Neighborhood Restoration Update: Function

Told you it might be a while...

*ahem* Anyway. There's so much working now it's almost hard to remember what I need to record. The light garden is working, though it still seems to be turning off after a while... must be something I've missed, but darned if I can find it. I'll come back to it later.

The Private Rooms are as functional as I think I'm going to get them... I finally managed to pry the doors open on the room facing the entry hallway, so you can at least get into one, but I think I permanently damaged the door getting it there, so it won't be closing again anytime soon. So, your definition of "private" may need some adjusting ;).

The classroom is all polished up and looking fancy. Desks are still askew, but I'll worry about organizing everything later. More on the classroom in a second though.

I've managed to work out how to get the imagers turned on and running. The left imager was accepting uploads just long enough for me to upload a photo I took of Eder Tsogahl a while ago, but now the upload functionality seems to be hosed. Sigh. The imager on the right is even less interactive. I managed to hack in a hello world message, but that's about it. It's not set up to accept pellet scores or anything, so there's not much else I can really do with it at this point. At least it's running...

Going back to the classroom, the imager in there is working as well. Well, "working"... it's running, and again I managed to get an image onto it before that functionality went belly-up. I wonder if there's some sort of flag in the code that's preventing additional updates... I'll have to dig into this more later. For now, like I said before, I'm just glad they're running.

At this point, I think I'm going to take some time and go home for the holidays... I've already missed Thanksgiving, and I'd rather not miss Christmas too. I'll be back after New Year's with some more restoration updates. Until then, happy holidays, and stay safe!

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Inner Workings

This past couple of weeks has been super busy, and I'm writing this so late because if I don't, I'll forget about it again. Sorry for the lack of a regular update. I hope it's been worth the wait, because there's a lot of progress to report.

I've gotten into the Classroom and the Private Rooms. There's still a little bit of clean-up to do in there, but mostly it's just dark because the lights are being fussy. The Private Rooms are a bit frustrating, because for some reason the doors are all shut to the individual rooms. I'm working on prying one of them open, but it's rough going, because these are not doors that were meant to be opened manually from the outside.

I've gotten the fountain working as well. The roughest part was carrying buckets of water up the stairs from the light garden to fill the stupid thing. Once I found the pump controls, though, things kicked on pretty quickly, which was rather impressive. I was honestly expecting it to take more time.

I'm still working on the light garden controls. The circuitry is a bit weird, and figuring out how it all connects is something of a challenge. Hopefully once I get this figured out, I'll be able to take that knowledge and get some other stuff working, like the imagers. May be a few weeks though. Not sure I'll really have much of anything to report on in the meantime, either, since this will be my project until it's done. Until next time, I guess...

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Auditorium

As noted in my last entry, I decided to tackle the auditorium now that the outside areas have been cleaned up. The clean-up process has been a bit quicker in there now that I've gotten some extra lights to work by. Things seem structurally sound, and I've just started getting the actual light fixtures working again rather than using loose firemarbles lanterns, and flashlights to light my way. It does get shockingly dark in here, I will say.

Assuming all goes well, I should have this area pretty much done by the time I post again.

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Cleaning

So. Much. Cleaning.

I've gotten rid of a lot of the grime. Knowing where at least some of that stuff came from (the poison that Veovis released during the Fall of D'ni) I've been careful to wear gloves and a mask whenever I work on getting rid of it. It's probably safe to work without them, but I'd rather not take the chance.

Now that the surfaces have been cleaned up in the outside areas, it's starting to look a lot more familiar. I've also gotten the lighting working practically everywhere. There's a few lamps that I haven't gotten to, like the ones on the back stair by the waterfall, but most everything else is lit up again. Again, I say he outside areas, because I haven't managed to get into the Classroom or Private Rooms yet, and I've been avoiding the auditorium for the time being. Now that I've got most of the outside cleaned up, though, I may have to turn my attention to that room before I try and get the doors working.

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Light Garden

Sorry it's been a bit longer than a week this time around. I've been working hard on getting the light garden working. The mushroom-y things on the big lamp posts have been trimmed down to a more manageable size, and I've got the lights working, but the controls up on the bridge are still giving me hassles. For now I've bypassed the control circuit so the lights are just all on all the time.

I finally jimmied the lock on the Book Room doors, so they're open now. The Nexus link has one of the more functional Nexus Pedestal contraptions instead of the bare-bones book stands like the DRC-restored 'hoods do. Not sure why, and not sure what the purpose of pointing it out is, but there you have it. Just thought it was interesting, I guess.

There's still a layer of dusty grime over everything down here. I've been working on cleaning it up, but it's very slow going. I've managed to clean some small patches, and they stand out pretty starkly against the flat, almost featureless surroundings. Clean-up and getting the rest of the lights working will be my focus for the next work cycle.

Neighborhood Restoration Update

These post are all probably going to share similar titles, so I apologize in advance if things get confusing. I'll try to specify what I've worked on each week(ish) from now on.

I've been slowly getting some lights turned back on in here. Mostly I've been focusing on the fixtures on the outside of the residences, but I've also gotten a handful of the square "hand" lamps working again as well. I've hoarded a few spare cones from one of the DRC's work sites in the City to mark off hazards, and brought a beach ball in for tradition's sake. It doesn't really benefit the restoration process, it's just a nice piece of nostalgia having Eddie rolling around the neighborhood. Well, it would be if he rolled anywhere... right now he's still boxed away in a corner.

Small update, but I've been taking it slow and trying not to get in over my head. Still haven't been in the auditorium, and all of the doors are still locked. Thankfully, my new Relto Book has been making it possible for me to get out of here quickly and easily, since the Book Room is still closed off as well.

New Beginnings

It's been a while...

Truthfully, I nearly forgot this blog existed. I remembered it last night while I was digging through some old material in my KI and found my post about leaving in my out queue.

It's odd to be back, now that the Cavern is buzzing with activity again. Well, maybe "buzzing" is too strong a word... "humming quietly" with activity. Anyway, things are back up and running down here for the most part, as explorers seem to have once again gotten in despite the DRC's ongoing absence. The Council seems to once again be taking a "just don't hurt yourselves" approach to the resurgence of explorers, as it has a few times in the past.

I've been largely avoiding the crowds, truthfully... there's so much work to be done, and I've been using this new lease on access to the Cavern to practice some actual restoration skills. I found a neighborhood that the DRC hadn't managed to get cleaned up for explorer use, and I've been trying to clean it up and get it working again. It's slow going, but there is progress. I'll try to once again use this space as a log of my activities.

So far, things are pretty quiet. There aren't a lot of working lights in this 'hood, and nothing else seems to be working. No fountain, no light garden... all of the doors are locked shut and there seems to be little to no power in this place. Still, I have managed to clear some debris and the major open areas are explorable without hazard. I haven't gone into the auditorium yet for lack of sufficient light – my one lantern isn't really going to cut it – so I'm unsure of its condition. In all, the only thing that seems seriously damaged so far though is the Ahyoheek table, which seems to have gotten smashed at some point.

In order to hopefully manage expectations, I'll probably only be updating on a weekly basis, if that, going forward. Unlike before when I was mostly just poking around, this is long, difficult work, and I don't want folks to expect me to work miracles here. More will come, though.