Building Starships For GURPS Third Edition Revised, Part Two

So, back in our previous article, we started to talk about the Concordiat Navy at the TL 10 era.  One of the biggest factors of change was the existence of the two steps of reactionless thrusters, both of them powerful enough to change the nature of the game for starship combat.

And, a few more notes to round out the last points to be made about what happened during the TL 10 and Fourth Frontier War era.

• The Concordiat Army moves on it's own transports, which are HUGE, lightly armored and armed, and require a lot of landings to land their heavy armor and AFVs.  The Army is mostly a garrison force during the TL 10 era.
• Shuttles for the various ships have two engines.  The first is a fusion ram-rocket with enough fuel space to make a powered orbit around Earth.  It also mounts (relatively) low-powered reactionless thrusters for orbital changes.
• Government in a nutshell-the Concordiat is a constitutional republic, with a LOT of authority being given to sector governors and such.  The Kaa Imperium is a hideously egalitarian feudal monarchy.  Since the only way to communicate is by a ship in FTL (FTL communications-on an interstellar level-don't show up until TL 12), the captains of starships have to be able to make critical decisions right there and then.

So, we deal with the Fourth Frontier War, where the Kaa get trounced (again) after the Concordiat gets suprised, there's only one set-piece battle in the form of the Battle of Agrippa (dreadnoughts on both sides), and the Concordiat gets some more worlds as buffer territory against the Kaa Imperium.  TL 11 rolls around, and the Concordiat has some issues.  Namely-victory disease.  They just kept winning against the Kaa in so many battles that they thought it was always going to be this way.  That, and the Liberal Democratic Party in the Concordiat Senate was of the opinion that "war never solves anything" (how much of this was "paid opinions" a'la the Soviet Union-sponsored anti-nuclear movement by the Kaa is open to debate).  Force field technology came into existence at this time, and the Concordiat Navy mounted forcefields on their ships at the same rate as armor.

This lead to the pre-First Interstellar War Concordiat Navy.  Some of the details of the design choices here-

• The "Patrol/Battle" fleet dichotomy was eliminated.  More powerful thrusters meant that most ships could land on a planet if they were streamlined, and the Concordiat Navy had to fight for every credit in building starship hulls.
• For the most part, the ships built were "revised" versions of the TL 10 fleet, with some of the quirkier hulls gone.  One big change was that the required minimum for Navy ships was "2/2"-minimum 2Gs acceleration and 2 light years a day in hyperspace.
• Missiles carried nuclear weapons, as no practical chemical warhead could be mounted to punch through force fields and armor.  Once again, GVB seems to choke on building bomb-pumped x-ray lasers and figuring out how to fire "missiles" built in GVB as vehicles out of massdrivers.  But, that's the core concept.
• More point-defense, especially for larger capital ships.
• Pretty much everything but the heaviest of shuttles were pure reactoinless thruster-based.

Unfortunatly, the Kaa Imperium had something going for it-an Emperor that was very much like Justintin of the Byzantine Empire-ruthless, powerful, capable, and not quite sane on a few things.  One of those things was the Concordiat.  He was going to be the Emperor that conqured the whole Concordiat and he had a plan.  And, a great espionage service.  Namely, in the Engali Moot-where he managed to get the information and tooling needed to build TL 12 force fields, power cells, and hypersinks (for the ship's stealth systems).

When boiled down, the Kaa Emperor's plan was simple-

• Foment revolt and piracy all along the frontier. This included dropping Vern queens onto a number of worlds to keep the locals busy.
• Lower the Concordiat's will to fight, politically and socially.  Find potential Quislings wherever you could.
• Build a huge fleet.
• Attack.  The attack was in three "talons", and they were all aimed to hit Earth.  Planets in the way of the talons would have all their orbital assets destroyed (except for fueling stations for the fleets) and orbital bombardment of anything on the planets that could be used as a military asset.  They could all be formally "conquered" when the Kaa Imperium won the war.
  
  Raiding fleets would be dispatched as well, attacking merchant ships and engaging in other attacks in the meantime, to keep the Concordiat Navy busy.
  
  Once you've hit Earth, it's all over (as the Emperor saw it).
• Bask in the victory over the most hated of foes, enjoy your new slaves, and make sure that any threats to your power base are eliminated as soon as possible when the war is over.

Unfortunatly, the Concordiat Navy got some warning that something was about to happen.  They thought it was going to be another border war.  Not the start of what would later be called the First Interstellar War.

Several things went the way of the Concordiat during the early phases of the war-despite the losses and the casulties and that the "northern" talon got within three weeks travel of Earth before it was defeated.

• Concordiat battlecruisers showed their mettle-the Kaa had their logistics transports in convoys at the start.  But, the guard ships were light cruisers (most Kaa warships of destroyer size and smaller were battleriders).  The Concordiat's Marathon-class battlecruiser had the acceleration profile of a standard light cruiser (about 5-6Gs, if I recall), a long-ranged and fast-firing particle beam cannon on the spinal mount, and while it only used 350mm missiles, it had a lot of them to fire.
  
  Within the first few weeks of the war, the Kaa had to detach battleships to guard their convoys, which took them out of the war as effectively as if they had blown them all up.  This weakened the Kaa's raiding strategy, which was dependent upon the battleships.
• Capturing two of the Kaa's forward repair ships and bringing their data cores back to the Concordiat Core Worlds.  This gave the Concordiat an idea of the new technologies the Kaa were using.
• The political and military leaders never lost their nerve.  What was supposed to be a hard sweep through the Concordiat got bogged down in a number of locations.

As the Kaa fleets were fought, Concordiat shipyards began to incorporate into current hulls the new technologies.  And, the first products of these new ships will be talked about in the next section.

Building Starships For GURPS 3rd Edition Revised, Part One

I truly do not have a life.

Really, I don't.

Over several weekends-when there was fuck all in terms of movies, TV, etc, etc, etc, about eight years ago (I checked my purchase receipt), I picked up a copy of the GURPS Vehicle Builder for GURPS Vehicles.  This was back in the days of GURPS 3rd Edition Revised, when there wasn't so much fear about superscience technology and the game had math out the ears.

Anyways, I was playing around with the Vehicle Builder and eventually...I built a starship frigate.

It was a TL 10 frigate, all reactionless drives with a hyperdrive.  It had vectored thrust and was streamlined and could take off and land from a planet, and could carry enough passengers to count as carrying a reinforced platoon of Marines.  Spinal particle beam cannon, backed up by four 350mm missile tubes, four light xaser cannons, and six point defense xasers.

From this ship, which I eventually named the Adams-class frigate, I started to work out...a fleet structure.

I told you I had no life.

Anyways, eventually, I built a fleet.  Then, I built another.  I built a third.  And a fourth.

And then, the hard drive on my Windows XP machine decided to cut it's own metaphysical belly open and I lost all the ships (most of my backups were photos-long story).

So, that idea died.

Until about a few days ago, when I read a review on GURPS Spaceships for GURPS 4th Edition.  And, found on an old, old, OLD flash drive the concept notes for the ships I'd built.  Sadly, not the ships themselves (which I might have to do again), but the notes were interesting.

The first part of the notes (in condensed form)-

• The game universe was built around pretty much bog-standard GURPS tech progression, starting off at TL 10.  Hyperdrives and reactionless thrusters were the norm.  The history I had worked out had gone up to about TL 12 and about 300 or so years (which isn't that long in a human society where longevity treatments can give lifespans of up to 150+ years).
• The major power blocs are the Concordiat (human, several alien races), the Kaa Imperium (Kaa and slaves), the Engai Moot (Engai territory), and several small "pocket vest" kingdoms.  All the alien races came from GURPS Aliens.
• There had been a LOT of jockeying for territory and power between the Concordiat and the Imperium.  By the time TL 10 came around, there had been three "frontier wars", and the ships built in the game had fought the fourth.
• The Kaa Imperium is mostly TL 9, except in drives, stealth (TL 11), and some other technologies.
• Ship hulls were the "classic" progression for FTL hulls-corvette, frigate, destroyer, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, battle cruiser, battle ship, dreadnought, super-dreadnought and finally monitors.
• The Concordiat had essentially a two-tier Navy during the TL 10 era-Patrol Fleet which didn't have anything bigger than a battleship, and Battle Fleet, which went all the way up to monitors.
• All Fleet ships-from the smallest to the largest-are "1/1" capable at a minimum-able to do 1G in acceleration, and l light year a day in FTL.
• Patrol Fleet ships tended to be more lightly armed, but had more space for small Marine detachments, LARGE medical bays, and anything smaller than a heavy cruiser could land and take off from Earth by itself.
• Battle Fleet was the reverse.  Destroyers and smaller could land on planets, but they tended to carry more weapons and heavier weapons.
• No space fighters.  Battle riders-warships that didn't have FTL-were used, but the survival ability of a fighter was non-existent in this universe.  Concordiat battle riders were all sentient AI drones (fifteen years of service meant full citizenship and paying off their creation costs), Kaa battle riders were what filled the destroyer-and-smaller niches in their fleet, and had biological crews.
• Weapons-the Concordiat was built around spinal particle beam cannons and missiles, with xasers (x-ray laser) cannons as backups.  Concordiat ships had three sizes of missiles-350mm, 500mm, and 750mm.  At TL 10, the warhead commonly used was a HUGE HEAT round, followed by a nuclear weapon.  By TL 11, nukes were common (and, I would have built every single nuclear missile as a bomb-pumped weapon, but the Vehicle Builder tended to choke on that).  I built the missiles as vehicles themselves-power cells with a small nuclear power unit so the missiles could be used as mines if needed.
  
  Point-defense was provided by a small xaser cannon that had UNGODLY rate of fire...
• Concordiat ships of heavy cruiser and larger mounted particle beam cannons on turrets, as well.  The heavy cruiser mounted essentially the frigate's spinal particle beam cannon, and it went up from there.  As well, ships that were battleship and larger mounted turret-mounted missile launchers for 350mm missiles as anti-battle rider weapons.
• Battle riders had a dedicated tender/carrier ship in the Concordiat Navy, and were also carried by ships of dreadnought or larger in eight-ship groups.  They were also docked in huge numbers at anchorages (a term used by the Fleet for orbital elevators that were almost common on every major Concordiat world) for planetary defense.
• There was a dedicated Marine transport that could haul a single reinforced Marine Expeditionary Unit, and drop it with transports in a single drop.  Built the shuttles (three-a squad-sized lander/gunship, a company-sized lander, and a vehicle transport), tanks, AFVs, powered armor...
• And, then, we got into quirks...a good example was the Joshua-class battleship, which was built around a TL 10 Heavy Advanced framework (most other Concordiat ships were built on Heavy Very Expensive frames).  Why?  They had partially gone through the first flight run of the ship back when ships were built with TL 9 reactionless drives for low-thrust operations and pulse fusion engines for high-maneuverability combat.  TL 10 drives surprised everyone and they retrofitted the Joshua-class with the new drives.
  
  When the Joshua-class was retired, the Engai bought the hulls, stripped them down to the framework, and built their own warships on top of them.  In fact, they pretty much built their own TL 13 version of the ship a few decades later.

Next up...the First Interstellar War, TL 11, and how shield technology changed everything.

An Open Letter To BayCon...

...with CCs to KublaCon and FanimeCon. 

BayCon, my relationship over the years with you has been mostly, well...love.  You were my first BIG con.  You were the con that I loved going to, even when you were at the DoubleTree.  The parties were always awesome.  Your Dealer's Room had neat stuff.  And, you were awesome to go to, with the ladies in their beautiful costumes...

But, now?  Last year, it almost wasn't worth it except for "I've got friends there".  In the middle of the 2012 movie season, where the biggest run of science fiction and comic book movies (The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus, etc, etc), there was NOTHING there advertising or showing off for it.  Most of the panels were local fans doing...interesting things, yes, but still.  And, let's not talk about the Dealer's Room.  It was almost entirely costuming, with maybe a few other things in corners.

Mind you, it was useful for finding things like accessories for models when I shoot...but, still!

And, there is the fact that you're hemmoraging attendees, to FanimeCon especially.  And, with Fanime starting their own steampunk con, there will be even fewer attendees.

So, what can you do about it?  I'm not sure about this year-probably not enough time to get in on probably the biggest run of sci-fi movies in the last five years (let's see... Iron Man 3, Aftershock, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Man Of Steel, The Wolverine, Elysium...and I'm just skimming the surface here!).  But, there's 2014...and my suggestions-

1)Bite the bullet.  You can't survive as a "literary science fiction convention" in a time with so many choices.  Accept that you have to expand and go "we're for science fiction and fantasy, any format".  Get guests from things like the upcoming movies for the season (yea, you might not get the director of the new X-Men movie in 2014, but you could get the costumer....).
2)Better management of the dealer's room.  I've heard from some people that MIGHT have been vendors that they can't get in because the dealer's room is already full.  Of costumer stuff.  Bigger dealer's room?  A "wait list" that fills certain categories that if you get enough people you get a bigger dealer's room?
3)Better panels.  Some were good, some were bad, some need MUCH better moderation.  There's a lot of resources out there for panel moderation- a moderator boot camp, perhaps?  Anybody that wants to be panel moderator has to attend?
4)Bury the hatchet with KublaCon and FanimeCon.  And, work out this idea which I call a "Hopper Pass".  The three cons move to a location that is relatively close to each other (there are two con-ready hotels in Downtown San Jose near the Convention Center...hell, KublaCon could use the Hilton San Jose and Kubla Con can use the Fairmont San Jose), and they work through a neutral third party vendor that issues a "Hopper Pass".  You order the pass through one of the con's websites-let's say Baycon-at the end of the 2013 con for $120.  BayCon gets $50, Fanime and KublaCon get $25 each, and the third party vendor gets $20.  If you were to order it through Fanime or KublaCon, the money would be distributed that way.  As you get closer to the con season the prices go up, and you can't get them at the door.  You'd have to get tickets for all two (or all three!) to attend for the cost you'd have paid earlier for two.

So, what does the "hopper pass" give you?

• It comes on a VERY nice 4x5" laminated plastic card that has custom art based upon the con you ordered it form.  The BayCon one for 2013 (if it was this year) would have art drawn by the artist GOA this year, Cliff Nelson.  There's one for kids and one for adults (with a special edged banner one for 18-20 adults).
• You get to go to all three cons.  No waiting, no reg lines.  Show your pass, go in.
• Priority seating for all panels and events.  The first two rows are reserved until the panel and events start.
• Priority registration and table assignment for any things like "breakfast with the guests".
• A special, "Hopper Pass"-only program guide.

I know people that would pay $120 for that kind of privilege.  Or more.  I would pay for that.  Especially if the cons were in walking distance of each other.  It would allow for cross pollination, the occasional random "never done (insert con here), let's go try it!", and it would attract more fans that would feel like they would get more "bang" for the buck...

It's time to really get serious about this.  There's opportunities here...and they should be taken.

My Idea for A Sequel for "Wreck It Ralph"

I will admit, I enjoyed watching "Wreck It Ralph" in the theaters.  It's not them most brilliant of films, and it could have pushed a bit more of the edge...but, it was pretty good.

So, time for sequel thoughts!  Authorial notes-I would love to see this done and I even have a script outline done, but if it doesn't...

Anyways!  At the end of the first movie, Ralph decided he wants to do more heroing stuff-he likes being the good guy.  It's at least easier on the back and such.  Meanwhile, the arcade gets a new video game, Roar Fire Green, a Japanese 2D fighting game (an expy of BlazBlue, with the tie-in game made by Arc System Works), where the gaming world learns that anybody that beats the game gets a single wish.  Ralph, deciding that he wants to get this wish, gets into the game-and gets his ass kicked, hard.  He needs to learn how to fight, and a mysterious character (voiced by Doug Erholtz, who's voice and character design should be red flags RIGHT THERE) tells him that maybe he should get some training and learn how to fight first.

So, training montage (I mean, we go through Street Fighter, Soul Caliber, and Mortal Kombat montages) and a mysterious woman (whom is NOT Rachael from BlazBlue, even tho she has the same voice actor) whom gives Ralph a weapon (a big-ass hammer) and warns him that "time can be reversed, but an observed event cannot be changed".  Considering the nature of the huge number of characters descending on the game to play, it's now been turned into a tournament team play for the top title position.  Ralph has a team with a lot of other "bad guy" characters (i.e. probably M. Bison, Kano, and a few others), and he now has an additional team member from the game (a Cattleya expy voiced by Carrie Anne Moss of The Matrix fame) and they start fighting their way up the tournament ladder.

Ralph is wondering why his ally is in the tournament in the first place-and why she has the locket that she wears.  After a "fighting/flirting" training session, she reveals why she has the locket-it's her daughter.  In an earlier game her husband was killed defending her and her daughter-and the daughter died, anyways.  She wants to make it to the end of the game, where she can get the one wish and restore her daughter to life.  Ralph offers to help, even at the possibility of giving up his wish of being a hero.

Meanwhile...the players discover that the whole "tournament and wish" was merely a disguise by the Big Bad that organized it to link all the video game systems together, then crash them all.  When they were rebooted, he would be the ultimate power across all the systems, making him into a God.  Learning this, the entire tournament is attacked by clones of the contestants, in which Ralph and all of the characters defeat and they go forth, fighting their way up the mountain where the Big Bad is hiding out.  In the process, he sheds teammates holding off various threats until he reaches near the top of the mountain, where he and his female ally are nearly knocked off the bridge into a deep, fog-filled chasam.  Ralph is holding onto her, but can't pull her up...and she tells him to let her go, go beat the Big Bad.  Ralph refuses, keeps trying to pull her up as the bridge starts to collapse...and she makes him let go by hitting his hand.  She falls into the fog-filled chasm, and Ralph thinks she's dead.

Getting to the top, the Big Bad reveals that his weapon will start by attacking the world of Wreck It Ralph-and Ralph has to choose between saving his own game or letting all the others fail.  In a cold rage, Ralph defeats the Big Bad in crashing ruins of his game, walking away as the last of it falls and the game machine dies in the Real World, destroying the Big Bad as well.

Hailed as a hero, Ralph wonders what happens next and wonders what will happen to him.  At that point, the mysterious Rachel expy shows up and thanks him for doing what she couldn't do, because she had observed those events.  Ralph, angry, demands to know why she couldn't warn him about losing his friend-and the Rachel expy reminds him-"time can be changed, but an observed event cannot be changed.  You saw her fall-but did you see her land?"  Ralph realizes that he can save her, so he "borrows" Star Fox and a R-Wing, travels back in time with the Rachael expy's power to fly through the fog bank, and catches his friend.  Returning to the game of Roar Fire Green, the Rachel expy reveals that there are hidden characters and as it just turns out, there was one of a certian Ralph...

The movie ends with Ralph, his girlfriend/wife and their son playing in the game's world, hearing that a new challenger has appeared.  The grab their weapons and head out the door to face the challenge.

Wow...I Didn't Think It Was Possible

But, it is.  It truly is.

I no longer have any reason-at all-to watch Network TeeVee.

Let's see...the 2012-2013 schedule is...grim.  To say the very least.  There is not a single new show that does not insult my intelligence (Last Resort, Revolution), "comedies" where the males are basically overgrown children (Ben and Kate), or is "US remake of the BBC version, and the BBC version was better" (Elementary).  And, while I am a big fan of CSI, NCIS, Castle, Criminal Minds and Bones...why am I paying $100 a month or so for just those five shows? 

Or network TV news that I don't watch.

Or just about everything ELSE that I do involving network TeeVee.  Maybe basic cable shows, but I can get most of what they have on iTunes.

So, why should I support it with my money?

Next year, I'm getting a Roku Box (after getting a new iPhone-it's time).  And, I'm just going to order shows that I want.  I'll even pay for them.  But, I don't want to pay for what I don't want.  I don't need these shows.  And, if my money is no longer supporting them...I'm a happy camper.

The only question becomes...consequences.

If I Only Could Organize A Kickstarter #1

I'm an aspiring (i.e. I need to write more) science fiction writer and one of the biggest issues for me is simple.

Math.

Or, more accurately, how do I calculate how long it takes things from getting to point A to point B without pulling numbers out of my ass.  And, I don't want to pull numbers out of my ass and have the hordes of sci-fi fans that do know math to crew my ass about how I got it wrong.  I understand why getting it right is so important-some movies and shows that otherwise would be good start to piss me off because they get something wrong that I know is some other way.

This is the tool I want to relieve me of the fear of math, and if I could figure out how to budget it and get a staff, I would have the Kickstarter page up so fast heads would swim.  This program would let me do something like this-

"Okay, I'm sitting is Ceres on October 22, 2311. I can do 0.01 G continuously, but I have only three days worth of life support. WHERE can I get to?"

Or, something like this-

"The day before Challenger blows up, I've got the Space Shuttle, a NERVA rocket that fills up the cargo bay with engine, fuel, and a very small crew module with 75% efficient air and water recycling and three people. Total mass is 24,000 kilos, half fuel (water). From a Cape Canaveral launch, where can I go and still have enough food and fuel to come back? And, can I do better if I have a Titan IV-B launch at Cape Canaveral lift the engine and fuel tank, and have the Shuttle carry the crew and passenger module?"

Better yet, something like this-

"I've got a ship sitting at SFO that has AG lift that basically makes my ship neutrally buoyant, a 1 G continuous thrust drive, and a hyperdrive that I need to get at least 100 diameters away from any planetary body larger than Ceres and can do a light year a day. How long from Earth to the (theoretically) habitable planet of Tau Ceti if I leave tomorrow?"

Even better!  Here's an idea I'd love to simulate out-

"How would the mission of 'Time For The Stars' work out if the ship could accelerate at 3Gs once it got outside of the equivalent of the orbit of Neptune for Sol?  Or just 1G the entire trip?  What would be the time dilation difference between a person on Earth and a person on the ship?"

Note, this is all menu-driven, you build everything from ships to star systems via the menu system.  The program would have a "near star" map of all the stars in fifty light years, and let you create your own stellar system.  And, yes, I know there's AstroSynthesis out there-it isn't quite what I need...but it's pretty close.  And close only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades, or tactical nuclear weapons.

I can even see the marketing...free if you just want to simulate "historical" missions, full features unlocked if you buy an access code.

So, would you want to see this particular piece of programming work?  Pay $50 for it?

Not A Good Time To Be A Gamer

It is definitely not a good time to be a non-twitch gamer these days.  Case in point...

• Looking at the list of PC game releases for the next few months, the only games I'm even remotely interested in are Max Payne 3, Tom Clancy Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (now, isn't that a word salad), Carrier Command: Gaea Mission, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown.  Which doesn't sound too bad...except that's about four games out of a couple hundred.  And, none of them have the grand scope and sweep of Supreme Commander, Sword of the Stars, or the intense action as what Half Life 2: Episode 3 should be.
  
  (Assuming Half Life 2: Episode 3, Manchester United 0 ever comes out...)
  
  Hell, nothing is coming out that looks like another version of Portal and Portal 2 (something exciting and does something different).  Which is irritating...and, let's not even get me into the whole DLC dime-bagging that seems to be the new business model of game companies-sure, you can have all that neat stuff...either by grinding yourself retarded, or a few small payments of $10-20.  Or Day One DLC that seems to be features that the game cut to make deadline, but installed later to motivate you to buy the Super Uber Collector's Edition, or spend more money to get the content that you should have gotten with the game. (cough Mass Effect 3 cough).
• Pen-and-paper RPGs being seriously into the whole "go through dungeons and find the 12'x12' room with the kobold guarding the treasure box" aspect.  Don't get me started on whatever version of Dungeons and Dragons is coming out, as it seems that the game is trying to play "we're a mumorpger that you can play in person with other people in the same room!" games with us.  Pathfinder is playing "we're D&D 3.5.1" games...and the games I'm enjoying the most?  The Warhammer 40K RPGs coming out of Fantasy Flight Games, especially Rogue Trader (but not Black Crusade, as I'm not their target market-i.e. 18-21, angsty, and goth, or all the Elric books written by Michael Moorcock in his youth).  Hero Games is having a serious slow-down in their publication speed (but, I must say that Hero 6th doesn't do anything really that FRED didn't already do pretty well...and I'm a Hero Games fanboy).  Cthulutech and Eclipse Phase haven't had any releases in a long, long time-at least the creators of Cthulutech admit they were having publisher issues.  Steve Jackson Games seems to have gone over to a mostly-PDF release format for GURPS. 
  
  The big thing for White Wolf Games is the re-release of the Original World Of Darkness books.  Mind you, I want to see and play with Shards of the Exalted Dream...but only if they have nifty starship combat rules.  Otherwise, I can do without.

If you're a gamer that doesn't like games where you like brown muddy battlefields (Battlefield 2/Call of Duty whatever), or aren't jazzed by pattern matching games, or other games of this ilk, you're stuck.  I'm tired of a lot of the first person shooters out there, because they don't do anything new.  Or interesting.  Or fun.  And, there are no serious RTS games coming out, except an endless stream of add-on packs for Starcraft II.  Most of the games seem to be mumorpgers waiting to find a new audience to break off small chunks of the monolith that is World of Warcraft.  And, nobody has been able to convince me that these games are not just really fancy games of Whack-A-Mole.  And, even the esoteric pen-and-paper RPGs are having a nostalgia kick as they want you to find and fight more monsters in a maze of twisty patches that are all alike.

Maybe it's just me and my tastes are getting old (I think a few of my friends would say "refined").  But, I know I want to see Tenra Bansho Zero come out-not only because I've been waiting for it for the last few years, but it sounds like the game is in a lot of ways right.   I'm glad with the existence of Kickstarter, which has brought me games like Witch Girls (which has optional wizard rules, I can so see a Harry Potter-esque game here...), Hellas (sci-fi Greek tragedy/drama adventure gaming-who wouldn't love that?), and Torchships (something I haven't seen in a while, 3D starship combat without the laws of physics being broken, spindled, and mutilated...).  Without Kickstarter, these games may never see the light of day, for which I am very glad.  And, if they come out, there may be more that follow on the path they blaze.

Oh, and I want them to be successful-if only to wash the taste of compromise, brown muddy battlefields, and kobolds guarding treasure chests out of my mouth.

I'll Take "Things That Confuse/Annoy/Frustrate Me" for $500, Alex

Since today is Martin Luther King Jr Day and a day to reflect, consider, and understand the world around us all...I'm going to reflect on some things that are annoying, confusing, and frustrating me lately. Be warned, highly geeky and probably NSFW at some point...

1) Mass Effect 3, the third game in one of the better action/adventure RPG series out there, is going to have online DRM via EA's Origin platform. Well, bugger that idea of finishing off the Mass Effect series until they have a DRM-free/Steam-only version. Why? It's intrusive, automatically assumes that I'm going to be involved/dealing with a pirated version of the game, and the moment they don't want to support the game anymore, boom goodbye. And, they probably will NOT release any way to patch the game to avoid DRM issues (Alpha Protocol did this when the game series was canceled-the company released a patch that disabled the server check).

Ubisoft does this with their games, with the addition of "you must have a all-the-time, fully on Internet connection or else!" DRM scheme that the moment you have packet drop or any other issues dealing with the Internet...goodbye game. It's almost like they're allergic to making money or whatever. And, as far as I can tell, it's because EA is a bunch of anal-retentives whom like being in control of everything with their games, to the detriment of the game itself. When you have Sony (notoriously anal-retentive on the whole piracy thing) that has a problem with Ubisoft and EA's copy protection schemes-admittedly for legal reasons-maybe you should be reconsidering the whole idea.

It's like watching Star Wars and the whole scene of "the more you squeeze, the more control you'll lose". Which, of course leads us to...
2) George Lucas and his increasing madness. Okay, sometimes it's a good thing (Red Tails probably would not have been released/produced if he wasn't involved-it doesn't fit the current Hollywood paradigm), but I Did Not Ask for a 3D version of the Phantom Menace. It has almost reached the whole insanity thing of "Lucas will not keep remaking A New Hope until he dies" in the madness involved. It's not as bad as Force Unleashed II, or the Clone Wars animated movie...but that's sort of damning with faint praise, isn't it?

Hell, I'm not asking for 3D movies at all-it's another attempt at copy protection (it's hard to record a 3D movie in the theaters, I think...), an effort to create a "premium" experience to drive up ticket costs (which are already at the "obscene" levels for even a casual movie experience), and it's an effort to create a "oooh, shiny!" thing for audiences. I did not ask for any of this. I very much DO NOT WANT this. If you spent more on making good movies, taking chances on new Intellectual Properties, that sort of thing...I wouldn't mind so much. Except, well, now, I do. Very little appeals in terms of films and I've pretty much given up on watching network TV-so far, my "big three" network schedule pretty much consists of House after Law and Order: SVU became Law and Order: Lifetime Movie Of The Week. I probably watch more BBC America and Comcast's Music Choice TV than any actual TV programming...which is exceptionally sad. Let's not even talk about "popular" music-I can't even understand it, let alone the appeal. I don't feel old...and there's no urge to yell at the kids to get off my lawn, so it can't be that.
3)Yes, I know-anime exists to cater to young people to buy licensed items and love pillows in Japan and the US market exists at best as a "nice bonus" bit, but still... There were some great series in the past that hit the US market like a lemon wrapped in a gold brick and I don't just mean Naruto or Dragon Ball Z or Evangelion-Ergo Proxy, Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Cowboy Bebop, Witch Hunter Robin, FLCL...the list can go on and on and I'm just in the official licensed stuff, not even counting fansubs.

But, this year? I'm mildly more optimistic than Steven Den Beste, but not by much... So far, my total list of series this year that look even remotely interesting is very, very short- Boacious Space Pirates, Aquarion Evol, and Lagrange. And, all appear to have US licensees already (which means it's either FUNimation, FUNimation, or...FUNimation, with the closure of Bandai Animation in the US), so no "legal" fansubs for any of them. Which means we can be waiting for up to two years for any of this to come out on DVD...after everybody and their cousin have been watching the horribly timed illegal fansubs out there. And, quite frankly, I want to give Aquarion Evol a test run for free before even thinking of buying it.

The rest of the shows out this Winter season? High School DxD looks like a plate of sick trying to fake being an "edgy" drama/fighting harem show that insulted my intelligence (the main character is a jerk asshole that is a massive violation of rule #1-when dying, he just wants to grope his killer's breasts). Listen To What Papa Says!, yay for vague incest loli erotic fun, not. Dog x Me SS, another supernatural "odd couple" romantic drama that looks like it'll be stalked by cherry trees (with all those blossoms everywhere...). Kill Me Baby! looks to be a very stupid show that will make most of it's "humor" from the whole "fish/soldier out of water" thing that Full Metal Panic! did so much better. And with giant robots.

Damn. It's probably the cold out there (it was below freezing last night here), but it's probably making me more cranky than usual. Still...not happy. The Secret Masters who run the world should clearly be fired and replaced with new people in charge. Immediately, please.

The Movie That Will Never Be Made, But Should Be...

The first movie that so should be made, but will never be is a simple one-

Ghost In The Shell by Michael Mann.

Why? Because...when I first saw Heat, I realized that this film could so easily be adapted to the vision of a post-cyberpunk world that I saw Mamoru Oshii pull off in his production. Mann is an artist with color...all the scenes that are of a character in the film are shot in a particular color type (the character of Neil McCauley, played beautifully by Robert DeNiro, tends to be stark, simple, and blue while Vincent Hanna-played superbly by Al Pachino-is colorful and complicated. We never see Vincent in anything other than complexity, all the angles filled). All the shots are stylized-night is the "normal," all the daylight shots are flat and bleached out.

Ignore the gunfights-which are beautiful, by the way. Ignore the crime drama. Ignore everything else...at the heart of it is two stories of two lonely, alienated men-Neil due to the discipline he maintains ("Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner") and Vincent whom is working on pretty much failed marriage #3 and personal relationships that he's willing to toss aside for anything that gets in the way of catching guys like Neil. Two guys that admit that they respect each and like each other, but one day will probably have to kill the other because that's the discipline they're both under.

Ghost In The Shell is about alienation as well. For Major Kusanagi, does she really exist? Is there a brain in her skull, a ghost in her soul? Or is she just all software that mimics human existence? There's an iconic scene in the movie where Kusanagi is on a boat, and she sees a woman that might as well be her twin sister-or somebody using the same cybernetic body (the video is here on YouTube, 0:39 to 0:52). There's the last chase, as Section 9 hunts down the team that stole the Puppetmaster body from them for Section 6, using this iconic music as a part of the chase scene.

I can damn well see, in my mind, the film-shot for shot-with Michael Mann directing it. I can see the Major and Batou in their boat, talking about their circumstances. Or the chase scene through the market...not a shot for shot adaptation but one where Batou grabs items to make himself seem a bit more like the crowd as he hunts for an invisible man. And, the final, climatic gun fight...man vs. machine vs. man.

Of course, a US version is being made by Steven Speilberg, but I think that he'll miss the point, which is awful. Still, one can dream.

UPDATE: A great blog posting on the real life locations that inspired the movie. Worth looking at, and the rest of the blog, too.

Anime Here And Not...

Well, Steve DenBeste has hit about the same problem that I've had with the difference between getting stuff bit-torrented vs. waiting for the legal, official download. To rehash the issue from my perspective...

1. There are some series that will probably never make to the US. Legend of the Galactic Heroes will probably never see a US release-it's nearly 25 years old (and the animation was good for the era-but, still, 25 years old), nobody could afford to handle the dubbing track for the series (it would probably run to about 60 hours worth of dialog), etc, etc, etc...
2. There are some series that nobody could afford to bring to the US. Macross Frontier probably has a license cost that runs in seven+ digits, you would probably have to provide a high-level dub track that would include redoing all the songs in English (okay, some of Sheryl Nome's songs done in Very Good English would be very cool), -even ignoring the whole "who exactly owns it for handling overseas release" (I've heard everything from Harmony Gold to Big West to nobody having a clue).
3. There is some stuff that is so...esoteric that the fan base is very, very small. No question about it, there are some very rare things...
4. Time is not on your side in some ways. Fans can get fansubs of a show (usually of good quality) in less than 48 hours. Assuming your show does get picked up by a US distributor, we're talking anywhere between a year to two years before you get four episodes on a DVD at a time.

So, how would I solve this? If I had a great deal of money, I'd go into the anime distribution business myself (as a labor of love, not for profit...), and one of the things I'd insist upon as a part of my contract with the anime studio that we would get HD masters of the show in enough time to produce, subtitle, and distribute in HD the show on iTunes within 48 hours of the episode being shown in Japan.

However, I don't think I could get away with it...the US market is still viewed as a niche one in Japan for anime, and I don't think there's any way to get away with it...

Review: The World Of Darkness and Mage:The Awakening

First things first, I want to say that I fucking loved Mage:The Ascension with quiet sort of desperation that is best described as "courtly love from afar". During the early '90s, people kept telling me, "you have to check out White Wolf games, they're the shit and awesome and cool and all that." But, the games they had so far seemed to have either been a case of playing angsty, blood-sucking ambiguously gay porn stars or every variation of Wolverine that Marvel Comics thinks it could have gotten away with. Then, Mage came out, and like somebody slipping me the red pill, I fell into this world of wonders, joys, amazement, and magic. And, this was a universe of urban post-modern magic that I could get behind, unlike Unknown Armies which seemed to always be a case of "everybody's smarter than you are, and the only way to get ahead is to go mad." The game had magic, worlds of possibilities, enemies ranging from "we're good guys, only different" to "shoot them in the head, now" bastards. The magic system was free-flowing and it let players get away with one of the most important talents (I think) a player at a game table should have-using bullshit and amazement to succeed by entertaining other people. Yea, it had some mechanical issues and some other problems, but I liked it.

Even better, you could have played as the theoretical "bad guys", aka the Technocracy, with zero irony. And, from a personal perspective, you could easily see how the Technocracy was a much better bunch of people (making the world a better place and kicking the ass of any supernatural monster that would eat people) than the Traditions (whom were stuck in the "only the right people" can find the way to enlightenment). They weren't evil, just somebody on the other side of a long war that kept seeing monsters being allowed to roam free when the Traditions were in charge, and doing something about it.

Most importantly, if you knew the right powers, you could turn vampires in to lawn chairs and margaritas. I wish I was making that up. You could, with the right Spheres of magic, turn vampires into lawn chairs and margaritas and sit on them in the sunlight. That's awesome, almost as cool as a gun that shoots shuriken and lightning.

When I was down to a game budget of about two game lines, Mage:The Ascension and Champions was it-Champions because The Best Gaming Group In The World was playing it and I was a part of it, and Mage because I loved the game. And, life was as good as it was going to get for me, game-wise.

So, around '02, White Wolf Games came to the realization that the game mechanics for the World of Darkness was breaking down, they were running out of ideas to throw at players, and quite frankly the market for the books was over-saturated. In that, they decided to reset the whole game line, blow the universe up, and rebuild it. Part of this rebuilding was to totally revise all the game lines, and to separate out the game rules from the setting book. And, this actually worked pretty well, as the World of Darkness rule set is pretty good with a few flaws in it. My big issues with it is that there's a lack of the snarky commentary in some of the sections, you have to buy martial arts as "powers" and not skills, and some of the damage mechanics seem funky. Oh, and the morality system seems to be built in to involve a nagging mum effect. But, unlike most "generic" rules, you can pretty much run a low-level supernatural campaign with just the core rulebook and be done with it. This counts, in my mind, as a Very Good Thing. And, by doing this, you can turn over the page count in the setting rulebooks to more neat stuff, and in the case of the newest Mage game, Mage:The Awakening, more ways to turn vampires into lawn chairs and party drinks.

Except...well, it's harder. The new Mage background is one of "only one path to enlightenment" in the form of Atlantis (which they're very clear is a. not just the place that Plato described during the era of Ancient Greece and b. was done in as much by hubris as people being mean to each other). Sometime in the really, really far past, a bunch of powerful mages climbed up to power, there was treachery, betrayal, and two major factions tore the universe apart. This condemned most of the human race to becoming Sleepers, and creating an Abyss that wants to devour everything. But, five of the mages created the Watchtowers and some humans can awaken again from Sleep. Bra-fucking-vo, you stupid bastards.

First of all, I want to talk to whomever set up and laid out the book-unless you wanted to make the point of "magic is hard to understand and read, and requires dedication", the book layout sucks. Odd uses of text fonts and font colors, breaking the text up with mystical symbols...ugh. Irritating. Next, the magic system has been changed-you can debate better or worse, but the changes have broken the nine Spheres into ten Arcana, with one that you're weak in and two that you're strong in. The magic changes also mean you have to learn Rotes-basically spell "short hand" for certain effects to make it easier to cast and handle. And...all the magic is that of Atlantis-they "won" the magical decisions war, and that means that everybody uses their language and terms and concepts.

Oh, and Paradox is no longer "reality biting back", and more "you failed to negotiate well with the Abyss that straddles the Real World and magical power". The enemies no longer range from "kind of like you, but playing with different rules" to "bug-fucking nuts", they're now "the world will run by the rules of the guys that caused the Abyss" to "various categories of bloody lunatics". And, unlike the "we're making the world a better place-once we figure out what 'better' is" of the first Mage, the new Mage is a Gnosticistic romp through "becoming something more and greater than God". Yay. And, the new morality system that permeates the game system has it's expression as "Wisdom"-messing around with the powers of the universe unwisely is a Very Bad Thing and is like doing cocaine. And, as just about anybody that has done cocaine can tell you, you start out doing well and it all goes downhill fast and very mess.

Except most people that do cocaine won't start developing extra limbs or an evil twin. Usually.

I really, really wanted to love this game. And, I do like it-I just don't have the same absolute lust for buying books and such that I had for the previous version of the game. I get the feeling that if I wanted to pull off the same game effect that I had in Ascension, I'd have to drag out my copy of Genius:The Transgression, and it's not even an "official" game (but it is so awesome, it should be). It feels like you're trying to play a game where you can be John Constantine without irony or "messing around with mechanics" that a lot of other games have. That Neil Gainman (who is one of the authors that I like when he's "on" and despise when he's "off") is one of the big game-world influences disturbs me as well.

So, in a nutshell-the new World of Darkness is pretty cool. Mage:The Awakening is neat, you won't feel like you lost money buying it, but it doesn't have the same flavor as Mage: The Ascension and that is a bit disappointing. Now, it's going to be sunset soon, and I've got these great lawn chairs and margaritas to share...

More On The Bushido Blade Wii Idea

Anyways, I've been coming up with more ideas for the Bushido Blade Wii idea...

• I've decided that there will be about eight playable characters, four hidden ones (since it's a Square/Enix game, Cloud Strife, Squall Leonheart, Sora, and a unnamed Jedi). Twelve weapons for the players, and about four bosses.
• The weapons are all going to be "classical" weapons-rapier, long sword, katana, naginta, scimitar, broadsword, pike, and saber. By going through the training games, you can get upgraded versions of the weapons. The "perfect" weapons are hard to find, but very much worth it. The eight players have an "optimal" weapon choice, of course. The hidden characters have improved versions of their weapons to find.
• The basic game story-eight characters that are members of a secret society of assassins. They think that they're trying to make the world a better place, but actually are serving a cause of making things worse. The player is the one trying to escape, the remaining seven are trying to kill them (yes, I'm using the original plot. So sue me.)
• Realistic weather. Using the Wii Weather Channel to find the weather close to the player, or the "original" dojo, or somewhere else in the world.
• Lots of little visual bonuses. Good stuff.

More ideas as they come up...

Sudden Explosion Of Imagination!

I just had a great thought, and a superb game idea.

It'll either be awesome-or I'll get killed by insane fans. Your mileage may vary.

The idea-remember Bushido Blade? (If you haven't, you missed a great game that every fighting gamer player should have owned.) Solo player game where there was no health bar, no "blow up the scenery" super moves-just guys (and gals) with swords and making the most of a massive dojo area to fight in.

The concept-Bushido Blade Wii. (Wait for it...)

Single player game, with the Wii Motion Plus to control the sword, and the Wii Balance Board to control the player (move the player's balance to move where the player goes, to dodge, etc, etc...). The game is played either from first-person or third person (with a "ghost" player), with multiplayer being done by the WiiConnect.

All sorts of gameplay options, including a "Highlander" option (fight your way to beat the enemy, then take their head), 10,000 Ninjas (survive waves of ninja attackers), and with the amount of accuracy that the Wii Motion Plus offers...you'll be seeing a lot of geeks that can suddenly go pretty good with a sword (I'd find that awesomely cool, as well).

Somebody's going to have to say "it's a great idea" or "it sucks"-and if you think it's great...how does one get a Wii Dev kit?

Horrible Mis-Matches In The World

We've seen them all. Sonny and Cher. Little tiny women with huge dogs. Brittney Spears and K-Fed. A bacon Gardenburger. Things that should not go together, and when they fall apart, people that honestly took a look at it was not surprised. The only people that aren't surprised are the people involved and their hanger-ons.

A new, horrible mis-match that we're going to see end badly-President Obama and the United States of America.

So far, nobody has really been able to prove to me that the United States-on a political axis-is more or less a center-right country. There's a fundamental distrust of the concentration of power outside of certain activites-military, some kinds of regulation and law enforcement. A belief in what the Little Red Hen said-she did all the work to make the bread, so why should people that did nothing but sit around and watch get anything? It may also be more of a modern thing, but the mores of the United States have changed in the belief in the melting pot-we got no problems with the Pakistani bistro down the street, but your kids have to learn how to speak English as their main language. And, they're here to stay-you're here to make a small bit of this country your home and bitch about the fact that your daughter is seeing that Irish kid down the street with his pants around his knees (but, if you kill her for the "dishonor", you'll be staring at a needle yourself).

Militarily, there is a belief in that a single source of leadership-however occasionally poor it is-is better than military control by committee. Better a George W. Bush than a Senate Armed Services Committee. We like having somebody that we can wave a finger at and say "he's to blame", and force changes by indirect (protests, letters, writing) and direct (voting out his allies, voting out the one who's the problem) means.

Like all generalities, there are exceptions-Johnson's Great Society is a big one (I suspect a lot of people thought it was a "fair" deal, and not what it turned out to be-bread and circuses). So was the massive demobilization after both World War II and the end of the Cold War, when the world kept showing that there were major threats on the horizon. But, both sides agreed that there had to be an end to the tools of war, if not for why there had to be an end.

And then, we get to President Obama. As it seems to be from how he's been treated in Europe, he'd make for a great head of a major leftist party. His politics are very much "we need to centralize power so the decisions can all be made once, here". And, many of the policies are ones that have been used over the decades in other places and failed horribly. You keep getting the feeling that it's like Charlie Brown and the Kite Eating Tree...instead of being careful, he just buys a bigger, more expensive, and much more tasty kite.

A few of the less brilliant ideas he's had...

• "Cash For Clunkers"-not does it mean that there are fewer cars on the used/secondary sales market (which a lot of lower-middle class and poor people get their cars) and the related parts market, most of the cars bought to replace the junked cars tended to be from Japan and Europe, not the United States.
• Bailing out GM. For years, the bitter joke has been that GM is pretty much a company that provides health care and benefits, and as a byproduct makes cars. Bankruptcy and restructuring would have been awful for the people that depended upon GM and people that depended upon GM people for their lives, but restructuring would have done something to make GM profitable. Now, all that's going to happen is that the crash is going to be higher and harder to avert. And the mess much larger.
• Dithering about his support in Afghanistan. Especially doubling-up with the Pakistani government that has been shown in the past to either look the other way or help Al Quedia. You can almost suspect that he's waiting for a Tet-like event that looks horrible on TV to pull American troops out.
  
• By words and deeds, pretty much putting Eastern Europe out in the cold. There's a steadily growing sense of Russian nationalism, an effort to go back to the "good old days" when Eastern Europe was where Russians went for cheap hookers and cheap goods. Not as free nations that have had enough-centuries enough-of being a part of a Russian Empire in all but name.
• Failing to provide political support in dealing with Iran. Had the election fight gone more against the mullahs, they would have issues supporting their nuclear program. When they start screaming that they'll soon be ready to nuke Israel-and Israel makes quiet plans to destroy their nuclear program-Obama dithers. An Israeli strike-no matter how justified-will set of a war in the Middle East that makes the Yom Kippur War look like a wet firecracker. A nuclear attack on Israel would probably result in massive strikes across the Middle East, as the Israeli military engages in retaliatory strikes.
• And, on that note...rather than develop heavy power industries such as nuclear power, improved coal, and such; there is the push for windmills and solar power. Nice if you want to run a few lightbulbs and maybe a laptop, but horrible if you want to run a machine shop. Especially if you want to work at your own pace, and not during the day or when the wind is blowing.

People kept warning us that Obama was a hollow man without anything to really get an idea of what he was. I've told people that I kept viewing Obama as a bittersweet chocolate Easter bunny in a three piece suit-bite the head off, and there's nothing there. And, nothing since has shown me that I've been wrong in this opinion.

How did it happen? A golden window between the time of the perceived and actual failures of the Bush administration and a Democrat Party looking to try and reconnect with the glory days it had and lost with the 1994 Republican revolution. A Republican Party that has serious internal issues between the moderate and harder-right member of it's own party, especially as many of the members that were the ones that had been a part of what got Regan elected (by kicking out the worst of the conspiracy theorists, Birchers and such) died or left politics. And, a Republican Party where the conspiracy theorists-the Nirthers, the Birthers, the Truthers and such-began to take on a much more predominant role.

This golden window is why you see such pressure to pass health care reform, and a horde of other bills to try and "fix" things-soon enough, the 2010 elections are coming and you get the feeling from polling data that somebody is going to be left holding the bag. And, if they can't get enough things to show that they're making things "better", the Democrats are going to be the ones with the bag. A shift of votes to a more contested House and Senate, especially of Republicans that are going to try and show they are not "business as usual" types is a disaster for the cozy relationships that Obama has been trying to use to get his bills passed.

And, he's still there, still smiling and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for being somebody other than Bush. Even more so than Jimmy Carter (whom I keep seeing as the nearest contemporary politician to Obama), you get the sense that if he stops smiling he might have to think.

And, that would be a disaster. More so than what's going on now, but definitely a disaster.

Solving Starship Computer Battles For Dummies...

...or, why you shouldn't let me be stuck watching Banner Of The Stars and the "Day Of Sagittarius" episode of Haruhi Suzumiya, and having lots and lots and lots of time to think about things...

(Special Thanks To Steven DenBeste, who worked out a lot of the stuff I'm starting from.)

In the episode of "The Day of Sagittarius", the Computer Society has created a new game called "The Day Of Sagittarius III"(with the inevetable deadpan snark from Kyon of where No 1 and 2 are...), and the SOS Club are now challenged into a duel between the two groups.

One of the key inspirations for the game's (hereafter called Day III) combat system seems to be the way Plane Space is handled in Crest Of The Stars-ships move on a two-dimensional space, and are dependent upon long-range scouting to fully use their weapons. Literally, the side that knows where the other side is-and can engage them first without being detected in turn will win or at least hold their own.

A factor involved is the use of recon drones to extend a fleet's ability to see. While the Computer Society cheats throughout most of the game with the Fog of War option disengaged, Yuki counters with an option built into the game. This option is a micro-management option of splitting up fleets and (presumably) drones to spread out and perform multiple scouting options. This, combined with the understanding of how the Computer Society is cheating and disabling it at the right time, gives the SOS Club the win against the Computer Society.

Now, there are a few Java/Visual Basic games out there that cover this game, but I'm thinking...how could it be done better? And, in a way-more fun.

Peel it down to the basics-flat space, "fog of war" and the need for scouting, and "fleets of thousands" that some people and games like. From that, we can perhaps assume some things-

• The smaller the fleet, and the smaller the ships in the fleet, the faster they can go. This allows for "hit and run" attacks by smaller warships, scouting fleets, and such.
• Bigger ships are more deadly-they can carry torpedoes and the truly huge batteries of energy weapons needed to smash the largest enemy warships around.
• Resupply in the Day III's combat system is assumed-Asahina is put in charge of the SOS-dan's supply ships. This may mean that it's possible for a fast reloading of torpedoes and such-but both the supply and resuppling ships are vulnerable to attack.
• The light novel indicates that there are at least three customization options and a number of points you can use. Expand it a bit further...perhaps you can buy your ships by type and fittings, then expand them to form a fleet of ships.

The game starts to coalesce-we have about four major hull types that will show up (with some variations on size, and overlapping concept hulls)-

• Scout Ships are small. Not tiny, but small (the smallest "ship" is the drones used for recon by ships). Their major job is to find enemy fleet, and hit and run if a fleet operates in smaller components. Or, to engage supply ships. They don't carry torpedoes, but do have defenses against them.
  
• Patrol Ships are faster than battleships and supply ships, and slower than scout ships. Think of them as "flankers" for the most part-scout ships can't take out a patrol ship without swarming them with huge numbers, and patrol ships can't chase down scout ships-but they can deny a scout ship the ability to do recon. Patrol ships carry torpedoes, but mostly use them to stop scout ships.
• Battleships are the huge bruisers. Slower than everything else, but they carry enough armor and defenses that trying to swarm them under with anything other than hordes of patrol ships is suicide. They carry huge numbers of torpedoes, to serve as an opening attack against other battleships. They're the "anvil" in a "hammer and anvil" combat strategy.
• Supply ships are there to do field repairs to warships, reload torpedo and recon drones, and a few hulls might be of a "Carrier"-type platform, carrying huge numbers of torpedoes, but slow and very vulnerable. This would dictate that torpedoes have a long range but are fairly "dumb"-they need to know where to engage a target to enter their sensor range and engage it.

A few "odd ball" ship types might exist (a "heavy scout" that would be pretty much a "light patrol ship"-armed enough that a fleet of them would be a threat to an equivalent sized fleet of scouts, but not "true" patrol ships or a heavy patrol ship hull that could be considered a small battleship), but those are the four major types. Then, we get into weapons-

• Torpedoes are the very long ranged weapon of the fleets. Presumably, they are fairly "dumb" in the sense that they need somebody to "spot" for their launching ship, to be able to provide directions in where they should be. A large torpedo salvo is a dangerous threat-presumably they would carry powerful warheads and ships would be in serious danger from them.
• Energy weapons are the other major weapon. It seems that there are two types-weapons mounted along a ship's long axis (as a part of or along the ship's spine), and "side" cannons similar to the weapon arrays of Exelion-class. Presumably, the main spinal weapons are the main ship-killers, while the side weapons are their for anti-scoutship, anti-torpedo, and "we need to fire something at them!" role.

Suddenly, the concept starts to make sense, and we now have a much more...dynamic game to play in.

There's more options available "under the hood", if we want-do we build our battleships with a few huge guns, or a lot of guns (and the damage model may have to reflect this-huge guns will punch deep into a ship, while lots of guns will "peel" the surface of a ship)? Do we emphasize with our scout ships speed and sensors, or do we sacrifice for the ability of scout ships to be able to hold their own in a fight? Do we allow modifiers to each side-in the sense that one side might be strong in armor, but weak in speed across the board for their ships?

The new version of Day III starts looking like this-

• Dynamic ship design and ship operations concept. Combine that with the micro-management option of splitting fleets (presumably around a "command ship"), and rather than having to command each fleet, assign sub-fleets a formation (of them and their drones), based upon control groups.
  
• Fog of War becomes important. Recon drones either have to be fairly "close" to their ships, or become a "use or lose" when they run out of fuel.
  
• Teamwork becomes a key. Fleet vs. fleet can quickly become fratricide. But, two fleets versus one? Much more dangerous for the one fleet...especially if they are vulnerable to attacks on the sides or aft.
• Play options for everyone. Maybe when fleet-vs-fleet combat starts, a setup like Dynasty Warriors happens-players command a single ship and issue commands to the rest of their fleet, while they get to blow away their enemies.

The Battle of the SOS-Dan

But, what does this have to do with the price of Tea in China?

With our new, dynamic combat system under the hood, we can see a much more...interesting fight between the Computer Society and the SOS.

Both sides have five players, and five fleets. Since the Computer Society is cheating with a disabled fog of war effect, their fleets are pretty much all battleships, with a single supply fleet to reload their torpedoes. On the other hand, the SOS has to be a bit more "balanced", and that leads us to how the fleets are set up.

• Haruhi, without a doubt, is entirely packed to the gills with battleships. She wants to get close and blow them up with lasers and torpedos and such. She has the weakest scouting ability of all the fleets, and is probably entirely dependent upon drones.
• Kyon, on the other hand, seems to be a bit more "balanced". Personally, I suspect his fleet is mostly patrol craft, with enough scouts to spot for him and a few battleships to "put the boot in" as needed. Kyon wants to flank the enemy, know where they are, and engage them on the sides-he doesn't want a battleship-to-battleship duel head on.
• Itsuki is probably the other battleship fleet, but less maniacal about it than Haruhi. He probably has enough scouts to fill out his flanks and serve as early warning for torpedo attack. His strategy is going to probably be as much misdirection and being where people don't expect him to be.
• Yuki is the commander of the fleet's scout forces. She uses her abilities to multi-task to command multiple small squadrons of scout ships and drones. Like Kyon, her fleet has a small battleship "core" to keep things interesting, but most of her elements are scout ships. Mid-way through the game, she probably has all the Computer Society fleets bracketed with scout ships and drones.
• Mikuru commands the support fleet the ship has. Since Haruhi hasn't thought of it, her fleet probably is just supply ships and enough patrol ships to keep scouts off with maybe a few battleships. Unlike the Computer Society, she probably has no torpedo bombardment ships/carriers to use.

Without the high weirdness that Haruhi can generate, the battle works out like this-

1. The SOS fleet tries to find the Computer Society fleet-but because of the disabled Fog of War effect, the Computer Society begins to use flanking attacks to wear down the SOS forces.
   
2. Yuki splits up her forces to scout for the Computer Society. Meanwhile, she is also analyzing the code and setups used by the game.
3. As her scout fleets have most of the Computer Society fleets bracketed, she discovers that the Fog of War effect is disabled and informs Kyon. By this time, Mikuru's fleet has bee badly damaged if not destroyed.
4. Kyon tells Yuki to re-enable the Fog of War. Since the Computer Society is now dependent upon their own (non-existent) scouting, the SOS fleet has the advantage since Yuki's scouts have the Computer Society under observation.
5. The battle now changes. The Computer Society is trying to find the enemy, meanwhile the SOS knows where they are and the three main fleets attack. The strategy is probably one of one fleet (Kyon or Itsuki) engages the Computer Society on a flank. As the Computer Society fleet turns, the other and Haruhi attack from the other side. Caught between three fleets, the enemy ships are rapidly destroyed for little damage on both sides.
6. The last fleet is destroyed, and Yuki fires the shot that kills the last command ship.

Now, that would be good entertainment. And, I'd love to play that game. It's exciting, to say the very least.

The End Of R1 Anime?

Serious question to be asked. Between Bandai's...unique choices in distributors (after the scandal involving their reproduction of defective DVDs), the whole Endless Eight debacle (it looks like there will be at least six repeats of the exact same episode, just with different animation-it takes talent to pull off a Groundhog Day plot, and this isn't talented), and the fact that there just isn't a lot of anime coming to the States-most of what the studios are releasing are repeats and compliation packages.

From the outside, this is what I see as the problems (anybody wants to tell me wrong, I'm interesting in hearing why)-

1. Fansubs. As somebody that loves fansubs, I hate the idea that I'm hurting the industry. I grew up on the anime industry, and I have a place of pride for all of my Animeego VHS tapes-with the cultural hint and music lyric liners attached. But...
   
   I just picked up the first two DVDs of Gundam 00 here in the US. Nine episodes, total. The series came out in October 2007 in Japan. So...call it about 18 months from the first episode to having a legal copy here. I was able to get some very good fansubs avalable of the first episode, within two weeks of it coming out on Japanese TV. Anime has benefitted from the Army of Davids-a good setup for doing high definition anime subtitling has easily fallen within reach of a well-off person in the United States. The only issue is a lack of good translators and time.
   
   The response of anime companies? Go after the fansubbers as pirates. Piracy flourishes when there is a market for a product that there is no legal avenew for. When cigarette taxes are high, people will go to smugglers that will give them more value for their money, legality be damned. Especially in a free market society.
2. Shifting demographics. Most anime fans came in during the first "big wave" of anime (mid '90s), the next wave that started in the late '90s, and the current generation that grew up on Naruto and Death Note are starting to get out of college and are trying to find jobs in this crazy market. I don't see a major new "wave" of anime fans coming up. Or manga fans. Hell...I'm not even sure what the new demographic of the 18-25 year old is...
   
   Fandom has less money to spend on greebles. And, they have to have value for their dollars.
3. Shifting anime companies. From what I can gather, most Japanese production and distrubtion companies regard the American market as either a "nice to have" or a "direct competition". Geneon's big problem was that American anime DVDs were cheaper than the Japanese releases, even with reimporation costs. Add a region-free DVD player and it's easy to watch our DVDs of their anime. American studios also have the problem that they were running on fiscal shoe-strings. This probably was what killed ADV-they didn't have enough money in the bank when the bubble burst.
   
   This may be what Bandai is up to with their exclusive deal-they want a justification to cut their losses. They tried a "Japanese" model with Bandai Visual, and that failed. Now what?

I'm looking at the whole market, and I've got a few ideas for both Japanese and American studios-all as an ousider that wants the anime market to succeed.

• Go to a model that makes it easy for anime owners to use their products. Digtial downloading to media devices like the iPod and similar mobile devices.
• More rapid/integrated options for fans to get their products. There is no practical reason why anime cannot be released in the United States within a few weeks of it appearing on Japanese TV. Make DVD releases important because they have items like dubbing, high definition (and on BluRay with new releases...1080i formatting), and items like interviews and toys.

Of course...I can't see it happening. The studios are not going to take chances...and they won't be around much longer.

Which is a pity. One day, I want whatever legal snarls that are keeping Macross Frontier (and the rest of the franchise) from coming to the United States. I got a chance to see a few episodes on BluRay and they are stunning.

A Sudden Pontification Upon A Theory

So, what does the single, intellectual Republican do on a Saturday night in San Francisco, somewhat broke?

He reads blogs and webcomics and starts trying to figure out things. Usually on bottle of two of good beer. During this running, I came across one of the latest articles by PJ O'Rourke on how America is seeing the end of the love affair with cars. Worse yet, you have the simple fact that now that GM is going to be Government Motors, they will be producing cars for a market that does not exist, for people that cannot afford them. And, there is the love affair that Obama is trying to sell to us, one of the most loved ones of Socalists since Mussolini, the high-speed rail line.

After all, the logic is, we don't need cars. Why, the Europeans get along without cars, very often-usually, if they need one, they rent it. Why own a car that will be a threat to the enviroment and Al Gore's peace of mind? We can all take the bus! And public transit! And the train! Why live out in the suburbs when the cities are the place to be!

And, in that instant, the idea hits me like a lemon wrapped in a gold brick. Between sips of a good oatmeal stout, the realization reaches me.

What is the ulitmate form of protest against the policies of a government, short of explosions? Voting with your feet. And, with the automobile, it's so very easy to vote with your feet.

Why live in San Francisco or New York, where it's crowded, full of people that annoy you, high crime rates (when the police department is being run for sensativity and not arresting people), high costs (you can pretty much tack on about $1-2 for anything that isn't already pre-priced in SF like coffee, worse for New York or Chicago), living in apartments that are so small you have to go outside to change your mind, long commutes on crowed buses and subways, the public school system sucks multicultural donkey dicks, etc, etc...

...when, you can live in Berkeley. Or Petaluma. Or outside of Washginton DC in Virginia, where you can own a gun. And, you can drive to the supermarket to pick up a gallon of milk and not pay twice as much at the corner store. And, you can send your kids to a school where they have a chance to learn. And, live somehwere that there's enough space for a hobby.

And, live somewhere that you can have a chance of effecting the political process. Let's be honest-politics in the big cities tends to be restricted to the very young (who have energy to burn and brains full of bat guano), career politicians (whom being employed in politics is a job), and the various courtiers of the big city political process (union leaders, newspaper editors, law firms, etc, etc).

The automobile gives a large amount of polticial autonomy that makes it much harder to enforce larger, massive top-down solutions on people. When it's possible for people to live in a city that has minimal taxes, then come to work in a larger city that has more taxes that can be avoided by not being there and make more money, you see a phenomina similar to what's going on in Mexico-people crossing the border from cheaper places to live, to find work in places that pay more because they have to pay more for talent to even come close to those cities.

And, oddly enough, this kind of border reform is something the Obama administration and it's followers like. They want people to move into the cities, where it's possible to regulate and control them. To poke into their lives and meddle, and be meddlesome.

When people are living in a crackerbox apartment, they can't afford to buy stuff to fill it, unless they get help with the rent and rent control (which benefits the upper middle class and beyond-Berkeley is a diaster in the making when the old hippies and such have to go into nursing homes and managed care). Mom can't buy huge amouts of food at Costco, but smaller amounts at the local corner store that charges a premium. So, if they want to eat more, they have to qualify for food stamps. The cost of paying for union jobs on public transit systems means that the cost of taking public transit goes up, and there goes your pocket money for Starbucks for that month-but, after all, you don't need to drink all that coffee, do you? Bad for your heart, have some tea, instead.

And, how can you fight City Hall, when it takes you two hours to ride the bus to and from work, add nine hours for work and you have maybe three hours to eat, shop, and maybe have some fun? Of course, your political donations go to people that will cheerfully help your cause...even if you don't know that you need that kind of help yet.

I remain uncertian as if this were planned for (in the sense of an overarching scheme), or it is a part of the circumstances (like flying shrapnel from a chemical plant explosion). I don't like thinking the first, it speaks of paranoia, consipriacy, and the French. The second, on the other hand...where is the explosion and what is it coming from?

The American car industry, in a lot of ways, did bring this on itself. They need to dig themselves out...and soon. Because, Americans may be driving cars made in Japan, China, and Europe.

If they can drive, at all.

Obama, And Democrat Nobility

I've been reading another superb column by Victor David Hanson (been reading a lot of his books lately, and I like his logic) this weekend.

One point that he's been making about Obama is that he's been making use of one of the greatest tools of demagogy politician, the "evil other". He's been drumming up a lot of hatred of the usual socialist class warfare targets-evil banks, "fat cat" capitalists, "greedy" people that aren't paying their "fair share"...

Worse, nobody can make fun of Obama. How soon in the Bush administration-either of them-did the jokes start? How early in the Clinton era did the really bad jokes begin? But...I haven't heard any good Obama jokes. Are the court jesters of our era all suddenly struck down with laryngitis?

Or, are they scared that any jokes of Obama would be called racists? That criticizing Obama in a way that a white politician would get screams of "racism", "going after our first-ever Black President"?

Worse...I can see a new kind of political nobility showing up in DC. Look at how Nancy Pelosi is denying that she was briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques". When other people there aren't saying "oh, she didn't know what she was saying" but "she's lying out of her very blouse." That eight major banks were told that they had to sign and accept agreements to accept TARP money and government controls, "or else". When did the Treasury Department turn into Vito Corleone?

Or, the various departments in Washington DC turn into courtiers for the "elected" politicians?

It's going to be a crazy, crazy four years-because, short of several miracles (man-made or otherwise), I can't see Obama being President for more than four years.

Me For NASA Administrator

They're still looking for an administrator to run NASA. (Special thanks to Instapundit.) The Obama administration has a lot of things on their mind, namely they can't find people without tax trouble. However, I think that if there is somebody with a good shot at the job out there, they should apply for it.

Like, for example, me.

Admittedly, I don't have enough of a management/space industry background to really be in serious competition. But, I do have some things going for me-

• I'm a huge space nut. Whatever else happens, there will be Buck Rogers at some point, men will be back in space, and on the Moon, ASAP.
• The day I get in, I'll demand a 60 day, non-partisan review of the Aries/Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle and the Jupiter/DIRECT launcher system. Whichever one passes the review, will be the one built. I personally am a fan of the DIRECT, but I want the best launcher deployed, and soonest.
• We'll be funding a 10,000 lbs NERVA engine system, to maximize the options for missions going to the Moon and Mars.
• I hate Washington DC with a passion, with the exception of the museums. I promise that I'll spend the absolute minimum of time in DC, the maximum possible time on my work desk.
  
• I promise, my CSPAN experiences will be memorable. I promise lots of props, lots of visual greebles, all sorts of fun things.
• Quite a bit of NASA budget will be in getting Science In The Classroom. Easy to handle and read packets that give kids from K-12 the ability to understand science as a real thing. Even easy-to-do experiments of all sorts.
• There will be men on the Moon in by 2014, 2012 if I have to get out an push. Permanant base at least two years later.
• Mars mission ASAP, based upon Mars Direct. With the development of the NERVA engine, that gives us a lot more mission options.

I'm pretty much ready to go to work, day one, for the job. My only issues is that I think dueling may still be legal in Washington DC, so I might have to challenge a few people for the job...