Oolite Bulletins

NEVER under estimate a trumble. In other words, yes.

JameSpal wrote:

Does that seem possible? Could a Trumble have handled the weapons of that vintage? Can they handle the more advanced stuff that is around today?

I know of a trained trumble somewhere in galaxy 7 that was installed in a missile as a ECM proof guiding system. So they must have some kind of technical knowledge.

Eric Walch wrote:

JameSpal wrote:

Does that seem possible? Could a Trumble have handled the weapons of that vintage? Can they handle the more advanced stuff that is around today?

I know of a trained trumble somewhere in galaxy 7 that was installed in a missile as a ECM proof guiding system. So they must have some kind of technical knowledge.

In WWII they trained pigeons to guide 1000lb bombs on to targets - not renowned for their technical knowledge...

I had that in mind when I thought of the trumble guided missile. How the trumble was trained is explained in the text adventure where you aquire the device. I'm not sure I've remembered the WWII piegon training story exactly right, but I think the theory of it was that they trained the piegion by giving it 4 buttons to peck. A picture of a battleship was shown to the piegion along with cross-hairs. The buttons moved the hairs about, but would only release a food reward if the battleship was in the cross-hairs. The birds learnt that if they kept the battleship in the cross-hairs they got a food reward. The idea was they would then be put in the torpedo and by pecking would keep the topedo roughly on course. I'm not sure if this really happened or if its a modern myth, but I can see how it could work! The rebel scientists were slightly meaner in training the trumble. It was wired to an electric shock device and recieved a shock every few seconds if the target was not kept in the sights. When fired the missile is dependant on the electrified trumble to avoid pain by keeping the missile on course.

The pigeon steered bomb is a true story, but they were never deployed (unlike the Russian anti-tank mine laying dogs - with disasterous results - for the Russians)

There was also a weapon in the works that deployed swarms of bats with incendiary devices glued to their backs.

It was meant to be used against the Japanese during WW2, the idea being that the bats would roost in the rafters of houses, the firebombs they carried would go off, then a firestorm would result.

Holy Bat-Terrorism!

The 'bat bomb' had full go-ahead, then was cancelled when Project Manhatten started cranking out nuclear warheads.

I picked up a Trumble back on my C64 and never figured out how to get rid of it. I pretty much started over.

I was offered a Trumble yesterday. No thank you sir.

Myrmidon wrote:

I picked up a Trumble back on my C64 and never figured out how to get rid of it. I pretty much started over.

I was offered a Trumble yesterday. No thank you sir.

Don't worry, you will soon scoop up one, I'm sure...and then you'll find out why they are called "Lave Fried Trumble"!

Concerning the animals...have you ever read up on myxomycetes? Scientists had them steer robots and such!

I found out after I tried to figure out what this strange yellow stuff is that comes out of the flower pod in my living room and then starts to climb it up from the outside.

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TRUMBLES! Don't talk to me about trumbles! I'll tell you stories about trumbles that would make a dead man jump up and run away!

Downloaded one of the cargo add oxp's the other day. Got my first "empty cargo hold" Now I can take, jamming cargo pods and even exploding cargo pods, but trumble pods?

I'm sorry I'm not having them. Completely unbelievable and as annoying as bubble gum. I also think that due to the nature of this vermin worlds would take greater steps to ensure the quarenteen of any ship with more life signs than the manifest allows. You can't really fly a station into the corona if you have an infestation.

So they got hacked out of the code straight away, sorry, good bye trumble pod. Bon voyage!

Thargoid wrote:

Annoying yes, that's part of the design. Unbelievable, I'd disagree. Yes if there are trumbles on the outside of the pod then that doesn't work (hence why pods.oxp's ones are unmarked), but vermin invade shipped cargoes all the time. And for sci-fi, remember the trumbles Star Trek cousins in a couple of those TOS episodes...

But each to their own, and as you say they're easy to chop out of the OXP if you don't want them, or want more of an unbalanced "all positive" experience.

There are enough things out there trying to kill me without adding too many "poisoned chalices" in there too. I think of it like stealing bags from an aircraft. If they have been in the air then they have been checked. It's in no ones interest to cross infect worlds with vermin, anyone doing so wouldn't be doing so for long.

Do we tolerate mice? (only if we're tree huggers) else we get the traps out. If these things get onto a planet, it's toast. They cut through metal. That's OK we'll just hot sterilize the land masses, it will be fine (!). If these "infestations" are going to become more frequent then (as in any biological arms race) the solutions should become more frequent. Until I get round to designing a "trumble microwave & incinerator (scorched earth) valet service (with a 5% chance of cooking any equipment on board) in station. Then I'm loosing the code. Can't be t*ting around in a sun corona every 5 minutes getting my ship up to boiling point.

You want to be a millionaire? Build a better trumble trap.

ClymAngus wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not having them. Completely unbelievable and as annoying as bubble gum. I also think that due to the nature of this vermin worlds would take greater steps to ensure the quarenteen of any ship with more life signs than the manifest allows.

Then you cannot rescue (or capture) any escape pod user and cannot trade slaves anymore!

I understand you editing it, though. I was quite happy that I've only been trumbled once within the last week! I did edit that oxp's "scoop destruction" routine, due to troubles with the random generator. The probability itself seems to be correct, just my "luck" causes it to happen so often and early.

I hope that you are aware of that other ship, obviously with no living commander aboard, but when you get close enough, there's a big chance (again, on my system, I did not check the probability set in the script) of being trumbled! A good amount of infestations I had came from that one.

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ClymAngus wrote:

It's in no ones interest to cross infect worlds with vermin, anyone doing so wouldn't be doing so for long.

...unless being called Hesperus

ClymAngus wrote:

Do we tolerate mice? (only if we're tree huggers) else we get the traps out.

Oh, I once did. Side story: It was so strange and very beautiful: We were living on the third floor towards a park. In winter, we did hang up those balls of food for birds. Nice...but then they were empty so fast and we did not get it...until we saw them. A few mice running around the balkony as if it was some sort of donkey kong level. When they reached the top, they jumped towards the ball and did grab it, eating until finished and then let themselves fall down towards the balkony floor again. After a short time they would redo it. Had some nice stripe on their back, was really fun to watch. In Spring they got offspring...and we wanted to be able to keep the door open again, thus we took the flower pod they were living in and brought it down to the park. The "reward": ground wasps did use their holes to build a home. A beemaster warned us about their aggressiveness and told us to call the firefighters to have them remove them. My ex fiancee tried water, fire and even went to use a cast around their entries - they just did bite their way through, separting the previously in-out hole into one dedicated for incoming wasps and one for outgoing wasps! They were annoyed at her attempts and swarming out to hunt us - the whole window apparently alive. Scary. I then did it my way: Talked to them and leave them just in that single pod. They swarmed out, surrounding me, but they did not cause any harm. When the summer was gone, so were the wasps. It's not always necessary to kill, even when professionals say that it's impossible to live close together to such insects.

ClymAngus wrote:

biological arms race) the solutions should become more frequent. Until I get round to designing a "trumble microwave & incinerator (scorched earth) valet service (with a 5% chance of cooking any equipment on board) in station. Then I'm loosing the code. Can't be t*ting around in a sun corona every 5 minutes getting my ship up to boiling point.

Eric did add something similar to UPS, the trumble repellant, suggesting to keep the cargo bay doors open while docked - which gave me the idea about trumbles invading a space station or some poor commanders ship after leaving.

However, you do not need to fly to the sun in order to barbecue them! I bet you dock at common space stations...then you can barbecue them within a few seconds, the answer being directly ahead of you!

ClymAngus wrote:

You want to be a millionaire? Build a better trumble trap.

I was thinking about muzzles or a spider, someone else about a cat. Funny...there really should be some predator out there, aside from that Commander Wyvern! I guess he could make more money as a trumble eating passenger than by flying his own ship.

Anyway, why eradicate them if it's possible to use them for fur production and to create the famous Lave Fried Trumbles?

As a side note: Did you know that there are animals on earth capable of reproducing pretty similar to trumbles? There's even species which only consist of females (the males died out a looooong time ago, apparently)! However, they got better population control.

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