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[tl8]

Huh? last time I checked, the Pi3 did have more cpu cores. Has it been downgraded?

A couple of months after the Pi 3 release, the Pi 2 got the same CPU as the Pi 3. Note that this is the Pi 2 v1.2.

 

[Andy44]

That sounds like a sure-fire way to become the neighborhood Creepy Dude.

I found that being a photographer does that for me. Also looking like me helps.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Just dropped my wife off at the airport for a two-week trip.

 

[Fabri91]

Did dropping her off make you Scottish?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Did dropping her off make you Scottish?

No, but I can now drink Scotch without persecution for a few weeks.

---------- Post added at 11:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 PM ----------

I found that being a photographer does that for me. Also looking like me helps.

Whatever you do, don't sit on a park bench near the elementary school.

I hope you don't drive a white Chevy van too.

 

[Andy44]

Whatever you do, don't sit on a park bench near the elementary school.

I hope you don't drive a white Chevy van too.

If I had a van I would paint it like the Mystery Machine.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Get that Mystery Machine paint job ASAP.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, why not something like that:

But personally, I prefer the classic painting style of a Samba more there:

Those T1 Samba cost used in good condition much more today as their current successor, T6... you can calculate with about 70000€-110000€ there. They are extremely popular and the robust construction means they age pretty well...

 

[Andy44]

There's not too many bad things one can say about those old air-cooled VWs. Only gripe was that if you didn't stay on top of them they would rust, especially the heat exchangers. I think that was common among most auto finishes back then, though.

My dad had two Beetles when I was little, the second one was a 73 Super Beetle which he drove into the early 80s. He always regretted trading it in, it was in fine shape and according to him it was the best car he ever had.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Proving that a brick will fly if you put enough engine on it:

 

[Andy44]

You guys are seriously making me want to get an old Microbus...

 

[Thunder Chicken]

You guys are seriously making me want to get an old Microbus...

Here is a VW bus simulation from the driver's seat, full speed.

[ame="https://youtu.be/1oFPveNebPE?t=15"]Sesame Street season 7 end credits (1975-76) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Urwumpe]

Here is a VW bus simulation from the driver's seat, full speed.

Sesame Street season 7 end credits (1975-76) - YouTube

Looks realistic to me. Maybe a bit fast.

 

[Andy44]

The steering wheel is at the wrong angle.

---------- Post added 08-19-17 at 09:37 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-18-17 at 08:43 PM ----------

Reading the thread about water ice on Mars actually makes me miss playing BattleTech. At a game convention once I hosted a game in which a battle takes place in Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars. It was a mash-up of B-Tech and War of the Worlds; ancient Martians dwelling underground had tried to invade Earth with three-legged Tripod "battlemechs", and now ComStar was on the offensive, duking it out with the Martians in amongst rock formations on the surface of Mars. Had to build cool scenery for the table for that one, and used low-gravity rules. The Martian "Mechs" required a custom sheet and damage table, and made up new (for BTech) weapons: the Martian rocket pods and of course, the mighty Heat Ray!

 

[Quick_Nick]

Woops, wrong thread. Please delete.

 

[Urwumpe]

Reading the thread about water ice on Mars actually makes me miss playing BattleTech. At a game convention once I hosted a game in which a battle takes place in Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars. It was a mash-up of B-Tech and War of the Worlds; ancient Martians dwelling underground had tried to invade Earth with three-legged Tripod "battlemechs", and now ComStar was on the offensive, duking it out with the Martians in amongst rock formations on the surface of Mars. Had to build cool scenery for the table for that one, and used low-gravity rules. The Martian "Mechs" required a custom sheet and damage table, and made up new (for BTech) weapons: the Martian rocket pods and of course, the mighty Heat Ray!

Our first scenario convention had the following evil combination for playing the first stage of the scenario on the surface of a large asteroid mine:

- parallel secret movement
- low gravity
- vacuum

We allowed quite large units, around batallion size. After this first stage, only a few lances had been left. Most died by friendly collisions causing depressurizations because players of the team did not talk with each other and simply optimized their movement egoistically. Was important for teaching, but also very frustrating for the teams.

In the end the winning team won the scenario by a single Phoenixhawk without legs. While all other teams fought a major melee on one of the lower levels of the mine, they managed to drop the Phoenixhawk on a huge minecart and let it travel completely ignored through the mine.

Was a very important convention for us the PhoenixCon I in 2000... we learned a lot about designing scenarios and eventually reduced the scenario to a short event on the saturday for the interested players and offered more variety on our convention.

If you are around in Germany and want get some battletech (or good meals), the PhoenixCon XVII is scheduled for the 26th October (A thursday) to the 29th. We host the German Battletech Championship again.

http://con.phoenixguard.de/

 

[Andy44]

Our first scenario convention had the following evil combination for playing the first stage of the scenario on the surface of a large asteroid mine:

- parallel secret movement
- low gravity
- vacuum

We allowed quite large units, around batallion size. After this first stage, only a few lances had been left. Most died by friendly collisions causing depressurizations because players of the team did not talk with each other and simply optimized their movement egoistically. Was important for teaching, but also very frustrating for the teams.

In the end the winning team won the scenario by a single Phoenixhawk without legs. While all other teams fought a major melee on one of the lower levels of the mine, they managed to drop the Phoenixhawk on a huge minecart and let it travel completely ignored through the mine.

Was a very important convention for us the PhoenixCon I in 2000... we learned a lot about designing scenarios and eventually reduced the scenario to a short event on the saturday for the interested players and offered more variety on our convention.

If you are around in Germany and want get some battletech (or good meals), the PhoenixCon XVII is scheduled for the 26th October (A thursday) to the 29th. We host the German Battletech Championship again.

http://con.phoenixguard.de/

That sounds great! Unfortunately I don't know when I'll get to Germany, but when I do someday I'll try to fit in at least a visit to a BTech con. Been a long time since I actually played, but I loved the immersion in that universe.

I always wanted to do some kind of double-blind rules for max realism, but it requires a referee and seems to be slow and clunky.

I'm also curious about the depressurization and collision thing, I'm guessing they were custom rules for the scenario?

When I did the War of the Worlds I used the standard low-G rules, but I did have to make up a damage table for a 3-legged Mech and weapons tables for the Martian heat ray and missile weapons.

In the novel, Wells described a sort of chemical weapon delivered by a large rocket/recoilless rifle kind of device carried by the Tripods in a cylindrical launcher. The poison gas was used on British artillery crews. For BattleTech I expanded it a bit; the gas would work on infantry and unsealed ground vehicles, but for BattleMechs there were different varieties of projectiles available to the Martian players, such as a high explosive warhead, smoke shell, etc. I even built the table for a small tactical nuke warhead which would wipe out anything within a few hexes, but I don't recall it ever being used.

The Heat Ray was very powerful at close range, but the effectiveness dropped off with range to balance the scenario. I purposely didn't tell the human players what its capabilities were, so they got a dramatic shock when they came face to face with a Tripod and their armor was melted off their Mechs lol. In the Noctis Labyrithus this made the tactical problem difficult because the rock formations prevented the humans from keeping the ranges long and forced them to rush the Martians and try to overwhelm them with fire at close range.

The first battle took place in Manassas, Virginia, near the site of the two American Civil War battles. The Martian reentry pod landed and as the local Virginia militia Mechs, under command of ComStar, showed up the "Battle of 3rd Manassas" ensued.

The second battle took place on Mars during the ComStar counter invasion. The Martian base was underground in the Vallis Marineras and the approach avenue was through the Labyrinth of Night. The Martians had a large anti-satellite cannon mounted atop one of the mesas (it looks like the ion cannon in Empire Strikes Back) which prevented the DropShips from landing with the main invasion force, so a company of Pathfinders in medium and heavy Mechs made an orbital drop and were sent into the Labyrinth to destroy the cannon and secure the landing zone.

(ETA: The anti-satellite cannon was a giant heat ray which would vaporize any Mech which tried to jump up onto the tops of the Mesas, forcing them to stay down in the canyons.)

Both battles were fought on tabletop with minis and no hex maps. Had a great time that convention. My little homemade Tripods were popular. I still have them in a case somewhere.

---------- Post added at 03:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:51 PM ----------

 

[Urwumpe]

That sounds great! Unfortunately I don't know when I'll get to Germany, but when I do someday I'll try to fit in at least a visit to a BTech con. Been a long time since I actually played, but I loved the immersion in that universe.

Yeah, the many old novels made it a very rich universe and especially with the third generation roleplaying game rules for it, it finally became possible to really do "specs ops" RPG in BT.

I always wanted to do some kind of double-blind rules for max realism, but it requires a referee and seems to be slow and clunky.

We offer a double-blind game on the convention exactly because of that reason - with referee. :lol: The best chance to do this.

I'm also curious about the depressurization and collision thing, I'm guessing they were custom rules for the scenario?

Partly. The vacuum rules are rather standard AFAIR, but the initiative/movement rules had been custom. Instead of rolling for initiative and then moving your Mechs in the standard sequence, you recorded your desired target hex on a second sheet. Then all mechs are moved and when two or more Mechs tried to occupy the same hex, we performed an "unintentional ramming". Not sure how we resolved the collisions there in terms of deciding which unit is the ramming one. In vacuum, every point of damage in a location gives you a chance of depressurizing this location, similar to flooding in water. Depressurizing the center torso = Mech is dead, pilot alive and very very bored.

When I did the War of the Worlds I used the standard low-G rules, but I did have to make up a damage table for a 3-legged Mech and weapons tables for the Martian heat ray and missile weapons.

Now there are canon tripod Mechs in Battletech, weighting over 100 tons... Call me conservative there, but I think it goes to far.

In the novel, Wells described a sort of chemical weapon delivered by a large rocket/recoilless rifle kind of device carried by the Tripods in a cylindrical launcher. The poison gas was used on British artillery crews. For BattleTech I expanded it a bit; the gas would work on infantry and unsealed ground vehicles, but for BattleMechs there were different varieties of projectiles available to the Martian players, such as a high explosive warhead, smoke shell, etc. I even built the table for a small tactical nuke warhead which would wipe out anything within a few hexes, but I don't recall it ever being used.

The Heat Ray was very powerful at close range, but the effectiveness dropped off with range to balance the scenario. I purposely didn't tell the human players what its capabilities were, so they got a dramatic shock when they came face to face with a Tripod and their armor was melted off their Mechs lol. In the Noctis Labyrithus this made the tactical problem difficult because the rock formations prevented the humans from keeping the ranges long and forced them to rush the Martians and try to overwhelm them with fire at close range.

The first battle took place in Manassas, Virginia, near the site of the two American Civil War battles. The Martian reentry pod landed and as the local Virginia militia Mechs, under command of ComStar, showed up the "Battle of 3rd Manassas" ensued.

The second battle took place on Mars during the ComStar counter invasion. The Martian base was underground in the Vallis Marineras and the approach avenue was through the Labyrinth of Night. The Martians had a large anti-satellite cannon mounted atop one of the mesas (it looks like the ion cannon in Empire Strikes Back) which prevented the DropShips from landing with the main invasion force, so a company of Pathfinders made an orbital drop and were sent into the Labyrinth to destroy the cannon and secure the landing zone.

Sounds like great fun

Both battles were fought on tabletop with minis and no hex maps. Had a great time that convention. My little homemade Tripods were popular. I still have them in a case somewhere.

For the PhoenixCon X, we produced our own Mech with miniature we gave to our guests the PC-X Sutur. Because of our chapter history and most famous exploits, it had to be a quad (We caused same major epicness in a scenario by lowering the hull of a quad and moving into a tunnel). Was a GREAT fun and the Mini really looked epic. Turned out so popular we even got a order from the USA of some people asking us if we could ship them some of the Mechs. And thanks to some shameless diplomacy, our custom design was even fully recognized for official fights in the various BT organisations in Germany.

If you follow the link to the convention page and then browse to the Downloads, you can find an english language "TRO"-page for it.

I can say some words about offering an english language version of our convention page (And the answer will likely be: "Do it yourself and I'll include it")

 

[Thunder Chicken]

You can tell the American geeks easily these days - they know that there is an eclipse tomorrow, and some (like me) have spent some time making a Python script that records voltage data on their RPi from a photocell "observatory" set up in the kitchen window, even though they may live where maximum occlusion doesn't exceed 70%.

The welder's face shields are another dead give-away.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I've got some glasses. And a rich dude in the county bought enough for every student in the schools system (and then some).

But yes, the welders... During the partial eclipse back in the '80s I looked like a cyberpunk mad scientist with my welders goggles.