Looney Labs Icehouse Mailing list Archive

Re: [Icehouse] Xeno color mapping for Homeworlds

  • FromDennis Duquette <dennisdduquette@xxxxxxxxx>
  • DateMon, 4 Jun 2007 07:42:13 -0700 (PDT)
I have two reasons to question the Rainbow-Xeno color
bijection. Also, I have included my vote in case we do
still use this function. Hence, I have a very long
first post to this list.

First, why are we mapping between Rainbow and Xeno
colors at all? I assume this arises from using Xeno
colors to play Binary Homeworlds, but that is actually
a mapping of Xeno colors to Construction, Trade,
Movement and Boarders (or Hackers, if your ships are
attacking your opponent's ships' computers). I prefer
mapping the colors to game functions for each game in
isolation, rather than a global color match that must
leave some large number of fans unsatisfied. For
Homeworlds, I like this function:

Construction = Clear
Trade        = White
Movement     = Orange
Hackers      = Cyan

The builders have diamond ships. Trade is by
accounting that is still called "paperwork" even when
trees no longer die for shuffling debts. Acceleration
into hyperspace leaves a warm orange contrail. Hackers
cause the opposing ship's crew to see the futuristic
"cyan screen of death" as control is wrested away. The
out-of-game reasons Construction and Trade are such
neutral colors is that they're the ones about adding
or changing other ships' colors.

Another reason not to assign a color function between
treehouse releases is that I would love to see yet
another treehouse color quintet released. I usually
play Volcano with Red, Orange, Yellow, Clear and Green
pyramids, but would prefer two more "warm" translucent
colors (replacing green and clear) available for such
a hot game. Likewise, IceTowers with Blue, Cyan,
Purple and Clear, then other colors as necessary,
would benefit from the presence of more cool colors
(although clear is actually a very good choice for
this game, more cool colors allow for more players
while keeping the icy appearance). IceTowers loses
some aesthetic appeal with the opaque white pyramids
in play, while Volcano suffers greatly from opaque
pyramids in play (excepting the black caps, of
course). Thus a new treehouse release with the opaque
gray 'mids and two warm colors and two cool would send
me running to my FLGS with a smile.

If the ultimate decision is to use a global color
bijection instead of suggesting color designation for
each game separately, here is my ranking of the
proposed color correlations:

Best matches (1 strong agreement, 2 medium & 1 weak):
Cyan = Blue
Purple = Red
Orange = Yellow
Clear = Green

Not as good (1 strong agreement and 3 weak):
Cyan = Blue
Orange = Green
Purple = Yellow
Clear = Red

Most confusing function (3 medium & 1 weak):
Cyan = Green
Orange = Red
Purple = Blue
Clear = Yellow

Thank you.


Dennis D Duquette

============================================

Theorem:
All numbers are equal.

Proof:
Choose arbitrary a and b, and let t = a + b.
(a + b)(a - b) = t(a - b)
a^2 - b^2 = ta - tb
a^2 - ta = b^2 - tb
a^2 - ta + (t^2)/4 = b^2 - tb + (t^2)/4
(a - t/2)^2 = (b - t/2)^2
a - t/2 = b - t/2
a = b


 
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