RedKrieg's Blog » Fun

Gravity part deux.

RedKrieg — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:47:23 +0000

So I’ve been playing around in Python lately, primarily because I’ve been teaching it to a kid I’ve been tutoring. I decided to take the opportunity to port my old C# based gravity simulation to see how hard it would be to implement. I chose to use pygame because it provides the screen update engine and drawing routines out of the box with an easy way to tell how many milliseconds have passed since the last frame update (required for accurate physics). I haven’t really made any tweaks to the physics engine since the mono version, but it’s still pretty cool to watch. One thing I did add to this is a 2×2 box with alpha 10 that simulates a pencil running over paper wherever a ball passes. I liked the visualization so much, I left it turned on in the version I hereby bequeath to you, dear internet. Below are two of the generated images, the lighter the color of the line, the faster the ball was moving at the time.

First image from my gravity simulator

Second image from my gravity simulator

Oh, I suppose you’d like to download the current version. It’s sloppy, but you’re welcome to it! Some code borrowed from the python/pygame tutorials, but the physics are all mine.

Download it here.

Update: Almost forgot!!! Left click adds an additional ball, right click saves a screenshot and clears the background.

Update 2:

This one was after about 30 minutes with 6 balls

Just another image, click to enlarge.

Update 4: Put a video up on YouTube showing what it looks like while running: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOBBPtsu5MM

Evony – what a wonderful game

RedKrieg — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:54:58 +0000

So, I’ve been playing a new game called Evony lately. This game is an excellent, free, online game that’s great for even the most casual player. The only requirement is an internet connection and flash (which 99% of computers already have). The gameplay mechanics are time based, meaning that every action has a set amount of real world time that the action will take. What this means for the casual player is that one can log in, start building something, start some research, send off a few attacks, and know that since it’ll take 45 minutes (for example) to do all those things, they can go about their day knowing that they’re not missing out on something because they aren’t sitting in front of the computer all day long! Casual gamers will find this aspect of Evony very appealing.

What else is great about Evony? Well for one, it’s massively multiplayer. At any given time, there are thousands of players on your server, all attacking eachother’s cities, resource plots, and generally having a great time doing it. Joining an alliance gives players a large group of friends to talk strategy with, get help from (you can reinforce eachother’s cities for instance), and when waiting for more resources to build up, alliance chat makes for some very fun conversation. Due to the generally slow pace of the game, the social aspect becomes much more pronounced, lending the game more of an us-against-them feel than a me-against-the-computer one.

So, now that I’ve talked a little about what Evony is and why it’s so fun, let me give you a rundown of some things I learned early on that should help new players get started right:

Use your beginner’s protection – When each player starts, they have a 7 day grace period during which they cannot attack or be attacked. You should plan to spend a large amount of time playing for your first few days, as build times will be very low at the beginning and you’ll have the chance to build up resources very quickly. Resource plots are vital to the early game, build sawmills, quarrys, iron mines, and farms up to a pretty good level within the first day.
Keep your Town Hall below level 5 – During beginner’s protection, if you get your Town Hall above level 4, you will no longer be protected. That protection period is vital!
Get your friends to play Evony – If you can get your friends to start playing at the same time you do, you’ll all learn more in the process. I know that my friends have been able to answer questions I had sooner than I would have been able to find out on my own. Plus it’s fun to "talk shop" when you’re out and about.
Join an alliance – Many alliances will not take players until they hit a certain level of prestige, but sometimes just being active daily is enough. Send mail to some of your neighbors and see if they’re looking for people to join with them!
Buy and sell on the market – When you start getting 250k resources and your build queues are full, you should think about buying and selling on the market. Any time the market has a difference between the highest bid and the lowest offer, there’s room to make some extra gold. If you have patience, you can make a couple million gold a day.
Capture valleys early – Low level valleys are easy to take with a few hundred archers and will greatly increase your resource production. In the first few days, you should have all 4 valleys available to you taken up. I personally prefer forests because of how much lumber will sell for in the market, but you can always abandon a valley and take another if you need to refocus your resource production.
Keep your mayor’s politics high – The higher your mayor’s politics, the more bonus to resource production you’ll get and the less time it will take to build structures.
Use your free speedup – The speedup button doesn’t use any items if the base build time of the structure is less than 5 minutes. On your first day, most structures will take less than 5 minutes to build. Free speedups will greatly increase the rate at which you strengthen your town.

So, now that you have some good tips to start out with, go play evony! You can find me on Server 50, my player name is RedKrieg.

Have fun!

Wheeeeeeeee Gravity!1!!eleven!

RedKrieg — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:22:34 +0000

Sooooo…. a few days ago I felt like simulating a bit of gravity. Turns out that was the easy part… Basically I wrote a gravity simulator with accurate(?) collision detection all based on force vectors applied over time. I did all the physics and trig work from the top of my head, and the last time I had a physics or trig class was eight years ago, so I might have forgotten something important. Collisions look right to me right now, but the code driving them relies on some pretty loose interpretations of gravity/time, so any frameskips could cause some rather interesting reflections. Tarball (with source) and Ubuntu deb package (binary only) at their respective links.

I made a half-assed attempt at commenting the source, because I’m a nice guy. You should be able to get an idea of what I was thinking from there.

Update [20081002003930EDT]: Almost forgot, uses Cairo for drawing. XOrg process maxes the cpu at the resolution I’m using for this thing… NO idea why. Any programmers wanna help?

The fight is finished

RedKrieg — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:11:36 +0000

Well, I finally finished the fight and beat Halo 3 on Legendary. It took much longer than I expected, but was worth every second. I also found all but 1 skull (the last one has yet to be found by anyone) and tomorrow I’ll activate all 7 terminals. I feel so accomplished… and so tired. Hail to the Master Chief.

Juno

RedKrieg — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:34:54 +0000

So, I just saw a preview for the film “Juno” and I can’t wait. It looks fantastic, and has some awesome one-liners in the trailer alone. Same director as “Thank You for Smoking”, which you should also see.

40oz to freedom

RedKrieg — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 18:18:43 +0000

I’ve always had talents of the beer drinking variety… This is a video circa 2002 with me showing off. I’m much better at drinking now than I was way back then… This video makes me look pathetic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS1gcH3Ni18

Fireball!

RedKrieg — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:18:14 +0000

More antics from the land of drunken nights… This time, our hero blows fire out his ass mouth. Everclear FTW!

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FMv5xLxFLM

Fire Shot Hand!!!

RedKrieg — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:15:15 +0000

I slammed my hand down on a flaming shot to see what would happen. I reccomend it to anyone.

R.I.P. Nanci Raygun

RedKrieg — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:13:30 +0000

Tonight was the last show ever at the Nanci Raygun.

The Gaskets played to make everyone feel loved, but unfortunately I had to leave before then due to some excruciating foot pain.

On a high note though… this happened:

Nags Head…

RedKrieg — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:06:18 +0000

Fantastic as usual… I never want to leave.

If you work at Food Lion and your name is Kat, Email me!!!

That was one week, about sixish people drinking on average.