Posts Tagged ‘Trek’

Oups

Monday, March 15th, 2010

While cleaning up in the core classes of Trekwar yesterday (documenting functions, formatting/structuring code, minor improvements) I also saw lots of equals(Object o) methods. And in my infinite wisdom I decided to use generics since it is used pretty extensively throughout the code anyway, so I changed basically all the equals methods.

example:

public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if(o instanceof Structure)
            return equals((Structure)o);
        return false;
    }

was changed to:

public boolean equals(Structure s2) {
        return name.equals(s2.getName());
    }

Now this is not a problem when writing code, as you pretty much always compare objects of the same type. However, the code also uses the Java Collections contains() method a few places, and it always uses the equals(Object) version. So when my classes no longer provided this method, the default one inherited from java.lang.Object was used instead. This caused a strange array of bugs to appear (star systems on the map not shown with faction color/icon except for the Cardassians for some strange reason, users not having any technologies, unable to build any structures, generally erratic behavior, etc..). Luckily I discovered the cause pretty quickly and only wasted about an hour or so on this :)

I guess the lesson is that objects that needs to be compared, directly or indirectly by contains() or other methods, should always define an equals(Object) method that just passes the call along to the equals method written with generics.

public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if(o instanceof Structure) {
            return equals((Structure)o);
        }
        return false;
    }

And perhaps that you should not mess around with your code for hours on end without stopping to test if you broke it once in a while :)

Trekwar sensor system

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

I haven’t had much time working on Trekwar lately, but I’ve recently made a prototype of the sensor system:

I’ll have to add this, as well as fog of war when I’m done with the fleet management tools which are almost ready.

> Read the whole devblog post @ trekwar.org

Star Trek Online Open Beta

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Yay, tomorrow Star Trek Online goes into open beta :)

I’ve played around a bit in the closed beta, and so far I’m impressed, the space combat is fun and action packed, and the Ground combat is a bit like World of Warcraft, only more action, more interesting quests (no grinding, while waiting for drops) and the Fleet actions (Large open instances) were pretty awesome :)


I’ll miss my Andorian captain, who was wiped with all the other closed beta characters today:(

Sci-fi actors in 24 season 7

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Seeing, that my last post about 24: Sci-fi actors in 24 season 6 was so popular, I decided to make another one for season 7 which I just started (only see 7 episodes so far).

Robert Carlyle (Redemption)

24: Carl Benton
Star Gate Universe: Dr. Nicholas Rush

Tony Todd

24: General Benjamin Juma
Star Gate SG-1: Lord Haikon
Andromeda: Captain Fehdman Metis
Star Trek Voyager: Unnamed Hirogen hunter
Star Trek DS9: Jake Sisko as adult in The Visitor
Star Trek TNG/DS9: Kurn

John Billingsley

24: Michael Latham
Star Trek Enterprise: Dr. Phlox

Kurtwood Smith

24: Senator Blaine Mayer
Star Trek Voyager: Annorax in Year of Hell

Jeffrey Nordling

24: Larry Moss
Star Trek DS9: Thana Los in Past Prologue

Mark Kiely

24: Edward Vossler
Star Trek Voyager: Lasca in Non Sequitur

Nick Toth

24: Edwin Ross
Babylon 5: Exeter in The Deconstruction of Fallen Stars

Annie Wersching

24: Renee Walker (seriously hot FBI agent)
Star Trek Enterprise: Liana in Oasis

Colm Feore

24: Henry Tailor
Battlestar Galactica: President Adar (First episode only)

Bob Gunton

24: Ethan Kanin
Star Trek TNG: Capt. Benjamin Maxwell (in The Wounded)

Ryan Cutrona

24: Admiral John Smith
Babylon 5: Sgt. Major Plug in GROPOS

John Rosenfeld

24: Kevin Aldridge
Star Trek Enterprise: Mark Latrelle in Silent Enemy

It’s also worth noting that co-executive producers and writers of 24 Redemption and season 7 is none other than Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, noted writers/producers from Star Trek TNG / Voyager / Enterprise.

My favorite TNG episodes

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Here are the very best episodes of Star Trek The Next Generations:

1×18 Home Soil
1×21 The Arsenal of Freedom
1×22 Symbiosis
1×26 The Neutral Zone

2×09 The Measure of a Man
2×13 Time Squared
2×16 Q WHo
2×21 Peak Performance

3×04 Who watches the watchers
3×10 The defector
3×13 Deja Q
3×14 A matter of perspective
3×18 Allegiance
3×26 The best of both worlds (part 1)

4×01 The best of both worlds (part 2)
4×03 Brothers
4×11 Data’s Day
4×14 Clues
4×15 First Contact
4×19 The Nth Degree
4×21 The Drumhead
4×22 Half a Life

5×07 Unification (part 1)
5×08 Unification (part 2)
5×18 Cause and effect
5×23 I Borg
5×24 The Next Phase
5×25 The Inner Light

6×04 Relics
6×09 The quality of Life
6×10 Chain Of command (part 1)
6×11 Chain Of command (part 2)
6×15 Tapestry
6×25 Timescape

7×04 Gambit (part 1)
7×05 Gambit (part 2)
7×11 Parallels
7×12 The Pegasus
7×19 Genesis
7×25 All Good Things

Star Trek (2009) Review – 32 reasons why it sucks

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Last night I saw the new Star Trek movie, I’ve seen all the episodes of all the shows between 2-7 times each, so of course I need to watch this movie to..

Remembering how much Nemesis sucked, I was determined to have no expectations to the movie, just in case it turned out to be crap. But around 1 week ago I got to see like 25 minutes of the movie while at Fedcon, and then I got pretty exited, it looked really good and funny.

star_trek_2009-spock_and_kirk1

Unfortunately those 25 minutes contained everything that was good in the movie, and the rest 1.5 hours SUCKED.

I really hate the new Star Trek movie, it is by far the worst Star Trek movie (that includes such travesties as Star Trek 3, 5 and Nemesis).

The movie has NO Star Trek feeling over it what so ever.. The Movie is BORING and the plot is semi-retarded.

The movie is a Bland Cookie cutter action movie dressed up like Trek.

Note (I’m not a grumpy old guy who only likes TOS, and says there can be NO action in Star Trek).. I really LOVE TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT and First contact, Battlestar, Stargate, and those have lots of action (but not mindless action with poor plots)

Why the movie is a piece of shit

  1. The score/theme song is by far the worst ever, and I felt embarrassed every time it played.
  2. All the aliens have human personalities, the Vulcans, the Romulans, none of these act any different from humans.
  3. Bad guys with tribal tattoos on their face is not cool.. Just ask Mike Tyson.
  4. Even though being packed with action, it still manages to be boring as hell
  5. Boring CGI, for example the ice planet monster was crappy, but the ships were OK (exterior)
  6. The pitiful attempt to copy Battlestar Galacticas shaky camera for ship shots was really badly implemented
  7. Most of the humor did not really seem at home in the movie
  8. It is not Star Trek, it is just a mindless Hollywood action movie.
  9. A simple and boring ending
  10. The actors did NOT do a good job portraying the characters (Except for Mccoy which was excellent, and to some degree Kirk).
  11. Bad guy with a grudge trying to kill the hero (Does ST:II or Nemesis ring a bell?)
  12. Going back in time to destroy the federation? *cough* First Contact *cough*
  13. Why would Nero destroy the federation? He wants the future Romulans to get wiped out by the Borg, the Dominion, Species 8472 or the Sphere builders?
  14. A supernova that threatens the galaxy? That is like having a exploding car in London threatening people in New York..
  15. Being that close to a black hole would tear the atoms the ships were made of apart.. Not sending them back trough time in one piece.
  16. Spock setting Kirk out to probably die on a frozen moon, nice job portraying Spock and the enterprise crew.
  17. Scotty killing admiral Archers dog? WTF?!
  18. Scotty working with a Oompa-Loompa in a Ent costume?
  19. Making Spock and Uhura make out just for no reason what so ever except pleasing the 16 year olds in the audience.
  20. Why did the Federation suddenly loose sensor technology? They have great sensors in Enterprise/TOS.. In this movie they cant even see a second ahead while at warp (gigantic overpowered Romulan mining ships, allied Starfleet ships, debris or weapons fire)
  21. Vulcan children making fun of each other and fighting..
  22. Magical supernova that travels faster than light
  23. Using a black hole to collapse a supernova makes no sense
  24. Why is Nero so upset at Spock, it’s not like Spock caused that magical supernova, he just failed to help.
  25. And since when was it the Federations job to safeguard the Romulan Star Empire from natural disasters anyhow?
  26. When he got back in time, why not do something worth doing, like save those Romulans from being pwned by the supernova?
  27. That scene with Simon Pegg in the water tubes was like something out of Spy Kids, totally lame.
  28. The movie exists in a parallel reality to the established Star Trek universe.. So why would anyone give a rats ass about what happens in it? We all know Spocks mother was not killed, and that Vulcan is doing fine.
  29. Starfleet ships are ships of exploration.. The new ones are ridiculously over armed compared to all other series.
  30. Detonating warp cores between the ship would not move the ship since the matter antimatter explosion would produce only energy, no moving mass that could propel the ship.. The best they could hope for was to be fried with EM radiation. The ship also went to warp after ejecting it’s warp cores (Federation ships only have one).
  31. Building a Starship the size of the Enterprise on Earth’s surface in gravity is just silly.
  32. Even if you DID build Enterprise on the surface, a constitution class starship can not operate in a class-m planets lower atmosphere. So there would be no way to get the ship into space

PS
There are lots of other good reasons why the movie sucks in the comments to this post. I especially liked Ben’s comparison of the movie to The Wrath Of Khan :)

Fedcon 2009

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

german-flag

Tomorrow I’m leaving for Bonn, Germany to attend my first ever Star Trek Convention, the convention is Fedcon, and I have no idea what I’m going to do there :)

Better have Summer Glau sign a Firefly dvd cover, don’t know why, but life is like playing Monkey Island.. you just do stuff because it’s there, and hope it will pay of later.

Either way it should be fun, maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of this swine flu that the media has been hyping the entire week.. Influenza kills like 1000 people in Norway each year.. 30’000 in the US, and a new influenza virus spreads across the planet every year without people yelling about a pan(dem)ic.