Recent Adventures

I know that I have been absent from comms here lately, but let me tell you why. Just bare with me, in my usual Vettie fashion, I will eventually get to the point.

So here goes...

I have multiple computers, a laptop (that I use for nearly everything) that is a dual boot system with Win 7 and Linux Mint 12. My old gaming rig that is also a dual boot, Win XP and Linux Mint 12 and an even older machine that I use as a test bed before I elect to do something radical on either of my better machines.

This quick point, before I forget, comes in to play later in this post, but remember it, please. I recently moved to an apartment and I still have some things in boxes...(shocker right?)

The Linux Mint Community recently released LM13 with two types of interfaces, Cinnamon (basically uses applets (real similar to Apples OS)) or Mate (standard Gnome type interface.) I have read about Cinnamon and I also read where the LM team worked out many of the bugs and that LM13 (Maya they call it) had a pretty smooth Cinnamon interface IF your hardware and Cinnamon were compatible. I checked the list and all of my machines were covered.

I was interested in trying Maya, but as with any other OS, I really didnt want to screw up my 2 “good machines”, especially my laptop. That lead me to my test machine. It is loaded with Win XP and Linux Mint 9. The LM9 install was one of the prettiest, smoothest, most fun to work with OS I have encountered. I seriously considered make a triple boot.

Ok, so, I had a plan. Triple boot, not messing up Windows, or Mint 9. I downloaded the OS from the Mint website and burned the image onto disk. The check sum was perfect and the disc was operational and self booting. I should point out to any and all at this point, it is ALWAYS a great idea to back up stuff you want to keep, ALWAYS.

I had Windows running on the test machine and I inserted the LM13 disc. It came up. One of the options is to install the OS. To do so, you leave the disc in the drive and reboot they machine (making sure the BIOS is set to read from the cd first). I did and after the reboot the LM 13 disc began to run. I should point out here that the OS is NOT installed, merely running from the disc. This is a lot slower than if installed, but it lets you play with things and see how well you like the OS without actually installing it.

I played with a few things and I really like the interface and smoothness of operation (event tho slow running from the dvd). It does put an Icon on the desktop to INSTALL Linux Mint. I clicked it. Things started happening as you would expect, it comes up with the typical questions about where you are located, what language to use, time zone you are in, keyboard layout, you know, the standard OS install questions, user name, computer name, blah blah... After going through those motions, a splash screen comes up to tell you the differences from LM12 to LM13 and about the Cinnamon interface.

Normally, when there is a splash screen such as this, it changes as your install progresses allowing even a slow reader such as myself PLENTY of time to read the splash. I had read where a typical install of LM13 would take about 10 to 15 minutes depending on your hardware. As I am watching the splash and trying to keep up (it never changed past screen 1) it disappeared. Went away. Gone. I thought to myself, well, that was pretty darn fast, but I did notice that there was no re-boot notice. So I waited a bit. Then a bit longer. After 2 hours, nothing else happened, there were no disc activity lights blinking or even on, so I thought, hmm, must be time to reboot. I did.

I was expecting to see the “grub” where you choose which OS to boot into, but I didnt. On my test machine, to boot from the CD drive (even though it is set in the BIOS as 1^st boot) you have to hit the enter key or the space bar. I didnt do this because I wanted to go into LM13 and play around. After some whirring noises and skipping of the cd, my machine went to the “C” drive (as expected) then then returned an error. The error was something about (computer language data) axxbbes blah (looked Hungarian to me (and yes I have been there and seen Hungarian words, notice I said SEEN, not read)) and finally, GRUB error, do you wish to repair?

Huh? I dont know anything about Grub, I thought they were big ol' nasty worms that you used to go fishing with, How do you repair that? So I opened one of my other machines and did some reading on Grub and how to repair it and gave that a try. It didnt work.

I re-booted again, just to make sure. No good. Same thing as before. So I thought, I could put my Windows XP Cd in and do a repair so it would at least boot into Windows. I did that. Followed the options to repair the windows install. The disc agreed with me that my XP install was corrupted and would attempt to repair it. After a bit, it said it had repaired my Windows install and that I need to re-boot, so I did.

It came back with the exact same error, computer jibberish that I cant read blah, Grub Error, do you wish to repair? So now I was frustrated and hungry. Made myself a fine turkey sandwich.

After this, I decided to try to repair the Windows MRB section to see if that would help, No joy. Same old grub error. In my mind, I thought, well LM9 was working perfectly, maybe I can use it to repair the machine and get it booted up again. I put the LM9 disc in and restarted. Same error. Ok.

I did a little research to see if others were having similar troubles on the Linux Mint Forums. Not really, but still some were having issues. One guy had almost the same set up as I do, said his install didnt work, but he re-booted and tried it a second time and it worked fine. So I thought, why not?

I put the LM13 disc back in and re-booted allowing it boot from the dvd. Started up and again I hit the install Icon. Started all over. I went through all the questions and finally got to the splash screen again where it actually starts copying files and installing the OS. Another hint for most users, DO NOT DO THIS AT 1.00AM.

Again the splash screen disappeared and the disc activity stopped. I waited for close to an hour and decided that it was messed up again. In my frustration and all due to NOT paying attention, on this particular attempt to install, I told it to install on the WRONG hard drive. I had wiped out my Windows HDD, and now neither the Mint install nor Windows were there. I said a few things, got up and walked around smacking my head. The Windows install actually had some programs on it that I had the paid versions of and installed many years ago. The updates were free, but you have to pay for another install. DOH!! (remember my warning about backing up stuff you want to keep? Yeha, I wish I had remembered that, again not don attempt at 1.00am...)

I looked over at some of the boxes I had not put away yet (remember me mentioning this above?) and in front of one of the boxes was an old HP Pavilion. From what I could remember, it was a 466 Celeron machine from the Win 95/98 era that I had updated to Win98SE. I picked up the machine and put it on my desk. I had no idea if it was complete or operational. I opened it up. Let me see, floppy drive (remember those?), dvd drive (I had replaced the original cd drive some years ago), hard drive, mother board, power supply, memory sticks, cpu and fan. Everything except vid card and sound card, nice.

At this point I remembered that I had some parts in another box. I rambled around until I found them. A Soundblaster PCI 128 sound card with install disc and a VooDoo 4 4500 (32mg – that makes you sweat with envy, huh?) Well before I installed any of this, I wanted to make sure the old thing would even work. It had on-board video, altho no sound card or chip. I hooked everything up and pushed the power button.

It fired right up. It took it a little bit, but it fired up. The BIOS came up telling me it had 192mg of ram and an 8 gig hdd. WooHoo! After a few minutes the OS started. It was Win98. Wow, I thought. I have all my original Mech Warrior games and some other old games I used to love to play but never could get them to work on XP or Win 7. Maybe they will work on Win98. So I defragged the HDD and then shut the PC down. I opened it up and put the soundcard in and rebooted. ( I learned long ago that with Win95 and 98, dont put too much new stuff in at once.) It came up saying it found a new device, blah blah, I canceled that and let it finish the boot. I put the disc in and installed the software. I got sound and it needed a reboot. Done. Sound card in and working. I thought, alright, time for the VooDoo. I put the card and realized I didnt have an install disc for it. I went to my other machine and did a search for Voodoo 4 Drivers for Win 98 and man did I find drivers. I finally decided on a set that looked like actual 3dFX drivers and downloaded them, burned to a disc and ready to go.

Started the Win98 machine and the screen was totally black. I could see the HDD light blinking and the sound was on so I know it booted, but no vid. At this point, I remembered that on the older BIOS, you had to switch the setting to the vid card you installed, it was not auto select. So I put the vid cable on the on-board output and booted into the BIOS. I made the changed and shut the machine down. Switched cables again and rebooted. This time it worked and discovered new hardware, I canceled and installed the VooDoo drivers and re-booted once again. Oh yeah, it was nice.

TO my surprize, the machine ran very smoothly. I got my old MW2 games and some others out to install them to see if they would work. All 3 installed without a hitch and all three worked. I looked at the clock and it was nearly 3.30am. I went to bed knowing I had a semi successful night.

At 7.00am. I woke with a great thought in my head. On the LM13 install, if I could just kill the splash screen the actual install may be running in the background and MIGHT continue to run, if for some reason, there is something amiss with the splash screen or the splash and cinnamon or whatever. I knew the command to kill the splash, I just didnt know the actual name of the splash screen, I looked it up and found the name so I thought I would give it a try (for those with similar issues, or if you run into similar issues that command is

Sudo apt-get remove ubiquity-slideshow-mint

with all the spaces just as typed. Also, you MUST run this BEFORE hitting the install Icon.)

I went through the same ordeal and before hitting the the install Icon, I ran the remove command and got rid of the splash. I then tried the install and it worked perfectly. At this point, I decided the reinstall Win XP then go back and reinstall LM13 so the grub and everything would be there (there maybe another way of doing this, but I knew how to make this work with little trouble and I needed Windows on there anyway so...). I installed Windows and before I let it start doing the zillions of updates, I went for the LM install. Again killing the splash and making it work. It installed without a hitch on the slave drive (which is where I wanted it all along anyway, lol).

When I rebooted, it went straight into Windows, no grub, no choice, just Windows. What now? What could it be? I went back to the BIOS and changed the boot sequence to boot from the slave 1^st to see if the grub was on there instead of on the main drive. It was. When the machine came back up, there was my grub, my choices of Linux Mint 13 or Windows XP and the other items (mem tester and recover options). Boom it worked. So I updated Mint and installed a couple of items that I have used on LM12 and then went back to Windows to do all the updates.

After a few days of messing with Linux Mint Maya, I have decided that I will wait until they get some of the bugs out and them re-install it. I have since re-installed LM12 (Lisa) and all the Windows Updates.

On the Win98 front, I have been playing the old MechWarrior 2 series. Yeah the video is only 640 by 480 and yeah everything is kinda blocky, but the the games are fun. It is here that I learned of the mech world and about assigning criticals and all the neat stuff that brought those games to life. I also installed a game called Panzer General II, and old SSI game that is very close to a board game with visuals about many of the battles in WWII (excluding the Pacific theatre). You can play either side against the computer, against another human or even by email, lol! One of the other titles I installed was a great DOS game, The Age of Rifles. Again this is an SSI title that covers most rifled combat from early 1800's through just before WWI. Both Panzer General II and Age of Rifles have campaign games in them and they are not easy games to win (unless you set the computer player to low prestige (easy setting), and even then the little CPU is pretty cunning. Both of these titles have a fog of war setting that allows you to let the CPU hide its move until you stumble across the enemy, or in the case of Panzer General II, you have planes scouting ahead (but still limited as to what they detect).

So, if you have wandered where Ol Vettie has been over the past several days, well hes been revisiting the MW2 Series (fairly close to how I think the Mech Lab for MWO will be) and playing some old style computer war games and getting my butticus kicked (sometimes).

Any of you tried playing some of your older, but still favourite titles? 

Anatomy of a Mech

Anatomy of a Battlemech

Ever thought about what makes up a battlemech? Sure, lots of the books and the tabletop game goes in to some significant details as to the inner workings of a battlemech. I mean, most of you that read this Blog already have some understanding of how a mech “works”, the different types of frames, various engine upgrades, and fusion reactors.

Some of the books go into great depths to describe the motors and gyros used for upper torso “twists” and arm and leg movements. Others describe with plenty of details the cockpit of a few of the machines.

This is the part I really want to dig into because this game we play (and will possibly play [MWOnline]) is really based on the pilot's point of view. You, as the pilot, decide what chassis to use, what engine (speed) to choose, what armour to install, the electronics you think you might need, jump jets or not and lastly, what weapons you need for the current “mission” [map].

Each pilot has their own requirements as well as favourites. I have seen some players [pilots] from the past take a light mech and do a damn fine job, but put them in a heavy or assault and they were sitting ducks lasting only minutes in a multiplayer game. I have seen the reverse too. I have seen some players that take the same mech with the same loadout map after map.

It's no secret to any of you that read this Blog that Ol' Vettie's mech of choice is the Victor. That being said, I don’t use it on every map or mission because I like to try different mechs for different maps to see how I can do in them. If you count the same loadouts with different armour types, then at one time I had over 70 Victor Variants. I had one for every map with every type of “radar” situation for every enemy team that we were going to face (knowing their trends on how they “fought” on various maps). Yeah, I know, pretty fanatical for a game, huh? I literally could use a Victor on any map (weight limits allowing), but I choose to use others. Seems I have strayed from the theme of this post, I will try to reroute and get back on track.

As the pilot of a battlemech, you must decide what you need your mech to do. In the books (and to some degree in the table top game) this is “covered” by the use of a neuro-helmet. This is the connection between the battlemech and the pilot. This device is what makes a battlemech come alive. In a sense, the battlemech because a huge, armoured version of the pilot. The mech mimics your movement, your reflexes (with some limitations) and your ability (with some limitations). I say with limits because the mech is a machine and the weapons have to recharge or reload altho the pilot often wants to keep firing and the battlemech build up lots of heat simply by moving around, or jumping and when you add the heat from the weapons, well we have all been there, shut down imminent. A person or pilot might physically be able to continue on and suffer later where as the mech can only take so much before it shuts if self down, or explodes. Each pilot is able to manage this ability in their own way.

The cockpit of a battlemech consists a few things that are common with all battlemechs. Each one has a heads up display the gives us the radar screen, a speed indicator, a heat indicator, a coolant reserve measurement showing you how much coolant you have left, your weapons list, grouping, amount of ammo left (unless a beam weapon), your current armour levels and that of a selected enemy (if any) and a compass that works kinda funny (its based on your location relative to the direction your heading, not a true north kinda thing, so if a team mate tells you via chat or comms that he has a contact at 280, it might not be 280 to you). I the books, there are throttle controls and a “joystick” and some (maybe most or all) have foot controls (pedals).

Our cockpits have most of those things, but you see it on a screen in front of you (I am guessing) and you may or may not have a joystick and separate throttle (or even a combined). I used to use a joystick all the time. I tried many different ones and enjoyed them all (some lasting longer than others). Then I thought back to the MW2 days. I used to use only a keyboard. Not even a mouse. I know at least one pilot who still plays that way. I guess if I practiced enough, I could go back to just using the keyboard or the keyboard mouse combo, but instead I use a nostromo N52 and a good wired gaming mouse. The nostromo is programmable enough to set up every keyboard combo (that I can think of) that I ever use in the game and some I have programmed just in case. I am sure those of you out thee that use joysticks or keyboard and mouse combo have set up some type of setting that is easy or natural felling for you to use, And that is the point isnt it? I mean, you dont want to think about what button to push or what trigger to squeeze to make your mech do whatever action you are trying to perform, you just want it to happen (think neuro-helmet). The more natural the movement the faster your reflexes are to make that action happen. The key is act without thinking equals quicker / faster mech response.

Now your cockpit may be small and compact or it may be very large. Same with the mechs we drive, some have more pilot room than others and it doesnt always mean the bigger the mech the bigger the cockpit. Mine is a 5 by 3.5 old dining room table with a very nice leather (hi-back) office chair that swivels and rolls. Beside my table is the cpu box while on top is the screen, keyboard mouse, nostromo and speakers with a sound control unit. Underneath the table is a sub-woofer that will knock you down if turned up more than ¼ of wide open. This is my cockpit. It doubles as a computer work station and stereo system as well as an interface for my guitars (for recording and editing and eventually erasing cause it I cant play very good yet).

This is the key. A good, usable space, that is not only very comfortable but very workable. This is my 'neuro-helmet' and interface to whatever battlemech I choose to use. What about you? Feel free to describe your cockpit and interface.

You see, this is the REAL anatomy of a battlemech, its you. Your creation, your action(s), your decisions, your loadouts, your choice(s), make up the anatomy and make it work. See you on the battlefield.

Vettie Views Returns

Greetings Mech Fans

Its been a long time since Ol’ Vettie penned a Vettie’s Views article. I been thinking a lot about all the new games coming our way and considered doing an View on the list of them. I still might do that, but not today (tonite actually). I don’t have the time right now to put in the research required to give you guys the depth (I) you would require to sink your teeth into the mech titles on the near horizons for us. For my money, Mech Warrior Online will be the closest thing to what we have now and probably the easiest for us to digest or migrate to. I cant help but wonder. Remembering when Battlefield 2142 came out lots of Mech Warriors started playing that game and after a bit of time, slowly back they came. I wonder, will we see that again?

The thing is, this game that draws us to it, night after night, or whatever spare time we can muster or actually MAKE to play, continues to draw us in. The hope for MP4 is still lingering in our heads knowing what Jeho has been through and the possible loss of the game data, but we still hope. Night after night, just look at the open servers, SOMEONE IS PLAYING, even if they are just shooting bots.

Let me think. Mech Warrior 4 Vengeance came out when? The year 2000? I think. WHAT? We are still drawn to a game that is going on, if not already, 12 years old? Yes. Yes we are. This game has everything we like in a game. Great battlefields (maps) that were supplied with the game and the ability to create more of them. And the community did just that. We have tons of maps. What else? Oh yeah, BIG ol robotic styled fighting machines that you can simulate sitting in the cockpit and being able to pilot the thing. Oh that’s not all my friends, it has weaponry that you can change out to suit YOUR requirements. Let us not forget explosions, lots of explosions, big nasty explosions with lots of collateral damage if you are too close.

Yeah this game has all that, but, that’s not the good part. No, no fellow mech warriors, the best part is you. Yeah you, Im talking to you. You get in your machine and you drop at launch point and you go hunting for the other guy. Sometimes alone, sometimes with team mates, but get to hunt other guys in their favourite machine and try to blow them up. Many if not most of you use comms (Teamspeak 2 and 3) and you all get on the same channel and you banter back and forth or you talk about crap that has nothing to do with whats going on, but that is all part of the fun. Its like guys card night with out the cards and no mess to clean up when you log off.

Many of us have been playing together since Vengeance came out. When Mercs arrived, well it was a natural progression (although I waited till the price tag dropped from 50$US to about 30$US before taking the plunge, yeah I know, cheapskate here). Many of you have adopted new names over the years and most of you have kept them the same. I started as Lt. Vettie (a rank with the team I was part of way back then) but eventually dropped that in favour of just “Vettie”. Whatever the name, we are still playing the game.

Well, I was going to just do a mish mash of things on this issue, but as usual, I got carried away talking about my favourite game and you guys.

Let me give you a little update on a personal level. Ol Vettie is divorced. Ms. Vettie just had a real hard time with all the things we went through (my medical stuff, almost losing our home, relocating, kids in college, bank accounts going real south, 401k plans biting the dust no matter how much effort we put into them to keep them on the black side we just seemed to lose money, losing close to a million dollars worth of stock when the company I had (deeply) invested in sold out and on and on). I hold no grudges nor harbour no ill will. Our divorce was clean and easily settled between us.

I now live in a new town, just recently getting an apartment of my own. I prefer a house, but I am unable to do the upkeep required, so I decided on an apartment. I have a good internet connection so I will be joining in the fun on Sunder or whatever server you guys are in. I have a partnership with a friend in a small music store and I buy, trade, sell guitars (and other things). Music has always been my passion. I own a few things I never thought I would, such as a violin, but hey, if I can make a buck or two. What? Can I play it? Well its not Charlie Daniels, but I can get it to make noise. Problem is, when I do try to play (emphasis on try) dogs for miles around try to bury their heads, I dunno whats up with that…

I have a wonderful girlfriend and care lot about her. I am trying to put my life back together. Each day that I am able to get up, well I give thanx for that. Yeah I hurt all the damn time, but you get used to a certain level and you learn to live with it. There are days that are almost too much. The pain is so bad that nothing I do seems to help. Those are the tough days. Those are the days when I actually take some of the meds I am supposed to take daily, but I am not a pill guy. In fact I hate taking meds. ESPECIALLY pain meds. But there are days that I have to, just to be able to make it to the restroom. Thank goodness those days are not very often. My liver issue is not gone, but is in remission (< spelling?). I still have to be careful with my weight and what I eat and drink, but hey, that’s better than the alternative (as far as we know).

Back to Mech Warrior for a minute or seven. I been thinking lately how its kinda cool that not only have we been playing this game for 10 to 12 years, but we are STILL learning things about it. Case and point is the mission play map thing. One of the players brought it up in the Sunderjunkies forums that there were mission play maps out there that we weren’t using. I had remembered trying to get some of those maps to work back when I was running a server. The thing is, 10 to 12 years LATER, we are still running down things we didn’t know, like how to make a map work like a mission play version if it shows up as such, but doesn’t work as such. There are scripts we can change to make things a little different (like the bots) and just so many things. One of the things I find interesting about this game is that as long as it has been around and as many people that have graced our battlefields over the years there have been very few true hackers to the game. Yeah there were some, but there were also many we thought we hackers that simply weren’t, turned out to be part of the way multiplayer worked and the age of the game vs the technology that now exists that didn’t (or wasn’t even conceived) when the game was released. Kudos to MekTek for picking up the torch when Microsoft lost interest in the game and (basically) keeping it hacker free an giving us new mechs, maps (and the individuals that gave us those too), weapons and systems to keep the game as fresh as a 10 to 12 year old game could be.

I know many of you play other games out there, so do I, but we all have one thing in common, we all fall back to MW4 Mercs when we really want to have fun or just blow something up.
W00T! Fellow Mech Warriors, W00T!