Kryomek Chit-chat

[Katie]

So... there's an interesting bit missing out of the background -- Why are they called "Kryomek"?

It can't be their name for themselves because there's no communication between the hives and the humans.

It doesn't seem to be referenced in any of the historical archives.

(I woke up this morning thinking about it.)

I've been drafting some rules for Kryomek-vs-Kryomek games as well.

[mrspaceman]

It might be some ancient Irallian word for monster, or perhaps the name of an evil deity from Irallic folklore, which are not mutually exclusive.

There's some talk of the 'flayer', who caused the uprisings (I can't remember if it's the original uprising that caused the quoromate to form, or if it's in Hivestone and is the reason for the heptadic rebels), being named after something from an ancient Irallic dialect ('Saka-Irallic', in fact...).

Did I mention that I was going through the books picking out proper nouns to try and create a name generator? I've not finished that, but it's interesting the mish-mash of 'styles': there's some stuff which is directly taken from Greek (e.g., 'Iapetus' is a moon of a gas giant 'Lepis' in the Solaric system; there's a planet called 'Icarus'), some is Indian (e.g. 'Shiva' is a leviathan-class dreadnought), some is sort of Norse/Old German sounding ('Hragnos Baltak'). I would put the various influences down to different cultures on the different core planets - e.g. is Hragnos from the cold and inhospitable Aractos, perhaps?

I've been putting the names into a set of spreadsheets, to then work out patterns. I can share the spreadsheets. I gave up on noting all the different names (locations, ships, corporations), and focussed on the personal names. My idea was to be able to name human troops in scenarios with a bit of authenticity.

Do you know who the lead author was? Ricardo Pinto? I was tempted to ask where the inspiration for the names came from.

[mrspaceman]

Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KG6WtVofPtfqq44am4SDmBvjAfKX1IyqMLjfWUtHzTs

[mrspaceman]

Does that link work? Here's a web published version: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQkRim55R-h-dDIkQuMFYWsFqI8tKEllo_2NtVHBf2LKZlVj_fZCYMzWwlILTwan0bLff0EP5-pujn0/pubhtml

Let me know if you want access to edit.

[Katie]

He's at www.ricardopinto.com/...

[mrspaceman]

I've seen! He's also on FB and a member of the Void 1.1 group that some mad Finnish bloke is championing.

[mrspaceman]

So, I finished going through the books for people's names: it turns out there are 24 first names and 24 surnames from 33 named individuals (by my count). So this is 576 unique pairings.

Examples of randomised names:
Tagena Bibarina-Tlesh
Irell Tredilion
Max Chandurian
Parabada Hirek
Kayfin Briggs
Anquviar Brandillian
Karah Marunganya
Mikki Mauser (one of the original names: it's in some graffiti in an illustration on p32 main rulebook)
Mikki Marunganya
Bavesse Mollweide
Mikki Tiryenqu
Ksaros Mankturian

I've just used the spreadsheet to do the randomisation, so I don't know how good the algorithm is for choosing an integer row number.

[mrspaceman]

I've created a kryomek facebook group. I don't know if you're facebook people, but a lot of people are. I was encouraged by some other Kryomek enthusiasts on other OSG FB groups, plus John Robertson of Kryomek rulesmithing fame, himself, so there we go. I think it'll be good to have a focus for the kryomek stuff that goes on; the scotia forum is terrible and quiet (terribly, terribly quiet). A FB page has worked for void (another scotia game), so we'll see...

[mrspaceman]

Getting back to this thread: I had a chat with Ricardo Pinto over Facebook messenger. He wrote all the fluff for the first two books, but the name Kryomek was handed to him. When I put my suggestion of it being an ancient word for monster, he said he thought that was pretty neat.

To answer my questions about where the names came from, he wasn't that helpful: the obvious influences of greek mythology were to do with other contributors' current obsessions, and the weird ones he came up with were just what he came up with. Well, I guess I could probably extend the list with similar names to cover the scenario I've written.

In further news, I've done loads more to my javascript app, and it's moved: www.rjaduthie.co.uk/kryomek/calculator.html I've taken off the CSS for now, because it was annoying and crap. I had the feeling that I was finished, but then I checked Hivestone and there are still quadrupeds, jet cycles and the swarmmaster to add. So the app covers everything from the first book and most of Hivestone, apart from some stuff that we don't have models for anyway. Still, I'll add these things (won't take long) then the app can be officially 'beta'. I've got to check for calculation accuracy too; I wondered if automating a headless browser to test all the permutations, output it to a CSV. Once it's been checked once, this can be the functional test of the app. Sorry, that got technical...

[Katie]

That's not how you test JavaScript... you run it in a node.js using JSunit.

Why? Headless browsers are notoriously difficult to get running, keep running & to produce reliable output.

Chai and Mocha are the modules to look for.

[mrspaceman]

Well, maybe I'd do that instead now you mention it. I won't claim to be a Javascript dev, but I've done some testing of JSON schema with a PhantomJS (i.e. headless browser), to check that browser JS handles them correctly. It was tricky to set up, but the testing works (for now). I also created tests for testing with node: yes, it was easier.

[mrspaceman]

Also, I've had the thought that the app doesn't handle vehicle ramming. Maybe that should fall into its remit (tick a box to get ramming options).

[mrspaceman]

N.B., Kryomek vehicles are in the drop-down for kryomek. They don't have a different radio button. I figured that I'd implement all the functionality first, then try to make the UI more intuitive.