This and That

Various links of interest (I hope).



Review: Masters Brush Soap from Corbania Prime -->
I use this for my brushes too, and I second the recommendation.

<-- Some cool robot art at IO9.






Gratuitous Space Battles (review) --> This might be my next computer game purchase, and my first in a long time. (Thanks Peter!)



Troll, a language for specifying dice-rolls (Article)

and the web site for Troll. I've been itching to look at this but haven't had the time. (thanks to Ken!)



Details: Basic materials for basing <--- At ++From The Warp++

Also some good commentary on Social Contracts in gaming.

Meet the Sims …
 and Shoot Them --> in America's Army 

My New Gaming Table

You already saw bit of it in my last post, but I'm having the gang over tonight for the inaugural Battletech game on my new gaming table.

From Battletech Billboards

A couple of disused closet doors, a pair of sawhorses, and a new felt mat. The hard part was cleaning up the basement so there was actually room to set it up. (There is a bit of that left to do yet).

From Battletech Billboards

Let the battles commence!!!

Oh yeah ... chairs ...

Battletech Billboards

I picked up some terrain pieces from the Acheson Creations booth last year at ORIGINS (a few pics 1 2 3). Although they painted up well enough, they still didn't look right. They needed something more.

From Battletech Billboards

Because I always intended these to be barriers for a Solaris style arena, I thought it might be cool to turn them into billboards for various sponsors. All I needed were some ideas for sponsors, and I had this idea I've been wanting to try. I did some digging among the Battletech blogs I follow for banner or icon image, a little image editing in Paint.Net, and sent it to the color printer.

From Battletech Billboards

A bit more work with a good pair of scissors (the Perseus and Thug helped), and then some glue ...

From Battletech Billboards

 ... And viola!

From Battletech Billboards

Steve's Battletech Reader billboard was the most work (image editing, I replaced "Classic Battletech" with "The Battletech Reader") and turned out the least legible. So I might have to redo that one (Hey Steve, got any banner ideas?).

I was so happy with the results, I decided to turn it into a mini tutorial. I have a Picasa album up with the full set of Battletech billboard photos.

From Battletech Billboards

Lesson #1: Try some different sizes, and (if you can) print a black-and-white copy first to check the final size before going to the expensive ink. I did three sizes for the Catalyst Logo, and only the smallest would fit. The MechCorp logo was too big entirely and I'll need to rework it from scratch.

A dry fit to see how the finished piece will look is always a good idea.



Put a drop or two of glue on the back of the paper, right in the middle. A single drop will do for smaller bits, but with larger pieces it helps to put a small amount of glue near the corners.


Next is the part I couldn't take a picture of - place the paper on the piece as you did with the dry fit, then press down with your finger and slide the paper around to spread out the glue underneath the paper. This pushes out bubbles and excess glue, and should give the paper a good bond. The glue starts setting pretty quickly once you do this, and you will feel it getting harder to push around. Get it set where you want it and press down on the corners to make sure they stick. Wipe away any excess glue (I just used my finger). In the event you end up with a corner that isn't glued down, use your hobby knife to place a tiny amount of glue underneath and press it down again.

From Battletech Billboards

It was an easy project, and I've got some attractive new terrain pieces to show off. Follow the link if you want a copy of my billboard images (MS Word).

Games That Teach Math

Terence Tao - one of the premier mathematicians in the world - has a post up asking for Suggestions for Games that Promote Mathematical Thinking. The suggestions are pouring in, including a few of my own. If you are an educator looking for resources, you will likely find something interesting. Click thru to What's New - Terence Tao's blog.

Packing four-sided dice

A while back I was trying to work out the geometry of a game map with a triangular grid, instead of the typical hexagon. Somewhere along the way I got sidetracked by the idea that if I could figure out how to subdivide 3-D space into tetrahedral blocks, this would be the basis for games with a simple sort of 3-dimensional movement. I got busy with my pencil and sketched and scribbled for a while, trying to see if I could work it out, but I kept getting stuck. Realizing that this was just the sort of problem that better mathematicians than I are likely to have worked out already, I did a bit of searching. It turns out I was wrong:

Packing Tetrahedrons, and Closing In on a Perfect Fit

Aristotle mistakenly thought that identical regular tetrahedrons packed together perfectly, as identical cubes do, leaving no gaps in between and filling 100 percent of the available space. They do not, and 1,800 years passed before someone pointed out that he was wrong. Even after that, the packing of tetrahedrons garnered little interest. More centuries passed.

I was wrong - you can't do the sort of subdivision of 3-D space that I naively hope for, but at least I'm in pretty good company there.

Here's another source for the same story: Packing Tetrahedrons, and Closing In on a Perfect Fit
And a relevant Wikipedia article: Tetrahedron packing

If I switch to octahedral blocks, my original idea might still work. Maybe I'll buy a bunch of 9  8-sided dice and test it the easy way.

[Edit: Nine-sided dice ... that's a good one! ;-)]

Gundam vs. Gundam

Gundam vs. Gundam:




A remote-controlled Gundam battle, filmed at the International Robot Expo.
 Click thru for the video.

[Hat Tip 2 Mr. Q. Wowbagger]

From XKCD: Sex Dice

I love XKCD, and today's strip is just too good not to share.

Sex Dice:


Click-thru to read the mouse-hover message. :-)