Volcanos

[Buster's Uncle]

I geeked SO hard for volcanos as a child - and that's never really changed.

[Lord Avalon]

Just tuned back in, ~0530 local, and there's major fountaining going on.

[bvanevery]

What is "major" ?  I'm looking right now and I see stuff that would be appropriate to the Vegas strip.

[Lord Avalon]

Except Vegas doesn't use molten rock. It's major compared to the low-level height it was at earlier this morning, where they didn't have to zoom out.

[bvanevery]

I think Vegas using molten lock would be a big improvement for the strip.  In fact I may have even seen that in a disaster movie.  Maybe that was LA.  Big improvement though!

[Buster's Uncle]

...The one about an eruption starting from the LaBrea tar pit, and the emergency manager guy using busses and whatever was at hand for barriers to channel to lava to the ocean, I bet.  Pretty good movie...

[bvanevery]

Don't remember if it was a good movie, but it had good sfx!

[Buster's Uncle]

It did.

[bvanevery]

You know, there's a game in this.  Plate tectonics is a subject I've looked at for gaming purposes in the past.  Some of my master plans for SMAC-like games, have eschewed goofy mindworm and mind powers plots, preferring hard science problems instead.  Who says you have to colonize a planet that's stable and nice?  SMAC touches on this, you've got your volcanic eruptions and thermal boreholes.  But I've thought of dialing that up to Eleven, and making it THE game.

I'm not sure how I feel about terraformers.  Scientifically, there's a lot to criticize.  But game mechanically, raising land is great stuff.  It just doesn't end up being that relevant in SMAC, because it's just one subsystem among many.  The deformable and destructable map has proven to be one of the enduring value adds of SMAC though, compared to the competition.

[Buster's Uncle]

Outpost, I think it was called, roughly contemporary w/ AC, had a demo that was all outrunning a lava flow with enough modules to establish a viable new (space) colony on higher ground.  I wish I could find it, now - it was fun.

[bvanevery]

1994, not really contemporary.  Found some YouTube videos of it.  2D isometric engine, not what I'm imagining we could do now in 3D.  GOG has something called Outpost 2: Divided Destiny for a few bucks.  Came out 1997, so that might be considered contemporary.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm sure Outpost2 is what I remember.

-There seemed to be a fair number of colonize-a-planet games in the mid-late 90s.  You can guess which one I liked best...

[Buster's Uncle]

Just to get this back on the same page...

Tuned in this morning (July 8, 2318 local), to see a new flow of lava that had started earlier, running out of camera view. Only a bit of low-level jetting, more roiling of lava in the vent. After ~5 min it had stopped. Eventually the lava cooled.

Recently (0423 local) activity has picked up. Not sure when the low-level fountaining started, but there is more new flow running down from the vent, and movement can be seen of lava running downhill. V2 currently showing more of the extent of the flow.

[Edit] 0427, V3 cam view shifted to the right so see more of the flow.

Whoah - it's going a lot higher than this morning.

[bvanevery]

I guess staring at this "lava lamp" could be construed as relaxing.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sound would help that, I think - but yeah.