Suburbs for villains

Defeating Dr Echo in City of Villains ended my relationship with my current contact in Cap Au Diable, and he gave me a neat-sounding ability as a reward for completing all his work. I received some kind of temporal door-opening ability, allowing myself and my team-mates to time travel. Sounds exciting!

I called forth the inter-temporal doorway and, well, just stood there being denied access. Even though I had just reached threat level 20 I needed to be threat level 25 to pass through the doorway. It may be a really neat ability and gateway to further exciting escapades, but it's a bit demotivating having to gain five levels before it can even be used.

I'll find another contact easily enough, I'm sure. I am hoping that I will be taken away from the current region to another one, or at least my new contact won't send me in to one Arachnid base after another, abandoned or otherwise. I could really use a change of scenery.

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Tags: city of villains, crossover games, magnet magnetson

The Supportive Magnet Magnetson

Magnet Magnetson, my City of Villains Mastermind, reached threat level 20 whilst defeating Dr Echo in yet another abandoned Arachnid base. I was informed by my supervillain trainer that my outfit was looking a bit shabby and to get myself over to the tailor to sharpen myself up. I was a little upset by this, after all the effort I went in to creating a new look for myself, but it was just his subtle way of pointing out that I could create a second outfit to change in to, not that I had to change the way I normally look.

I also got a new power that I could train, and I had a bit of a choice. I wondered if Group Fly would be worthwhile, but as most people pick a travel power anyway it didn't seem to be vital. Instead, I opted for a defensive bubble that emanates from me and protects anyone inside it, to help with the other defensive shields that are effective on a more personal scale. That was when Zoso reminded me that 'it can be fun to fly with robots', and I realised I had completely forgotten about my minions again, particularly when Group Flight could prevent the robots from dragging law enforcement to my location on bank jobs.

When I was gaining the early levels and the choice of powers that came fairly frequently I avoided the two shields that I could choose, as they could not be used on myself and I was not teaming with anyone or ready for pick-up groups at the time. It was a little while after choosing a different power, probably when I was on my next mission, that I realised I had some robot pals to take care of, and that they most likely counted as not being me, allowing me to be able to shield them. The next couple of power choices were the two defensive shields that I could use to protect team members, and my robots became more robust as a result.

I think I made these silly errors because this is effectively the first support character I have played. My warlock in World of Warcraft had some supportive abilities, but these were minor in comparison to his attack potential, and whilst my warrior in the same game wasn't strictly offensive when in a team she didn't really need to worry about other team members beyond worrying about what all the attacking mobs were doing. And even though the warlock had a minion to help out it was the minion who was the supportive character, the warlock the true power. I am finding that the Mastermind is the support character and the minions are the powers.

I essentially only have one offensive ability in combat, which is the combat rifle I picked at first level. I have bolstered my powers with robots, robot augmentation, and defensive capabilities to protect my robots and control the battlefield. During a fight my main role, at least solo, is to determine which mob the robots attack, cast a detention field around the strongest mob, and pick another mob to continually knock-back with another ability of mine. Apart from also ensuring that the defensive shields are maintained on the robots, and the new defensive bubble, I sit back and ensure that the combat runs smoothly. The robots shouldn't be running off anywhere, the mobs should be controlled and toppling steadily, I can boost effectiveness with inspirations. It's almost like playing the combat in an RTS, but from the front lines with my troops.

The tactics I use seem effective and have seen me progress with few hindrances so far, and I am having a lot of fun with it. I think I'm doing okay with the Mastermind archetype. I sometimes just need to remember that robots are team-mates too.

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Tags: city of villains, crossover games, magnet magnetson, robots, world of warcraft

Young lungs

I had my COSHH assessment at work this morning, testing my lung capacity. This is done because there is a particularly nasty coolant that some equipment uses and I really shouldn't be breathing, so I am checked once a year to make sure that I am not accidentally sucking on a hose I shouldn't.

The test involves taking some breaths and blowing in to a tube rather more voluminous than you would expect, which is connected to a portable computer. If you haven't done one of these tests before you will probably get a poor first result because of the lack of resistance encountered when huffing and puffing. I have been tested regularly for several years, so I know what to expect and don't feel unfit when I am gasping for air so soon.

I did the same tests again this time, one for duration and one for burst, and the results were good. In fact, so good that they showed I had the lung capacity of someone six years my junior, which is encouraging. I suppose I am not sucking up as many exhaust fumes as I occasionally worry about, being conspicuously exposed on a motorbike.

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Tags: coshh, health

Infoquake

I finished reading Infoquake, the first novel by David Louis Edelman. It is a science fiction novel following the early career of a businessman in a world where bio-engineering nanomachines augment our own biological systems through software control.

There are spoilers in the following text.

I found the author's writing style to awkward at times. A minor niggle is how characters are said to have 'prived himself to the world' on occasions, which grates because it seems to me that one removes oneself from the world, not to it. This could be a cultural difference in expression, much like the apparent reversal of 'bring' and 'take' across the pond, but it broke my flow when the phrase was used, mostly because of the use of the unfamiliar 'prived'. If a character had instead 'prived himself from the world' the meaning of 'prived' would have been easier to deduce but the use of 'to' instead effectively induced a stutter in comprehension.

Then there are the few occasions when I was forced to reread the previous sentence just to try to make sense of the writing: 'there was nothing in any direction now but endless sea. He began scrabbling for higher ground'. What higher ground? We've just been told that there is nothing but endless sea! These moments make me wonder if there is a small part of the landscape lingering in the author's mind that didn't quite make it to the page.

The flashback near the start seems contrived, where it may have been better served being recalled in smaller chunks spread throughout the earlier sections of the book where it could enhance the story more directly. As it stands, it feels like it has been shoehorned in and is initially rushed before settling in to its stride. The society woman's fall and eventual rise that concluded with her 'rescuer' falling in love with her was rather generic and better placed in a Mills & Boon novel.

The most annoying writing technique occurs when there is a sub-chapter break without there being any change of scene, viewpoint, or significant time lapse. It strikes me as being the equivalent of an advertisement break, an intentional pause inserted solely to emphasise dramatic effect. Frankly, this insults my intelligence as a reader, as I would hope I could understand the drama unfolding before me without the need for the equivalent of a musical sting and the screen fading to black.

If the author thinks the drama needs the occasional push to be functional then he had the same thoughts about the plot, sometimes putting his own words in to his characters' mouths, feeding them meta-information that is needed only to help the story along. An obvious example is near the end when one character muses to no one but the reader that 'too many loose ends need tying up', before enumerating them. To me, this reads more like the author writing 'note to self: remember to cover the following subjects in the final section'.

Where meta-information may have been better served is in one of the inconsistencies in the book that I found rather too jarring. The protagonist, Natch, is first seen trying desperately to reach the top position of an industry rankings list, Primo's. We are told, in the second chapter, that 'the Patel Brothers had dominated the number one rating on Primo's for the past two and a half years', so when Natch inevitably makes it to number one we believe it to be an extraordinary accomplishment, particularly as his company only holds on to the rating for less than an hour before the Patels retake it. But later on we are shown that several other companies take the number one rating, just as briefly, without any indication that this was just as an amazing act by any of the companies

The jostling for the top spot on Primo's makes me wonder just what Natch managed to accomplish. Was the Patel Brothers' dominance absolute, or did they occasionally lose the number one position during that two year period? In which case, did Natch really achieve something amazing, a company-defining moment, or was it just another brief glitch that already crops up occasionally? What was different about the other companies' hitting the top spot shortly afterwards that didn't warrant special mention or a novel of their own?

Without further explanation, which won't come for another hundred pages, I am merely left wondering why I bothered to care about the apparent excitement of earlier if it has already become business-as-usual a week later. At the time Natch made it to the number one ranking it would perhaps have been prudent to have him wonder if the Patel Brothers were really at the top of their game, or distracted by a big project coming up, an omen that could be repeated when the other companies take the top spot. That kind of meta-information given to the character would even be within character for an astute, world-class businessman, yet I am left scratching my head over the inconsistency at reading chapters about one man's amazing achievement but a couple of lines casually mentioning several others managing to equal it.

Despite all of these niggles the book is entertaining enough. The ideas presented within the book as being part of modern living are interesting, with the human body being the computer in which the software runs being fundamental to the world. Having software and associated nano-machines able to help people see in the dark, keep their facial composure, or regulate their systems opens up the possibilties for many intriguing ideas, although I didn't need to know the specific version of nearly all the software being used.

The science fiction satisfyingly sets the stage for the characters instead of being the object of sole interest. Within the futuristic setting we are shown one man's mission, or obsession, to be crowned the best businessman in the market and to get the respect he believes is owed that person. We see his struggles and victories, how he manages his employees, friends, and rivals, and we get an insight in to what it takes to be number one. Even with its flaws, which include the almost inconsequential nature of its title, there is plenty to enjoy in the book.

Infoquake is subtitled as 'Volume 1 of the Jump 225 Trilogy'. I'll consider picking up the second in the series when it appears, but won't drop what I will be reading to do so.

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Tags: book, david louis edelman, infoquake

Tangle-resistant headphone cable

When I wrote about my new Denon AH-C551 headphones recently I purposely ignored one of the advertised features of the headphones. Or, rather, of the cable. On the box, and on the Denon's web page for the AH-C551 headphones, the cable is noted to be 'tangle-resistant', which I refused to acknowledge on the grounds of it probably being nonsense. Or at least self-affirming nonsense, the kind of statement a company could make where people would only notice the difference because they were told about it.

I have to admit that I was forever untangling the cable of all of my previous sets of headphones after pulling them out of my pocket with my iPod, no matter how carefully I tried to store them in the first place, and yet this new cable doesn't seem to suffer anywhere near as much. Of course, there are occasions when the headphone piece gets caught in a loop and needs to be unwound before the cable is pulled in to a knot, but for the most case the cable comes out of my pocket and almost unravels itself, letting me put on the headphones with much less of a struggle than before.

I could have been duped by the marketing, but I'm not sure. I was sceptical, yet am seeing a definite and significant decrease in the amount of untangling I am having to do than before. A minor difference, but a pleasant one.

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Tags: denon, headphones

A fortnight in EVE Online

My trial period for EVE Online has ended. I didn't get to be a space cadet this week, although the nature of the game still allows for quick resource gathering via mining, or a slightly longer but still manageably short single mission to be run, which I managed a couple of times of an evening. For all its complexity, the game still seems to allow for you to get as involved as you want to. There are certainly areas that you can't get around, like needing to train skills to gain access to specific avenues within the game, but it doesn't seem like whole evenings at a time need to be dedicated to be able to enjoy the game on every sitting.

My further involvement in the game had me training the 'Trade' skill so that I could have more than five open orders on the market at once. Instead of being able to dump all your unwanted goods on to the 'auction house' for sale and making a bundle you need to have experience of the market, hence needing to train the skill. For every rank in 'Trade' you can have an additional four open orders, which helps. Note that a stack of items counts as a single order, and I also discovered that an upgrade that has been fitted effectively 'unpackages' itself and cannot be stacked with identical items until it has been repackaged, which I didn't find to be immediately obvious.

I got my targeting skill trained so that I can now lock-on to up to four targets simultaneously, which helps with keeping track of targets. I imagine it will help even more when I get involved in the use of ECM systems and other electronics, rather than simply trying to shoot everything in range with missiles.

I'm getting more used to using the tactical overlay, which lets me get a more accurate representation of relative positions of objects in space relative to my own ship, letting me plot manual courses heading directly away from or tangental to enemies, or a course that gets one group in range whilst keeping another at bay for the moment.

I have adjusted the overview settings so that I can warp to stargates easily, the asteroids are taken out of the standard view so that it doesn't fill up with useless information whilst on missions, and I found how to remove empty wrecks from the overview thus speeding up looting times after killing rats.

My second ISK million was made! Considering that I spent about a quarter of a million buying the skill book to learn how to fly cruisers I think it mostly shows that a million ISK is not that much money overall, particularly when two million ISK is not enough cash to buy a cruiser. It's progress though.

As for progress, I feel like I am making some in most aspects of the game. My skills are getting trained and I can, for the most part, see some consequence of training. I have more money. I am getting better at handling my ship and all the systems and controls of the game itself. The agents I am currently dealing with are warming up to my charms and piloting skills, and giving me some different missions, including a minor storyline mission recently. I should probably find a new agent to deal with soon, as my reputation is growing. This will bring up new issues of moving my few ships and all my equipment to another base, or deal with having everything split and having to remember where it all is. I will need to learn how this is normally dealt with.

There is a lot still to learn, and so much more to explore. The sense of scale in the game is immense. Even with warp drives that can take you from one side of a solar system to another in seconds, and stargates that throw you to another solar system also in seconds, there is so much empty space and so many stars that the game looks huge. The way everything is represented helps perfectly, with space stations and ships zooming in to the distance first when warp drives are engaged, quickly followed by the planets themselves, showing the relative scale of the objects, and then followed by zooming past the star on the way to the other side of the solar system. There are ways to cover vast distances, but the distances don't seem any less vast because of this.

Everything is designed beautifully too. The planets look like planets, the spaceships like spaceships, the stations like stations; everything looks believable, including the stunning backgrounds. As a whole, without introducing (or perhaps removing) g-forces I don't know how else I could be made to believe I am piloting a ship in space.

I'm not sure how repetitious, or how much of a grind, the focus of the game will get, how long I will endure running missions to destroy pirate spaceships, but every time I put myself in to the pilot's seat I just want to enjoy being a space cadet. I am pulled in by my desire to want to pilot something bigger and more powerful, to see what systems I can fit to my ship to change the field of combat, whether I can produce my own systems and equipment from raw materials. EVE Online makes me want to experience the world more than other games where the focus is in getting to the next easily defined character level.

I haven't subscribed to the game yet, and although I may be able to resist doing so this weekend, with City of Villains, World of Warcraft, and Real Life to keep me busy, I am soon likely again to be Penny Ibramovic, space cadet.

Posted in Gaming | 7 Comments »
Tags: eve online, overview, penny ibramovic, tactical overlay

Cool running

Now that I have put coolant in my bike, the engine doesn't get quite as hot as it used to. Why didn't anyone tell me?

This sort of information really ought to be in the manual.

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Tags: motorbike

Currently lacking focus

I am running a qualification test at the moment, which in this case involves setting up lots of relatively short test periods. Because most of the work is involved in setting up a test, and watching it run for several hours is where the road to tedium lies, this means I am quite busy, which is good. For one thing, being busy in the laboratory gets me out of the crappy office area. I tend to notice more how peaceful and pleasant it is in the lab when I return to the crappy office if only because I would consider the conditions in the lab to be closer to 'normal' instead of 'best workplace ever'.

I also enjoy my work, so getting an intensive test such as the one I am running at the moment lets me enjoy what I do for an extended period. On top of that, I like feeling competent at whatever I undertake to achieve, so it's always good to solve problems and get everything running smoothly. There were some problems with getting some of the vibration periods to run yesterday, caused by the fixture rather than any errors or oversights. Getting it to work taught me a bit more about the software and systems we use and was stimulating.

Unfortunately, after yesterday's efforts in competence I have today been rather lacking. There haven't been any significant errors, but the niggling ones are just as bad, as I shouldn't be making them in the first place. I'm glad I caught the control accelerometers being off-axis before I even tried to power everything up, for instance, but I had to retake the photograph of the set-up showing the accelerometer positions for the test log. I've also had trouble getting the charge amplifier sensitivities correct, and one or two timings for the tests have been wrong.

It's all been insignificant and recoverable, and I spotted my mistakes in time to correct them, but it is still frustrating to be making these errors in the first place. It's time to get my head back in the game.

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Tags: vibration

Just curious

Eddie Izzard is cool, right?

I'm just askin'.

Posted in Personal | 6 Comments »
Tags: eddie izzard

Balloon sighting

I saw a hot-air balloon hanging over a town on my ride in to work this morning. There was some writing on the balloon, but although my route took me initially closer towards the balloon I had to veer off away from it before being able to read the words. I imagine it read 'SAVE FERRIS'.

I hope the plucky fellow is doing okay.

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Tags: commute, ferris bueller's day off