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Lurkily

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Posts posted by Lurkily

  1. 4 hours ago, Alpino_WILL_STEAL_ oats! said:

    I just wanted to know when you think it might be done so I can get hyped about how it’s coming in 11 months. 

    I think its what happens when you're hyped for 11 months out, but it takes 12, or 15, or 20.

    As a player, I increase all dev estimates by 50% in my head, because it always takes longer than it takes. 

  2. How about localizing logic so that a disconnected part doesn't need a splitter to act independently? 

    Along with permitting signals to cross a wireless part, that would accomplish what's needed here without complicating the roster of parts with similar-but-different splitters. It would keep subdrones manufactured by a factory from crosstalking, but a wireless part to trigger logic on the subdrone, letting certain signals still be effective in controlling them. 

  3. This was an image prompt.  The caption was, and the image title is, "Hello, Sister."  This is one of those where the world just exploded into being.  I started with an approach to one scene and the way I wanted to twist it, and from there an entire world, rich with magic and politics and relationships and power structures just vomited into being.  I spent a lot of time polishing it, and it's still one of my favorites out of all my writing.  If I ever wanted to expand on any of my works, i think I'd start here.

    167a9d14e5017ffa2d39ac5567f37d30-db6wtbu

    "Hello, Sister." By DeviantArt user Sakimichan

    Inseparable

    I frowned over the maps, with my head bowed under the weight of a kingdom. The Mirsken Hain were still pressing my southern borders, hard enough to cost me soldiers and morale, but not hard enough to convince The Nine to take up arms. They worried too much about setting a precedent of bending to the whims of humans. The First thought we could maintain an iron border forever.

    In the meantime, my people were paying the price of complacency.  None of the other eight kingdoms were bound to send soldiers to my border if we were not at war, and the crisis was not yet dire enough for me to plead for aid.  But eventually, action would be required.

    The Hain had allies protecting almost every border but the one shared with my kingdom, and could devote the full force of their military to a campaign.  I knew that they wanted the southern mountainsides and the diamonds that were being mined there.  They would take almost two hundred square miles of territory to hold the mountains and two hundred more to secure them.  But to reveal their plans I would have to explain how I learned them, and that would put my sister at risk.  

    I closed my eyes and bit my lip as tears threatened. Thoughts of my twin sister always threatened my composure. She was out there alone. She would be thinking I looked down on her, while she faced whatever dangers she faced. I picked the stone paperweights up from each corner of the map, rolling it up tightly, struggling for calm as I slid the map into its niche. There would be servants about, and men and women of the court. Strength, Ilyssa. Strength. Then I stepped out into the hallway to return to my apartments.

    As I walked, I made my mind a mirror, my face reflecting the smiles and greetings of those I passed. Inwardly, my mind was in turmoil. I hated what my sister did, and sometimes I hated her. But she was my sister, and she was never truly out of danger.  Slowly, I became aware that I had not seen anybody for a while. These halls should not be empty.

    I had only begun to worry about assassins when I heard her voice, and my body stiffened in startled recognition. “Hello, sister.”

    A hand stroked through my hair, and I started walking again to evade her touch.  My nerves were a jangled mess. Every time, every time she caught me unaware.  Every time I vowed that I would be more alert, but every time she got to me unnoticed. It made me angry, made me ashamed. What if it had been someone else, truly here to kill me? I bore the weight of a kingdom. I was supposed to be stronger, more aware. 

    I turned to my door, fumbling with the key, trembling with conflicting emotions. “Just find me in my rooms like a normal person. By the grace, sneaking up on me is like a compulsion with you. To think I was worried about you! And how did you empty this hall, anyway? No, I don’t care, just tell me you didn’t kill anybody in the castle.”

    She was cold and smooth as ice, as always. I could never shake her as she could shake me.  Was I weaker than her, or did she hide her turmoil better?  Either way, it was a skill I would do well to develop.  “You don’t want this in your room. It’ll stink the place up.”

    That is when I caught the scent–copper, and the muted stench of decay. I turned and examined her for the first time. Her eyes shone with concentrated magic, stolen from the souls of the dead. The hem of her cloak was hung with small rune crystals–those were new. Their placement did not look protective; more likely, they were to help her kill. In her right hand was a bag that was stained red and brown. “Oh by grace…Asyllia, what did you do? In our home? Among our people?”

    She scoffed, and upended the bag, letting the severed head fall out. I felt nausea bloom as the smell got worse and struggled to force it back, coughing on the bile that rose. I had to look away, earning me a fierce scowl. “You never had any faith in me, sister, but this is my home too. These are also my people. I’m monstrous, but I’m not a monster . . . except to our enemies.”

    She grabbed the grotesque package by the hair and lifted it into my face. I began to look away, but then recognition kindled in my mind. “Is that . . . that’s King Tyvalt! You killed the king of Mirsken Hain!?” I looked up and down the hallway, horrified that someone would see me standing here talking to an assassin about a king’s severed head.

    My sister just laughed at my worries. I knew she was making a point about her confidence in clearing the halls, but I still worried someone would hear. She put the head back into the bag, then neatly into a box with latches and straps.

    I fumed at how she ignored all my concerns as meaningless and infuriated that she was right.  “Just what am I supposed to do with this . . . this!?”

    She buckled the latches, the scent of death fading quickly, and stood up with the case in hand. “You can do what you like with this. Discard it, or give it to the Nine as evidence that we are the blade with the determination to protect them all; we hold the contested borders, we are already their shield. You know what I would do. You can’t remain the lowest of them; you’re the only one of them there for the right reasons.”

    I looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Her face was a mask, but she was my twin sister. Her face was also my face, and I could read her concern and worry as quickly as I could turn the page of a book. “Asillya?  Are you trying to take care of me?”

    She stared at me, face impassive. The pause was uncharacteristic of her – she always seemed to know the right thing to say or do. “Ilyssa, you’re the eldest. You have the most to bear. All civilized folk live in a cage, but yours is the cruelest. Of course, I take care of you.”

    Sorrow and heat filled me, in equal measure. I felt sadness twist my features, and I slapped her. Though my sister was the killer, it was expected that I would see an assassin or two in my career, and my slap was no girly thing. I curled my fingers back and struck with the corner of my palm. The blow was supported by the bones of my arm, the rotation of my hips, all the way to my feet, anchoring the impact.

    I did not catch her off guard; she just accepted the blow from her sister. As she staggered, I swept forward and clutched her into a hug. “Asillya! You blackened yourself for this!? Did you even think about what I wanted? I wanted you to live well! Marry who you liked! Study your archery, pursue the hunt, I wanted you to enjoy all the unladylike things that I couldn’t!” I pounded my small fists on her chest, torn between hitting her and hugging her. It took me a moment to realize that the dampness of her cloak was from my tears.

    Her arms came around me and pulled me to her, and I could not help but hug her back tightly. “I wouldn’t abandon you so selfishly. You’re a good leader; you didn’t need help with that. I took on the things a leader could never do. We’re two sides of a coin, sister.  Opposites, inseparable.”

    Finally, I stepped back, patting at the moisture on my cheeks with a handkerchief. “I’m sorry I lost faith in you. I still hate what choose to do, though. You were supposed to really live, in place of the girl who couldn’t.”

    She smiled, back to her confident self once more, and held the case out to me. “I’ll leave the ‘real’ living to little Tessamy, and help my sister bear her burdens in my own way.”

    I sighed, looking at the case. It was a clean and polished white cube with rounded corners, the straps arranged so it could be comfortably carried over a shoulder. A layer of wax along the seam sealed it neatly, and the scent had completely dissipated now. From the outside, it might hold bottles of wine or a piece of sculpture.

    I regarded it and wondered what it would do to my reputation to wave a severed head around.  Alliances would get tricky.  I would lose my ‘ladylike appeal’, and political considerations might be the only thing I married for.  It would be painful to never have that affection, but those of my standing were slaves to our crown.  I had stopped expecting the right to choose a mate for love when I was five.

    I next considered how it could improve my standing among the Nine. My sister was right. There were forty-five votes held by the Nine, and I held only one. I persuaded and argued, but except in the very closest calls, I did not have the power to decide anything.  I looked at the box in my hand, then I looked up into my sister’s eyes.

    “Perhaps it’s time they learn that I’m not on my throne because I’m pretty.”

    • Like 3
  4.  You have my meaning correct.  Signals generated by the child of a wireless part should propogate to its parents. Signals transmitted BY the wireless part should not. Feature request is here, lend your voice and a vote if you like: 

     

    I have learned a lesson, no worries. No more straight lines in my testing. 

    I submitted this to discussion hoping someone would find a design flaw, without realizing how well it might be hidden. I didn't intend to submit a bug report without independent confirmation, and would have submitted the drone export for the bug report if I hadn't discovered my error first. 

    • Like 1
  5. 1 hour ago, Markus said:

    And moved the thread back again, sorry @Lurkily. I hope you don't mind. Cool that you could find the logic error. Good discussion here.

    No worries.  I would have done it myself, but in my uncaffeinated state, I thought you might want to mark it a resolved issue, which I couldn't do. 

    I'm glad it was a design flaw; I had hoped someone could help me see it, but I hid the problem too well. :)

    Thanks. 

    • Like 2
  6. I think in the example, the bottom left LED should light up.  (All buttons and LED's are set to 'X')  It would allow us to activate an 'if' gate beyond a splitter to control a split-off drone part, effectively allowing us to segregate transmitted commands so that only those we need are transmitted. Furthermore, it just makes sense.  There's no reason for the wireless transmitter to act as a splitter - that's what we have splitters for.

    Signals transmitted from the core by the wireless part should be sent to only child parts.  Signals generated by those child parts should be able to propagate to the wireless part's parents.

    image.png.18d01e79e48d01142723f9eca6a4fdac.png

    • Like 2
  7. I solved this with a brief look this morning.  I had to reconfigure more than half of it before the problem became visible.

    I had parented an LED ACROSS the transmitter instead of directly to it, and the struts were hidden.  Wireless modules now seem to behave correctly.

    I still think in this example, the bottom left LED should light - I don't feel wireless should act as a splitter.  That's what we have actual splitters for.

    image.png.cf2c3f78f0840028f5599de4ec1f2cce.png

    • Like 3
  8. I'll recheck tonight, make sure I didn't do something stupid. 

    I really do think signals should be able to cross a transmitter, though.  Then you could split a section of your ship, put a switch or if block on the other side of a transmitter, and transmit only certain signals, while forbidding any other crosstalk. 

    • Like 1
  9. What in the sam hill is going on here?

    Both buttons are set to X.  All lights are set to X.  It seems like wireless parts don't circumvent splitters at all. I WAS just trying to see if a button could transmit to the other side of a wireless transmitter (It really should be able to, but someone said this wasn't the case) but why don't they seem to do any damn thing at all?Whaaaaaat.png.2cc07165703f29f564b6cdedfb0132f9.png

    • Like 1
  10. This was one of the first ones I wrote that was instant magic.  I tried to edit it and clean it up, but I couldn't even touch it without damaging it.  It just came out right.  This was written in response to this prompt:

    "You run a night school for assassins. The other professional assassins loathe you for turning customers into self-sufficient killers. You would get frustrated by their constant attempts on your life, if they didn’t make for such good lessons for your students…"

    Timid Reaper

    I strode across to the podium, before the diagram of the human skeleton and circulatory system. The class was small, ten people. I found it to be my optimum class size. Any more and my students began to look like a forest, not trees. Any less, and I might have trouble with my payments.

    “Well? Anybody?”

    One tentative hand rose up. She was a slip of a girl. Her demeanor was timid, her hand trembling in the air. None of her classmates took her seriously. They were new, yet. Not all of them quite realized that I wasn’t here to teach them how to fight, but how to kill. Ellen’s ‘fragile flower’ act would serve her well.

    Behind her, Ross put his hand up. He was what most people thought of when they thought of an assassin. Quiet, self-assured, quick on his feet and quick with his hands, able to switch between a fight and an innocent demeanor in a heartbeat, agile and strong. His assurance would probably betray him this time; it would be a good lesson.

    “Ross.”

    “Under the armpit. The gate through the ribs to the heart.” I had taught them this last week. It was an easy way to the heart in the heat of combat, but that wasn’t what I had asked for.

    “Very good. You’re almost right. If you were in a fight, it would probably be your way in. But the shortest clean path is elsewhere.” Ellen’s hand was still up. I pointed to call on her when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I opened my hand flat, calling for silence.

    It came from the window. Of course, it came from the window, it’s why I held class in a room with a window. I stepped back from the inevitable assault. Something whisked through the air, and severed strands of hair swirled in the air before me. Several projectiles flew right back in the opposite direction, crossbow loaded tangles linked to the threads strung across the glass. They would hold him for a few brief seconds.

    I closed my palm to point at Ellen once more. “Ellen. Step up.”

    “M-me?” She looked around, playing it to the hilt.

    The attacker rushed at me – nobody remained calm when I decided my class was more important than their attempt on my life. The girl I called was obviously nothing, beneath his notice. I leaned back as a blade licked out at my eyes – my counterstroke was at his wrist, but his blade twisted in his hand, and I struck the steel pommel. I wove my blade through the air, passing in and out of striking positions. I struck where I saw weakness, and where I saw strength, I used the threat to force him to react.

    Finally, I led him into risk by giving him an opportunity too good to pass up. His blade struck me in the upper arm as I caught his elbow. I bent his arm backward into dislocation. I stomped on the side of his bent leg, shattering the tibia and fibula. With his good arm pulled up behind his back, I looked at Ellen.

    “You had a different answer, Ellen? Show me.”

    She strode forward without hesitation, without any of her typical timidness. She knew that the incapacitation of pain wouldn’t last long, and this man was still dangerous.  She pulled her hairpin out, a few inches long at most. Her hair fell to her knees, and for a moment, fanned out like a black wing. She carefully positioned the steel spike at the top of his collarbone and slid it straight down into his heart.

    I pressed my fingers to his neck until his pulse quieted, then stood and let the dead weight drop.

    “While I did teach you how to go through the armpit in combat, never assume there isn’t a better answer. The shortest open path from the skin to the heart is three inches, from behind the collarbone.”

    “Now for your next lesson . . . ” I began pulling my shirt off. I could feel the wetness of the blood from the stab wound I had taken, and the burning that spread down my arm. I cast the shirt aside and looked at the red lines creeping toward my fingers. This lesson wouldn’t have been possible if he’d struck a vein instead of an artery. “Open your pharmacology books to page one hundred and twenty-five. You’re going to identify and neutralize this poison.”

    • Like 4
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