- Variants of vehicles I already have. (For example, an AA Missile System on a Jeep)
- Various sorts of hatches, cargo containers, etc. for sci-fi gaming.
- Several (as yet to be completed) workstation models for starship crew.
- A trauma tube model along with an ambulance vehicle variant.
- A quadrapedal 'mule' with casevac capability.
- Some kinda fencing for wild west games (if I can't find a good cheap scratchbuild option).
- Some variant starship models for my Full Thrust and Stargate games.
- A Stargate Iris.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Moulding Projects
Misadventures in Moulding
Well, today was an attempt to create a two-part mould for some cacti, a pour mould for some scenery bits, and a pour mould for some vehicle bits.
Lessons Learned:
- Glue your work down in the mould box. Didn't matter much with heavier originals - they just sat there. Medium weight/size originals moved a bit when the airy RTV glooped around them, but no catastrophes. Polystyrene... floats! Whatever the aeration process is for the RTV, it got the polystyrene lightweight original parts floating. I actually had to use a brass rod to hold one of the pieces on the bottom of the mould box. Remains to be seen if that mould is FUBAR.
- Have enough RTV. I used all I had, 2 lbs, and I ran short by (I figure) about another pound or at least 3/4 of one. The only serious part of the shortage is a pour mould with incomplete coverage of one high protrusion and another where I can see a shadow through the mould to a higher piece. Both, I'm hoping, can be salvaged by a subsequent pour on top of more RTV, once I have some. It's amazing how much of that stuff you'll go through, even when you try to keep space around the parts as small as you can while retaining wall strength. Odd shaped parts is obviously a factor - height seems to be critical - if you've got a big box and one part makes you pour more, it is a lot more!
- Mix, mix, mix the RTV. I thougth I did that. But the last part of the RTV, even after I scraped the walls during mixing repeatedly, always seemed to come out whitish rather than yellow. I think the only way to beat this is a) have a little extra of the additive on hand in case you are short a bit and b) buy a silicon scraper to scrape the inside of the jar during mixing and dumping out. It'll end up being a sacrificial tool, but if it makes for better pours, that's okay.
- Two part moulds are tricky. I still have to see if the second half of the cacti mould will work out right. You have to align any and all pieces on an axis that you want to be the mould centerline and glue them there and that's a feat. Then you have to pour in such a way as to get under your pieces but not up the sides or overtop. Sounds easy but a wide mouth 1 pound jar of RTV is no super accurate pouring tool. I have a lot of respect for the effort at building multi-part (more than 2) moulds that people use for spin-casting complex metal figure.
- The plastic blisters for miniatures are an excellent source of small mould boxes. Any other reasonably leak proof plastic container is another good choice - I've repurposed a plastic box from a 12 of Ferro Rocher chocolates as well as two old disposable tuperware containers. Only one warning: Rounded corners and trying to get pieces close to the edge to use minimal RTV without tearing are mutually oppositional.
We'll see how this batch turns out. I've got 5 pounds of Quick Set from Alumalite coming and another pound of HS-III for some stuff I have with undercuts.
Once I finish the current batch of moulds, I'll try to pour and see what sorts of results I get. One of the items is a thin modern desk... I look forward to trying to get casts of that out of the mould without damaging the piece or the mould....
I also need to get some more dental plaster. My last set of casting experiments in plaster (some successful, some not - the tinfoil over a die-cast car to make a mould shell might work in Hot Wheels scale, but not in 28mm... the plaster is heavy enough to distory the tinfoil shell even when supported by sand or ballast. But Plaster works great as a replacement for resin for vehicles, especially if you can create mould voids using blocks. It's strong enough you don't need to mould an entire brick out of it (a shell will do) and takes detail just about as well as resin.
More as the next set of experiments are attempted....
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Game Review: Eclipe Phase RPG (minimal review, more later)
Eclipse Phase is a transhuman sci-fi horror RPG set in the far future after the Fall of Earth. It features cyber- and nano-technologies, conspiracy, politics, and horror as well as interesting examinations of what conciousness is, about what identity is, and the meaning of mortality, and about what means anything in a world where you can 're-sleeve' into a new and very different sort of body. It also tackles Existential Risk.
In reading Eclipse Phase http://www.eclipsephase.com/, I did find the themes interesting.
It seems to be a game of the far future, where humanity's factions had a little war with some AIs. I'm not sure anybody won, but it resulted in turning Earth into a wasteland, leaving the remains of humanity scattered beyond.
It is a transhuman game, which is another way of saying the mind is data - it can be hacked, uploaded, memory wiped, etc. Bodies are a matter of money and form is much less limited than you'd think. There are also uplifted species like octopi who play a role in the transhuman society of the future.
Transhumanity, what's left of it, is under threat from various alien, human, and perhaps supernatural threats, as well as the AIs and their nanos. Your characters take the role of agents of Firewall, an agency ostensibly devoted to saving what is left of transhumanity from various threats. Of course, the game has a conspiratorial feel, so maybe you can't even trust Firewall or your team-mates entirely.
One of the interesting aspects of being able to 'resleeve' (have your mind downloaded into a new body) is that the game can have a high mortality rate and still not actually kill a character. This is interesting from a gaming perspective. You might lose experience or memories since the last backup, you might get a different or crappier body, but you are back and ready to roll.
This also goes well with the horror part - many of the ways to die are gruesome or a bit scary conceptually. Another of the game's themes is horror. There are nanos that can disolve a body, there are headhunters bots looking for your cortical stack, and there are things far worse than that out there in the dark or in the messed up remanants of Earth.
The game is based on the Unisystem RPG system. I have not yet had much time to look closely at the mechanics, mostly just theme and atmospherics, but I am told that Unisystem is a bit crunchy and detail oriented.
From a GMing perspective, its interesting to envision a game other than Paranoia where mortality is frequent, but not all that limiting to story advancement or player development. It is a dark world, with dark undertones and overtones. But it could be a lot of fun to play.
For some background on Transhumanism:
An article
Wiki
I think if you like Stephen Barnes, Richard Morgan, or William Gibson, there's something in here for you. A little Lovecraft thrown in for a good measure.
In reading Eclipse Phase http://www.eclipsephase.com/, I did find the themes interesting.
It seems to be a game of the far future, where humanity's factions had a little war with some AIs. I'm not sure anybody won, but it resulted in turning Earth into a wasteland, leaving the remains of humanity scattered beyond.
It is a transhuman game, which is another way of saying the mind is data - it can be hacked, uploaded, memory wiped, etc. Bodies are a matter of money and form is much less limited than you'd think. There are also uplifted species like octopi who play a role in the transhuman society of the future.
Transhumanity, what's left of it, is under threat from various alien, human, and perhaps supernatural threats, as well as the AIs and their nanos. Your characters take the role of agents of Firewall, an agency ostensibly devoted to saving what is left of transhumanity from various threats. Of course, the game has a conspiratorial feel, so maybe you can't even trust Firewall or your team-mates entirely.
One of the interesting aspects of being able to 'resleeve' (have your mind downloaded into a new body) is that the game can have a high mortality rate and still not actually kill a character. This is interesting from a gaming perspective. You might lose experience or memories since the last backup, you might get a different or crappier body, but you are back and ready to roll.
This also goes well with the horror part - many of the ways to die are gruesome or a bit scary conceptually. Another of the game's themes is horror. There are nanos that can disolve a body, there are headhunters bots looking for your cortical stack, and there are things far worse than that out there in the dark or in the messed up remanants of Earth.
The game is based on the Unisystem RPG system. I have not yet had much time to look closely at the mechanics, mostly just theme and atmospherics, but I am told that Unisystem is a bit crunchy and detail oriented.
From a GMing perspective, its interesting to envision a game other than Paranoia where mortality is frequent, but not all that limiting to story advancement or player development. It is a dark world, with dark undertones and overtones. But it could be a lot of fun to play.
For some background on Transhumanism:
An article
Wiki
I think if you like Stephen Barnes, Richard Morgan, or William Gibson, there's something in here for you. A little Lovecraft thrown in for a good measure.
Session Report: Jambo and Factory Manager
Had a chance to play Jambo Monday night. It's a two player card game involving buying and selling wares for $. There are also a variety of cards that help you build and engine to get and sell the wares you need to make a profit - some allow spelunking the deck for demand cards, others cycle cards, others trade cards for wares or vice versa, some trade wares for wares of another type, some trade money for wares, and so on. Your objective is to have the most money.
You need to play a game to see the cards to get a feel for what is possible. The game ends when someone has $60, but the other guy gets a turn and may snatch victory from the person ending the game. I got to $52, then had a bit of very bad luck with a card auction (I drew three cards, the package of which would constitute a possible net gain of about $41 minus purchase price to my foe and which did virtually nothing for me.... but once they were out there, it was necessary to bid high to prevent him getting them).
So, some cards can be pretty swingy under the right/wrong circumstances, but if I hadn't played the offending card and drawn demand cards my opponent was most ready to fill, I think I'd have won, even with a smaller market stand (he drew most of the auxilliary market add-on cards).
Worth another play anyway. More depth than Lost Cities, longer to play, maybe more fun or maybe not.
Then we played Factory Manager, from the Power Grid folks. This is a game about growing your factory's capabilities (more units of output, more and better automation, energy and manpower management) through purchases of better robots, better machines, power management systems, control rooms, and additional warehouse space. Meanwhile, the prices of energy rise and your turn-by-turn income will tend to as well (as you increase warehouse and industrial output).
It is interesting because the energy rate of increase is a bit hard to predict, some of the most expensive systems you can buy late in the game may not pay themselves off (Lorry actually had a final turn where the best action for him was to operate as-is with no further changes), and your income is determined by the lesser of your warehousing and your industrial output (so managing this balance is key).
You also have manpower management, to install new machines, to remove old ones, to operate machines (but not robots, power systems, or control rooms), and the available labour pool (unallocated) controls the number of new machines/systems that come available in the progressing market turn-to-turn.
So you have to manage in such a way as to coordinate your output, your power requirements, your manpower usage, the need to keep men free for equipment buying/installing, and do all of this with an eye to profit optimization.
I managed to handily beat the daylights out of my foe as he tried to snatch up all the cheap warehousing. That did mean I had to buy the expensive warehousing, but it has high capacity and doesn't eat up much of your factory space. In the end, the fact he had inefficient systems he needed to demolish (consuming actions) was the death of him.
I do not believe this is a game (in two player, 5 player has a different dynamic) where running the market on a particular type of system ends up being wise. This game is all about dynamic balance and building your own best engine. Don't worry much about the other guy, except for keeping an eye on the systems he puts into the market for purchase.
The other dimension is initiative is bid upon with available labour from the pool. First initiative buys first from the market. Later initiatives may get cost discounts when shopping. So figuring out where you want to go (especially in multi-player) is an interesting dilemna.
It seems to be a well thought out game capable of being played in about 90 minutes (the 60 minutes they claim is optimistic). It probably takes 15 minutes to setup though.
You need to play a game to see the cards to get a feel for what is possible. The game ends when someone has $60, but the other guy gets a turn and may snatch victory from the person ending the game. I got to $52, then had a bit of very bad luck with a card auction (I drew three cards, the package of which would constitute a possible net gain of about $41 minus purchase price to my foe and which did virtually nothing for me.... but once they were out there, it was necessary to bid high to prevent him getting them).
So, some cards can be pretty swingy under the right/wrong circumstances, but if I hadn't played the offending card and drawn demand cards my opponent was most ready to fill, I think I'd have won, even with a smaller market stand (he drew most of the auxilliary market add-on cards).
Worth another play anyway. More depth than Lost Cities, longer to play, maybe more fun or maybe not.
Then we played Factory Manager, from the Power Grid folks. This is a game about growing your factory's capabilities (more units of output, more and better automation, energy and manpower management) through purchases of better robots, better machines, power management systems, control rooms, and additional warehouse space. Meanwhile, the prices of energy rise and your turn-by-turn income will tend to as well (as you increase warehouse and industrial output).
It is interesting because the energy rate of increase is a bit hard to predict, some of the most expensive systems you can buy late in the game may not pay themselves off (Lorry actually had a final turn where the best action for him was to operate as-is with no further changes), and your income is determined by the lesser of your warehousing and your industrial output (so managing this balance is key).
You also have manpower management, to install new machines, to remove old ones, to operate machines (but not robots, power systems, or control rooms), and the available labour pool (unallocated) controls the number of new machines/systems that come available in the progressing market turn-to-turn.
So you have to manage in such a way as to coordinate your output, your power requirements, your manpower usage, the need to keep men free for equipment buying/installing, and do all of this with an eye to profit optimization.
I managed to handily beat the daylights out of my foe as he tried to snatch up all the cheap warehousing. That did mean I had to buy the expensive warehousing, but it has high capacity and doesn't eat up much of your factory space. In the end, the fact he had inefficient systems he needed to demolish (consuming actions) was the death of him.
I do not believe this is a game (in two player, 5 player has a different dynamic) where running the market on a particular type of system ends up being wise. This game is all about dynamic balance and building your own best engine. Don't worry much about the other guy, except for keeping an eye on the systems he puts into the market for purchase.
The other dimension is initiative is bid upon with available labour from the pool. First initiative buys first from the market. Later initiatives may get cost discounts when shopping. So figuring out where you want to go (especially in multi-player) is an interesting dilemna.
It seems to be a well thought out game capable of being played in about 90 minutes (the 60 minutes they claim is optimistic). It probably takes 15 minutes to setup though.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Neverwinter Nights 2: To Game or Not To Game? I think I'm in!
I have a friend who lives in the rural areas near my folks place and plays NWN2 online in a persistent world. Said friend, Chris, is interested in the idea of adventuring with some other folks including me and any friends I care to convince. He is willing to roll a new PC just for the purpose and I am sorely tempted.
The General information he has provided:
On nightly, 10-12 pm EST.
To do this, I would need to:
Who is in for some online adventuring?
My time frame for initiating this plan is probably late third/early fourth week of May.
So, let me know if you want in. If so, I will work on organizing a group of us and trying to see people get the right software in place.
TomB
The General information he has provided:
WN2 version: 1.023 (1765) MotB and SoZ expansions.
I also use:
Client Extension version 1.0.0.13 - built Jan 19 2010 23:57:39
Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Skywing.
Client Extension version 1.0.0.13 - built Jan 19 2010 23:57:39
Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Skywing.
This release is paired with game build 1765.
I play on Baldurs Gate the Sword Coast Chronicles
forum: http://bgtscc.fomwaa.com/
my forum name is cwhit
my forum name is cwhit
Server is in gamespy RolePlay... sort by module and go to the one with Module name BG_BETA_9
The server name is always blank for me I dunno why.
The "Direct Connect" address is 216.18.23.82
my login/Character names are: cwhit/Dante Rader.
I am a human 29th level Rog 18 Rgr 9 SD 3
The server name is always blank for me I dunno why.
The "Direct Connect" address is 216.18.23.82
my login/Character names are: cwhit/Dante Rader.
I am a human 29th level Rog 18 Rgr 9 SD 3
On nightly, 10-12 pm EST.
To do this, I would need to:
- Acquire new hard drive (necessary for storage space anyway).
- Acquire compatible copy of NWN and expansions.
- Arrange times to be online for some group questing with 'The Party'.
Who is in for some online adventuring?
My time frame for initiating this plan is probably late third/early fourth week of May.
So, let me know if you want in. If so, I will work on organizing a group of us and trying to see people get the right software in place.
TomB
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