I arrived at out research facility just before the lightning surrounded it.  The entire sky would light up with each bolt and for a split second silently cast a pod shaped shadow on the floor.  I actually found the light show to be relaxing and settled in to continue my work.

Then, the air raid sirens began blaring their klaxon.  It could barely be heard through the sturdy walls and ceiling, and I had to walk out past our first security checkpoint to confirm what I was hearing.  My first reaction was to rush back in, grab my Deimos, and prepare for the attack, but then I remembered that air raid sirens predated me and that it was, in fact, our tornado sirens.  Apophis and I got back inside just as torrential sheets of rain began to fall.

Most people at this point would begin looking for a safe location in their house or building, but not our researchers.  Instead, we settled in and continued our work.  We could have moved to one of our lower levels (all of B3 is dedicated to a storm/radiation/apocalypse shelter), but then we would lose our view of nature’s show through the windows.  The usual commotion of R&D was as continuous as the white noise of the rain, and even in the face of power outages we pushed on.

Ninety minutes later it was all over, leaving only a strong wind and wet asphalt behind.  Behind me, the cheers of Apophis and Slinky could be heard.  I discovered that they had vastly improved some of the sensor processing code and greatly reduced the telemetry cycle time.  We each took turns dropping onto different locations on the RedPlanet to compare the new gantry with what we remember from the old.  I think we will take a trip down to B2, and power up one of the old 4.X gantries for some side by side comparison.  In any case, this milestone represents an important step forward and that much closer to a release later this year!

Adam “Thor” Butt, VGC R&D.

For those of you who have not seen it yet, here is the video we have released from our new location.

As you can see, we have our translation pods up and running in our new location. Our equipment is powered up and running, and we are currently working on theming elements. We even had our first local tournament (a gunslinger) where much destruction was had. In fact, yours truly came in second to Dallas’ new Sheriff KnightHawk.

But, what you might not have noticed is the translocation to RedPlanet that we snuck in. The voice you hear in the video belongs our brave test monkey Draco, who was attempting to pilot his vehicle through the camera’s display. As you can see, all (internal) displays and controls are fully operational! This was thanks to the late night efforts of Apophis and my self last week. We were able to finally isolate a problem that was causing an emergency return translocation during a mission. After hours of testing and diagnostics, we discovered a loose flux conduit connected to the stabilizer coil (which keeps a pod in it’s destination elsewhen during a translocation) resulted in a boson leak in the mechanical compartment. The coil, not being supplied with the a balanced particle stream caused the inertial mass of the ship to change during your flight and resulted in sluggish or “squishy” controls. And, when the boson particles reached a dangerous quantity, the pod’s safety mechanism performed an emergency return translocation which sometimes resulted in a crash of the local logic and control computer (making it even harder to diagnose).

But once we found, the error, a few turns of a wrench fixed the problem. This also demonstrates the first stable version of the Russell process translocations on existing gantries!  We also plan to have another new update later this week.

Adam “Thor” Butt, VGC R&D.

We have had several new developments over the last two weeks. First, Our Beta site is now up and running with 4 of our original gantries. For security reasons, only a few select people know its location, but it will allow us to begin testing the effects of the Russell process on existing gantries. Already, we have found several differences from our Advanced Diagnostics and Development Platform for Next Generation ElseWhen Translocation Gantry (or ADDPNGEWTG). But we believe we will have these resolved shortly.

Also, we have made some modifications to allow multiple simultaneous translocations from single ADDPNGEWTG, and allowing single researchers to work on various components which require several translocated elements to be in play at the same time. This will allow us to begin testing camera pods, and other elements, without the expense of an additional multi-billion dollar gantry.

Finally, we have successfully translocated the standard camera pod using the Russell process. However, upon arriving at the Wiseguy’s Wake race course, the camera pods thrusters stopped functioning, and the unit dropped to the ground. Video transmission continued, but the pod could not move to its designated position or track designated racers. One of our researchers has already found the problem and has begun working to fix it.

Well, that all I can talk about for now. Until next time, as a previous VGL explorer once said, “Nanu nanu”.

Adam “Thor” Butt, VGC R&D

I know it has been some time since we have updated the public on our progress. Due to certain administrative concerns, we have had to move our secret R&D facility, and that’s not a simple task. First you have to scout out possible locations and put them through a rigorous geological survey (drilling core samples to analyze the bed rock, seismic surveys, water table analysis), analyzing the available infrastructure resources (ability to extend High Voltage power transmission lines to the facility, OC-48 availability, etc.), and the permitting. On top of that, several of our lead researchers have been going through a lot of personal concerns lately. And, have you priced tunnel boring machines lately?!

But, that has all settled down, and we are moving faster than ever. The biggest thing we are working on now is the control software for the gantry. As, you know, the current gantry was only built to translocate to Firestorm, and we really don’t want to ship new R&D gantries to everyone who wants to translocate to RP. Fortunately, some a simple update will make all existing approved gantries compatible with the Russel process. Along with this update we have been working on a new quantum communications system that will communicate with a translocation pod through a side channel of the Null Field Transceiver. Special thanks go to two of our 3rd party researchers who helped to develop the special communications needed and have now released the results of their research (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0807/0807.4935v1.pdf).

Well, time for me to get back to work. Sorry for the delay in updating, but we are still hard at work. I hope to be crushing you in RP soon.

Adam “Thor” Butt, VGC R&D

We’ve recently fixed the out-of-phase issue that we were having, so pilots are now experiencing consistent collisions. We’ve also gotten some of the weapon systems up and running including demolition packs and rivet guns. There is still an issue with the laser systems jamming on after translocation causing them to continuously fire and we’re not sure what’s causing it currently.

All in all, things are moving along smoothly.

Ryan “Apophis” Bunker, VGC R&D

After a long and grueling process, we’ve finally gone to the RP elsewhen using a Tesla II pod paired with the 5.0 Translocation Control System. Due to the slightly outdated operating system on the 5.0 hardware, we had to make several updates to the system to make it compatible with new software that controls certain aspects of the Russell Process. This latest experiment has given us great insight into the inner workings of the Russell Process, as well as shown us certain problems that we still have to tackle to have a reliable and safe translocation system. Among these problems are physical anomalies; for some reason it appears that pods are not entirely in phase after being translocated, and are able to “phase” through certain objects. While this may seem like a good thing, offering our VGL pilots a certain advantage in exploring new elsewhens, we wouldn’t want our pilots to become used to this unpredictable effect.

We are also still working on getting the new control software to properly collect, process, and display sensory data from the remote pod to all the MFD’s. Currently, the system only presents primary visuals and audio data.

Ryan “Apophis” Bunker, VGC R&D

Just last week we achieved the first successful translocation using a Tesla II Pod. Although this has been done thousands of times in the past (previous trips to RP were done using Tesla II pods, although these were controlled using the 4.10 Translocation Control System hardware) it is still a major advancement, as it shows that the new control software being written to take advantage of the Russell Process will work with the existing pod hardware.

We continue to work diligently towards commercial translocations to RP using the 5.0 TCS and gantry hardware with the Tesla II pods.

Ryan “Apophis” Bunker, VGC R&D

Today, we achieved stable two way communication to the RP elsewhen. Two way communications have been intermittent at best until now. At first it was believed that the nature of the Russel Process of translocation was causing the disruption in data communications. Even increasing power to the Null Field Energy Transceiver Array would improve the signal to noise ratio of the communications as expected, but the data signal would just stop periodically even though the sub-band signal implied that communication was still possible. Finally is was discovered that a given USB component (used to monitor and attenuate the Null Field flux) was not performing as expected and the waveform would drift out of phase resulting in a de-sync condition. The next regular synchronization process would then restore the phase of the local and remote transceivers and communications would continue. The component has now been replaced with another brand of the same component, and communications protocols are operating as expected. However, Windows continues to increment the attenuators id number each time it is plugged in and now identifies this device as as attenuator 438 even though it is the only one connected to the system. Moving off of the experimental diagnostics gantry and onto the stable 5.0 hardware gantry should resolve this issue for regular use. This illustrates the need to throughly test all third party components even though the manufactures indicate that the device is completely compliant with established standards. Standards! Look it up. I truly hate it when a manufacturer shrugs off inconsistencies and incompatibilities with a released product and still label it as “Standards Compliant” since most people will never have a problem with it.

Powering down the tesla generators for the night,
Adam “Thor” Butt, VGC R&D

Translocations to Red Planet have been successfully made using test hardware. This had previously been impossible due to the high power requirements of translocating without beacons. However, using a recently discovered technique called the Russell Process translocations to other universes is possible with low power levels and no beacons.

The Russel process is still not entirely understood and research continues on it. Translocating to Red Planet is still too dangerous to open to the general public.

Ryan “Apophis” Bunker, VGC R&D