Today was quite a day. The recap is .. well, long. Started out finishing Ahnonay with Robert, and meeting up in K’veer. Then Yeesha and the Bahro link in on top of me, and I record it. (this led me to actually start a topic on the forum) Then I met up with most of the usual crew and we opened the door in Tsogal for somone. (Twice, actually, as they fell the first time) Somehow that meeting ended up with a lot of early uru memories and reminiscing, with a little technical age building discussion mixed in. Then we went down to the hood and started a game of sardines in Ahnonay, Sphere 1. I this place has potential for good games of sardines. It’s not so linear that you can run through it and be guaranteed to enter voice chat range of the hider at least once, but it’s not so open as Minkata, where you’ll never find anything, let alone one avatar. This first round resulted in some cool pictures which I have posted below. ;)

Well, after the servers effectively went down for a few hours.. I managed to get in and get in line for a book. Immediately after, however, I moved on to Isyldar’s Ahnonay, as he was interested to see how the meter would react to multiplayer. Having recently played around in PotS with the age, I pointed out one area which had become surprisingly easy to reach due to the physics change. Later, when Robert and Jan arrived, Izy went out and demonstrated that the islands in the scenery really are solid. :D I’ll probably post some more KI pics on this post later, when we’ve explored some more.

Well, it’s been a while, so I figure I ought to write in my ‘ol journal again. I’ve been in the Cavern on and off for the last few weeks, so I’ve been present for a few things. One of ResEng Biegalski’s orientations, several games of Sardines, and, most recently, a “Chill” party in Minkata. Basically this means streamed music and lots of avvies. I was interested, though, to see a large crowd in Minkata, so I headed out there, and it turned out to be one of the great ones. Ktahdin had put together a playlist that neatly matched the ambiance of the night side of Minkata, and the event drew a considerable crowd. The whole thing was followed up by a dramatic (and very well done) switch to day Minkata and more upbeat, “wake up” tunes, the most amusing of which was a rendition of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” on what sounded like a carnival organ. :D All in all, it was a good time, and I got some good pictures out of it too. So, to that end, here they are. :D Curiously enough, ResEng Dogherra even dropped in around the middle, though he was in ‘stealth mode’. He’s visible in the first picture.

I’ve also dropped these onto the hood imager, and the site hood imager. (I had an interesting time getting the site imager to display them)

A new KI mail from the DRC:

Pellet Progress Update

I would like to take another opportunity to thank all of the explorers for continuing to contribute pellets to the lake. I have been monitoring the pellet contributions on a daily basis and have noticed that they’ve been steadily decreasing over the last month. I just wanted to reassure you that you are making progress, so don’t get discouraged. At the current rate of pellet contributions, the increased lake light level could be enough to be noticeable in the next few months. Of course, if they continue to decline, it will take a great deal longer.

Also, according to your tests, the algae does not respond well to spikes in their food supply. Slow and steady is better than large, sudden changes to the pellet contributions. The D’ni do have several safety mechanisms in place to moderate this to some degree, so the algae isn’t in any great danger, but for our own eficiency’s sake, it’s better to be as consistent as is reasonable.

Thanks again,

V. Laxman

Lately I’ve been working on mapping Minkata accurately. Both for a lack of something better to do, and because I don’t know if the bug that’s been allowing me to do it will be squashed soon. Currently, if you place markers in an age that does not show you KI coordinates, and then attempt to edit that mission in an age that does, all the markers will show coordinates. Interestingly enough, I think that I’ve also uncovered another bug along the way. The displayed coordinates change depending on what age you view them in.

Anyway, I’ve been running around Minkata, placing markers at all the notable landmarks, and reading off all the coordinates in Ae’gura. Then entering them into my little mapping app, the KI coordinate mapper. Speaking of which, I’ve upgraded it a bit. You can now view a preset map of all of the notable locations in Minkata, complete with custom marker images in it’s full zoomable glory. Just select “Minkata Map” from the dropdown menu in the middle.