#math effect

[askagamedev]

So recently MTG had to ban the vampire card Vein Ripper because it could be cheated into play on turn three by Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, all because Vein Ripper is a vampire. Looking at the combo, the combo appears really obvious. My question is, do designers not keep some book of warnings for future designers to avoid potentially broken combinations? For example, a searchable word document that says “be careful making an item that does X because of Y existing item”?

Nah. Trying to do this basically results in hopelessness because there's no end to it where you need to design a couple hundred new and different cards every year. It's such a combinatoric explosion and there are so many potential interactions that it quickly becomes an unsustainable mess. It's generally better to look at how things work and adjust as you go, since there's just too much complexity for any single designer (or even design team) to know about. You do your best and you adjust as you go. That's the best you can really hope for.

Let's also be clear - Wizards of the Coast didn't ban Vein Ripper at all. Vein Ripper is still legal in every format. WotC banned Sorin Imperious Bloodlord in the one format (Pioneer) that they felt it was overpowered (and Explorer, the online-only format version of Pioneer), because nobody cares if a 6/5 flyer comes down for "free" on turn three in Modern or Legacy when even a 20/20 indestructible flyer two-card combo on turn two isn't strong enough. In this kind of situation, Sorin was the combo enabler and Vein Ripper was just the nastiest free vampire that was in the format for Sorin to drop. Banning Vein Ripper would only be a temporary measure until the next big nasty vampire entered the format that could drop on turn three.

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[grand-line-shenanigans]

For those of us who cannot comprehend big numbers (me) I have done the math. FOUR FUCKING YEARS. SECUNIT WHAT THE FUCK.

[threadedtheorems]

Sneak peak of my next project 👀

This is also my first time testing out printing my design on transfer paper so fingers crossed.

[floralfractals]

so id say my tumblr network (as in, the people who tend to see/interact with my posts) is pretty mathy. i wanted to see how people interact w math and how they like to learn about it :) (and: maybe do something with that on my blog!!! wouldnt that be fun)

polls have a limited amount of characters i can add per option, so ill clarify some concepts here:

informal education is learning via a coordinated effort by an instance/expert outside of school system (e.g. voluntary lectures, social media posts, museum visits, youtube videos or similar). by informal i dont mean "its school but the teacher is chill" or independent research!!

formal education is learning through a school system (usually mandatory/with a teacher or professor present)

i refer to any education you do without making use of coordinated programmes as independent research, so that would be just you picking up an advanced math book to educate yourself, or perhaps scanning wikipedia, or emailing math profs with questions

when i talk about reading math in a general context, i mean that the material discusses math for a broad audience, so it doesnt talk about super niche specific mathematical concepts, and doesn't contain any complicated formulas/proofs/math speech

please do elaborate in the tags!!!

[thefloatingstone]

We were at a very small local farmer/craft market.

One stall was selling home made glass coasters.

The person who made them think they made one set of coasters of mars

But I am enlightened and knew it was not mars

it was the planet Klendagon.

And so I bought the Klendagon glass coasters.

And now I own the unofficial Mass Effect Glass coasters of the planet Klendagon, which has a massive scar across it from an attack by a reaper millions of years before the events of the game.

[aceofspades42]

Todays hot take:

I want clichés represented with queer characters that arent like twink and top

Like give me a stereotypical mean girl with a girlfriend

Give me a t4t quarterback and his cheer captain girlfriend

Give me an outcastXsocial butterfly qpr

Give me a conflicted main character in a lovetriangle turned polycule

Give me an ace "chosen one"

Give me a nb prom court

Give me a queer coming of age story that's a little cliché because cliché stories can be fun too

Does this make any sense or is it time for me to head to bed?

[equalseleventhirds]

things which, while not universally hated, are often treated with disdain by some ttrpg players:

pvp

dungeon crawls

resource tracking

unwinnable fights/situations

metagaming

gm not preparing the adventure details beforehand

things am trying to put in my games

pvp

dungeon crawls

resource tracking

unwinnable fights/situations

metagaming

gm not preparing the adventure details beforehand

[milkweedman]

It is interesting how much math comes into even the most basic of like. Making things. Making almost anything. And often not numbers necessarily but proportions and geometry. I think all the time about how castles were built with geometry at the heart of it. And I use the same kind of proportional math to make socks fit. And none of my pieces are ever knit with a prime number of stitches--because you use factors to make neat colorwork and ribbing and different stitches. Idk ! I remember constantly thinking 'how the hell is THIS gonna come in useful ?' But it always does. Math is at the heart of everything, and knowing how to apply it is a tool of critical importance to Thinking Up A Shape And Making It.

[halfdeadwallfly]

[alithographica]

Reviewing polar coordinates in a textbook with a student and this is a poem. to me

[askagamedev]

Recently, Nexon was fined for manipulating drop rates of loot boxes so that some items effectively had a 0% chance of appearing. Because of how many samples it would take and the associated cost of buying a loot box to get samples to prove something like this, are there ways for the player/user to determine if something like this was occurring in their game of choice?

There's no way for a single user to do it by herself in that case. The best means of approach is to collect aggregate data. Since unopened loot boxes are fungible (i.e. all loot boxes are functionally equivalent until opened), it doesn't matter if one person opens a thousand loot boxes or a thousand people open one loot box apiece. Thanks to the combined powers of statistics and math, we can calculate the sample size we would need for an average result at a given confidence level and interval step.

Mathematically, I believe we expect a sample size of ~381 draws to have a 95% confidence rate and an error margin of +/- 1%. The more precise we become, the higher the necessary sample size becomes (e.g. a 99% confidence rate with an error margin of +/- 1% requires around 660 draws). If players tracked and aggregated all of their combined results from the same loot boxes, they could run statistical analysis on them and see whether the results lined up with the posted odds.

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[mathmodder]

Lightning Enhanced Mod Release Trailer

In this mod, you will have an enhanced experience with storms in your game. Lightning will now cut through the skies, delivering more powerful strikes, and the overall visual effects will be stunning. You'll feel a greater sense of immersion as the storms become more intense and realistic. The enhanced lightning effects will add a new level of excitement and drama to the game, making each storm a memorable experience. Get ready to be amazed by the breathtaking visuals and the sheer power of nature in this mod! Instructions:

1- Put the required files in the mods/PACKAGES folder:

Lightning Crater (Math Mod)

Fog Merge (Math Mod) *If you have this file from my butterflies or fireflies mod, you do not need to download it.

2- Put the required files in the mods/OVERRIDES folder:

Clouds Texture (Math Mod)

Lightning Texture (Math Mod)

3- Choose the flavor that you like (Only one) and put in the mods/OVERRIDES folder:

Sky Lightning Flavor 1 Blue lightning

Sky Lightning Flavor 1 Yellow lightning

Sky Lightning Flavor 1 Purple lightning

Sky Lightning Flavor 4 All colors of lightning (Blue, Yellow and Purple) This mod does not conflict with lighting mods.

Download now:

[xponentialdesign]

Seamless Semi Turbulent Outlined Voronoi Cell Extrusions Monochrome Pattern ( Follow me on X )

[elipri]

Would anyone be mad at me if I wrote Loki x scientist reader fanfic where I basically ramble about my exam topics bc I saw a Reddit post of someone who did something like that and it helped them study the material 🥺🥺

[ro-botany]

How Big Is Grima, Really?

It’s a question as old as Awakening. We all know the fell dragon is fucking gigantic; but no one’s measured them to find out exactly how gigantic they are.

As an enthusiastic dragon biologist, I feel it’s my duty to set the record straight.

TL;DR

Through careful measuring of character models ripped directly from the files of Engage, I determined the Chrom's height in centimeters. Then, using those measurements along with character models ripped from Awakening, I measured the true size of Grima as they appear in the endgame.

According to my measurements, Grima:

Is ~726.8 m (2384 ft) long from snout to tail tip.

Is ~349.7 m (1147 ft) long from snout to vent.

Has an ~815.6 m (2676 ft) wingspan (middle pair of limbs)

(Look at how small Chrom looks compared to them, good grief)

Want a more in-depth look at how I determined this? My entire process is documented in detail below the cut.

(Also, consider this an invitation: if there's any character from the 3DS fire emblems or engage that you want to know the size of, send me an ask and I might be able to measure them for you.)

---

Preparations

Finding a way to measure Grima is difficult due to the simple fact that nothing and nobody in Awakening can reliably be used as a ruler. We’re not given precise sizes for any objects, and no characters have canonical heights.

Luckily for us, Awakening is not the only game which features its own characters! Several members of its cast are featured in Engage as emblems. This is important because the non-emblem characters in Engage – and the Three Houses emblems also kicking around – all have canonical heights! That means that we can use them as rulers to find the height of any character in the game who doesn’t have one. And once we have a height measurement for one of Awakening’s cast members, we can use their original Awakening model as a ruler to measure the model of Grima themself.

So, I decided to use Byleth and Fogado as rulers with which to measure Chrom, who would then go on to be the ruler for measuring Grima with.

I personally ripped all models used in this experiment directly from (...legally obtained...) ROMs of Awakening and Engage. This was done to ensure the relative sizes of models from the same game remained consistent with how they appear in-game. Any rips available for download online may have been edited or scaled any number of ways, you can’t trust em.

I also, in all cases, had to perform some surgery on the models; but I did my utmost to put them back together as precisely as possible.

-

Finding Chrom’s Height

As I just mentioned, on the Engage side I decided on Chrom as my ruler, and decided to use Byleth and Fogado to measure him.

Engage’s character models are all patterned off a base model – one for female characters and one for male characters. For each character these base models are sculpted slightly, and then scaling factors are applied to various bones in the rigging to give them their unique proportions – these affect the length and thickness of the torso, arms, legs, head, etc.

For all three of my chosen characters, I:

Ripped their head, hair, skin, and clothing models, along with their rigging, from Engage, and imported them into blender.

Applied basic textures to them so they’re easier to see.

Carefully stitched all the component models back together and onto the rigging.

Carefully stitched the legs and feet of the base model back onto the finished character models. This removes any margin of error we would get from including the soles/heels of their shoes in their measurements.

Ripped each character’s scaling factors from Engage’s data files and applied each factor to the appropriate bones on the rigging. I also compared to screenshots from the game to double-check that everything looked correct.

Used blender’s MeasureIt add-on to measure the distance between the highest point on the top of their heads to the lowest point on the bottom of their left heel, in ONLY the Z axis (which is up and down in blender).

The result is this:

(Ignore their weird eyes, Engage's eye textures are a pain in the ass to replicate and I gave up for now)

Using these measurements, and the canonical heights for Fogado and Byleth, we can come up with conversion factors for translating engage blender units (henceforth called “ebu”) to centimeters.

Fogado is canonically 5’10”, i.e. 177.8 cm (source). So, according to his measurements, 1 ebu = 102.713 cm.

Byleth (male) is canonically 175 cm tall (source). So, according to his measurements, 1 ebu = 101.25 cm.

You may notice those are slightly different numbers when, if these character heights were truly consistent, you would expect them to be the same!

Well, I’m chalking that up to the heights from 3H being in less precise units, and the developers probably not being quite as gung-ho about consistent character heights as I’m being right now. It would probably be smart to use another non-emblem Engage character with more of a height difference than these two to get another conversion factor and see how three data points compares, but... I’m so tired from putting these three bozos’ models together, y’all. I’m done. This is just what we get.

Our two conversion factors give us two possible heights for Chrom. Either he’s about 189.48 cm tall, or he’s 186.79 cm tall. I’m going to take the average of those numbers and use that for Chrom’s height.

We have now found Chrom to be 188.14 cm tall, i.e. 6’ 2”.

...He’s tall! He’s taller than I thought he was, honestly.

-

Measuring Grima

The next step is to take what we know about Chrom, and repeat this process with Chrom and Grima’s models from Awakening.

One frustrating thing about this is that Grima’s in-game model is almost certainly scaled smaller relative to the people than his CG model. And I can’t get the CG models, because those are locked in some vault at IntSys headquarters, and not included in the game files; and there are zero frames in any of the CGs that can be used for this kind of measuring.

But you know what? I spent too long in the Engage ripping mines to give up over CG Grima's differences. In-engine Grima is still ridiculous and I want to know about them.

Awakening’s character models are composed of several parts: A main body (which for humans is class-based, not character-based), in most cases one each of a character-specific head and hair model, and up to two accessory models. Each character also has one scaling value; a multiplier on their model’s overall size. (Tragically you can’t have fun fucking up their proportions like you can Engage characters)

So for each of these two, I:

Ripped all their component models from the game. For Chrom this was the lord class body and his head (which, unlike other characters, also includes his hair). For Grima this was their full-body model and their two accessory models, the upper and lower halves of their mask.

Applied basic textures to them

Carefully stitched their component models together; which effectively was positioning their heads back on their bodies.

For Chrom, I also borrowed a generic head model from another character and aligned it with his regular head; this is so that I could measure his height from the top of his head instead of his hair.

Checked their scaling factors; in this case, I couldn’t find a scaling value for Grima and Chrom had the default value of 1.0, so nothing needed to be done.

Used blender’s MeasureIt add-on to measure them. On Chrom, I measured the z-axis (up-down) distance between the highest vertex on his skull and the lowest vertex on his left heel to get his height. On Grima, three measures were taken; snout-vent (as in snout to the end of their body/base of their tail), snout to tail, and wingspan; each only measured in one relevant axis.

The measurements ended up being this, in what I will henceforth call awakening blender units, or “abu”

Using our estimated height for Chrom from Engage, we calculate our conversion factor; 1 abu = 12.13 cm.

And then we can finally convert Grima's measurements to useful units!

Conclusions

Holy fuck that dragon is large.

[oopey-doopey]

Even if Betty got Simon back without Golb I feel like the effects of the war and fallout would have made him a different man anyway.

Like they’re living in Ooo and while Betty sees that these are reminiscences of their old life, Simon remembers the bombs falling and people getting sick and dying. He remembers having to run for his life and care for someone who he probably believed he was lying to about things ending up okay. He watched the world, not just his personal world, fall apart.

I mean it’s somewhat hinted that Betty jumped to the future before any real effects of the war hit meaning she can’t really understand his feelings on that even if she gets the whole magic madness is a theoretical post Magic Betty state.

I like the idea that even if together something will forever separate them from being as close as they once were.