Weekly 5-Map Tournament - Blake's 7 Characters - closing Apr 21, 2013

[asmussen]

Last week's theme got me thinking about one of my other favorite British sci-fi shows, Blake's 7, so I decided to base the next theme on that show.

A few useful links:
All Tournaments (wiki)
Code Map Scoreboard
Tournament Score Tool

Theme:
Blake's 7 characters



   
   
   
   
   
   

Map Name:	Size:	Complexity:
Zen	Small	Medium
Vila	Medium	Medium
Avon	Large	Medium
Jenna	Small	High
Dayna	Large	High

[deety42]

Wow!  I love Blake's 7.  I didn't know anyone knew about that show anymore.  Excellent theme!

[asmussen]

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Zen	Vila	Avon	Jenna	Dayna	Total Score	Total Time
1	asmussen	12676	10478	11823	11403	11226	57606	51:46
2	ctuna	12819		11876		11765	36460
3	Atomicfrog	12717	10974	12076			35767
4	dt42	12756	10873	11955			35584
5	sept1973	12018	10330				22348
6	ea3401				11831		11831
7	inept_celt					10146	10146

Scores recorded at 2013-04-16 12:16:28 forum time.

[Cavemaniac]

Wow!  I love Blake's 7.  I didn't know anyone knew about that show anymore.  Excellent theme!

I loved that show in the '70's when I was a kid.

I waded through it on 'video' (shudder) in the mid '90's.

Not sure I could face it now...

Still, not much has changed - the  quarries representing alien planets in '70's low budget British Sci-Fi aren't all that different from the Canadian west coast forests, which represent alien planets in big budget 21st century American Sci-Fi shows like BSG and SG1...

[asmussen]

Wow!  I love Blake's 7.  I didn't know anyone knew about that show anymore.  Excellent theme!

I loved that show in the '70's when I was a kid.

I waded through it on 'video' (shudder) in the mid '90's.

Not sure I could face it now...

Still, not much has changed - the  quarries representing alien planets in '70's low budget British Sci-Fi aren't all that different from the Canadian west coast forests, which represent alien planets in big budget 21st century American Sci-Fi shows like BSG and SG1...

Yeah, the special effects are pretty bad, but that wasn't really the appeal of the show. So as long as you're not one of those people that get hung up on the effects, I think it's still pretty watchable. I have the DVD box set, which I watched just a few years ago (Watched it originally in reruns on PBS as a teenager). It's only available in region 2, but fortunately it's not hard to bypass DVD region restrictions.

[asmussen]

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Zen	Vila	Avon	Jenna	Dayna	Total Score	Total Time
1	dt42	12756	10873	11955	11492	11929	59005	37:22
2	asmussen	12676	11001	11823	11403	11226	58129	47:02
3	sept1973	12018	10330	11062	10827		44237
4	ctuna	12819		11876		11765	36460
5	Atomicfrog	12717	10974	12076			35767
6	ea3401				11831		11831
7	inept_celt					10146	10146

Scores recorded at 2013-04-17 02:05:46 forum time.

[Cavemaniac]

Yeah, the special effects are pretty bad, but that wasn't really the appeal of the show. So as long as you're not one of those people that get hung up on the effects, I think it's still pretty watchable. I have the DVD box set, which I watched just a few years ago (Watched it originally in reruns on PBS as a teenager). It's only available in region 2, but fortunately it's not hard to bypass DVD region restrictions.

Yep - it was certainly groundbreaking in it's scope and didn't dumb down the plot ideas for the lowest common denominator.

There were some truly original, complex ideas presented in a clear fashion.

Take ORAC - a computer hooked into every piece of knowledge in the galaxy. Predating the internet by more than a decade!

As for DVD region encoding, I was living in the UK (Region 2) during the DVD revolution so most of my discs are Region 2.

Now I've returned to my native New Zealand (Region 4) most of my new discs are Region 4. Or Region 1 on imports, and occasionally Region 3...

Like you say, regions are easy to get around on DVD - but because you can't go region free on Blu-Ray, it means that I've got to have my geriatric DVD player plugged into my shiny new home theater system to watch most of my collection.

That's 'Progress' I guess...

[Grauniad]

Like you say, regions are easy to get around on DVD - but because you can't go region free on Blu-Ray, it means that I've got to have my geriatric DVD player plugged into my shiny new home theater system to watch most of my collection.

That's 'Progress' I guess...

Wr're getting off-topic, but true progress would be for you to rip your DVD collection to a Home Theater PC or a NAS server wirh DNLA on your home network  and play them from there. No more region encoding worries.

[asmussen]

Yeah, I could definitely rip them if I cared to, but I'm ok with just popping in the DVDs when I want to watch them. It's not like I actually have to do anything much to play them. I'm running mythtv in all of my tv viewing rooms here at home, so I just pop the DVD into the mythtv frontend machine in the room I want to watch them and play them with that. It ignores the region code, and also converts from PAL to NTSC automatically.

[asmussen]

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Zen	Vila	Avon	Jenna	Dayna	Total Score	Total Time
1	dt42	12756	10873	11955	11492	11929	59005	37:22
2	asmussen	12676	11001	11823	11403	11226	58129	47:02
3	sept1973	12018	10330	11062	10827	10302	54539	75:54
4	ctuna	12819		11876		11765	36460
5	Atomicfrog	12717	10974	12076			35767
6	Cinth	12140		10523			22663
7	ea3401				11831		11831
8	inept_celt					10146	10146

Scores recorded at 2013-04-17 14:07:47 forum time.

[asmussen]

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Zen	Vila	Avon	Jenna	Dayna	Total Score	Total Time
1	dt42	12756	10873	11955	11492	11929	59005	37:22
2	asmussen	12676	11001	12022	11403	11534	58636	42:29
3	sept1973	12586	10330	11062	10827	10302	55107	73:38
4	inept_celt	12387	8780	11334		10146	42647
5	Cinth	12140		10523	10196	9491	42350
6	ctuna	12819		11876		11765	36460
7	Atomicfrog	12717	10974	12076			35767
8	Cavemaniac	12681			11329		24010
9	Dwargon	12274					12274
10	ea3401				11831		11831

Scores recorded at 2013-04-17 20:37:01 forum time.

[asmussen]

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Zen	Vila	Avon	Jenna	Dayna	Total Score	Total Time
1	dt42	12765	10873	11955	11492	11929	59014	37:19
2	asmussen	12676	11001	12022	11403	11617	58719	41:41
3	sept1973	12716	10330	11622	11020	11021	56709	57:49
4	inept_celt	12387	8964	11334	10594	10146	53425	94:57
5	Cinth	12140		10523	10196	9491	42350
6	ctuna	12819		11876		11765	36460
7	Atomicfrog	12717	10974	12076			35767
8	Cavemaniac	12681			11329		24010
9	dhc	12301					12301
10	Dwargon	12274					12274
11	ea3401				11831		11831

Scores recorded at 2013-04-19 02:44:01 forum time.

[asmussen]

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Zen	Vila	Avon	Jenna	Dayna	Total Score	Total Time
1	dt42	12765	11371	12058	11492	11929	59615	34:10
2	asmussen	12676	11001	12022	11403	11617	58719	41:41
3	sept1973	12716	10330	11622	11020	11021	56709	57:49
4	inept_celt	12387	8964	11334	10594	10146	53425	94:57
5	Atomicfrog	12717	10974	12076		12069	47836
6	ctuna	12819		11876	11029	11765	47489
7	Cinth	12140		10523	10196	9491	42350
8	dhc	12301		10760	10514		33575
9	Cavemaniac	12681			11329		24010
10	Dwargon	12274		11171			23445
11	ea3401				11831		11831

Scores recorded at 2013-04-20 05:48:46 forum time.

[dhc]

For a 'medium' complexity map, Vila is giving me fits. The best I've been able to do is a little over 4 minutes before everything is overrun. I'm missing something somewhere.  Any suggestions?

[ea3401]

Any suggestions?