Geiodo

Archive for November, 2009

I was working on a martian world, and a friend gave me a wonderful idea! A death brick.

Upon touching the death brick, your vehicle goes… Well, insane.

It’s a big hit – but not much of a secret (As I have not hidden it yet).

Another friend made this funny quote:

“Have YOU ever wanted to die? Well, now you can with our new death brick! Deathbrick comes in 5 different colors and a custom carying pouch for convinience! This special offer is limited time only! Get your death brick for 19.99 at your local retail stores! Only from Flyco.”

Here is another, lol:

Have YOU ever wanted to DIE?!?!??!

Now you can with the NEW deathbrick!

Deathbrick ways 2.2 quadrillion tons, containing a core sample from a DYING STAR!!

Now YOU can die even harder with DEATHBRICK.

Deathbrick comes in 5 different colors including blood, dried blood, old blood, new blood, and burnt blood!

Deathbrick comes with it’s own carrier truck and a carrying pack for convenience!

Hurry now! This offer ends soon! Call 1-800-YOU-DIE-NOW to order your own deathbrick! That is 1-800-YOU-DIE-NOW!! Order today!!!

Do not use on small children under the age of 3 or on pregnant individuals. Always treat deathbrick with care. Do not leave deathbrick in places where animals or infants can get to deathbrick. Deathbrick comes with a limited 3 year warranty. All suppliers of deathbrick including Deathbrick international, flyco, and DIE industries are not responsible for loss of personal property, lives, or self esteem. Always refrigerate deathbrick at -4470 degrees celcius to keep deathbrick stabilized. If deathbrick begins to foam or steam, seek shelter immediately and cover head. Do not use deathbrick on concrete or rubber surfaces. If deathbrick is touched, it may bond to skin. Deathbrick may explode if not kept under surveillance. Always keep your deathbrick in a sealed container away from food or water.

DEATHBRICK- BUY ONE TODAY!!!

When you computer makes this sound…
*Warning! Use low volume!*

<bgsound src="http://www.geiodo.com/downloads/compbuz.mov">
*Thanks to my sound effect generator that I recreated the sound*
It can be extremely unnerving.

I was clicking the link to play a game, and the second it started loading.. “VRBVRBVRBVRBVRB” panicking I closed the window, but it continued.

Heh, I intended to force power down my computer, but every time I tried, I instead ended up only clicking my power button. It took seven tries to realize I wasn’t holding the button down.

All the while the sound was amazingly loud… I’m still getting over the shock. (Ooooh drama me….)

After finally having managed to force power my computer down, the noise stopped, and my screen went black. Eventually I cautiously turned my computer back on, and then posted this!

A little while ago, I was messing around with my tooth brush (who wouldn’t?), and I decided to try, for the thirteenth time to open my toothbrush. There is a thin line separating the bottom, and top half of the toothbrush. I had tried many times to get these separate, but for whatever reason, this way works.

In fact, it was as easy as taking a cap off of a bottle!

Inside, I found a tripleA battery. Instead of buying a new toothbrush (Virtually the same, other than battery charge), I simply decided to replace the battery.

I had to force up a metal connection, which, little to my knowledge, ruined the conductivity. IN fact, I think it was engineered to do that.

However, I simply stuffed some tin foil between the metal connection, and the new battery.

This now works, though the toothbrush is cantankerous… It sometimes needs a classic bang to get it going again.

When I need to use it, I press the on button, and tighten the cap. When I turn it off for short periods of time, I unscrew the cap a little – and re-screw it to turn it back on. When I’m done with it, I press the off button, and screw the cap back on completely.

I even leaned a little about how the switch works…
There are two pieces of metal, side by side, where the negative side of the battery connects (The positive side being where the tin foil is.) THere is a plastic rod between these two bars. WHen you press the off button, the rod sticks out ,and pushes the battery off of the two bars. Pressing the on button releases the rod, and lets the battery back on.

It’s a pretty smart design, if you ask me, but I think it could be simpler. Instead of pushing a battery, why not just break the connection?

For example, the plus, and minus buttons (On, and off) are both connected to a plastic piece. Pressing either button rotates the piece. At 0 degrees, the metal is contacted. At 10 degrees the metal is not.

Much simpler if you ask me, but, I suppose the had their reasons.

I do notice that when the cap is tight, I cannot press the off button – this could be another engineering thing.

As it turns out, my new master server probably won’t work.

Firewalls, and other bad networking conditions will likely be an issue. Combining my master server with Unity’s NAT facilitator (AKA Cool thingymabob for getting past firewalls, and such) will be impractical.

However, there is hope.

After talking with some people very well studied in the subject (Not Unity specific, but good enough to understand how the Unity Master Server works) I have found how what could be wrong with the Master Server.

First of all Unity’s Unity’s master server system is designed to run on a dedicated server. Dedicated servers can only handle so much traffic; Likewise too much traffic = super unreliable networking.

Unity’s hosted Master Server, is not intended for complete reliability, likewise it’s probably not using a super high capacity dedicated server – one capable of properly handling all of the traffic coming to it.

THis also explains why Dime Rocket has stopped working lately. A while ago, I came across a post by Aubrey, giving a link to Dime Rocket. It worked for a while (Thanks, Aubrey!), but then started to decline.

My guess is that the DimeRocket master server was well within it’s range – but then, it’s link got posted, and many needed developers – such as I – started using it. This probably gave the server more traffic than it could handle, and… Poof – buggy master server.

Now, there is hope for Space… Some time, may be never, maybe even in six months, I may be able to host a Cloud dedicated server. The advantages of this are: It’s a dedicated server – Unity appropriate – and it is Cloud; Cloud environments share the same data amongst multiple computers. Many sytems simply split one computer into quite a few, and give the data to one slice.

Cloud + Dedicated Server = Reliable master server.

No promises, though!

For now, however, I plan to migrate back to the Dime Rocket server, or find something better, and less known – at least until a long term solution is found.

My old master server has been bugging me for ages - connections are funky, and people had to constantly clear their cache and refresh the page, to see each other’s servers! It’s been going on for weeks. Ideas kept popping up in my head, about how I could make my own master server… Eventually these ideas lead to my current concept.

After having had this idea pop up a billion times – and having chaos occur during a beta test because of the old master server – I cracked.

I immediately disconnected from my beta chat, and started work on the PHP, and MySQL.

Here is the concept.

MySQL acts like a list of servers – each list item containing connection information.

When a player starts a server, the connection information for that server is gathered, and then send to MySQL as a list item.

MySQL then has a date function – it tells how long ago that server has pinged. The server pings every five seconds, and if a server doesn’t ping within 30 seconds of the last ping – the server is removed from the list.

This means that the Master Server (List of servers) automatically removes dead servers – when a server is closed (killed/becomes dead), it stops pinging.

The main bug in the old master server, was browser caching. The new system prevents the browsers from caching (Or storing old copies of) the master server. Instead it caches the API (Application Programming Interface) that displays, and controls the Master server. Since the API doesn’t change its self – only the results it sends to Space. Likewise, one’s browser will only store the way that the API works, not the things that the API returns.

The serve list displays the time since the last ping (LSR), in the server list. The text color moves from green, to red depending upon LSR (Last Server Response).

If a server is live, it probably won’t go above 6LSR, but the max is 30LSR for leeway.

Since the Space reprogram, Space has been slowly climbing the ratings charts… I’ve got completely new gameplay that makes planet bonking look… Kind of boring to me, lol.

First of all, I rethought the GUI. It is now incredibly simpler, and does the job just as well. Instead of investing my time, and effort, in a complex radar/scanning system, that tries to list every single object in the game, I went for a simpler approach…

Name tags!

Name tags effectively act as the Space targeting system, and detail display system. All targetable objects are given a name tag, which, if clicked sets the owner as you target. The Necon Speed Fighter, is the only programmed ship in Space, and uses homing missiles! Basically, find your enemy, click on him, and start chasing/firing.

The name tags also display information such as health, player name, and just by where on the screen they are placed, the direction in which one must go to find the owner.

Dogfights were the second thing I rethought – Along with lag. I found that particle effects were the most – MOST lag inducing thing in existence on Unity. So, in the beginning, I scrapped them all together. I first replaced the particle effect missile with simple shader-based missiles.

This lead to a tiny, hard to see, oval shaped dot on the screen.

I figured that such things were incredibly hard to notice, so I added a “bounding orb”! It’s a red grid that goes around the red projectile, to make them more noticeable.

Missiles are certainly not a noob weapon, as they go off after about 20 seconds (t might be ten) – So, you have to chase your enemy, get ahead of them, and fire behind you – If you are going to fast, and shoot in the direction that you are goin…. Heh, you will outrun your projectile, and shoot your self – I have yet to fix that.

Finally, I have embarked on an entire LEVEL of gameplay for Space… Game modes! It is the second of three gameplay steps – I am well on my way to my goal for version 1.0.0.

Space 0.17.7 supports racing type games, which use gates to mark a specific “Gate Path”. Users fly through the gates, and the first one to fly through them all (For however many laps) wins! I’m currently working out a bug where everyone’s computer thinks they game in first…

Anyways, Space is coming along quite well, and I look forwards to getting racing done!

For more info on Space, visit space.geiodo.com.