Kodan Black

Location: H04 Crofter's Ridge Tags: Land Vehicle Previously... // PERSONAL DIARY // I'd brought Dr. Hawkins up to the Axle my meeting with Dr. Long. It had been a chance meeting, but had left me quite perplexed. How did Dr. Long know about my robot dog and what ED-208 was up to with the dog? How did she know about the dog's programming? Why was she so concerned for a robot pet at all? I hadn't heard from ED-208 in a while and that was concerning. Despite having so many questions to ponder I knew that I couldn't keep Dr. Hawkins waiting, that would be impolite. I went down to one of the engineering spaces on the Axle where I had Dr. Hawkins looking over a prototype speeder. I felt it would be a good addition to the corporation as it was small, fast, and efficient. It would be an ideal choice for getting between points on a planet that were not far enough to warrant a ship. The speeder was unarmed, but it had speed and agility to keep the user safe. The power output was such that it could also be used to recharge equipment or run a small individual encampment. Eventually it would be painted to best match the needed use, but for now it was just primer gray. Dr. Hawkins had suggested increasing the size of the heat exchanger so that on hotter planets or ones with more dust there would be no degradation of performance. A wise insight. I was tempted to talk to him about some of the recent things that had been going on with the mysterious lab and most recently my run in with Dr. Long but I had to remind myself that he was from Mantis. Normally I'd talk to ED-208 but it seemed like there was something going on with him so that wouldn't be possible. I could try to seek some clarity from Dr. Long herself, but I know how busy she is. Overhead: Axle Bay: Speeder:

I like that door, looks properly secure and scifi!

The drum looks nice. I like the little station too. The one thing that stands out on the transport is the yellow brick that you have connecting the cylinders. I think it would have been better in white leaving only the cylinders in yellow, but that is just personal preference. Otherwise a very nice little station and transport!

Nice, I like how you weaved in both storylines. I'm also quite impressed at your having such a diverse collection of minifigs that you covered both our stories! That is a nice effect with the pipes behind the grate. I like the MRI machine setup too.

That is a great mech. Looks very tough and the seat is well designed. I assume this mech cannot be used following Taco Tuesday? Or are gaseous emissions part of the control interface?

I can't lie, the Octan logo was thrown in last minute. I felt like having a giant light gray floor would be too much, so I was thinking about what I could put there when I saw the Octan logo on a truck on my desk. So I put it in. Definitely not the best representation.

Wow, that is huge. Great sense of action and love the foliage. Must be even more impressive in person.

I know that limiting the tags will make it so builders aren't just building for the tags as much, but that also means that the tech tree stuff is going to be much more linear. People are going to pick a path that gets them to the 2 bonuses and then race to the end. I don't think corps will spend much time diverting off to pick other things.

Location: H04 Crofter's Ridge Tags: Land Vehicle, Civil Building, Science Previously... // PERSONAL DIARY // Despite being from Mantis, I've had a great time sharing research with Dr. Hawkins. His insight has been so helpful and having a different perspective is always a bonus! I'd had a side project with Dr. Allison to create a light exosuit that could help explorers or even just scientists in the field. It isn't meant to be a heavy suit for moving large objects, more of a suit that permits better access to rough terrain and keeps the wearer from being as fatigued. Dr. Hawkins got to test it out on a rooftop of one of our scientific buildings near the spaceport; and he seemed to really enjoy it. He said that even wearing it for the first time it was very easy to use and was quite comfortable. His Mantis associate declined a turn, preferring to watch. Dr. Allison and I monitored the suit and it seems to be performing flawlessly. I have to hope that we can further refine it and get it into the field before too long. I assured Dr. Hawkins that even if I couldn't get an export license for a suit for him I would send him the specs so he could create one of his own. Overhead:

Yeah the tags and tied into that is some of the tech tree does seem to promote building to gain DP and less build what you want. Honestly I feel a bit like I'm gaming the system when I try to incorporate a land vehicle, space vehicle and civil building each week to get the points. Not only does it get a bit tedious to do so, but it also means that instead of doing the best build I can, I'll aim for a 4 point build that ticks off the bonus boxes. Not sure how to achieve it exactly but just more freedom to build whatever and maybe by including more it organically gets rewarded via higher score. Make people build more within a job function so an explorer should be more building explorer type builds, but then within that can have less need to include a truck just for the bonus. I Also agree that the notion of degrading DP makes sense, but it should be able to be offset by proximity to home planet, or fleets (yes, more than 1 would be good), or some other thing. Otherwise you do end up having players spread thin and I think it makes it harder to collaborate on builds. Honestly some of the best builds/stories are when players post within each other's storylines. I would love to see that somehow encouraged.

A couple thoughts off the top of my head, I'll need to re-read it all and process more: 1) It would be nice to reward those who build each week or very frequently. I know the credits kind of does that, but it would be nice to have achievements like "Built 5 times in a row" that does something. 2) Sphere of influence would be nice. That way the more directly linked planets maybe gives either more resources or DP. It would also decrease the degradation of DP over time. 3) The fleet idea as it is now isn't bad but it is pretty limiting. You end up having a hard time moving it around much. 4) The outer ring planets should be different in some way. They are way too important now and too useful. 5) The homeworld bonus should be dropped and subsequently decrease the value of Awesomnium. In general it would be nice to make the game easier to build where you want instead of having to build where it does the most good. I've often felt limited in what I could build because I need to camp a planet for a month to get needed resources. 6) I think a lot of us kind of developed a team in our story lines. I think that maybe if we either relaxed the rule on your sigfig having to be in builds or something that allowed a bit more freedom. Maybe you could predefine up to 3 characters and the build / story only has to contain any of the 3 to qualify. 7) I have enjoyed AG immensely and as evidenced by my having never missed a week or a competition I would imagine I'll be in for AG2. As for timing of builds, every other week would probably produce more quality builds without being too long.

Bob, added a fleet movement note in the secret thread.

I believe it is regionally localized. So for the US it would be midnight eastern time. I'm basing this off of past giveaways like the Revan one.

So Lois is just a small town girl?

Cool story and nice photography. But man, to me, the real star is the van. So smooth and retro-futuristic! Great shaping and impressive you even built out the bottom! Another top notch build.

Lovely landscaping! Great use of varying heights and different colors. Hope to see more builds from you!

Nicely done effect and good usage of the surprised face on Hadvice. Has a good science lab feel to it.

Location: H04 Crofter's Ridge Tags: Land Vehicle, Civil Building, Science Previously... // PERSONAL DIARY // Dr. Hawkins has been enjoying his time with us and we've really had a great time working on new scientific discoveries. Most recently he and one of his colleagues had joined me in the science facility to work on Awesomnium infused Biomass fuels. While not practical for larger spaceships and the like, having such a portable fuel supply could be useful for smaller vehicles and also for remote outposts. It is exciting to have a new scientific mind to bounce ideas off of! Dr. Hawkins has been very open with sharing knowledge and has complimented Octan for our fantastic science facilities. We both hope that despite working for rival corporations that we can continue to work at progressing scientific research for the benefit of humanity.

The scene on the lift with the robot was awesome. Love the storyline! Can't wait to see where it goes. Should you need a new corporate home, we here at Octan are always waiting with open arms. Octan - "The Friendly Corporation!"

I love the landing platform and story. I agree with Big Sal, the red, green, and white all work well together but it is a balancing act. Personal preference but the green booster with the red is a bit jarring for me and it feels like overall too much green. I find it tough to work with sometimes since the logo is like 45% green, 45% red, 10% white ... and yet you see most often that the Octan stuff is mostly white. Compelling story and look forward to seeing more!

Yeah, I think the weekly build is both a pro and con. It keeps people building more but also limits what gets built. Sometimes you build a weekly while working on a longer term project so you might build a 3, 3, 3, 5 pattern in terms of score. But like Sal said, building a 2-3 pt build every week is more beneficial than a player who builds once a month and posts a 7. Particularly with the bonus factored in, it isn't even close. This seems more like a speed-build type of competition where you put out a lot and are under more time pressure. GoH seems more focused on longer builds, which naturally will produce higher quality. But we have had some people enter like Yseult Brenneux who doesn't post all the time but adds very lovely and well thought out builds.

Great job making it expressive. Seems like it would fit into a Cars style movie easily.

Location: H04 Crofter's Ridge Tags: Land Vehicle, Spaceship Previously... // PERSONAL DIARY // It was a very nice afternoon when I was informed that the Turing was on final approach to the landing pad. I have to admit to having been distracted though for a while, I knew it was this afternoon that it was scheduled to arrive and this was something that had required a fair amount of work. Despite my senior role within the company, knowingly inviting a Mantis science vessel onto a planet that Octan laid claim to wasn't treated lightly. Dr. Tyler Hawkins was a young Mantis scientist who had been become quite prominent lately. His work on merging robotic AI with xenobiology was at the forefront of the field. I'd been reading and re-reading all of his published papers trying to see what would be applicable to our own work at Octan. It had taken considerable effort to convince him to come spend some time at our facilities and bring his science vessel to another corporation's turf. Luckily as men of science we both saw the value in such collaborative efforts. The Turing is a wonderful ship and massive. It easily dwarfed the high speed rail and the spaceport buildings, though admittedly this is the Crofter's Ridge spaceport and not the massive complex on Farmolis. I didn't dare ask to board yet as we were still in the early stages of getting to know and trust each other, but I really hope in the future to be able to see the entire capabilities of such an advanced craft. Watching such an enormous vessel hang in the air ponderously as it settled to the pad, even as a scientist, was truly awe inspiring. As Dr. Hawkins left the ship and we stood in the massive shadow, we were like tiny insects next to one of the ship's landing feet. Dr. Hawkins was every bit the pleasant fellow he comes across in his weekly show "A Better Tomorrow". He was very jovial and not stiff or formal as some academics can be. We greeted each other warmly and I introduced him to ED-208 (whom I had specifically forbid to bring weaponry so as not to intimidate our honored guest). And I also showed him Gidget who he recognized the model and said "Oh you reprogrammed one of those spy dogs as a pet, cool!" Which, I guess implied that you could equip this model of robot dog with additional gear to enable it to be used in the field, but my dog is strictly a companion. ED-208 then said he needed to "take this thing for a walk", which is odd as being non-biological it didn't need to relieve itself. Normally I would have inquired further but I was far too excited to take Dr. Hawkins on a tour. I don't know if Dr. Long will be available to meet him or not, but I really hope so. To bring 2 such incredible minds together would be very special! Extra Pics:

1) All my money to Bob 2) Can we get Water Extractor for both Professor Thaum and Brickwolf and the Bag of fertilizer for BoxerLego? Thanks!

Really incredible and instantly recognizable. You don't really get the sense of the immense size until you hit the picture with you behind it. Beautiful and I think you made really good calls on all the choices for differences and the layout.