Plan #2: safer bet?

Here's a different tack: I store an item in another account's inventory limbo. This account will NEVER launch TF2 and the item will remain in limbo until I can determine whether or not I can get it out without losing it. The trouble is that the person who currently holds the crate has it in their ACTUAL INVENTORY, not in their limbo, and limbo may be a more volatile state to put it into. But if I don't do something before the person launches TF2 themself, then the item will definitely be lost. A stressful day for SCIENCE!

I have a plan

Game-development-related posts will come later! Right now it's time for a scheme I have cooked up.

If you're not familiar with Team Fortress 2, this might not interest you. If the former is true and you're still interested, there's a wiki right here that can clear things up.

According to the TF2 wiki, Every series #22 crate, "Refreshing Summer Cooler," expired on 11 July, 2011 and was removed from player's backpacks.

But I know that there is at least one player who still has one.

I don't know if they're willing to entertain my plan, but I sincerely hope that they will, and not try to gouge me on a price when there's no guarantee that this will work. Here's the plan: I fear that if they should launch TF2, it will detect the item and delete it. IF I can contact them before they do that, we might be able to trade it over Steam. According to the plan, I will have TF2 already open, so that it will not immediately disappear from MY inventory. If it does not get deleted immediately once I click on the "new items" notice, then I should be able to gift wrap it and store it in my inventory indefinitely in that state. All crates should be gift-wrappable...

There are numerous places where this could fail. If it works, I could be the only person on the entire planet to have a stable series #22 crate! The only other crate I'm missing is Series #6, the Festive Winter Crate, which had a similar expiration condition. My goal is to get one of every possible item. If I can get one that should be impossible... well! That alone is practically boastworthy. Not that I'm one to boast. Wish me luck!

I'm done... with nightmares!

Dealing with an human body as I am forced to, I've been subjected to some nightmares.
I read on some lucid dreaming sites that if you have a nightmare featuring some entity, and you can gain control of the dream, you can ask the entity what it represents and it must tell you. This is true in my experience, which consists of a single time. I haven't bothered since that time, and I think that occasion said something about the state of my mind.
I can't remember much, but at the end there was some crazy lady with knives. I remembered the websites' advice and assumed direct control, grabbing her knives by the blades and tossing them away. She tried to grab me or something so I grabbed her hands, which would normally have been a dream-end condition but I was in control and I had something to say! "What do you represent?" She said "I don't know," apparently frustrated by the fact. I was frustrated too, so I said, "thanks, BRAIN." The part of my mind responsible for setting up the dream was also frustrated, because it had gone to all this trouble and now I'd messed the dream all up and it didn't have anywhere to go. So I woke up. I should try asking again some time, though I rarely have nightmares so it could be a while. And there had better be a meaning.

Why COF is so great

This is most of the instructions for the game drawing a cyan enemy, as it stands right now:


dir=direction

x+=lengthdir_x(1,dir+180)
y+=lengthdir_y(1,dir+180)


temp=lengthdir_x(2.4,dir-22)
temp2=lengthdir_y(2.4,dir-22)
temp3=lengthdir_x(2.4,dir+22)
temp4=lengthdir_y(2.4,dir+22)



tx[0]=x+temp*6
ty[0]=y+temp2*6
tx[1]=x+temp3*6
ty[1]=y+temp4*6
tx[2]=x+lengthdir_x(10.8,dir-90)+lengthdir_x(6.48,dir)
ty[2]=y+lengthdir_y(10.8,dir-90)+lengthdir_y(6.48,dir)
tx[3]=x+lengthdir_x(10.8,dir+90)+lengthdir_x(6.48,dir)
ty[3]=y+lengthdir_y(10.8,dir+90)+lengthdir_y(6.48,dir)
tx[4]=x-temp3*5
ty[4]=y-temp4*5
tx[5]=x-temp*5
ty[5]=y-temp2*5

tx[6]=x+temp*10
ty[6]=y+temp2*10
tx[7]=tx[6]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir+90)
ty[7]=ty[6]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir+90)
tx[8]=x+temp3*10
ty[8]=y+temp4*10
tx[9]=tx[8]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir-90)
ty[9]=ty[8]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir-90)

tx[10]=x+lengthdir_x(13.44,dir+133)
ty[10]=y+lengthdir_y(13.44,dir+133)
tx[11]=x+lengthdir_x(13.44,dir-133)
ty[11]=y+lengthdir_y(13.44,dir-133)
tx[12]=tx[10]+lengthdir_x(12.24,dir)
ty[12]=ty[10]+lengthdir_y(12.24,dir)
tx[13]=tx[10]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir-90)
ty[13]=ty[10]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir-90)
tx[14]=tx[11]+lengthdir_x(12.24,dir)
ty[14]=ty[11]+lengthdir_y(12.24,dir)
tx[15]=tx[11]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir+90)
ty[15]=ty[11]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir+90)

draw_line(tx[6],ty[6],tx[7],ty[7])
draw_line(tx[8],ty[8],tx[9],ty[9])
draw_line(tx[0],ty[0],tx[1],ty[1])
draw_line(tx[0],ty[0],tx[6],ty[6])
draw_line(tx[1],ty[1],tx[8],ty[8])
draw_line(tx[0],ty[0],tx[2],ty[2])
draw_line(tx[1],ty[1],tx[3],ty[3])
draw_line(tx[2],ty[2],tx[4],ty[4])
draw_line(tx[3],ty[3],tx[5],ty[5])
draw_line(tx[4],ty[4],tx[5],ty[5])

draw_line(tx[10],ty[10],tx[12],ty[12])
draw_line(tx[10],ty[10],tx[13],ty[13])
draw_line(tx[11],ty[11],tx[14],ty[14])
draw_line(tx[11],ty[11],tx[15],ty[15])

draw_set_alpha(alph/1.2)
draw_triangle(tx[0],ty[0],tx[1],ty[1],tx[2],ty[2],0)
draw_triangle(tx[3],ty[3],tx[1],ty[1],tx[2],ty[2],0)
draw_triangle(tx[2],ty[2],tx[3],ty[3],tx[4],ty[4],0)
draw_triangle(tx[5],ty[5],tx[3],ty[3],tx[4],ty[4],0)
draw_triangle(tx[10],ty[10],tx[12],ty[12],tx[13],ty[13],0)
draw_triangle(tx[11],ty[11],tx[14],ty[14],tx[15],ty[15],0)

x-=lengthdir_x(1,dir+180)
y-=lengthdir_y(1,dir+180)




And that was a pain because I had to figure out all the angles and everything. Now I have a much nicer, general algorithm that I'm not going to post for various reasons, and I just have to tell an object what model file to use and it will draw it.
For some of the enemies, I used values calculated based on other values in order to determine coordinates of vertices, which is hard to translate directly into a COF-readable file. My options are to make a piece of code for each enemy that outputs coordinates, or to just remake the models using COF. I've chosen to do the latter (because dang it's fast and effective), but I'll keep the crazy instructions I made for each one (like you see above), for posterity's sake.

ColourFire is changing hosts

http://colourfire.nfshost.com appears to be the new host, since nerium.org appears to be going down in a few days and not returning. A sad thing, but SCIENCE must continue! So expect an update soon. I can't promise more than making it continue to work, but that's better than if it stopped working and I didn't update it!

A new challenger approaches!

Not actually a challenger. Gat (a good friend of mine own self) has a blog at http://pletcy.blogspot.com/ which you should look at. So far it's entertaining, and he's only 1 post in! Now that's talent.

Also, ColourFire will in future use the latest IDE version, so the load times will be faster and the runtimes will be slightly less slow but we'll have to work out a bunch of glitches! YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Elizabeth Maxwell=awesome

Or I could be nerdy and say
if (Elizabeth_Maxwell==awesome){
blog_post();}
but I'm not go-... oh, too late. Well.

Anyway, here's her blog.
So! In celebration of her coolness, I got her a platinum upgrade for her Something Awful Forums account for x-mas. In return, she offered to draw me anything I wanted! Whoah!
I took a while to figure out what to ask for (sorry :<) but long story short here's the image:
Sweet! Baltarstar Galactica meets Team Fortress 2. :D