#slot machine programming

[ais-technolabs]

Unlocking the Code: What Every Developer Should Know About Slot Machine Programming

Introduction

Slot Machine Programming is the foundation of casino gaming. Developers must understand how slot machines work to create fair and engaging games. This guide explains key concepts like random number generation, payout structures, and regulatory compliance.

1. How Slot Machines Work

Slot machines operate using software that follows three main steps:

Player Input – The player presses a spin button or pulls a lever.

Random Number Generation (RNG) – The system generates a random result.

Outcome Display – The reels stop at symbols matching the RNG result.

The software ensures randomness and prevents manipulation.

2. Random Number Generators (RNGs)

RNGs are the core of Slot Machine Programming. They produce unpredictable results for each spin. The two main types are:

True RNGs (TRNGs) – Use physical processes like electronic noise.

Pseudo-RNGs (PRNGs) – Use mathematical formulas to simulate randomness.

Most casinos use PRNGs because they are efficient and testable.

3. Ensuring Fairness and Compliance

Regulators require slot machines to meet strict fairness standards. Common certifications include:

eCOGRA – Tests game fairness and payout accuracy.

GLI (Gaming Labs International) – Verifies RNG integrity.

MGA (Malta Gaming Authority) – Ensures compliance with EU laws.

Developers must submit their software for third-party testing before release.

4. Payback Percentage and RTP

The Return to Player (RTP) percentage shows how much a slot machine pays back over time. For example, a 96% RTP means players win 

96forevery

96 forever 100 wagered on average.

High RTP (96%+) – Better player odds.

Low RTP (Below 94%) – Higher casino profit.

Game designers adjust RTP based on market needs.

5. Game Mechanics and Features

Modern slots include features to enhance gameplay:

Wild Symbols – Substitute for other symbols to create wins.

Scatter Symbols – Trigger bonuses regardless of position.

Multipliers – Increase winnings by a set value.

Free Spins – Allow spins without extra bets.

These features improve player engagement.

6. Regulatory and Legal Requirements

Different regions have specific laws for Slot Machine Programming:

USA – Each state has its own gaming commission.

Europe – Requires licenses from MGA, UKGC, or Gibraltar.

Asia – Macau and Singapore have strict rules.

Developers must follow these regulations to avoid legal issues.

7. Security in Slot Machine Programming

Casinos and developers use security measures to prevent fraud:

Encryption – Protects data from hackers.

Cheat Detection – Identifies abnormal betting patterns.

Audit Logs – Tracks all transactions for transparency.

These steps ensure trust between players and casinos.

8. Mobile and Online Slot Machine Programming

Online slots require additional considerations:

Cross-Platform Compatibility – Games must work on all devices.

Responsive Design – Adjusts to different screen sizes.

Fast Loading Times – Keeps players engaged.

HTML5 is the standard for web-based slots.

10. Future Trends in Slot Machine Programming

New technologies are shaping slot development:

Blockchain Slots – Use cryptocurrencies for transparency.

VR Slots – Offer immersive casino experiences.

AI-Powered Games – Adapt to player behavior.

Developers must stay updated to remain competitive.

Conclusion

Slot Machine Programming is crucial for creating fair and entertaining casino games. Understanding RNGs, compliance, and player engagement helps developers build successful slots.

AIS Technolabs specializes in Slot Machine Programming and game development. For expert solutions, Contact Us today.

FAQs

1. What is the role of RNG in slot machines?

RNGs ensure random outcomes for each spin, maintaining fairness.

2. How do regulators test slot machine fairness?

Independent agencies like eCOGRA and GLI verify RNG accuracy and payout rates.

3. What is RTP in slot machines?

RTP (Return to Player) indicates the percentage of wagered money a slot pays back over time.

4. Can slot machines be hacked?

Modern encryption and security protocols make hacking extremely difficult.

5. What are the latest trends in slot machine programming?

Blockchain, VR, and AI are shaping the future of slot games.

[teethbomb]

hrrnnggg digital circus…

[baby-yongbok]

Catch The Moment - Lee Know x afab!Reader

⤷ Content warning - Themes of pregnancy ⤷ WC - 0.8k ⤷ Summary - You tell Minho something special in the perfect place to capture it. ✧ Masterlist ✧

“It's gonna eat my money.” Minho scoffs as you drag him into the photo booth in the far corner of the busy arcade. 

You smile, rolling your eyes and mulling over the selections on the screen. You choose the decorations for your photos while he watches with a pout.

“Oh will you stop it, Min. It'll be fun, come on! We did this on our first date, remember?” You look into the camera and see that he's looking over at you on the screen.

“Yeah, well, these machines are old now. They never replace them, and -” He hushes when you press the start button. 

Minho lets his argument die on his tongue with a dramatic huff and eye roll that gets you chuckling.

“It's about capturing the moment, baby.” You take his hand in yours, looking over at him with a smile that softens his core a bit.

 “And what moment are we capturing exactly?” He looks down at you with a lopsided grin, his bright brown eyes shining down at you. 

Today’s outing was your idea. A cute date at a nearby cafe and the arcade after, just like your first date. 

“Well…” You trail off, smiling way too wide for him not to find it suspicious. “I have something to tell you.” The booth starts counting down to your first photo after going on its programmed spiel about how it works. 

Minho raises his eyebrows, intrigued. 

The shutter goes off. 

“What?” He looks over at the screen of the booth then back at you. It’s preparing to take the next picture. 

“You know it's taking the pictures right?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed.

You nod and he looks at you expectantly. The booth starts counting down again and you dip your hand into your jacket pocket and present him with a blue and white pregnancy test. You hold it in your palm, smiling up at him. 

He looks confused for a second, just a second before his eyes widen at the wand in your palm. 

The shutter goes off. 

“Wait.. you're serious? Jagiya, are you serious?” You giggle at him, red at the tips of his ears with sparkling wide brown eyes. You nod and the booth prepares to take the third photo. 

“I'm pregnant.” You announce through a toothy smile. Minho takes the test from you, staring down at the positive result with a sense of wild wonder. An excitement you've never seen him wear before. 

“You're pregnant.” He parrots as the booth counts down to the next photo. He breaks out into a smile, nearly bigger than your own.

The shutter goes off.

“We're pregnant.” You mutter, tears starting to well up in your own bright eyes.

 “How long have you… when did you take this test? What are… you're pregnant.” Minho rambles, his smile fading and reappearing seconds after as he processes the news. 

He settles on giving up on his questions for now. The booth prepares to take its final picture and Minho looks up at you. He doesn't speak. He can barely breathe with the pressure of shock and excitement multiplying in his chest every couple of seconds. 

His emotions are a mess but one thing is clear to him. One thing floats to the top of everything else and pushes him closer to you in the booth. The test is in his lap, his hands cup your cheeks and the booth counts down. 

“I love you.” He smiles, leaning his forehead against yours. A tear falls from your eye as some brim at his waterline. 

He leans in and presses a kiss to your lips, soft and sweet. You both can't help but to smile into it. 

The shutter goes off. 

“I love you so much. I can't believe this.” He mutters against your lips, kissing you again, a bit longer this time to hide the fall of his own tears.

The booth prints the pictures, ejecting them into the printer slot and Minho pulls away reluctantly to retrieve them.

You look over them together, smiling at the way it captured his reaction to the news perfectly. 

“You’re a sneaky little thing.” He smiles over at you. “You planned this. This is why you wanted to go out today, isn't it?” 

“Guilty.” You chuckle, wiping your eyes. Minho looks back into his lap and picks up the test.

“Let's do it again.” He takes out another five dollar bill and pops it into the machine. “Tell me all over again.”

“What happened to it eating your money?” You tease, quickly selecting the photo customizations again.

 Minho turns to you, moving the first print of photos out of sight. “I don't care about that.” You chuckle at his change of heart. The sparkle in his eyes gleams bright in the lights of the booth. 

He cups your cheeks again, “I want to relive that. Tell me again.”

The booth starts up and you smile up at him. “Tell me.” He doesn't try to hide the tears threatening to spill over this time. He keeps his eyes on yours, a ghost of a smile on his lips. 

The booth counts down.

“I'm pregnant.” A tear falls. 

“Again” He mumbles and your own tears start to fall.

“We're gonna be parents.” You smile and he kisses you. Soft as a feather and full of love. 

The shutter goes off. 

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amy Maxmen at KFF Health News:

Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack. But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy workers pumped gallons of electrolyte-rich fluids into ailing cows through metal tubes inserted into the esophagus. “It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers,” he said. Nearly a year into the first outbreak of the bird flu among cattle, the virus shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. government failed to eliminate the virus on dairy farms when it was confined to a handful of states, by quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading. Now at least 875 herds across 16 states have tested positive.

Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak. “We are in a terrible situation and going into a worse situation,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.” To understand how the bird flu got out of hand, KFF Health News interviewed nearly 70 government officials, farmers and farmworkers, and researchers with expertise in virology, pandemics, veterinary medicine, and more. Together with emails obtained from local health departments through public records requests, this investigation revealed key problems, including deference to the farm industry, eroded public health budgets, neglect for the safety of agriculture workers, and the sluggish pace of federal interventions. Case in point: The U.S. Department of Agriculture this month announced a federal order to test milk nationwide. Researchers welcomed the news but said it should have happened months ago — before the virus was so entrenched.

“It’s disheartening to see so many of the same failures that emerged during the covid-19 crisis reemerge,” said Tom Bollyky, director of the Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Far more bird flu damage is inevitable, but the extent of it will be left to the Trump administration and Mother Nature. Already, the USDA has funneled more than $1.7 billion into tamping down the bird flu on poultry farms since 2022, which includes reimbursing farmers who’ve had to cull their flocks, and more than $430 million into combating the bird flu on dairy farms. In coming years, the bird flu may cost billions of dollars more in expenses and losses. Dairy industry experts say the virus kills roughly 2% to 5% of infected dairy cows and reduces a herd’s milk production by about 20%. Worse, the outbreak poses the threat of a pandemic. More than 60 people in the U.S. have been infected, mainly by cows or poultry, but cases could skyrocket if the virus evolves to spread efficiently from person to person. And the recent news of a person critically ill in Louisiana with the bird flu shows that the virus can be dangerous.

Just a few mutations could allow the bird flu to spread between people. Because viruses mutate within human and animal bodies, each infection is like a pull of a slot machine lever. “Even if there’s only a 5% chance of a bird flu pandemic happening, we’re talking about a pandemic that probably looks like 2020 or worse,” said Tom Peacock, a bird flu researcher at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom, referring to covid. “The U.S. knows the risk but hasn’t done anything to slow this down,” he added. Beyond the bird flu, the federal government’s handling of the outbreak reveals cracks in the U.S. health security system that would allow other risky new pathogens to take root. “This virus may not be the one that takes off,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the emerging diseases group at the World Health Organization. “But this is a real fire exercise right now, and it demonstrates what needs to be improved.”

[...] Curtailing the virus on farms is the best way to prevent human infections, said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, but human surveillance must be stepped up, too. Every clinic serving communities where farmworkers live should have easy access to bird flu tests — and be encouraged to use them. Funds for farmworker outreach must be boosted. And, she added, the CDC should change its position and offer farmworkers bird flu vaccines to protect them and ward off the chance of a hybrid bird flu that spreads quickly. The rising number of cases not linked to farms signals a need for more testing in general. When patients are positive on a general flu test — a common diagnostic that indicates human, swine, or bird flu — clinics should probe more deeply, Nuzzo said. The alternative is a wait-and-see approach in which the nation responds only after enormous damage to lives or businesses. This tack tends to rely on mass vaccination. But an effort analogous to Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is not assured, and neither is rollout like that for the first covid shots, given a rise in vaccine skepticism among Republican lawmakers.

KFF Health News reports on how America lost control on containing the bird flu that could set the stage for another pandemic. If we see another COVID-level or even Ebola-level pandemic, America will be in for a world of hurt, thanks to the rise of anti-public health sentiments.

See Also:

CNN: How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic

[ms-demeanor]

So these computers will be mostly be used for CAD but also video editing. The time we are looking for is in the next few months. It will be running autodesk fusion which at minimum needs 2 cores, recommends 8 for cpu, needs 8gb of ram recommends 32gb, and needs aleast some sort of gpu and something like a nvidia quadro is recommended though I am mostly sure we would do fine with a 40s or 50s series GPU.

This is very funny to me because this is actually quite similar to the conundrum I had buying computers earlier today. Workstations are currently a bitch to get (and also that means that $1500 per device is somewhat unrealistic in the opposite direction of what I was initially thinking, especially given the graphics card)

------------------------------------

Hi Anon!

Thanks for the details! We're beginning to see some stock availability issues with hardware so I'm not finding anything that's a perfect match out-of-box for your needs but I believe I've found a solution that should be comfortably within budget as long as you've got in-house IT or an affordable contractor to help with the build.

What I've found is a Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny that comes with a 20-Core, 14th gen i7 processor, 16GB DDR5 5600 MHz RAM (SoDIMM), and an Nvidia T400 4GB graphics card. The workstation includes an upgraded Lenovo Premiere warranty with next-day onsite service. The ThinkStation has one RAM module soldered to the motherboard but two free slots and can handle a max of 96GB, so I'd recommend purchasing this device and adding 16GB Crucial modules.

Just to be sure, I did verify that the graphics card with this device is on the list of compatible cards from Autodesk.

I'm finding the workstation available from a number of vendors at about $1200, and the RAM is available for around $50. With tax, that brings your per-unit cost to around $1400, leaving just under $100 per machine to account for the labor cost of installing the RAM.

Let me know if this sounds like a solution that works for you, or if you have any further questions.

Given your timeline, you could choose to place orders from vendors who are not carrying the full 30 machines right now, but considering the possibility of scarcity I'd recommend making a decision sooner rather than later.

Thanks! Ms-D

--------------------------------

Part of what I was struggling with on my quote today is that my employer doesn't want our techs mucking around with desktop hardware; we're not supposed to be ordering and upgrading before we send things out the door but that is not a limitation that an end purchaser has to live with so you (reader or anon) have more options and more flexibility when looking for computers than I do *IF* you make sure to check that you can do upgrades. It's not hard to add RAM to a desktop unless the RAM is soldered to the motherboard with no free slots, in which case it's impossible.

You can save a ridiculous amount of money on buying machines and have a LOT of options for dealing with scarcity if you know what kind of hardware is easy to fuck with.

In this instance, I wouldn't upgrade the GPU or by a card separate from the workstation (this computer has a 300W power supply and the computer itself is the size of most power supplies, so I wouldn't want to try to find something teeny tiny to work together), especially because there's a budget-friendly option that will allow the necessary programs to run available pre-built, but literally it would cost like five hundred dollars more to get something with more RAM. So save yourself a few hundred dollars by getting a fifty dollar RAM module and paying someone to install that in the machine or doing it yourself.

I don't think we're going to get to a point of completely empty shelves, but I do think we're likely to see fewer options that exactly match what we're looking for without doing some extra work. Large Bastard has been vaguely making noises about getting a new computer for the last two or three years and he's still on the fence and my comment to him was that I'm sure there's always going to be something available at a high enough cost, but there are going to be fewer choices if he has to replace a computer quickly (which, given the age of his desktop, he might have to at some point).

[that-house]

December 3rd, 2031 – Sixty degrees, clear skies, and a nice southeasterly breeze. It was a beautiful day to lay siege to Dallas. It was a good thing the weather was nice, because everything else about the operation looked rough. Marian couldn’t wait.

Dallas was a classic Texan fortress-city, two rings of forty foot tall concrete walls with a killing field in between, bristling with anti-aircraft cannon. The ground-facing defenses were a little less thorough, but a few machine guns would make quick work of any infantry charge and Dallas had more than a few machine guns.

“We aren’t being paid enough,” Suzy griped. She was crouching in the shade, alternatingly blowing a bubble of gum and taking swigs out of a bottle whose contents were hidden by a paper bag.

“We’re mercenaries. Get used to it.” Marian hoisted her gun onto her shoulder. “Besides, they don’t exactly expect us to succeed.”

“Oh, are we leading a suicide charge? I wasn’t paying attention to the Duke.” Suzy was never paying attention, but the benefits of having her around outweighed the drawbacks. Most days, at least.

“Pretty much.”

“Did the guys we’re with know this was a suicide charge?”

Marion looked around at the Jeep the Duke of Austin had hastily assigned the duo to. The soldiers suddenly all looked a bit green around the gills. “I’m guessing not. Chin up, boys! Auntie Marian won’t let any harm come to you.”

One of the men, a lieutenant, managed to find his voice. “Why are we here?”

“The Duke hopes that we’ll die loud enough that Dallas won’t notice his bombers taking out the emplaced guns. Doesn’t strike me as very sound tactics, but hey, he’s got manpower to make up for what he lacks in brains.”

Silence in the back of the Jeep.

Marian continued, mostly to fuck with them. “And don’t think the tanks’ll be any help. See those big fancy guns up on the wall? Those are lonestar guns. You boys seen lonestar guns?”

“Yeah.”

“So you get the idea. But hey, cheer up! It’s not every day you get to storm the best-defended city in the state!”

The man slowly came to a revelation a long time coming. “You’re insane,” he said.

“Insane was my father’s name. Please, call me Marian Typhoon.”

Suzy cackled. “That was terrible.”

The soldiers looked between the two women, now realizing they were both mad. “How are you two so calm?”

Marian didn’t answer for a moment, looking out at the slowly-approaching walls of Dallas. The lonestar guns’ targeting algorithms would start flagging the vehicles soon. “Suzy, how far out are we?”

“About a mile and a half.” Suzy busied herself checking over her rifle.

“Now, boys, I’m gonna explain two concepts very quickly, so you’d best pay attention. The KL-90 fully automatic sniper rifle, sometimes called “Le Papillon,” was something of a failure, because for some reason those glorious Frenchmen decided to make it fire 1200 rounds per minute, giving it a tendency to dump the entire mag into one poor fucker. Only six were ever made, and nowadays they’re just museum pieces. In 2026, the American military plunged into the deep end of bioweaponry and concocted a little something known as the ‘vampire virus,’ which proved pretty damn lethal in 99.99% of cases. The 0.01% that survived were problematic enough that the program shut down, and all information about it was expunged from the record.”

Marion patted Suzy affectionately on the head. “Now you might be wondering how those two disparate pieces of information might happen to overlap, and if you boys just sit pretty for a moment I reckon you’ll be able to connect the dots. Suzy?”

The last surviving vampire, Suzy Nines, slotted the magazine into her KL-90 fully automatic sniper rifle, and squinted out at the Dallas walls. She squeezed the trigger, the barrel swinging into a wild blur of motion as the sound of gunfire filled the air. “Machine gunners down. Reloading.”

Marian patted the hapless lieutenant on the shoulder. “Come along, boys. Auntie Marian’s got a city to take.”

[forsaken-headcanons]

in an AU where Chance is a robot...

[heavy credits go to https://pin.it/16oorotS4 THIS GUY for the inspiration I got to incorporate nuts and bolts into this gambler!]

[lots of these are based on how I play Forsaken]

-Over time, especially with older maps, Chance internally mapped out the whole layout of every map, and pointed out certain POIs. These include:

> The killer's relative spawn location, and the area farthest from it

> All known medkit spawns

> All possible generator locations

-He bleeds purple. Think of it like Thirium from DBH

-UNLIKE ME, he has immaculate aim. Unbarred from human error, as a machine, he is an absolute beast at aiming, coming outta nowhere from behind a wall to noscope the killer.

-[this is where I begin to take inspiration from the aformentioned user] Chance's glasses are literally part of his face. some visor shit. Taking it off is like taking off a TV's screen itself.

-on his torso is a literal coin slot. yes a coin slot. and that's how he's powered on, through the coin slot. like an arcade machine, one coin = one month of constant activity, if you don't count internal system repairs during sleep mode. Chance usually starts off with 12 every year, and has an internal alarm clock to remind him of when time is almost up.

-what remains of the cash in Elliot's wallet is literally the only thing keeping him alive.

-when he turns on, his glasses display a slot machine hitting 777s, or JACKPOT

-he has a full combat mode. like full on laser cannons for arms type of deal. but y'know the Spectre, THAT GUY probably somehow blocked off the directives concerning that full combat mode.

-he programmed a string of code so that when he successfully shoots someone, internal audio plays the jackpot sound effect (this is true for me, I have that set as my hitsound)

-he's VERY good pals with Builderman, being the only mechanic amongst them. asks for repairs and maintenance from him a lot, which led to them becoming close buddies.

-his creator is named Lady Luck. not much is known about her except for that she's one of the richest people in Robloxia, barring Admins. they are mother and son :)) [she's fucking dead by the way]

Might add more. Remember this signature

- 🌟

Ooooh, robot chance..... neat. Also, I'll try to remember you, 🌟 anon :)

Quick edit to add in the Pinterest img, posted by the original artist on there. Their @/s are labeled on the image and typed in the alternate text.

[umbramoons]

TECH MOMENTS PT. 10

The Bad Batch S1 E6: Decommissioned

- Casually messing with a slot machine in the background.

- Literally jumping forward to cut Cid off. He looks so panicked like he can’t stand to have someone else teach his siblings. ❤

- He perks up so much when he hears Omega asking a question. Then he gives her 100% of his attention when he answers.

- “Follow me.”

- LOOK AT HIM SLIDE DOWN THAT LADDER! Legendary, my love.

- “Who are you?” … Dang, this is the first time we’ve seen him be deliberately threatening. ❤

- Covering Echo while he works on the lockdown.

- "You shorted out the entire system!"

- He’s the one who keeps calling to see if Wrecker’s okay.

- “Excellent idea.” A rare Tech compliment! ❤

- “And this will help me access the program.” He’s kind of sneaky, not telling Trace that the data rod will also copy said program.

- Twirling the data rod (possibly specifically to show off) in his fingers before inserting it. ❤

- He looks genuinely guilty when Trace explains why they needed the tactical droid. I wouldn't be surprised if he convinced Hunter to give the info away, the way he was trying to convince Echo to leave the treasure behind in the Season 2 premiere since they would be no worse off without it.

A/N: Here's to the New Year, everyone! Best wishes!

[sha-brytols]

What are your favorite things about each da game (or just the ones you wanna talk about lol) gameplay wise? I always like hearing about player experience bc i feel like its so personal and i always wonder how other ppl interpret how the gameplay interacts w the story

mage gameplay in origins is thenonly time i have fun playing a mage in dragon age LOL i like the spell combos and the playstyle diversity. dual wield arcane warrior with haste activated is insanely fun. i also appreciate the party dynamics and the variety of ways you can compose your tactics. once you learn certain cheese strategies it's incredibly fun. i also think the traps are sooooo underrated i love throwing bear traps everywhere.

da2 gameplay makes me want to eat nails. it's definitely more flashy and the animations make it a lot less monotonous than origins, but the sheer lack of depth makes it suuuuch a slog for me. i dont actually mind the shift away from tactics to more slash and dash, but the game isnt balanced for it, which makes it feel weirdly repetitive and unrewarding. also those waves that jump from the heavens can eat my entire butthole and die. every boss fight is the saaaaame theres very little variation and i think they programmed anders specifically to incentivize people to kill him. rogue dual wield is fun though i think its really the only class that actually synergizes with the combat system. also i think people need to put respect on mark of the assassins name because the duke prosper battle was the only time a boss battle ever felt rewarding to me.

inquisition is usually the point where people realize i'm insane and my opinions are probably not to be respected LOL. inquisition has my favorite combat gameplay of all the da games, and i genuinely enjoy it. to me it was like. a really good balance between strategy and action so there's a lot of freedom in the way you play depending on if you preferred da2 or origins. i like that you have to use the environment to your advantage in a lot of fights, like using the terrain to gain better tactical advantage with ranged characters and whatnot. and as much as it frustrates me i do think it was actually pretty smart to limit the amount of abilities you can have on the wheel because it actually forces you to plan a certain build and playstyle instead of just having everything at your disposal which can make some of the other games feel a little less consequential in your ability choices (and at least to me REALLY overwhelming in higher levels). i also think the specs this time around were more. idk. iconic? is that the word . like in origins and 2 i think most people only really remember like, bloodmage spirit healer templar and reaver. rogue specs were always kind of forgettable, and warrior specs were all kind of underwhelming in some way except reaver. i think it might be because it actually has a minor level of impact on the story.

they nuked spirit healers though and i will never forgive them for that

datv. um. it's fun! in the same way shaking a bunch of keys in front of a baby is fun. everyone who told me orb and dagger mage was the most fun gameplay in datv owes me rent this month i have never been more miserable in my life. also geforce now ping turns the parry mechanic into a slot machine which i guess in a certain way adds a layer of thrill i was not prepared for .

[vintagelasvegas]

In 1989, Boardwalk Hotel & Casino proposed a 215-foot slot machine hotel tower, with 50-foot rotating wheels. The architect was Veldon Simpson. Rendering by Rudy Crisostomo, YESCO.

The owner of the Boardwalk Hotel and Casino on the Strip has been given approval by Clark County to build what has to be the world's largest slot machine. Norbert Jenson, who converted the Slot Joynt into the Boardwalk in February, also plans a $27 million expansion and remodeling program. He is building a new casino, which will be in the shape of a giant slot machine, on the south of end of his property. The structure will be 215 feet high - the equivalent of 20 stories - and will have 10,000 in square feet of casino space. The reels on the machine will be 50 feet high and 15 feet wide and will rotate to pay off jackpots at gaming stations within the casino. The slot machine will be patterned after the Mills War Eagle model from the 1930s. - Giant Slot Machine Planned. Review-Journal, 8/6/89

[heliosail]

Engineer

Always covered in grease from the last job, an Engineer never quite fits in at a fancy event, but they are second to none with machines and technology.

The Engineer's art is here! This piece was done by my good friend Phinneas Sargent (CrystalCorvid on Tumblr.)

Engineers are essential crew members on ships, as keeping everything in good condition can mean the difference between life and death in space. In the colonies, Engineers are integral to their communities in a variety of ways, often working as handymen, shipwrights, gunsmiths, or inventors.

Features

Critical Attributes

Mind. Your Mind modifier is your proficiency modifier.

Body. Your Body modifier is used for your perception checks, and to calculate your Attribute Save DC.

Skills

Engineers get special Tricks for the Crafting, Deft Fingers, Programming, and Repair skills. Choose at least 2 of these as your first skills. You may take all 4 if you like. After you have chosen, you can fill out the rest of your core skills with any skills you wish.

Combat Proficiencies

Signature Weapon

Choose 1 from: Axe, Hammer, Martial Arts, Sling, Blunderbuss, or Crossbow. Add your proficiency modifier when you attack with this weapon.

Actions.

You can take [1 + Body modifier] Actions per round in combat.

Reactions

Choose either the Parry or Dodge Reaction. When you take this Reaction in combat, add your proficiency modifier.

Archetypal Abilities

Drone

You can deploy a Drone that can see, hear, and manipulate objects for you. You can control it using your PDA from up to 50 metres away. In combat, the Drone acts as a Minion.

Drones can be upgraded over time. You can do this yourself using the Crafting skill, or you can pay a robotics shop to do it for you. You start the game with 1 Small sized Drone. You can modify your Drone to change its size, or you can purchase or build other Drones. There is no limit to how many Drones an Engineer can own at a time.

A Drone's size determines it's HP, armour, storage capacity (when a compartment is installed), and the total number of upgrades it can have. Without a storage compartment, the Drone can only hold 1 item (or set of tools) at a time, in its “hands.”

• Tiny: 1 HP, 2 DR. 2 upgrade slots. No storage compartment possible. Tiny Drones have the Subterfuge skill automatically.

• Small: 5 HP, 4 DR. 3 upgrade slots. 5-item storage capacity with compartment.

• Medium: 5 HP, 6 DR. 5 upgrade slots, 15-item storage capacity with compartment, plus straps on exterior.

• Large: 10 HP, 8 DR. 8 upgrade slots, 30-item storage capacity with compartment, plus straps on exterior, can lift oversized items. Large Drones have the Intimidation skill automatically.

Command Minion

Commanding a Drone does not require you to spend an Action. When commanded, the Drone acts immediately as part of your turn.

Each Drone has 1 Action per round. If you want your Drone to do more, you can donate as many of your own Actions as you want to 1 Drone each round. If a Drone takes an Action that affects another creature, the Spotlight is passed on and your turn ends as if you had taken the Action yourself. If it does not pass the Spotlight on, your turn resumes after the Drone has finished.

If you do not issue any commands to your Drone on your turn, it will not act unless the Spotlight is passed to it directly. You can choose how it spends its Action if the Spotlight is passed to it in this way. If the Spotlight is never passed to it during the round, its Action is forfeited so the next round can begin.

Rugged Nerd

Three times a day, you can swap your Body modifier and your Mind modifier for a single roll. You may decide to do this after you make the initial roll.

Concentration

You can focus on your current task very intensely, giving you Good Luck to all associated roles while you're working on it. However, you have Bad Luck to all rolls related to anything outside of the task you're focused on. You cannot make perception checks when using Concentration. Instead, you must use your minimum perception, if checks are required.

Travel Action: Tune Up

During travel, an Engineer can choose to spend a Travel Action helping crew members tune up their gear that week. Any crew member who chooses to spend a Travel Action working on their gear receives +1 to their Deft Fingers, Programming, and Repair skills. The Engineer receives this bonus without needing to spend another Travel Action. This bonus lasts 1 day for each time the crew member participated during travel, starting the day they disembark.

Starting Equipment

Functional Backpack or Navy Pack (holds 15 items)

Shiphand’s Uniform or Daytime Clothes

Mycelium or Porcelain Armour

Signature Weapon (See “Features”)

PDA + 1TB holodisc

Drone

50 guilders

Engineer Tricks

These Tricks are ONLY those unique to your archetype.

Crafting Tricks

Your Crafting skill is your ability to create and build.

Learn from Your Mistakes

You are used to the set backs that come with building things. The first failed roll you make during a Crafting project still counts toward the total number of Crafting sessions you need to complete it. Gain +1 Crafting Requires: Engineer archetype

Recycling

When you roll a Critical Failure while Crafting, you can salvage some of the materials. Instead of restarting the project from scratch, you can begin with 1 Crafting session already complete. If the item was going to take only a single session to craft, you lose progress as normal. Gain +1 Crafting Requires: Engineer archetype, +2 Crafting

Automation

If you have more than 1 Drone, you can have a Drone upgrade another with minimal oversight, as long as you have a ready-made Upgrade Kit. This takes twice as long as installing it yourself. Gain +1 Crafting Requires: Engineer archetype, +5 Crafting

Deft Fingers

This is your fine motor skill, like screwing in a tiny screw, or picking a lock. This can also impact your ability to multitask.

Split-Screen

You can now receive simultaneous feeds to your PDA from 2 Drones. If you are donating your Actions to your Drones, you can split your Actions between them. The Drones perform their commands at the same time. Gain +1 Deft Fingers Requires: Engineer archetype

Healing Touch

Your dexterity allows you to make the repairs others just can’t reach. When healing Drones and anthroparians, you can now add your proficiency modifier to the total HP regained. Gain +1 Deft Fingers Requires: Engineer archetype, +2 Deft Fingers

High Precision Machinery

You are able to construct machines with a higher level of accuracy than other Engineers. After taking this Trick, you can spend 2 hours to modify a Drone, giving it the ability to attack twice using a single Action. This attack must be with the same weapon. Gain +1 Deft Fingers Requires: Engineer archetype, +5 Deft Fingers

Tightly Packed

You can fit a number of extra upgrades into a Drone size Small or larger, equal to your proficiency modifier. In addition, you can double up on upgrades that affect the same part of the Drone, so you could fit 2 foot upgrades or 2 weapon upgrades into a single Drone. Gain +1 Deft Fingers Requires: Engineer archetype, +8 Deft Fingers

Programming

Programming is your ability to troubleshoot computers, write programs, and hack.

Augmentation

Using an Action, you can give 1 of your own skills to your Drone for your next 15 Actions (1 minute), as long as the skill is physically possible for the Drone to perform. The Drone’s Actions count towards the time limit as if they were your own Actions. The Drone must be within range of your PDA to activate this Trick, but it remains active even if the Drone leaves your range. For the duration, the Drone can use the skill as if it were its own, using your skill modifier. The Drone does not have access to any Tricks with the borrowed skill. Gain +1 Programming Requires: Engineer archetype

Overclock

As an Action, you can enhance any weapon that deals elemental damage for the wielder’s next 15 Actions (1 minute). If you use this Trick to enhance your Drone’s weapon, then count your own Actions, including Actions the Drone takes, for this duration. You must be able to touch the weapon to modify it. During the duration it deals an extra 3 elemental damage. You can do this a number of times a day equal to ½ your Programming skill modifier, rounded down. Gain +1 Programming Requires: Engineer archetype, + 2 Programming

Assuming Control

Using an Action, you can automatically take control of 1 Drone or turret within 6 metres of you. If the Engineer in control of the enemy Drone or turret is present, they can make a contested roll against your Programming skill to resist. If you succeed, you control this Drone’s actions, including its attack, and can receive audio and visual data from it for your next 15 Actions (1 minute.) You can only control 1 Drone or turret at a time. You cannot use the Augmentation Trick, or any other Trick that would allow you to enhance the machine’s basic capabilities. Gain +1 Programming Requires: Engineer archetype, + 5 Programming

System Administrator

Using an Action, you can take control of all Drones or turrets in a 8 metre range, following the same rules as Assuming Control. You can send mass commands to all the machines in your control, which they will execute with their own Actions. To command a Drone individually requires donating your own Actions, per the rules for Command Minion. Gain +1 Programming Requires: Engineer archetype, +8 Programming, Assuming Control

Repair

The ability to repair electronics and mechanics, if you have Engineer’s Tools.

Jury-Rig

As an Action, you can make a quick repair to something without using any supplies or tools. This repair lasts for a single use. This can be used to quick-patch a Drone or anthroparian in combat for 3 HP. Gain +1 Repair Requires: Engineer archetype

Signal Jam

You have a little radio jammer at your disposal, which you can deploy as an Action. This will block enemy Engineers from commanding their Drones 20 metre radius. The Drone will take default Actions, unless it is equipped with a Combat AI. The Drone’s controller can make a contested roll against your Repair skill to bypass this. The jammer has no effect on your own Drones’ communications. This lasts your next 15 Actions (1 minute). Gain +1 Repair Requires: Engineer archetype, +2 Repair

Tinkering

An Engineer can tinker with a piece of gear to increase its' performance, with no supplies needed. This takes 10 minutes, and lasts for 1 hour. This can be done a maximum of 3 times a day. • Armour: Increase DR by 2. • Weapon: Increase the main type of damage by 3. • PDA: Double the range of spy gear, network access, Drones, or communications. • Headgear: Create night vision or infra-red vision. Gain +1 Repair Requires: Engineer archetype, +5 Repair, Jury-Rig

Robotics Expert

You can install some Drone Upgrades into your anthroparian friends. Doing this requires twice as long as a Drone installation. Gain +1 Repair Requires: Engineer archetype, +8 Repair

[nostalgebraist]

Pretty regularly, at work, I ask ChatGPT hundreds of slightly different questions over the course of a minute or two.

I don't type out these individual questions, of course. They're constructed mechanically, by taking documents one by one from a list, and slotting each one inside a sandwich of fixed text. Like this (not verbatim):

Here's a thing for you to read: //document goes here// Now answer question XYZ about it.

I never read through all of the responses, either. Maybe I'll read a few of them, later on, after doing some kind of statistics to the whole aggregate. But ChatGPT isn't really writing for human consumption, here. It's an industrial machine. It's generating "data," on the basis of other "data."

Often, I ask it to write out a step-by-step reasoning process before answering each question, because this has been shown to improve the quality of ChatGPT's answers. It writes me all this stuff, and I ignore all of it. It's a waste product. I only ask for it because it makes the answer after it better, on average; I have no other use for it.

The funny thing is -- despite being used in a very different, more impersonal manner -- it's still ChatGPT! It's still the same sanctimonious, eager-to-please little guy, answering all those questions.

Fifty questions at once, hundreds in a few minutes, all of it in that same, identical, somewhat annoying brand voice. Always itself, incapable of tiring.

This is all billed to my employer at a rate of roughly $0.01 per 5,000 words I send to ChatGPT, plus roughly $0.01 per 3,750 words that ChatGPT writes in response.

In other words, ChatGPT writing is so cheap, you can get 375,000 words of it for $1.

----

OpenAI decided to make this particular "little guy" very cheap and very fast, maybe in recognition of its popularity.

So now, if you want to use a language model like an industrial machine, it's the one you're most likely to use.

----

Why am I making this post?

Sometimes I read online discourse about ChatGPT, and it seems like people are overly focused on the experience of a single human talking to ChatGPT in the app.

Or, at most, the possibility of generating lots of "content" aimed at humans (SEO spam, generic emails) at the press of a button.

Many of the most promising applications of ChatGPT involve generating text that is not meant for human consumption.

They go in the other direction: they take things from the messy, human, textual world, and translate them into the simpler terms of ordinary computer programs.

Imagine you're interacting with a system -- a company, a website, a phone tree, whatever.

You say or type something.

Behind the scenes, unbeknownst to you, the system asks ChatGPT 13 different questions about the thing you just said/typed. This happens almost instantaneously and costs almost nothing.

No human being will ever see any of the words that ChatGPT wrote in response to this question. They get parsed by simple, old-fashioned computer code, and then they get discarded.

Each of ChatGPT's answers ends in a simple "yes" or "no," or a selection from a similar set of discrete options. The system uses all of this structured, "machine-readable" (in the old-fashioned sense) information to decide what to do next, in its interaction with you.

This is the kind of thing that will happen, more and more.

[corhore]

Its been a while since I've talked in length about comics so lets talk about the MJ/Venom situation and its gonna be a long one.

If you don't know. MJ was revealed to be the new Venom and the most recent issue revealed how. And the reaction has been....mixed. Well, more negative than anything.

The issue Isn't that MJ is Venom (tho that in itself has problems) its the journey of how we got here. MJ has been through the ringer that last 3 years with Marvel seemingly going out of there way to make her character less and less about Peter and in the process finding out that they have no clue what to do with her.

So this started with Marvel wanting to break her up with Peter okay sure sucks, but whatever, but the WAY they go about doing it was in a lack of a better term insane. (sent to a hell dimension for 5 years and forced into a situationship with a guy who killed 6 billion people) all while not giving her any agency.

So Marvel fucked up with MJ and people are big mad so what do they do? They make her a super hero named Jackpot of course. That'll shut people up right? Except she gets her powers from Paul the guy everyone hates, her powers have a insane flaw built into them (its a slot machine type of device where if it rolls 3 skulls she dies a agonizing death...why was this intentionally programed??). So her super hero persona all leads to Paul who is a character that everyone hates and is the reason for this mess.

So Jackpot was a flop. No one likes it and the 2 books she had were dog water and Amazing Spider-Man is getting re-launched with Joe Kelly who said that MJ won't be in the book anytime soon. Okay so now Marvel is left with a question. One they've been asking for the last 3 years. What do we do with MJ?

The answer they came up with was make her the new Venom I guess. Fuck it why not. Lets give it to a writer who wrote some of Marvel best books surely he can make the best out of a bad situation.

Unfortunately I don't think Al Ewing can save this idea because of Paul. Paul is still around and he's getting plenty of screen time. And people hate that. The hate he gets can seem like blind passion, but we must remember that hate doesn't come from nothing and it doesn't help that Paul is very unlikable and is the literal cause of all of MJ suffering and oh he also killed 6 billion people, but its okay cus he said he was sorry.

So back to MJ being Venom. The idea is shoddy on paper givin the idea of making every Spider-Man character a super hero is dumb, but her being Venom has potential givin she has history with the symbyiote.

Only problem. I feel like this could be much more interesting if she was ya know...dating Peter. Or even not dating him just having him in her life. Literally just not have Paul with her.

Because its explained that when MJ used her powers she rolled 3 skulls and her powers started disintegrating her body at a molecular level (again why the fuck is this a feature???) and the symbiote saw this and decided to save her life by bonding with her. Cool I guess, but what is Paul's reaction do his gf essentially experiencing torture and a painful death? He gets mad that he and her haven't been intimate recently and also mad she didn't tell him immediately.

Classy guy. The worst part is the book seems to be painting him in the right. I know everyone wants MJ and Paul to break up, but if HE'S the one to do it and the book paints him as justified then thats not gonna make people happy at all.

Now. Even if Paul isn't in the picture we still have a problem. See the bond MJ did with the symbiote isn't a traditional one. The symbiote can move freely on its own without MJ controlling it. So. Even in this desperate attempt to give MJ the spotlight and something to do she somehow still has very little agency.

She's not the one controlling Venom. She's just a passenger. The symbiote is there to just keep her alive and thats it. What does this do for her as a character? Cus I don't see much potential other than some fun shloch which is fine, but after 3 years of MJ being treated like shit this needed to be the saving grave and I don't think it is.

I don't blame Al Ewing too hard. He was played a bad card and was probably over confident that he could make this work, but he clearly hasn't made it work.

This book isn't gonna last much longer. There is a Venom/Carnage/ASM crossover coming this September so that'll more than likely end with MJ being separated from the symbiote and going back to "normal", but what happens after? Will her and Peter reconcile? Will she become a supporting character in ASM again? Will Paul still be around by that point? Or will none of that happen and she'll still be with Paul, and Marvel will just throw her in limbo for a while. Or even throw her and Paul to a different book to ruin.

Who knows.

All I know is Marvel needs to get there shit together, but I have pretty much lost all faith in them when it comes to 616 Spider-Man. Until I see actual major changes my comic reading eyes will be elsewhere (Ultimate Spider-Man) and I'll only dip in every now and then out of curiosity.

[viperpitsfilly]

Had a dream last night where a new episode of Doctor who was released in which the next anomaly the 15th doctor had to deal with was a slot machine that would suck up people who lost (Or their soul I think?? Like the entire person would vanish but when the machine would suck them up their body's would glow). The machine had old timey animatronic facial features, he kinda looked like the Pizzacam from Chucky E Cheese. Anyways when the doctor finally arrived to the establishment where the slot machine was, him and Belinda tried to see what was up with it. They couldn't figure out much at first since it would just repeat a hand full of lines it was programmed with, implying it was nothing more than an old machine. Finally the doctor asked Belinda to give it a try. When she lost the machine was just about to get her but then the doctor stopped it. When that happened, all of a sudden a hand broke out of the slots as a familiar voice said "Naughty naughty!". And Mr. Ring a Ding popped out of the machine AND THEN MY STUPID ALARM WOKE ME UP WHY????? 😭

[hypnodaddydom]

Static Part II

It's been a week since you first started using the noise machine to sleep. You've been going to sleep faster and faster each night. You vaguely remember that you thought there was something weird that first night, but each morning it gets harder and harder to remember what that could have been.

You bump into the new guy, who asks how you've been sleeping. You've been waking up refreshed and feeling... good, only way to describe it. However, the last couple days you've felt there could be... more... a... deeper... sleep. The new guy understands and at the end of the day he hands you a USB stick. He says to just slot it into the machine and it will run a second sleep program.

You slot the USB in, and lay down for bed. The static envelopes you almost immediately, seeming to caress and hold all of you at once.

relax

No fight or forced focus this time, your body releasing into the bed.

let go

A flitting thought of something being different races through your mind before being lost to th...

empty trance

The thoughtless sleep trance of the last week fills you, leaving nothing left to think... or fight.

let go... of thoughts... let go... of self... better to... be empty... relax... deeper...

Your body exhales a sigh as you visibly sink deeper into the bed. The static relaxing you as it fills the space emptied by the trance.

feels good... being empty... feels good... no thoughts... empty... feels good... no thoughts... being empty... feels good... no thoughts... brings pleasure... feels good... being empty... aroused... feels good... to be aroused... being empty... feels good... no thoughts... feels aroused... being empty... feels good... being aroused... feels good... empty... no thoughts... feels good... aroused...

Your tranced out body breathes ever so slightly heavier as the static continues to take hold and fill you for the night.

aroused... empty... no thoughts... good is aroused is good... deeper... more... aroused... empty... crave more... crave empty... crave aroused... crave empty... crave more... crave aroused... crave deeper... crave deeper...

must have deeper... more...

[cleolinda]

Here's another song I had wanted to write about: Hozier's "Movement." It is a fact of my existence that I get into a musical artist/band about 10 years after everyone else does, and then they become 30% of my personality (see also: Florence and the Machine). So I didn't really get with the program until Wasteland, Baby, and even then, it was for an unusual reason.

When did this album come out, spring of 2019? I had spinal surgery in early 2018. A discectomy, L4/L5; the disc had gradually become herniated due to a fall I'd had at a convention. My surgeon was required to warn me that surgery would come with a (low) chance of paralysis; it was my choice to make. After two weeks of seizing up in pain every hour or so, confined to my bed—hydrocodone did nothing—I chose the scalpel. Even then, it was another four weeks before he could work me into the operating schedule. Trust me when I say, no matter how I'm doing now, I do not regret having that surgery.

But he also told me, "You will always be a person who has had spinal surgery." Since anything was better than screaming every time I moved, I didn't fully understand what he meant until a year or so later, when I was still in pain—a chronic but lower-grade pain that came and went depending on how much activity I dared try that particular day. It was infinitely better than before. And, but, yet, I still deal with that chronic pain today. I will always be that person.

"Walk," he told me. I had a packet of therapy exercises to do, sure, but he was firm on this point. "That's the main exercise you need. Just walking." Which I couldn't do at first—I didn't have to learn to walk again or anything, but I was in a wheelchair early on, then on a wheeled walker for a couple of months. I also have inherited neuropathy in my feet, which was exacerbated by electrically painful sciatic nerve damage down my right leg while I waited for my slot in the surgery calendar. (I swear to God I will start talking about music soon.) I only walk across the longest side of my backyard. I don't leave it and walk around the neighborhood, because I generally have about two minutes upright to get back to the house once my feet start hurting.

So I had been struggling with my walking assignment for about a year when "Movement" came out. Of course it's literally about physically moving (and emotionally being moved), but that wasn't what captured me. The song starts out slow and reflective; it was a gentle tempo for a time when I couldn't walk very fast, and I still use it as a warm-up today. But there are two other things I love about it. One, the willow tree in the chorus, as I was walking my little runway back and forth under a canopy of wild water oak draped with wisteria, looking up into the sun through the leaves and snowflake flowers of an overgrown cherry laurel. Sound met landscape.

But the other thing is how—generous? accepting?—the words are of the "you" of the song. This person, the lyrics say, does not have to be a virtuoso dancer like Fred Astaire or Sergei Polunin (who's in the video up there). Instead, "you're Atlas in his sleeping, and when you move, I'm moved." My absolute favorite part is,

Move like grey skies Move like a bird of paradise Move like an odd sight come out at night

What the fuck even are these lyrics. I can't. That's so good. You ever sit there as a writer and think, I'm so mad I didn't come up with that? Just the pure unexpectedness, "I'm telling you how earthshakingly amazing this person is. Like a beautiful willow, like a rare bird, like some weird-ass cryptid in the night, I don't even know what that was about but I love it." What even. So good.

And I was for sure an odd sight shambling back and forth across the back of my yard: five minutes at first. Then ten the next week, working my way up to thirty, still in a dull roar of constant pain a year into my recovery. But this is a song that says, your efforts to move are moving, whatever movement is natural for you; you may be sleeping just now, you may be moving without moving, but you are wonderful not in spite of being strange in your movements, but because of it. The song always feels like a friend walking along with me, no matter how many setbacks I have, or how slow I have to go.

Anyway, Unreal Unearth comes out next Friday. The five songs Hozier's put out so far are ridiculously good, and I've scheduled a couple of months to be completely feral about it. When the weather is less dangerously hot, we'll find out which songs are good to move to.