I'm considering trying out an OTA HDTV tuner with S-Video output and piping that into my SageTV. That would give me clean signal, already sized down to DVD-compatible size. The downside would be making sure that the conversion box is turned on all the time.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 1:20 PM (0 comments)
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Xenu
(More snow last night, another light dusting. Odd part is that earlier in the week it was 70F.)
I've always found weird religions to be morbidly fascinating (as in, how do they get their followers to believe such claptrap?). So here's a website called xenu.net dedicated to talking about one of the weirder ones on the planet.
(There's also a downloadable Southpark episode.)Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 11:52 AM (0 comments)
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Spam counts
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7049 - 227/day
2005-02 6208 - 222/day
2005-03 6202 - 200/day
2005-04 5689 - 189/day
2005-05 6490 - 209/day
2005-06 6190 - 206/day
2005-07 6175 - 199/day
2005-08 5606 - 181/day
2005-09 5539 - 185/day
2005-10 6467 - 209/day
2005-11 4138 - 138/day
posted by Wuphon's at 9:17 AM (0 comments)
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
epguides - discontinued shows
Found epguides.com - Discontinued Shows.
The happy news?
Scrubs (NBC) returns in 2006
Whee! But I'm still dissapointed that Committed didn't get renewed.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 10:57 AM (0 comments)
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Snow
First snow of the year tonight. Looks like we got about half an inch (enough to cover the ground). It's already melting off of the sidewalks.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 2:02 AM (0 comments)
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Civ4: Stealth bombers for the defense
Almost lost a city (or three) to a surprise attack by two different enemy civs this past week. I had a pretty good defensive position, the southern half of a triangular peninsula. But my southern cites were only lightly defended. Most cities had a fighter plane, one modern unit and a handful of older outdated units that were due for upgrades. In addition, I had a handful of stealth bombers sprinkled around various cities.
When I went to war on my northern border, I was not really expecting the enemy to counter-attack by sea. In hindsight, I should've expected it as I could not locate as many units as I thought would be defending territory. So they sailed up to my shores and unloaded a large stack of invaders (roughly 6-9 units in the stack).
There was no way that the defenders in my city would be able to dislodge such a beast of a stack. Some of my defenders were still pre-gunpowder (although they got upgraded on the next turn to modern era units with my spare gold).
Instead, I quickly rebased a few bombers to cities surrounding the invasion beachhead. I also started moving modern units (thank goodness I had railroads already laid) in to the surrounding tiles and the city tile to reinforce the city and contain the invasion.
While those reinforcements were getting into place and digging in, my stealth bombers flew multiple attack runs against the enemy stack (losing an aircraft about 1/8th of the time, getting it damaged about 1/3 of the time, and getting away scott-free the rest of the time). By the time my counter-attack was ready, the enemy stack was down to half health for all units and my forces were able to mop them up handily.Labels: 2005, CivilizationIV
posted by Wuphon's at 2:38 PM (0 comments)
Friday, November 11, 2005
Civ4: More strategy thoughts
Played a few more games in CivIV. Terrain defensive bonuses are very powerful and should definitely play a prominent role in strategy for defensive play. I've talked briefly about the basics before, but I can now expound on that a bit more with additional play under my belt.
Assuming that the attacker/defender have no specific unit type bonuses against the opponent... (some units gain +25% against archery units for example). Also ignoring the terrain defense bonuses that some units get (+25% if they're on a hill, or +25% if they're in a city). Here's how it stacks up for defender bonuses. These bonuses only apply if you are the defender in a particular attack.
The basic components are (and these all add together):
1) Whether the defending unit has entrenched themselves into their current square. Most units get this ability (but not all). Every turn, you gain an additional 5% towards your defender strength, with a maximum of 25%.
2) Whether the attacker is crossing a river. The defender gets +25% in that case.
3) The terrain bonus. Flat tiles get no bonus. Coastal tiles provide a +10% bonus and hills give +25%.
4) The "cover" bonus. Any tiles that are covered in jungle or forest add a 50% bonus.
5) Manmade fortifications. These are obsolete against gunpowder units but are useful before then. A fort (built by a worker on an unworked tile) gives +25%. Cities can also have walls built around them which grant 25% as well. There are also other city-specific defense bonuses that come into play and vary a lot (archers get +25% or +50% for sitting on a city tile, a high-culture city gives a bonus).
Obviously, some of the above are mutually exclusive. You can't get the forest bonus if you've built any improvement on the tile (such as a farm, cottage, fort or city). You can't build a fort on a city tile or a mine.
So what does this mean on a practical level? To calculate the combat strength of the unit in a particular situation:
1) Add up all of the defender bonuses from terrain, etc. Add in any bonuses for defending against the attacker's unit type (such as spearmen who get +100% against mounted units). Subtract any negatives that the attacker gets for a particular situation (some attackers get +25% against archers for instance, or +10% for attacking a city tile). The end result is your modifier value (which can be negative).
2) Multiple the result of step 1 against the defender's current strength. This value is typically called "D".
3) Compare against the current strength of the attacker (this value is typically called "A").
Obviously, if you are the attacker, you want a ratio of A/D that is greater then 1.0. Ideally, you want a ratio that is more like 2.0:1 or even 3.0:1. That requires making tactical decisions about which unit to attack with first, because if there are multiple defenders on the target tile the computer will pick the best one to counter with.
Examples (disregarding "vs unit type" bonuses):
A) Attacking units on a neighboring flat tile. No defender bonus for terrain, cover, or situation. So the only modifiers will be any "vs unit type" bonuses. This is the ideal situation for an attacker, because the defender is basically out in the open with nowhere to hide (and no bonuses to bolster their strength).
B) Across a river. Defender gets +25%. Bad move, cross the river, then attack the target from the same side of the river on the next round.
C) Defender on a hill gets +25%. Try to lure the defender off of their tile down onto flat tiles.
D) Defender in a covered tile (forest/jungle) gets +50%. Try to lure the defender off of the covered tile and out into the open.
E) Defender in a fort gets +25%.
F) Defender in a city gets a varying bonus (this is displayed above the city name in the main view, IIRC). Bombardment by seige weapons (catapult, cannon, artillery, tank) should be used first to lower the defense bonus prior to attacking.
G) Defender that has dug in gets +5% to +25%. Make him attack and thereby lose his entrench bonus.
Combinations of the above situations (or why you should never attack a defender on their chosen ground):
A) Forested Hill = +75%
B) Forested Hill, Across a River, Entrenched Defender = +100% (this can go even higher if the defender has hilltop defense bonuses).
C) Forest Hill, Fortified = +50%.
D) Forest Hill, Foritified and Entrenched = +75%.
E) Entrenched defender on a flat tile inside a fort = +50%.
F) City, Across a River, Entrenched Defender = +75% (or even much higher)
Thoughts on how this will play out in CivIV:
A) Barbarians - Barbarian AI is somewhat simplistic. They will make a beeline for the nearest target for the most part. So entrenching archers on a forested hill on the outskirts of your empire will draw many attackers. (A bit like using a bug zapper to keep the insect population down.) Sometimes they will bypass your pickets and go on a pillaging run, so you will need to have backup plans for when they play smarter.
B) AI Opponents - A bit craftier and more likely to calculate odds of winning rather then suicide on your defenses. In this case, static hard points are merely staging areas for raids on the enemies avenue of attack. Your goal is to herd the enemy to a place of your choosing where you can slaughter them without them having any defensive bonus from terrain.
C) Human Opponents - All bets are off. They may choose to wear you down, or use feints to draw your forces off to one side, etc.. The goal is to out-maneuver your opponent so that you can bring more forces to a particular battle them they can.
Obviously, the ideal situation is a series of pickets in a desert or grassland environment where there are conveniently spaced forested hills with only 2 flat tiles between hills. If you position pickets on every hill, the enemy cannot slip past your pickets without taking 1-3 turns worth of attacks.
The terrain generator in CivIV, however, is never that accomodating. So instead you have to make do with what it gives you and formulate a new plan for just about every situation. What will you do if an attacker attempts to bypass point X and drive directly against target Y? Will you be able to wither his flanks, or can he stay on forest/jungle/hill tiles to lower your chances of success?Labels: 2005, CivilizationIV
posted by Wuphon's at 11:05 AM (0 comments)
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Civ4: Prelude to war
I've got what I think is going to boil down to a war on my eastern front. China is attempting to press my territorial boundaries and has been building new settlements along my eastern front. Naturally, I've also been attempting to build new settlements there as well as moving troops. Quite a few of my hills overlooking the front now have forts on them. The downside is that China is ranked #1 in the scores, and I'm really not looking forward to going up against them in a war. Worse, China is already "cautious" towards me, so we're only 1 or 2 steps away from hostilities.
The first map shows the overall strategic situation. You can see that I have a very wide front with the Mongolians (dark yellow) to the southwest, a narrow front with the Incas (medium yellow) up north, and a potentially wide front with China (purple). An adequate description of this situation is "between a rock and a hard place". There's a very good chance that I could find myself fighting a multi-front war with multiple AI civilizations.
The next map shows resource distribution. You can see that there is copper, iron, marble down in the SE of my empire, which is why I'm pressing so hard to setup shop down there. While I have copper and iron in other parts of my empire, it's always good to have extra sources and to deny their use to my enemies. My only "safe" copper mine is up in the NE near the Incas (near Nezumi) and my only "safe" iron mine (near Old Kyoto) is pretty much right on the border with the Mongolians.
Securing those 2 iron mines and the copper mine down in the SE is what will keep me from going under over the long term. There's another copper mine up in the NE part of the eastern front (near Izumo) that is also pretty strategic.
The next 2 images are high altitude screenshots of my eastern front. I've removed all labels from the map so that it's easier to see terrain, cities and fortification points. This is a pair of screenshot stitched together to make it easier to see the entire area in question.
Here's a marked up map. Green blocks are my cities. Red blocks are (future) enemy cities. Yellow six-pointed stars are where I have fortifications. Yellow stars that are not filled in are planned future locations for fortifications. It's a very heavy defensive concentration. The purple star is where I will place a fort once I take their westernmost city in a smash attack.
The rules for combat in Civ4 are somewhat simple. The terrain that the defender is standing on may give bonuses to the defender. Whoever initiates the attack is always considered the attacker and gets no terrain bonus (yes/no/maybe?) during the assault. So for the following situations where the attacker is attacking a defender:
(Location / Bonus)
Hill = +25%
Hidden in Jungle/Forest = +50%
Inside a fort = +25%
Across a river = +25%
So for a defender, the best place to hide is either in a jungle/forest, or on top of a fortified hill. Some units get additional abilities that grant them even more defensive power when stationed in a city or on a hilltop or in forest/jungle. These force multipliers allow 3STR archers to take on 5STR axemen and win. Plus, there's a bonus for digging in ahead of time (+5% per turn, up to +25% max). Cities can also build walls and other fortifications that add defense bonuses.
So, almost all of my forts are located on hills. A lot of my cities end up on hills as well. Mountain tiles cannot be crossed by units and serve as a natural defense. Putting your units on the safe side of a river provides natural defense.
Notice that the AI does not have any forts. I'm not sure if this is a bug in the AI, or if the AI simply won't use them.
As I hinted earlier, if the China AI decides to start a fight, I have a few preliminary plans.
A) Stop their assault in the NE. I expect that Izumo in the NE is a likely target. It's in an extended position and there are sizeable cities within a short march. The (2) forts and the city are manned with at least one of each type of fighting unit that I can muster (knight STR10, crossbowman STR6, longbowman STR6, pikeman STR6). I'll make sure that all squares surrounding Izumo are covered in roads to allow my troops quick movement on/off an attacker's tile. Since Izumo is built on a hill, the defensive troops all have the +25% hill bonus.
Plus, if I can extend my cultural borders 1 square to the south, there's another hill where I can place a fortification and add a first line of defense.
B) Stop an attack based out of Baoding (their western city). If I'm weak, it's here in the middle. Yokohama is a straight shot across some plains and my defensive units would have to leave their hilltops to get within strike range of the incoming army. Knights are going to be a key part of any defense down in that area (as is covering the terrain in a road network).
C) Stop a southern attack (unlikely). If they come via the southern river valley, they're in for a long march.
D) Retaliation plan #1. Raze any improvements in the area between Shadong and Kaifeng up north. Hit and run raids, avoiding battle whenever possible. Probably with knights and pikeman. There are half a dozen tiles that the AI has improved and is working within strike range of my Izumo units.
E) Retaliation #2. Take Baoding. This requires staging of catapults at the forts to the NW and S of Baoding. Their town is still lightly guarded, but it will take some serious firepower to overcome a grenadier STR12 unit that has both city defense promotions.
The usual plan is to outfit the catapults with barrage ability and then suicide them against the stack of defenders in the city. The barrage ability results in damage to other units in the stack, not just the one that attempts to defend against your attack. Each suicide attack lowers the STR of the defenders until eventually I can send in my infantry to take the city streets.
Additional units will need to take up positions on the hill east of Baoding to repel reinforcements. This is a nicely forested hill that provides a hefty +50% bonus to defense and all of the surrounding tiles are denuded of forest (or were desert to begin with).Labels: 2005, CivilizationIV
posted by Wuphon's at 3:43 PM (0 comments)
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Spam
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7049 - 227/day
2005-02 6208 - 222/day
2005-03 6202 - 200/day
2005-04 5689 - 189/day
2005-05 6490 - 209/day
2005-06 6190 - 206/day
2005-07 6175 - 199/day
2005-08 5606 - 181/day
2005-09 5539 - 185/day
2005-10 6467 - 209/day
posted by Wuphon's at 12:04 PM (0 comments)
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Civilization IV
Oops, I made the mistake of picking this up recently. There goes all of my free time. It's a turn-based strategy game (akin to MOO/MOO2) where you need to beat all of the other civilizations to one of 6 victory conditions. There's a nice tutorial which walks you through the first hour or so of play on an easy setting.
The tutorial game wasn't bad, but it lulls you with a false sense of security. After beating it handily in about 2-3 hours, I felt I was ready for a bigger challenge. The first issue was the wave after wave of barbarians that suddenly started showing up at my doorstep. Since that didn't happen in the tutorial, I wasn't aware of just how aggressive I'd need to be at keeping my land guarded.
My latest game is on the 3rd difficulty level and I've switched to only playing custom games (Single Player -> Custom Game). It's a "Terran" map that is "Huge" with 3 other AI civilizations (the rest of the slots are flipped to "closed"). The only victory condition that I have turned on is "Conquest", which means I have to eliminate all of my enemies in order to win. This results in very long games with no arbitrary end at 2050AD. Similar to playing MOO2 to the bitter end (rather then jumping to Orion and taking the Orion homeworld).
This game is also the first time that I've started using the "city screen" rather then just letting it run on auto-pilot. I've made a bunch of mistakes, so I'm down in 3rd place on the score window (China: 1220, Mongolia: 1143, Japan(me): 1077, Inca: 1003). However, if I look at the Info Screen (F9), the demographics tab shows that:
- First place for Production (131 vs 99 avg), Food (214 vs 186 avg), Soldiers (553k vs 364k avg), Land Area (302k sq km vs 221k sq km avg), Import/Export (92/74 vs 69/69).
- Second place for health (Life Expectancy), but it's essentially a tie at 61 v 61. Approval rating is also basically a tie at 63% vs 62%.
- I'm lagging in GNP (93 vs 103 avg) and population (4200k vs 5236k).
Not bad for my first time really digging into the city screen and trying to tweak by hand.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 10:28 AM (0 comments)
Sunday, October 23, 2005
The Pet Professional
For those of us who got a sick chuckle out of Chopping Block, here's something along similar lines. The Pet Professional is a hired hitman who specializes in going after people's pets. Needless to say, we explore all sorts of unique methods to accomplish the dirty deed.
Highlights from the early strips include the audio CD with the sound of a can opener (for cleaning up the stray cat problem), and the liberal use of red jello.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:14 PM (0 comments)
Sunday, October 16, 2005
State College Office Meeting
These are some shots from a place that we stayed at up in State College. Normally, the 3 of us work from our homes full-time so it's very rare that we see each other face to face. That's why we try to get together somewhere at least once a year to touch base.
Solomon sitting at our feet.
Solomon napping.
Chad working hard.
Scott takes yet another phone call from work.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 10:20 AM (0 comments)
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
So what's on NBC this fall?
Not much... thank goodness I have SageTV installed and can compress 2 weeks of viewing into a single night. OTOH, most of the old favorites from last season made it into this season.
West Wing: I got into this a season or two ago. The storyline about the presidential election has staying power which has carried it through some not-so-stellar episodes. It's been fun to watch the Santos campaign go from not-a-chance underdog to getting close to actually winning (I'm still about 3 episodes behind on watching). Definitely a show that I plan on picking up on DVD at some point ($200 for the first 4 seasons with the 5th season coming out in Dec 2005).
Law & Order: Always worth a watch, even though I don't always care for the courtroom half. Detective Fontana is interesting without being a clone of Lenny (Jerry Orbach).
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: I happen to like the way the 2 detectives play off of each other (names elude me at the moment). She's a good match for his borderline insanity. She's also strong enough to reign him in when he teeters over the edge. Even when I know the outcome, there are quite a few episodes that are fun to watch again for the performances of the main characters or the guests.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Most of these are good. Munch generally always gets good lines. Olivia also gives good performances. Elliot is starting to wear and there were too many shows last season where they tried to drama-up the chance of him getting downchecked by the phsychologist after an incident.
Crossing Jordan: Except for the "magic tech" that they rely on a bit too much to solve cases, still mostly worth watching. The "vampire" episode from a season or two ago was memorable.
Las Vegas: Still a guilty pleasure.
Medium: Better then I thought it would be. Sometimes reminds me of Koon's Odd Thomas. They're starting to play a little too heavy on the "family strife because Mom's always busy" theme. They've also avoided turning her into an action hero. The main hook in each show is figuring how she'll figure something out and whether she'll still be sane at the end of the day.
ER: I'll watch it, but I'm not really that into it. It's generally just something to fill the time.
Shows that seem to have missed the cut from last season. Or haven't shown yet as of today in this season. (And we're about 2 weeks into the fall season.)
Committed: This was a pretty wacky, yet funny 1/2 hour sit-com that had mostly good episodes (there were 13).
Scrubs: Another of the few sit-coms that I could actually enjoy. It was generally smart and funny without being sophmoric.
Third Watch: The spring season was the last season. The final episode felt rushed and cramped (too many plot holes in too short an amount of time).
Medical Investigation: Haven't seen this on the fall schedule yet. Was generally worth watching.
New stuff that I'm evaluating:
Surface: I've got the first 3 episodes on disk that I can watch this week. I'm not sure that it will have staying power from what I've read in the reviews.
e-ring: Same deal as Surface. I've got the episodes taped, but haven't sat down to watch them yet. The reviews on this are also "iffy" so it probably won't make my "must watch" list.
Bottom line... out of the 21 hours of TV that I tape every week, it looks like 10 or 12 hours will have stuff worth watching. That's down from about 15/21 during the spring TV season.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 5:17 PM (0 comments)
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Samsung LN-R238W PC Connection
I finally got my male-to-male 15pin VGA cables in from Cyberguys. These are useful little cables that are either 6' or 10' long and also include a stereo 3.5mm mini-jack as part of the cable. That works perfectly since the Samsung LN-R238W uses a 3.5mm mini-jack for the audio-in from the PC and I can plug directly into the "line out" mini-jack on the back of the PC.
I also had to use an analog DVI-VGA converter to convert the DVI output on the Ti4600 into a VGA cable. Since I had one laying around from an old ATI All-In-Wonder card, I didn't have to purchase one.
The only trick to getting the GeForce Ti4600 to work with the Samsung was that I had to have the Samsung display powered up and connected during the initial bootup of the PC. After that, it let me configure the monitors in "dual-view" mode and I set it to use the 1360x768 @ 60Hz setting. No mucking required.
The screen is a lot sharper when using the VGA input then when I tried to use the HDMI input. The scaler stays out of the way since I'm running at 1360x768 resolution.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:25 AM (0 comments)
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Spam
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7049 - 227/day
2005-02 6208 - 222/day
2005-03 6202 - 200/day
2005-04 5689 - 189/day
2005-05 6490 - 209/day
2005-06 6190 - 206/day
2005-07 6175 - 199/day
2005-08 5606 - 181/day
2005-09 5539 - 185/day
posted by Wuphon's at 12:03 PM (0 comments)
Monday, September 26, 2005
Samsung LN-R238W Setup
So, the Samsung finally came in. It's a nice unit. The 23" size is just a bit large for my small home office, but the price was nice. It would also make a nice unit for a bedroom or small living room. The fun part is that it shows the deficiencies of DVDs that haven't been encoded well (or I need a better DVD player).
Hooking it up to the DVD player using the component video cables is easy. Getting it hooked up to the PC, not so much.
Basically, there are the following sets of inputs on the Samsung LN-R238W. All of these are on the back of the unit. One downside of the LN-R238W is that all connectors are on the back, which makes it difficult to hook/unhook devices easily. (Even the headphone jack is on the back of the unit.)
Component 1: (3) RCA cables for red/green/blue components and (2) RCA cables for audio. I've hooked this set up to my DVD player.
Component 2: (3) RCA cables for red/green/blue components and (2) RCA cables for audio.
HDMI/DVI: (2) RCA connectors for the audio, plus an HDMI connection. You can also use a DVI to HDMI cable to connect a DVI device to the HDMI input. According to the manual, "HDMI/DVI IN terminal does not support PC".
PC input: (1) 1/8" stereo connector for the audio, plus a VGA 15-pin female connector.
A/V 1: (2) RCA connectors for the audio and either an RCA composite connector for the video or an S-Video connector.
A/V 2: (2) RCA connectors for the audio and an RCA composite connector for the video.
Plan A: Hook my PC to the HDMI input
My first impulse was to hook the 2nd output (a DVI output) on my GeForce Ti4600 to the HDMI input. That lets me use both my 19" CRT (1600x1200) and use the LCD TV as a secondary display.
I had moderate luck connecting the DVI output on my PC to the HDMI input on the Samsung. But, I've only been able to run it at 1280x720 (720p) and it's getting scaled by the Samsung circuitry up to something larger. In addition, the image is overscanned so that the edges of the windows desktop are off the edge of the screen.
The NVIDIA settings do allow you to treat the display as an HDTV. You can then change the overscan settings and fit the display onto the screen properly. You'll end up with an odd-sized screen that will then get scaled up to display on the LCD TV. It works well for video, but not so well for text/PC work.
The second issue is that some programs (InterVideo WinDVD 4) will not display video onto a secondary display. But Zoom Player (www.inmatrix.com) does manage to do it properly, so I'll probably use that to display video.
I've played with timings and settings quite a bit, but the HDMI input only wants to accept HDTV resolutions (as in 720p or 1080i). And even then, you're still dealing with the image being scaled.
Plan B: Hook my PC to the PC input
I still have to order this cable, but now I'm going to try hooking from my video card's secondary output, through a DVI(analong) to VGA converter and into the 15-pin VGA port on the back of the Samsung. You cannot use a normal KVM cable (15-pin male to 15-pin female) to do this, both ends of the VGA cable must be male.
At that point, I'll have to mess around with video timings and try to get the 1360x768 resolution working.
posted by Wuphon's at 7:56 PM (0 comments)
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Slashdot Mod Points
/shock
After 2 or 3 years I finally got Moderator points on Slashdot.
Of course, the site has gone so far downhill in the past 2-3 years that it's barely worth reading. At least 1/4 of the articles in a given week on the home page are either duplicates or ads disguised as stories. Instead of reading 3-5 articles per day (along with roughly 100 comments per article), I now only check every 2-3 days and sometimes only find a single article per day that's worth reading.
Ah well, maybe I'll find something to rate.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 10:06 PM (0 comments)
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Christmas 2000
Sorta better late then never I guess. Oliver is a stray that we had scooped up off the streets (he was coming around the backyard and begging for scraps as a kitten). We adopted him, got him his shots and turned him into a very happy house cat after a short 2 weeks. Magic was the oldest of the bunch and rather difficult to photograph. Pica is still a very young cat at the time (half-siamese which is why he's so thin and pointy).Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:30 AM (0 comments)
Friday, September 09, 2005
New LCD TVs
Well, the price on an high-def LCD TV finally fell far enough for me to pull the trigger (below $1000). Plus, I've been doing a lot of consulting work on the side, so my income is up quite a bit this year. I've been waiting about 2 years now for the prices to finally fall enough on these so that I wouldn't have to take out a loan to buy one (ugh).
The one I finally settled on is a Samsung LN-R238W, 23" LCD 16:9 1366x768. I had originally planned on sticking with a 17" or a 19" for my home office, but the price on the new Samsung LCDs is quite reasonable for the 23". Reasonable enough, that I'm not terribly worried if it doesn't exactly meet my expectations.
IOW, if I spent 2-3k on a TV, I'd be rather frantic if something happened to it. But below $1k, while I'd be unhappy if something happened, I wouldn't be as despondent because it's below my pain point. (I routinely spend that much per year just upgrading my bevy of PCs around the house.)
Tweeter (the store) didn't the exact model in stock that I wanted, but they were able to order it for me at a price that was about what I'd pay if I ordered online. So, I get a good price and I have someone local that I can go harrangue if there's a problem with the unit. (Unlikely, the Samsung's have a good street rep.) Now I get to wait 1-2 weeks for it to arrive.
In the meantime I'll have to figure out what cables I need and whether I want to hook a PC up to it directly (probably).
Other misc notes:
- 12ms response time on the display according to the information that I've found.
- Microsoft and Samsung are pairing up on the next XBox release using this model.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 10:28 AM (0 comments)
Friday, September 02, 2005
Spam
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7049 - 227/day
2005-02 6208 - 222/day
2005-03 6202 - 200/day
2005-04 5689 - 189/day
2005-05 6490 - 209/day
2005-06 6190 - 206/day
2005-07 6175 - 199/day
2005-08 5606 - 181/day
posted by Wuphon's at 12:02 PM (0 comments)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Utena meta-thoughts
I've watched the first 28 episodes of this series so far. A few thoughts. No real spoilers here, or it would be a lot more thoughts.
The first 7 eps are great as we are introduced to Utena's world, meet Anthy and the school council / duelists. The shadow girls are surreal and helpful in realizing that not everything is always what it seems to be. Towards the end of the first season (eps 8-13) things start to get a little more serious.
The 2nd season is a bit rocky. The goals of the "black rose" folks means that Utena cannot lose (or the show would be over), which makes most of the duels rather boring. The first season duels ("self", in particular) were more interesting from that aspect. Utena *could* lose and we got to see her deal with that loss. Still, the last episodes in the 2nd season are well worth watching because the explain some of the background.
OTOH, the 2nd season starts to really hint at some of the messed up interactions between the key characters. You'll also find out who is behind the "end of the world" missives.
The first few episodes in the 3rd season are interesting. The art takes a different tone (Utena's eyes become bright blue, and you'll see Anthy let her hair down).
Overall the art in Utena is great, but there are a few sections (like ascending the spiral stair) that don't "mesh" with the rest of the artwork. Similar to the problem in Dual! when you see the giant mecha being launched (they use a full CGI sequence for that). It (the stair sequence) probably looked alright for the time period when the anime was being produced, but today it looks stilted.
Character designs, colors, and the dynamics of the images are very good. There are some wonderful sunset / sunrise shots that are very vivid, or things like the "shadow play" girls which are very unique.
posted by Wuphon's at 3:16 PM (0 comments)
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Half-Life
So I finally installed Half-Life this weekend (it came out circa 1998). I bought the "platinum collection" a few months ago which includes:
- Half-Life
- Opposing Force (the first expansion)
- Team Fortress Classic (multi-player only)
- Counter-Strike (multi-player only)
- Blue Shift (2nd expansion)
Blue Shift also included a "high def" update for the original Half-Life and Opposing Fortress games. More detail in the models or something, not really enough to make much of a difference.
My biggest complaint about it? The way that Gordon Freeman moves when he's in the HEV suit. It feels like I'm standing on roller skates rather then a pair of boots. Move in one direction and there's a 1/10th of a second before you stop moving in that direction. That makes a lot of the "jumping" puzzles sprinkled throughout the game really annoying. Because you'll land on something after a jump and find yourself sliding right over the edge. Not to mention that everything feels lagged due to the movement style. This seems to be an issue with the original Quake 1 / Quake 2 codebase (according to hints at shugashack). There are quite a few jumping puzzles where I said "heck with it" and used the dev console "/noclip" command to fly past that part.
The artwork is, of course, dated. Very few of the signs are legible (pixelated to death usually), which is a pity because you lose the chance at some more in-jokes. Case-in-point: Prior to entering the test chamber on your first day of work, there is a circular hallway that you walk around. One side has a pair of the rotating triangular panel signs that change messages every few seconds. The other side has 2 more. They're done up in the early 90s gung-ho corporate morale style but only half of the signs are legible.
The wall textures and the background textures are very pixelated. And there are very few places where models look curved enough. The curve issue is also due to the era in which it was made (low polygon counts).
Sound is okay, but I found a lot of the sounds to be harsh, which is probably a side-effect of the era in which Half-Life was made. The CD music plays at appropriate times, subtly raising tension levels now and then. There are a few audio clips that are barely clear and you really have to listen close to hear what the speaker is saying.
Interacting with the scientists and guards is interesting. They're especially useful in later sections as they are the only way to get through locked doors. Retinal scan controlled doors typically require scientists, while keypad locked doors typically require guards. All you have to do is to keep their scrawny necks alive long enough for them to do it. When you walk up to a scientist/guard, you press the USE key and they'll either talk to you or tell you that they're going to follow you. Then you lead them down the primrose path (waiting for their pathfinding algorithm to keep up, although sometimes they'll run if you run) to the locked door. My general tactic is to leave scientists/guards in a safe place when I find them (but quicksave) while I move forward and clear a path to the locked door.
The last complaint that I have about it is combat related. There don't seem to be any way to get headshots on the soldiers. That means I have to spend a dozen or two rounds of machinegun ammo on each one of them (or dig out the .357 and plug them twice). It doesn't feel like the weapons have enough stopping power. I'll have to experiment with that a bit more.
All in all, it's a "B" experience in today's world. Marginally less fun then DukeNukem 3D because Gordon never says *anything*. At least the "Duke" would cheer you up with a well placed witty comment.
Counter-strike console commands (most of these apply to the original Half-Life game.
Witchboy review of Half-Life - Definitely one of the more intelligent reviews that I've read about Half-Life. It's especially interesting where he points out similarities in game-play between Half-Life and some old classics (like Space Invaders).Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 2:19 PM (0 comments)
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
SimCity 4 Traffic Notes
Dug out my old copy of SimCity4 recently. I may even update my Negishi region at some point (or place the files online for download again). I had to pull them in the past due to bandwidth issues, but I now have a lot more bandwidth then I used to.
One of the big questions for me is figuring out transit speeds. Since I have the NAM mod installed, the pathfinding system is much better at locating the "fastest" path rather then just the "shortest" path.
List of transit times in SimCity 4
"Rail" Transit
200kph - Monorail
150kph - Subway / Elevated Rail
110kph - Passenger train
Note: I've seen other place say that freight trains are 110kph and that passenger trains are 150kph.
Bus Transit
100kph - Highway
60kph - Avenue
46kph - Road / One-Way
31kph - Street
Note: Bus transit speed is faster then cars so that the pathfinding algorithm prefers them over cars.
Cars (and probably freight trucks)
82kph - Highway
40kph - Avenue
31kph - Road / One-Way
21kph - Street
Pedestrian Traffic
3.5kph - Avenue
3.5kph - Road / One-Way
3.5kph - StreetLabels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 11:27 PM (0 comments)
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Home office setup from Apr 2000
Old pictures of my home office setup way back in April 2000. Back then I only had 3 servers and a laptop. Not even a game machine in the mix.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:18 AM (0 comments)
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Spam spam spam
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7049 - 227/day
2005-02 6208 - 222/day
2005-03 6202 - 200/day
2005-04 5689 - 189/day
2005-05 6490 - 209/day
2005-06 6190 - 206/day
2005-07 6175 - 199/day
posted by Wuphon's at 11:55 AM (0 comments)
Friday, July 29, 2005
SageTV Example
Here's a specific example of what I was talking about last time. I have 3 1-hour episodes to pack on a single DVD. The first one was recorded at 4Mbps MPEG2 w/ 384Kbps AC3. The second two episodes are done at 6Mbps MPEG2 w/ 384Kbps AC3. Episode durations are 42m39s + 41m21s + 42m13s. According to TMPGEnc DVD Author, this will result in a DVD that is 5502MB (over the max of 4438MB).
That's 24% over the limit for a 4.35GB DVD, but I expect that since it's a trio of letterboxed source material that it might pack down tight enough to fit. (If not, I'll break out DVD Shrink and make it fit.) Creating the DVD takes around 16 minutes on my Opteron 246 system (pair of Opterons). CPU utilization is only 38% (76% of one of the CPUs). The disks are pulling 20MB/s around (I'm disk-bound).
The final size was 4.06GB (4157MB), smaller then the limit on a 4.35GB DVD.Labels: 2005, VideoCapture
posted by Wuphon's at 10:43 AM (0 comments)
Friday, July 22, 2005
SageTV Results at 6Mbps
Like I talked about in "Video capture with SageTV", I switched to a 6Mbps MPEG2 capture rate on the Hauppauge card. My goal is to only fit a pair of 1-hour episodes on each 4.35GB DVD rather then my previous method of fitting (3) 1-hour episodes.
What's interesting is that I'm seeing much larger compression values then expected. The nightly files are of the expected size, but when I create the DVD, I'm getting much smaller DVDs then expected. The raw MPEG2 footage off of the PVR card is 9.83GB for 3.5 hours (up from 6.87GB for 4Mbps). That's the correct growth amount.
However, the output to DVD (conversion to AC3, no re-encoding of the MPEG2 stream) is smaller then expected. For a ~43min episode, my VOBs are anywhere between 1.65GB and 1.79GB. Some of the VOBs have come out as small as 1.33GB. The super-small VOBs are probably because those were letter-boxed shows over NTSC. Since I'm not re-encoding the MPEG2 stream, I'm not 100% sure why these files are shrinking so much. Maybe TMPGEnc DVD Author has some smarts when it packs the stream into VOBs.
So, assuming that 1.85GB is an expected maximum size for the VOBs for a 43min episode and my target is actually 2.10GB to fit better onto a DVD. That gives me another 13% or so. So I can probably boost my PVR bitrate up to 6800Kbps on the video stream, getting a bit more clarity out of the image.Labels: 2005, VideoCapture
posted by Wuphon's at 9:25 AM (0 comments)
Friday, July 15, 2005
Video capture with SageTV
Back in the spring, I switched over to using SageTV to do my daily captures using a Hauppauge card that captures in MPEG2 format. This saves me time since I don't have to re-encode the video, plus I'm capturing straight off-the-air rather then going via a S-VHS tape deck. The SageTV software also offers a lot of PVR functionality, including the ability to watch TV on another PC via the LAN.
The default capture mode that I have setup is a custom one created using the customization features that allow you to specify bitrates and formats. Overall, it's a VBR stream that is roughly 4Mbps average with peaks of up to 6Mbps and a 384Kbps MPEG1v2 stream. Since it's a real-time encoding using the Hauppauge board, it's not going to be super high quality VBR. But it's a bitrate that lets me put (3) TV episodes on a single disk. (See DVD Encoding Bitrates.)
Once I strip out commercials, each TV episode ends up around 43-44 minutes. So (3) of them weigh in at around 132 minutes on a single disc. That's adequate for displaying on older NTSC TVs and is a decent trade-off between size and quality. (That's subjective, so others will disagree.)
In the late summer, I plan on changing things around so that I'm only putting (2) episodes on a single disc. That will allow me to significantly up the bitrate. I estimate that I can use 6000 with a maximum of 8000 on the VBR settings (96min per DVD). I may even try 6500 with a maximum of 8000 (89min per DVD). Settling in at 6250 (93min) is probably the compromise setting.
Sage TV properties file (Sage.properties):mmc/python2_encoding/DVD\ 4Mbps\
VBR=videobitrate\=4000000|
peakvideobitrate\=6000000|
vbr\=1|width\=720|height\=480|
audiobitrate\=384|outputstreamtype\=10|
audiosampling\=48000
mmc/python2_encoding/DVD\ 6Mbps\
VBR=videobitrate\=6000000|
peakvideobitrate\=8000000|
vbr\=1|width\=720|height\=480|
audiobitrate\=384|outputstreamtype\=10|
audiosampling\=48000
Note that the above are both supposed be a single line each in the property file, but I've broken them up over multiple lines here to be clearer.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 2:37 PM (0 comments)
Friday, July 08, 2005
Appleseed 2004
So, I watched Appleseed 2004 a few weeks ago. It's basically a rehash of the hand-drawn anime from the late 80s, redone as a nearly 100% CGI.
It *looks* pretty.
However, character movements are stilted and look dollish. Think back to Reboot when it was on TV and you'll get an idea of just how bad it can be. None of the character movements are realistic, and in fact, are very distracting from the movie/plot.
Really a pity. They relied too much on the CGI and completely lost it on the artistic side.
posted by Wuphon's at 2:03 PM (0 comments)
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Spam stats
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7018 - 226/day
2005-02 6249 - 223/day
2005-03 6223 - 201/day
2005-04 5678 - 189/day
2005-05 6471 - 209/day
2005-06 6177 - 206/day
posted by Wuphon's at 9:29 PM (0 comments)
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Life as a guinea pig (part 2)
So, what is life like on the Test server? It's a lot like moving to a small town out on the frontier.
First off, it's a tiny population when compared to one of the production servers. Peak population for us is 100 people online. Compare that with a few hundred or thousand players being online at the same time on a live server.
That has a few implications:
- Everyone will know your name after a few weeks, for good or for ill.
- Self-sufficiency (a.k.a. soloing/duoing) is a key skill.
- Your first week on the server, and how you treat others, will determine whether you are accepted or shunned.
Secondly, while players aren't church-mouse poor, there's a very different dynamic here then on Live. The generally accepted rule-of-thumb is that you won't get static for selling goods at 2x-3x over sell-back, but trying to charge 10x-20x sell-back will get you lambasted. Resellers and speculators are especially reviled in such a small community.
There's a lot of barter, giving stuff away, trading for raws. Some folks here refuse to put goods on the broker. It's very common to be given gear, equipment, spells, etc. and all you have to do is to "play it forward" down the road. I take a middle road. Guildies get goods for free, or for cost, or for raws, but I also sell some goods on the broker to make a bit of coin.
Third, self-sufficiency is a big plus. I'd say at least 1/3 of the population on Test do crafting, but it's still not enough to meet demands at the higher levels. Which means there is a huge demand for crafted goods at all levels, and existing crafters are generally swamped with work. If you can make your own sub-combines, you're much more likely to get a crafter to make the finished goods. Especially if you offer them more subcomponents then are required and they can use the extras to make other items.
Much like living in a frontier town, in order to be a productive member of the community, you need to have a sideskill that you can barter for other items.
Lastly, living on Test can be a bit like living in a tourist town. When the live servers are down, we get a lot of tourist traffic, where production players who are bored, invade the newbie zones and play for a few hours. Needless to say, the locals (regular players) tend to become a bit standoffish during those times.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 1:06 PM (0 comments)
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Life as a guinea pig (part 1)
Also known as... what's it like to play on EQ2's test server?
I moved to Test about 6 weeks ago (boy, time flies) after playing on Lucan D'Lere for about 6-7 months (signed up a week after release). The move was actually one that I had been considering since the offered a /movelog back in March for players to move their characters from Lucan D'Lere to Test. However, back in March, I wasn't ready to pull up roots and make the switch.
OTOH, a lot of the original founders of Tel Sindavathar have now left and either gone back to DAoC, or moved on to other games. Other players have out-leveled me or I've out-leveled them. So, I was kind of in the middle of a chasm. Too low and too far behind to keep up with the folks who are in a race to 50, and too high to stick with the lower folks. That, and I felt like I was getting a lot of static trying to get help with catching up.
So... after logging in the week before Memorial Day, counting heads, and realizing that I was always going to be 7th man out, I logged out and rolled my first Test toon.
I also recognized the signs that a lot of members were about to head back to DAoC.
Plus, there's the attractions of playing on a Test server. Instead of leveling for the sake of leveling, you're leveling for the sake of being able to test new content and give feedback to the Devs. Gives it a bit of meta-purpose where equipment and money takes a backseat to finding and stamping out new and unusual bugs.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 12:50 PM (0 comments)
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Spam stats
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7018 - 226/day
2005-02 6249 - 223/day
2005-03 6223 - 201/day
2005-04 5678 - 189/day
2005-05 6471 - 209/day
posted by Wuphon's at 9:32 AM (0 comments)
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Quiller Series - Timeline
The Quiller series is one of those cold war delights. A book series about an undercover british agent who goes very deep undercover behind the iron/bamboo curtains. One turn of phrase used is "throwing the ferret down the hole to see what it can find out". He's often completely cut off from any backup and has to rely on his wits and ability to evade the opposition to survive and escape.
He's the anti-James Bond.
Quiller Series (Adam Hall) timeline - Lists the publish dates of the novels.
The Berlin/Quiller Memorandum, 1965
The 9th Directive, 1966
The Striker Portfolio, 1968
The Warsaw Document, 1971
The Tango Briefing, 1973
The Mandarin Cypher, 1975
The Kobra Manifesto, 1976
The Sinkiang Executive, 1978
The Scorpion Signal, 1979
The Pekin/Peking Target, 1981
Northlight/Quiller, 1985
Quiller's Run, 1988
Quiller KGB, 1989
Quiller Barracuda, 1990
Quiller Bamboo, 1991
Quiller Solitaire, 1992
Quiller Meridian, 1993
Quiller Salamander, 1994
Quiller Balalaika, 1996Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 11:02 PM (0 comments)
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
EQ2: Thoughts and Ruminations
Thinking about the current design of classes in EQ2. When you start, you have no class (or role) from level 1-2. At level 3, you're forced to pick one of the 4 main archtypes (fighter, mage, priest, scout). Then, at level 10 you pick your sub-class (3 for each archtype), and finally, at level 20, you pick your final type (usually a choice of only 1 based on your alignment, some sub-classes have 2 possibles).
The problem I see with this is that the pace of the game in the first dozen levels is so fast that it's difficult to make a meaningful choice so early. On the other hand, it makes rolling up alternate characters to experiment much quicker.
If I was going to re-design it (wishful thinking):
Levels 1-9 - no archtypes at all. Leave the heroic opportunity system off the table until level 10+. Give everyone the ability to do a little bit of everything, but nothing class-definining. So, everyone could heal a bit, nuke a bit, and do a bit of melee damage. Nothing like experimentation to decide which role you prefer.
Level 10 - Now you pick an archtype (fighter, priest, mage, scout).
Level 20 - This would be the first sub-class level. (Similar to the existing levels 10-19.)
Level 30 - Pick your final class specialization.
My thought is that by forcing everyone to pick an archtype at level 3, a sub-class at 10, and final class selection at 20, they compressed too much choice into too narrow of a range. Expanding of the decision over an additional 10 levels would have given them a few benefits:
- Players are better informed when it comes time to choose.
- Easier class balance due to more levels at the lower end where you can introduce new spells.Labels: 2005, EverQuest, EverQuest2
posted by Wuphon's at 9:37 AM (0 comments)
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Far Cry: Carrier
Went back and managed to do the carrier (2nd) level last night.
As always, I play on the top difficulty level (Realistic) in god-mode. What's nice is that god-mode keeps track of the number of deaths (you still take damage, when you hit zero hitpoints it increments your death count, then resets your health to full), so I can play through a level and try to minimize my deaths. A good run for me is under half a dozen deaths, which means that I've gotten tactics and timing down enough that I probably could do the level the normal way. If I had the time to go back and waste on being perfectionistic about it.
At the start of the level, you should have your Jungle Falcon (Desert Eagle) pistol (with ~158 rounds), your M4 Carbine (~330 rounds), a P90 MSG, and your machete. The M4 Carbine is probably going to be your main weapon through almost the entire level. While the P90 SMG is nice, it uses up ammo quickly and you'll have trouble finding enough to replace what you use. (OTOH, most of the mercs on the carrier are carrying M4 Carbines, so you'll have plenty of M4 Carbine ammo.)
First obstacle is to get out of the water trap without dying. This involves a bit of luck and fancy shooting. There are 2 mercs and a yellow-suited tech (worker) on the left and a heavily armored merc on the right as you exit the ladder room. Crouch, wait for the first merc to approach (you'll see his shadow), headshot him, and reload immediately. The 2nd merc and the tech will follow soon after. The 3rd merc will approach from the right so be ready for him as well.
Now you should have some decent breathing room. Time to clean up the mess that you made and go stealth again. This is your first "indoor" area in the game. Unlike an outdoor area, the binoc's with their "tagging" feature are basically useless and will require that you adjust tactics. My basic tactics for indoors are:
Walk short: Slow, silent and deadly is my goal. That means I stay crouched at almost all times (unless I'm falling back to a better spot). Also helps to keep me from getting lost because I'm not outrunning my ability to keep track of where I am.
Stop and listen frequently: Mercenaries are a noisy bunch and will give themselves away. Either the heavy tread of their boots on the deck plates or through idle chatter about the heat and the bugs.
Move from cover to cover: Basically, don't stand out in the middle of the room/hallway. Try to always stay behind a piece of machinery, a support beam, or a crate. Pick your next cover and move to it without stopping.
Pick your battles: Evaluate the tactical situation, figure out where you want to fight, and then draw them in for the kill. Same basic tactics that you use when pulling mercs out of the camps in the first level. Have a killzone / chokepoint and then lead them into it.
Distractions are handy: Tossing a stone down a long corridor with side-rooms is a good way to draw out most of the mercs into the corridor. A good stone throw will even have them looking at the far end of the corridor while you fill their backside with lead.
Have a few backup plans: Know where you're going to fallback to if you alert more mercs then you can handle. A tactical retreat is changing the location of the battle to a spot where you have the advantage. A corresponding rule would be to keep track of where you are and what areas you have already sanitized.
Reload ASAP: Nothing worse then starting a firefight and then dying because you ran out of bullets. Switching to a backup weapon is often faster then reloading. Indoors, I also use the M4 Carbine on full-auto mode and control my ammo usage by using short, controlled burts aimed at the upper torso / head. Which should put most mercs down with only 4-6 ammo rounds.
The indoor portion of the carrier isn't all that big. A few corridors, a few rooms, maybe a dozen or two dozen mercs/workers that you'll have to kill. For the most part, they'll come at you in groups of 2-4 at a time, just take it slow and make them come to you.
Once you break out onto the starboard walkway (after you pass through the bomb room, ascend the ammo shaft and exit to daylight), you'll need to move cautiously. There are 4-6 mercs on the starboard deck and one of them is manning a chaingun. Three of them will come investigate any sounds, so stay at the hatch where you exited out onto the walkway and pick those 3 off as they come at you from the stern. A rock is a good way to draw them into your killzone, just toss it short so that it tumbles down the stairs.
The merc on the chaingun is tricky. Bottom of the steps is a good spot where you can see his head, but he can't hit you with the chain gun. Then you can just pick him off using single-shots from the M4.
Creep forward and start looking for snipers up on the upper part of the deck. There's usually one right as you start creeping away from the stairs that is out at the very stern of the ship on the top deck. After you pick him off, you should be able to slide along the wall to your right, staying underneath the cover.
As you approach portside, start looking for a 2nd sniper on a portside platform. He's a pain to take out and extremely difficult to get the jump on. One idea might be to toss rocks back at the chaingun area and see if you can get him looking the wrong way. He seems to be scripted to do a nice swan dive into the ocean when he dies.
Head up the ladder to the 2nd level walkway that wraps back around the stern to the starboard side. Go slow, lean outwards, and take it a corner at a time. You'll encounter 1 (or 2?) guards as you make your way around to the starboard hatch.
Back inside. Use a stone thrown down the corridor to draw out the merc who's talking on the radio to Crow. Enter the radio room and you'll get a cutscene.
Exit the radio room and hang a left. Up ahead is another corridor with a doorway on the right. Take shelter at the bend and toss rocks to draw the next set of mercs into the hallway. Or you can run up, open the door, and wait for them to charge out while you hide behind the pipe.
You'll now be in a room with 2 overturned tables and you'll be able to see daylight above you. You'll probably also hear the helo (either now, or when you ascend the ladder to trigger the checkpoint). I suggesting heading up and triggering the checkpoint, but leave the health and armor alone for later. Because unless you're Rambo, we're not ready to tackle the upper deck yet before we go and soften up the opposition.
Head back down and out to the 2nd floor walkway (starboard side). Start looking for snipers and make your way around to the stern portion of the walkway. The chopper is (usually) going to be hovering down at the waterline on the port side. As soon as you get spotted, fallback along the walkway while attempting to kill the side-door gunner.
The general tactic for any helo is that you need to kill the side-door gunner. Once the side-door gunner is dead, the helo will generally fly away. That's much easier then trying to bring the entire chopper down. Although, it's a lot more fun to blow the helo out of the sky and watch it crash in the middle of a pack of mercs.
Head around to the portside ladder and back down to the lower stern deck. Sprinting from cover to cover, make your way to the very stern of the ship. This will give you the ability to pick off the two snipers on the upper deck. Which is two less that you will have to deal with when you head up top. (I tried tossing a frag grenade up where I kill those two, but didn't have much luck drawing any other mercs to the back half of the deck.)
If you have lots of time, you can try jumping off, swimming to shore and picking even more off. Or going to the portside sandbar, tossing rocks up and shooting anyone that looks over the side.
Me? I headed back to the room with the ladder that opens up onto the deck and went for it. As soon as you pop up there's going to be at least two mercs standing close and waiting to kill you. I'm still working on tactics to take care of them. Maybe by tossing a flashbang grenade up first, or tossing a rock to get them looking the other way. (The flashbang has a bad side-effect of alerting the merc on the chaingun, which makes it impossible to "get the drop" on him.)
My basic strategy for the upper deck is to head for the stern while playing hide-and-seek with the mercs who are towards the bow. I take out the chain gunner as soon as I can get a line of fire on him, then continue falling back to the stern. The rest of the fight is just a straightforward firefight with the remaining mercs. Lots of ducking behind boxes, staying on the move, leaning out and pasting a few shots to keep their heads down.
After santising the upper deck, run around, fill up on ammo / armor / health. Then shoot the chains holding the inflatable outboard boat, jump down, and sail off to meet your next objective.
posted by Wuphon's at 9:47 AM (0 comments)
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Far Cry: Fort and Pier
At this point, I'm going to say that I've (mostly) figured out the Fort and Pier levels (3rd and 4th) for Far Cry.
Fort
I can wipe out the beach patrols and the one manned boat that gets summoned, and I also wipe out the leftmost beach patrol. It's pretty easy to pull these mercenaries in ones and twos, then picking them off at maximum range (75-100m or farther).
Where I have trouble is the bottom of the stairs. It's thick jungle, there are no overlooks that I've found yet, and there's half a dozen mercs that hide in there at the base. I've tried drawing them out with grenades (which has the nasty side-effect of alerting every other merc up top, which isn't really a viable tactic), but the mercs like to stay close to the stairs.
I may have to try drawing them out with stones and the noise from an M4 Assault Rifle. A bit of "bait and fade" to pull them down into a killzone.
Once I clear those, it's pretty easy to work my way up (I like to take the elevator, and I think I get the silenced MP5 SMG in there). The MP5 in single-shot mode, carefully aimed, and fired in 3-round bursts makes for short-work of mercs at 80-120m, but without drawing the entire area down around your ears. And if you fire from cover, it can take the mercs a few minutes to find you, which is longer then their remaining lifespan.
My preferred weapons by the time I hit the part where you get mobbed by the boats/helos is a silenced MP5 SMG, the M4 Carbine, a P90 SMG, and the AW50 Sniper Rifle. I generally toss the sniper rifle in a corner until I've finished using the rocket launcher.
The 2 helos + 2 boats still give me trouble. I tend to just 'god-mode' my way through that part as I haven't found a good set of tactics to survive the assault.
Pier
First order of business: Pick off the 4 mercenaries at the hilltop camp with the hang-gliders. Try to make minimal noise.
Don't use the hang-glider. Unless you like being shot at.
Next, head down the path a bit until you hear the helo approaching. Then, go hide in the thickest foliage you can find. With luck, you won't get spotted and the helo eventually stops searching for you and flies off. (Worked for me once so far.)
I pick off the patrol boat from the top of the cliff (usually takes a clip or two), pick off the 2 mercs over at the chaingun emplacement (far side of the valley), then take care of the 3 mercs down at the waterline. That clears the stage enough that you can go scavange weapons, armor, and health and get ready to tackle the next step.
The mountaintop guard tower is easy. There's a sniping point on the right valley wall about 60-80m away from the tower. You'll have a clear view of them, but they won't see you. Pick them off with the silenced MP5 SMG and it should be easy-peasy.
Softening up the camp is difficult. Sniping at this range will bring a helo down on your head. Unlike the other helo, this one doesn't seem to want to go away if it can't find you. I hid in a bush while it hovered overhead for a few minutes. Finally, I just started unloading my M4 Carbine into its belly until it took enough damage to fly away.
Still working on an overall strategy for tackling the main camp in the bottom of the valley. Tends to be a lot of "fire and fade" and there's plenty of ground cover to lose your pursuers. One strategy is to blow up the large tank at the far end, which will draw the enemy forces away from the near side of the camp.
Make sure you snipe the guard in the tower who is packing a rocket launcher. I was almost ready to take on the main camp (having picked off the outlying sentries) when I spotted him. I ended up backtracking all the way up to the top of the mountain (near the lookout tower) and sniping him from maximum range before making my way back down.
The vehicular ambush is taken care of by parking a jeep in front of the door, then tossing a grenade when the doors open. With luck, you'll blow up both vehicles as well as the mercs who were waiting inside the garage.
The next 7-8 guards are taken care of normally (with stealth and care). Which will put you at the river crossing with the broken down (yes?) truck and a pair of 4WDs. The river crossing is a good spot to snipe the guard in the next lookout tower. (He also packs a rocket launcher and can make your life hellish.)
From the river crossing, head up the hill, make your way to the hilltop guard tower. You should be able to get a good eyeball on the dock area from here. Make sure there's no other mercs remaining anywhere but down at the docks.
Snag the rocket launcher, go prone at the edge of the tower decking, and zoom in. You should have around 7-8 shots, which will be plenty. My tactic is to take advantage of the AI's tendancy to congregate around things that have recently gone 'boom'. Plant a rocket into the middle of the docks (on the decking), then wait 30 sec for all the mercs who are nearby to run over and investigate. Once you think they're all there, drop another rocket into their impromptu meeting spot. I think I managed to kill 8 or 10 from about 3 blasts with the rocket launcher.
Eventually, you'll get the update that it's time to go meet your ride at the docks. Go down, collect your spoils from the dead mercs and meet your ride.
posted by Wuphon's at 5:09 AM (0 comments)
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Spam stats
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7018 - 226/day
2005-02 6249 - 223/day
2005-03 6223 - 201/day
2005-04 5678 - 189/day
posted by Wuphon's at 9:31 AM (0 comments)
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex
Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex - This site has reviews for the first 20 or so episodes of the first season (it's missing the last 6 eps). Has a decent amount of information, especially trivia or a bit of backstory about odd cultural references.Labels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:44 AM (0 comments)
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Far Cry: Training Level
So let's take a walk through the first mission of Far Cry, which is appropriately titled "Training". If you read a lot of the reviews on the web, I see that a lot of the reviewers make the same basic mistake as I did. That is, "Run and Gun" will get you killed almost immediately. The AI in Far Cry is just good enough to make your life extremely difficult.
(Note that all of this assumes you're playing on 'suicidal' difficulty. Other difficulty levels may have fewer enemies or place them into different locations? Also, I'd recommend changing your settings so that corpses last for 999 seconds as it makes it easier to scavenge weapons after you clear an area.)
After the initial cut-scene, you're going to wake up in a partially flooded, underground tunnel. This area is perfectly safe until you reach the second cut-scene and is designed to introduce you to the controls. Feel free to run around, jump, crouch, and learn to use the prone command. Once you climb the ladder, you're going to hit your first test where you have to get past a guard without using any weapons.
You have 3 basic options:
a) Run like hell and use the [Shift] key to sprint. Depending on luck, the guard may or may not tag you before you reach cover. This works, but unless you get past with at least 3/4 health, you're may have trouble in the next section.
b) Sneak past. Hug the left wall, move extremely slowly and stop any time that your stealth meter rises past green. Not my preferred method and may not even work.
c) Hybrid approach. Sneak until you pickup a rock, toss the rock out the opening, then sprint for the tunnel. With luck, the guard will be distracted by the rock (I've even seen him 'skeet shoot' it) and you can get across the room without being shot at.
Time for cut-scene #3 where you meet Doyle. You'll also get rewarded with a handgun, 17 rounds of ammo, a single grenade and some body armor. It's not much, so you'll need to be very conservative until you can scavenge some more. Head out the door in the southwest corner of the room and creep forward. It's a big world out there and while it looks like paradise, it's closer to hell on earth if you get spotted.
Ready to meet your first contestants on 'Jack vs the world' now that you've finished admiring the eye-candy? Below you is a pair of huts, a pig pen, a beached patrol boat and a dock where one of the mercenaries is doing a bit of fishing. Take a few seconds to scope out the situation and you'll see mercenary #2 is carrying boxes from the docks up to the far hut.
Ever hear the phrase, "where there's smoke, there's fire"? Well, if you see one mercenary, odds are that he has buddies (usually plural) nearby and often hidden. In this case, there's a mercenary hidden in the far hut and another near the pig pen (between the two huts). So, you've got 1 grenade and 17 rounds of ammo to take out 4 mercenaries who are probably packing serious heat.
Easy-peasy.
First, let's pick our position because as soon as we open fire, we're going to have 3-4 armed and nasty mercenaries hunting us. My preference is to strafe to the right out of the tunnel opening and take up a position high on the hill towards the coastline. This gives me a decent view of the entrances to both huts, some cover to hide behind and a clear shot at the mercenary on the dock.
Second, we should try to kill two birds with one stone. See that yellow canister on the docks? That's an accident waiting to happen! Wait until the mercenary moving the boxes comes back for another load, then pepper the yellow canister with a few shots until it explodes. With luck, you've killed both mercenaries or, at the worst, killed one and severely wounded the other.
All this commotion will usually bring the other 2 mercenaries running to the docks, or at least far enough out of the huts that you can get an eyeball on them. Take out the one that comes to investigate with a well-placed headshot. You should still have a full clip of ammo left to spare (maybe more).
Mercenary #4 will either come out to investigate, or stay at his patrol post in the far hut. If he comes down to the beach, pick him off like you did the other one. Otherwise, you'll need to start working your way down the slope towards the dock. Stay behind cover as much as possible, go slow and be prepared to get spotted. My usual approach is to slip down to the beach, then move from piling to piling until I get spotted and we start trading lead.
Once you kill mercenary #4, check the dock and the huts for weapons, health and armor. You should end up with 50-80 rounds of handgun ammo and 50-60 rounds of M4 Carbine ammo. The M4 Carbine is a decent assault rifle good for targets out to around 100-200m. Extremely deadly if you aim for the head at 50-80m. I'd recommend using single-shot mode to conserve ammo.
Head up the hill to the southwest towards your next waypoint. You'll pass a checkpoint and the game will auto-safe as you approach the hut on top of the hill. Pickup the binoculars inside, then go prone and start surveying the camp that you can see to the southwest. Notice that as you tag mercenaries with the binoculars, they get added to your compass along with a color coding that indicates their level of alertness.
From here, you should be able to spot (from left to right, total mercenary count is 8-9 mercenaries).
A) Three mercenaries near or around the firing range. One is practicing, one will be using the exercise equipment at the base of the guard tower, and the third will be patrolling the open area between the canvas-sided quonset huts (flimsy buildings that look like a barrel half-buried in the ground). These targets are all 250-300m away from your location.
B) A guard on the patrol tower inside the camp. Notice that he's already 'alert' and looking for trouble as opposed to the other mercenaries on the ground who are just going about their duties.
C) Two more mercenaries hidden behind the quonset hut on the right. If you listen carefully, you may even hear a 3rd mercenary walking around in the right quonset hut. This pair is more like 300-350m way.
D) A guard on the hilltop tower to the West-Southwest. He's also on 'alert' and already checking for any signs of intruders. Range is around 200-250m.
E) You may also manage to hear 3 mercenaries on the far side of the camp, patrolling the road to the south of the camp. If you keep the noise down and do your killing on the north side, these 3 will probably not hear the ruckas.
Let's talk about the 3 main approaches to the camp.
A) Up the middle. This is the first way I tried, hiding on the little sandbar island between my island and the camp's island. Advantages are a bit of cover (although I usually just go prone on the lee side of the sandbar) and a very clear shot at anyone who comes running out of the camp down to the beach. Disadvantage is lack of cover if you have to fall back.
B) Flank right and attack from the top of the hill with the guard tower. Good visibility, but also provides your enemies with a good bit of cover to work their way towards you as they come up the hill. You'll need to swim (underwater is best) to the right side of the camp's island until you find a beach where you can climb out and work your way up the hill.
C) Flank left and attack from the other hill overlooking the camp. Moderate visibility here but not so much ground cover. You also risk drawing in the guards on the south road. This spot will also uncover a flaw in the AI where mercenaries will get stuck in the water or at the base of the cliff. Just like the 'flank right' option, this one require that you swim to a beach on the left side of the camp's island, then work your way up the hill.
D) All of the above. My preferred method. In simple terms, I peel the camp apart like an onion. Drawing mercenaries off into the underbrush, away from reinforcements before sending them to meet their maker.
But, first things first. Those guards on the guard tower have got to go. Otherwise, as we make our approach, they'll alert the others to our location and things will get way too hot to handle.
(The next bit is easy or hard, depending on your aim and how good your graphics are.)
I always start with the guard on the hilltop tower. He's isolated and has the best view of any of them. I prefer to take him out from maximum distance (over 200m), even if it means wasting a few rounds to do so. At that extreme distance, he's going to have a very difficult time pinpointing where the shots are coming from. He's also silohetted against the blue sky, which makes a nice 'sight picture' for lining up a headshot. There are a few possible spots to pick this guard off.
A) The hut where you nabbed the binoculars. Go prone, slide left, and you'll be at the maximum possible range for picking this guard off. You'll probably need to use the binoculars to get a fix on his position, whether he's standing still or moving around.
B) The beach down to the southwest. Puts you a few dozen meters closer to your target, but increases the risk that the camp mercenaries will see you or hear your shot.
C) A small island west of the hut with a piece of driftwood on it (I have not tried this location).
Once you take this guard out, it's time to take out the other tower guard (down in the camp) and the 3 mercenaries who are near him. I start at the beach, southwest of the 'binocular hut' and pick off the tower guard. This alerts the other 3 and they go into 'searching' mode. Now you'll want to be patient. First, so that they feel overconfident and don't simply run for backup (which will bring a whole helo full of trouble that you don't want) and second, so that you can draw them away from the camp before killing them. Which makes it much easier to scavenge weapons and spare ammo.
Move forward to the small sandbar with the large boulder and the palm tree. Go prone and check up on your targets. Usually, they're just milling about looking concerned as to why the tower guard is dead. Find the closest one and shoot him in the leg. After he finishes finding cover, he'll usually find his courage again, call for his buddies and they'll start hunting towards your position.
As they move in for the kill, wait for them to hit the beach, then take them out with a few well-placed headshots. If you're good, you'll have 3 dead mercenaries on the beach or in the water and nobody else in the camp will realize that things are starting to go very wrong. Odds are, you're running low on ammo at this point, so it's time to scavenge ammo and break contact.
Collect your trophies from the 3 that you killed on the beach, then fade back away to the west. Go ahead and swim back into the ocean, head deep underwater and swim around to the west side of the isle. Climb out and head up the hill to the hilltop guard tower. Go slow when you near the top of the hill, then climb up to the top of the tower. Stay crouched to avoid being spotted while you're up there. Relieve the tower guard of his weapons and ammo, then break out the binoculars.
Look around. You'll see 2 guards with a vehicle at the near end of the beach to the southwest, 2 more guards halfway down the beach, another guard in the hut at the far end (with a buggy outside), and a final pair of guards with another vehicle up in the jungle to the southwest of the hut. You should also be able to get a fix on the 3 guards on the south road out of the camp. And you should take the time to sweep the camp below looking for other lifesigns (there should be 3 mercenaries left, all near the covered vehicle repair area).
Head back down out of the tower and pick your next approach. Fastest is to skirt the base of the tower, and creep down the hill to the southwest. Stay as far up the hill as possible while also looking for a good clear area to draw those 3 mercenaries into as they come up the hill hunting you.
For fun, you can shoot the board that keeps that large fuel tank from rolling downhill into the vehicle area. It's a tough shot from this angle, but you'll see the end of the board between the post and the fuel tank. The fuel tank will roll downhill, crash up against the supports of the vehicle repair area before exploding. Sometimes this kills one of the three right away, but it's also good for wounding them. Or, you can start by killing one of them with a headshot, then shooting the board.
The remaining guards should start working their way towards where they think you are. If you're too gung-ho at the start, they'll get scared and run for the alarm switch (yellow box on the telephone poles) which will bring a helicopter full of angry, heavily armored, and heavily armed mercenaries to the helopad. Pick them off as they come up the hill towards your position.
You should now have killed every mercenary in the camp. Take a minute and sweep with the binoculars again, listening for footsteps or other signs of life. Head down the hill and retrieve all weapons and ammo from targets that you've downed, then search all of the huts for more equipment, weapons and ammo. You should leave the camp with a full pack of handgun and M4 Carbine ammo along with a full bandolier of grenades.
Walk over, get into a vehicle, then exit immediately. This will clear the "steal a vehicle" checkpoint, but the camp vehicle is not a good one to swipe. It's too noisy and the road up ahead is difficult to navigate without lots of practice.
Do one more sweep for ammo, then make like a shadow and fade away to the south-southeast into the jungle. Head to the top of the southeast ridge that overlooks the camp so you can start checking out the south road leading out of the camp. Start creeping down towards the waterfall, try to get a position where you have a clear view of the patrol while they can't see you.
Headshot the first one, then you'll need to play hide-n-seek with the other two. If they hole up somewhere, try to either headshot them where they hole up, or wound them so they move, or fire a single shot into the air to draw them in. Once again, scavenge any weapons or ammo off the corpses, then head back to the waterfall.
From the waterfall, head south-southwest along the 'upper' trail. You should periodically stop, get out the binoculars and sweep from left to right listening for sounds of activity. Remember that there are 5 guards down on the beach, and 2 of them are sitting in a heavily armed vehicle. You will eventually come upon a ruined hut up against the hillside. This is a good spot to check your weapons and do a final eyeball of the territory. It's also a good spot to fall back to if you need.
You need to get a sniping position so you can take out the two mercenaries near the vehicle. You can usually get an eyeball on the driver by moving a bit farther southwest and going prone between some trees. Break out the binoculars, figure out where his head will be while sitting in the vehicle, then start plugging away with the M4 Carbine on single-shot mode. Check your progress every few shots with the binoculars. Don't forget to check on the two yahoos farther up the beach to see if they noticed anything. Ideally, you'll kill the driver and the gunner will dismount and come after you on foot through the trees. Move back to the ruined hut and either wait for him, or creep around to the north and try to flank him. Kill him, then scavenge his weapons ammo.
At this point, you can continue to play the cat-and-mouse game, working your way up the road/beach. Taking out target after target until you get to the beach with a pair of vehicles, a nasty patrol boat, and a fortified mortar position. This beach is commonly called the 'beach of death'.
Or... you can do it the fast way. Which works about half the time and relies on being faster then your opposition has time to react to.
Start by sneaking down to the vehicle at the north end of the beach. If you're good, you can manage to climb in and start the vehicle before the two mercenaries up the beach notice you. Kill them both with the chaingun before they have time to seek cover in the treeline. Then drop a few mortars (switch fire modes with 'X') into the hut to kill the other mercenary.
Now, put the pedal to the medal!
Drive past the left side of the hut that you just blew up and up the hill towards the next set of guards. Use the chaingun liberally so that they don't get into the vehicle, but don't slow down to see if they're dead. Just keep driving.
The road veers left. There will be two mercenaries on the road ahead. Run them over! (Or use the chain gun, whichever rocks your world.) Head straight (south?) and you're going to see the 'death' beach up ahead.
There are two vehicles on this beach, a fortified mortar position on the far end on the overlook, and a patrol boat in the water to the right with a rocket launcher. That patrol boat is very bad news at the harder levels and so is the mortar position. Charge ahead at full speed, but feel free to paste some shots at any and all targets that you see. Your goal is to cross this stretch of beach without getting blown to smithereens and speed is your best defense.
As you leave the beach you will see a downed WWII japanese fighter, steer to the right of it and go around the right side of the hill. You'll run into (and over) a few more mercenaries along the way before coming into view of the carrier.
Go for air! (Or try to speed down the beach towards the carrier.) Your objective (if you live long enough) is to find the submerged entrance on the left end of the beached carrier. This is no time to stop and admire the view, you need to get undwater as fast as possible. I usually end up sending the vehicle off a cliff resulting in a splash landing where I dismount and start swimming underwater.
As you swim underwater, your pursuit will lose track of you as you weave beween the underwater rocks and your stealth meter will drop back down. But don't think you're home free yet because you can hear a patrol boat coming, and I guarantee that they'll be checking in the water.
If all goes well, you'll have just enough breath (and time before the patrol boat arrives) to swim into the opening in the side of the carrier to end the level.
posted by Wuphon's at 1:02 PM (0 comments)
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Far Cry
So, I've been mucking around with Far Cry since I picked it up back in November. The basics of it is that it's a first person shooter, modern day, where it's you versus a zillion and a half enemies on some tropical islands. There's a mystery involved and there's a moderately involved storyline (but nothing you can do to screw up the storyline except by dying).
I had played the demo last summer/fall and wasn't impressed with some technical issues. The demo always got choppy or locked up once I entered the caves. However, I was impressed with the graphics quality and found the demo to be fiendeshly difficult. The demo is definitely worth mucking with if you want to see a small preview of what Far Cry offers.
If you're playing the demo (or the real game), a few tips:
1) Scout ahead. Use your binoculars and try to visually tag as many enemies as possible. Once you see them, they get tracked on your handheld computer and show up on the compass. You should also use the binoc's as a listening tool, either to listen in on what the mercenaries are saying to each other, or to locate a patrolling sentry by listening for his footsteps. Not every enemy can be seen, but almost all of them make noise.
At the start of an outdoor level like the demo level, it can take me anywhere from 5-45 minutes to scout the next area up and determine a general plan of attack. I look for patrol patterns, which guards are close to other guards, where the alarm consoles are, and places to take cover. Take careful note of enemies that show up as yellow/orange on the compass. Those mercenaries are already alert and are specifically looking for intruders (green-tagged mercs on the compass are blissfully ignorant).
2) Have a backup plan. Where are you going to fall back to if you alert more mercenaries then you can handle? Look around for trees, boulders, broken ground before you open fire on a new group of enemies. Think about a route of escape that allows you plenty of cover while drawing your enemies into the open.
Running away across an open field while your enemy fires from the treeline is a sure-fire disaster. Especially since the mercanaries will be flanking you and calling for backup on the radio.
3) Go slow. Going 'rambo' will usually get you dead. Either you'll get popped in the back of the head by an enemy that you didn't see as you ran past, or one of the mercenaries will go run for backup (and heavier firepower). That's not to say that turning 'god mode' on and running around isn't fun, but you'll usually get farther by being a combination of sneaky and picking your battles carefully.
I tend to take camps apart in an onion fashion. Kill the sentries who are already alert, then work my way around the edges of the camp. Slowly draw off mercanaries out of the camp then terminate them. It keeps them from running back or calling for backup.
4) Go silent. As I mentioned before, mercanaries that are tagged with green dots on the compass are blissfully unaware of anything being out of the ordinary. It will to you and your health a lot of good to keep them that way right up to the point where you kill them with a single shot. Loud explosions or alerting the guards will usually bring a helicopter full of trouble down on your head (either a helo that is hunting you with chainguns or a helo/osprey that drops 4-8 heavily armed reinforcements).
Just as an FYI... the sniper rifle in Far Cry makes a heck of a lot of noise. The first shot will be a surprise, but unless you break contact and stealthily move to a new location, the mercenaries will find you quickly.
posted by Wuphon's at 5:48 AM (0 comments)
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Spam stats for March
2003-10 2944 - 94/day
2003-11 3225 - 108/day
2003-12 3778 - 122/day
2004-01 3252 - 105/day
2004-02 3590 - 124/day
2004-03 4162 - 134/day
2004-04 5144 - 172/day
2004-05 5453 - 176/day
2004-06 6258 - 209/day
2004-07 5966 - 192/day
2004-08 6134 - 197/day
2004-09 5331 - 178/day
2004-10 5602 - 181/day
2004-11 5939 - 198/day
2004-12 6847 - 221/day
2005-01 7018 - 226/day
2005-02 6249 - 223/day
2005-03 6223 - 201/day
posted by Wuphon's at 2:16 PM (0 comments)
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Japanese Phrases
Basic phrases
Key phrasesLabels: 2005
posted by Wuphon's at 9:42 AM (0 comments)
Friday, March 25, 2005
EQ2: Old-style giants in Nektulos Forest
They recently changed the giants in Nektulos Forest, but here's what they looked like back in December 2004.Labels: 2005, EverQuest2
posted by Wuphon's at 12:14 PM (0 comments)
Introduction
A random collection of thoughts, news, central Pennsylvania stuff, trying to grow a balcony garden, or whatever else strikes my fancy.
E-Mail:
WuphonsReach [at] wuphonsreach.org (GPG Key)
Favorite Blogs
Grand Potato
jschuur dot com
Quilpuuxla Daj
Blog Archives
current
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Favorite Comics
Dork Tower
Glasbergen
Greystone Inn
Helen
Melon Pool
Over the Hedge
Other Links
The Right Stuf
Yahoo! Cycling
Anime Turnpike
QuickSilver (MOO3)
Maxis SimCity 4
ThinkGeek
