#dalek hal progress

[imadaleknotanengineer]

14 May 2022

My brother had 3D printed the gatling gun bits from @threegringos since I didn't have a 3D printer at the time and I resprayed it. We started to try adding LEDs and spinning but weren't able to get that done in time for MegaCon.

[rogisinspace]

Pinned Post Finally

Greetings! I go by many names including but not limited to;

-leech (short for leechrot) -pest (short for pestilence) -Hal (after my Dalek, Hal)

I don't post anything obscene/explicit but I might post/repost some more mature content and as such, I would rather anyone who is not 18+ to avoid interacting with this blog. You are welcome to follow one of my sideblogs though!

I'm 24 years old and am a multi-medium artist for 13 years now! I mostly do digital 2D and 3D art but I've experimented with so many mediums. My pronouns are they/them/theirs or xey/xem/xeirs. I'm agender, asexual, poly, and my romanticism is fuck if I know but you can fuck around and find out (and no matter what gender you are, it's gay - but I am thinking finromantic is the term that fits me best?).

I'm a sci-fi geek and love Doctor Who, Star Trek, Babylon 5, The Cat from Outer Space, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and more! I also love fantasy like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. I am the proud owner/operator/builder for Daleks Hal and Ren!

I love 80s/analogue stuff (80s cars, 80s music (rock, pop, synth, etc), camcorders, VHS tapes, VCRs, CRT TVs, etc) and collecting props from Doctor Who and Star Trek.

Fun fact that I often forget people don't know.. I'm legally blind in my right eye! My vision is 20/150 in that eye and only surgery could potentially give me full vision back. Though, since I've lived with it my whole life and it doesn't really affect my day to day life so I don't plan to get surgery.

This blog is a multi-fandom/multi-subject one so if you're only interested in certain content I post, check out my list of blogs!

@rogisinspace - main blog, you are here @specificallystartrek - star trek blog @imadaleknotanengineer - dalek hal progress blog @galacticleechart - art blog

I'll add tags for my account once I figure out what I want to use/start applying them.

[timeagainreviews]

The Edge of Acceptable

Hello friends! Previously I said I would try and post an article between then and my "Doctor Who: The Edge of Time," review. This was mostly due to my not knowing how long it would take me to finish playing the game. Well, intrepid reader, it appears I overestimated the game's length, as I have beaten it and I have many things to say. Before we begin, however, I would like to state that this review will be full of spoilers, so if you plan on playing "The Edge of Time," for yourself, you may want to hold off reading this. There, you've been warned. Let the spoilers commence!

The game begins in a laundrette somewhere in a dark corner of London. After some strange anomalies, a television kicks on, and the Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker can be seen on screen. Speaking directly to you, she tells you that you're the only person that can help her. Suddenly a shift in the lights (and possibly time) occurs and the laundrette is filled with a black sludge reminiscent of the purple gunk from "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild." Peering from the individual dryers along the wall are black sludge monsters with murky red eyes that stick to you. If you get close to them, they lunge and crack the glass.

After explaining to you that the universe is like a hard drive and that people and moments are like individual files, the Doctor informs you that someone has installed a sort of computer virus. Lost on the edge of time, she is unable to help you, but using a bit of her Doctory magic, she's going to help you help her, and by extension- save the universe. It's no small order, but you're raring to go!

It's during this point, however, that I did find myself slightly frustrated with the game design. As the Doctor begins speaking to you, she's oftentimes drowned out by the music, making it hard to hear what she's saying. When I went to the options menu, I was surprised to see that no option to lower the music volume was available. There was however a subtitles option, which I opted out of due to my feeling that seeing subtitles somewhat sullied the immersion. The next bit of frustration came from the following scene in the back office of the laundrette.

Another big source of frustration was the controls. While in the office, you're made to find the code to a safe, and then enter the code into its keypad. As excited as I was to be playing a new Doctor Who game, I almost rage quit due to the sheer difficulty of entering a simple four-digit code. Now, it's worth mentioning that at this point, I was still using my Playstation controller. After switching to the Playstation Move controllers, my experience improved exponentially. However, even with these Move controllers, performing minute actions felt a lot like trying to unwrap a lemon sherbet while wearing a pair of woolly mittens.

You learn a little bit about the late owner of the laundrette. He used to be a janitor at Coal Hill School, and he's now a pile of ash on a chair. The books strewn about the office show he was a man interested in strange phenomena dealing with time and space. The Doctor, using a bit of Time Lord magic, has stashed her sonic screwdriver away in the safe. After fishing it out, I took great glee pointing it at literally anything I could. Sadly, the sonic has very little actual interactivity with the surrounding world other than pre-scripted actions like opening doors that carry the story to the next stage.

Once outside, you get your first glimpse at a Dalek saucer, floating above the sky like something from the Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's a great little callback, and the alley conjures images of Totter's Lane. After building a signal booster with junk from the alley, you call the TARDIS to your location, where it materialises like the beautiful Ghost Monument we all love. Now, I'm not too proud to admit it, but as I walked into the TARDIS for the first time, I got a little misty-eyed. It really does feel like you're walking aboard the greatest ship in the universe. The people at Maze Theory did a fantastic job rendering the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS interior. And yes, the console does dispense custard creams. Trying to make my boyfriend laugh, I held the biscuit to my mouth and was pleasantly surprised when my virtual character actually ate it!

This joy was short-lived, however, because I was once again at the mercy of needing to perform exacting tasks with rather sloppy controls. What should have been a joy (piloting the TARDIS), was instead another rage quit moment. Really though, this is more of a problem native to virtual reality. You're only ever as good as your tools, and Move Controllers aren't hands. Controls are one of the game's biggest flaws, really. For instance- there is no duck or crouch function. Meaning that despite all of the wonderful little Easter eggs peppered throughout the game, the second you drop one on the floor, it's gone forever.

After being recruited by the Doctor, you're treated to a title sequence in full 3-D glory. Let me tell you, the time vortex has never looked cooler. I was like David Bowman entering the Star Gate. Moments like these are when the VR really shines. Afterwards, the first place you land is sort of a head-scratcher. You arrive on what looks like a planet, where you're being stalked by a creepy race of aliens known as Hydrorks. I was slightly sad that you never have to actually worry about them. They're mainly there to scurry about in the shadows. Despite the warnings of a woman you're speaking to over a holo-pad, they don't ever actually attack you. You can stop right in front of them and shine your torch at them and walk away unscathed.

If you recall from my Doctor Who and Video Games article, I complained that one of the biggest issues Doctor Who games have is puzzles. This chapter of the game has the most egregious of the puzzles and had me worried that it was about to devolve once more into a series of irritating puzzles, but they lessen as the game progresses, much to its benefit. I would like to mention though, that the game does take accessibility into consideration. Puzzles involving colours also incorporate shapes for those that are colour blind. You can also switch between hands with your sonic screwdriver, a fact that I, as a left-handed person, wish I would have discovered far earlier in the game.

After getting to the lift, you discover the planet you're on is a sort of space ship. The effect of leaving what seems like the outdoors only to find a giant window overlooking alien planets was like something David Lynch would do. I was reminded of episode three from "Twin Peaks the Return," when Dale Cooper exits a room in a building surrounded by a vast purple sea, only to find himself climbing out of a boxy spaceship surrounded by a network of stars. This kind of otherworldly experience is yet again another strength of VR. After a series of puzzles involving lasers, you meet Emer, the ship's computer that forgot it was a computer. Remember how I mentioned David Bowman earlier? Well, the "2001: A Space Odyssey," vibes don't stop there, as Emer's interface looks a lot like HAL 9000. It's a great little homage.

Before leaving the ship, you save Emer onto the sonic screwdriver and find yourself a time crystal. The time crystals are artefacts the Doctor needs you to collect to save the universe. It's a little vague in that "It's a video game, so just go get the thing," kind of manner. But it's a video game, so I'm not even bothered by it. After arriving back on the TARDIS, the Doctor uploads Emer into your brain. Emer's job is to help you along with little hints here and there. I was a little disappointed because the only reason I can imagine they did this is because they only had Jodie Whittaker for six hours on the day she recorded her dialogue. Having the Doctor speak to you like her closest friend is a rapturous bit of nerd joy, so replacing her for a bit is regrettable. But Emer is a likeable character so you don't really mind. The only time Emer really gets under your skin is when she's dropping hints repetitively. You may know exactly how to solve a puzzle, but the mechanics aren't as spelled out. Having her tell you what you already know, over and over again begins to grate on you.

The next place you visit is a very shabby looking Victorian London. You know right away that you've entered Weeping Angel territory. However, the classic Who fans will love the fact that part of this portion of the story incorporates Magnus Greel's time cabinet from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang!" I could tell the people at Maze Theory threw this in for the nerds out there. The Weeping Angels portion of this chapter is easily the creepiest moment in the game. There's a jump scare that had me jumping out of my skin. For full immersion, headphones are a requirement as the sound design is full of little creaks, groans, and stabs as the Angels make their way toward you. The incorporation of the cherubs (which you never see) and a baby pram only adds to the nightmare fuel.

This isn't to say that this sequence is without criticism. One of my chief complaints is that it's a very repetitive sequence. Once you do the first portion, you know exactly how to do the next portion. It then becomes a waiting game which is more tedious than tense. If they'd had varied up the gameplay in this section, I would have said it was the best part of the game. Instead, the Angels only play a minor part, and once you know how to beat them, their terror factor plummets. After a while, the worst part of getting caught by an Angel isn't the dying, it's the waiting for the level to reload. Even with my PS4 Pro, the loading times are egregious. Expect to spend a lot of time staring at the floating orange embers that are the loading screen. At least you can fiddle with the sonic screwdriver while you wait.

After receiving the next time crystal from Magnus Greel's time cabinet, it's time to move on to the next phase. The Doctor begins to tell you a little more about who is tearing apart reality- an entity known simply as The First... or the One. I honestly can't remember which, and the internet isn't much help. It's not a very memorable name, much like the title of the game itself. This "First One," is the very first form of consciousness in the universe that has awoken to find her creation of other forms of life is a disappointment to her. Our penchant for death and destruction has lead her to believe that the only course of action is to reboot the universe, hence the reality virus.

Our next stop is Metebelis...Four? I would be lying if I said I wasn't massively relieved to discover they weren't sending us to Metebelis III. That would have been cruel and unusual. When arriving at Metebelis IV, you're greeted with a gigantic temple structure. In VR, its size and design are really grand in scope. I was reminded of my visit to Durham Cathedral with its impressively high vaulted ceilings. After a quick time jump, you find yourself in a point in history where the Daleks have taken over the planet. I really enjoyed the music cues in this part, because you knew right away you were about to encounter Daleks. You can almost hear a digitised version of their voices in the score that really sets the tone.

This portion of the game was probably my favourite. A lot of it is sneaky stealth missions, which gradually increase in difficulty. The only problem with the stealth portion is you really need to bait the Daleks into following you at points. It goes against usual stealth mechanics which at this point are generally universal. When you accompany this with long load screens, and Emer repeatedly telling you what you already know, it gets to be a bit much. But getting to drive around as a Dalek later on in the level makes up for this in spades.

Much like the Weeping Angels portion of the game, the key to beating this section is patience. You can systematically work your way through the level by budgeting your time. If you take out drones and Daleks in the right order, it's a piece of cake. It becomes a memory game at that point. That being said, I still had a lot of fun. Dalek vision was especially cool. After tearing ass through various temples, you find yourself sort of outside of time. The reality virus has almost torn the universe apart but using memories of the places you've been, you're able to hold things together long enough to stop the First One. The Doctor congratulates you and tells you what a star you are. Emer is given human form for her efforts. The TARDIS drops you off back at the laundrette, seemingly to do it all over again, which leads to my biggest question about the game. Am I supposed to play it again, or was that just a meta-joke from the designers encouraging you to replay at your own leisure? Furthermore, is the Doctor not also now stuck in a time loop along with the player?

I've not done a second playthrough, so I can't rightly say if it adds more content to the game. I'm going to bet the answer is probably no. This is a shame because for a game that has been marketed for as long as it was, and had its release date pushed back almost two months, it's surprisingly sparse. At the very beginning in the Laundrette, the Doctor mentions both the Stenza and the Zygons, which made me expect to see at least one of them throughout the game. What turned the laundrette owner into a pile of soot? Hell, you don't even see the sludge monsters from the laundrette again. I expected them to be a far bigger problem than they were. The game is surprisingly devoid of other characters. Perhaps this is a symptom of VR, but disembodied voices, static Angels, skittering background aliens, and rail driving Daleks are the most interactivity you'll have with other characters.

Throughout its runtime, I couldn't shake the feeling that "The Edge of Time," was originally supposed to be a much bigger game. While I'm aware that most VR games are generally shorter in length, this feels truncated. Perhaps it was from budget issues or internal problems, I can't say. But is it twenty quid's worth of video game? I would say that maybe with DLC it would be, but as is, it feels incomplete. The ability to select chapters does increase replay value. I could see myself pulling up the Weeping Angels level for a group of friends. However, due to the lack of variety in said level, I don't see the novelty lasting long. If they were to release a couple extra levels that were more like survival horror where you were in a creepy mansion avoiding Angels, or maybe something with Cybermen or Zygons I could see the value increasing. I wouldn't want to pay more for these levels, mind.

Compare the price of this game to going to a movie with friends. These days £20 will buy you maybe two tickets to see a film. The game is basically a feature-length episode of Doctor Who. So if my boyfriend plays the game, and my wife and friends, then sure, it's paid for itself. But for people who might play this game alone, they may want to wait until the price drops a bit. I had a good time playing the game, myself, but I have to temper that response with the fact that I am a massive Whovian. Will it have the same appeal for casual fans of Doctor Who? That's really the big question, isn't it?

When the game was announced, my first reaction was to shake my head at the BBC's inability to make a proper Doctor Who game. As you may recall from my article on Doctor Who games, this stems from the fact that going with VR was pre-emptively cutting off a large portion of gamers. While there is a very real demand for Doctor Who video games, VR is still a niche market. Not everyone is going to buy VR just to play one game as I did. And even if they are, VR systems aren't cheap. I had to purchase mine on credit. The cost of admission is now much higher than the asking price of twenty pounds. That being said, the game manages to prove that Doctor Who video games can still try new things. The formula and gameplay are very close to what a lot of people have wanted for years. While I still don't feel like we've seen a truly great Doctor Who game, I had a lot of fun with this one.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

12 May 2022

I'd cracked my first two hemispheres but I had found some DIY plastic ornaments that I could take apart and snip off the part where the string goes through. I experimented with sanded vs unsanded. Some were test hemispheres and I tested out a colour shifting blue for potential use on Ren.

(unsanded ended up turning out better in my opinion but I might've not used a fine enough sandpaper, you can see the difference on the two black hemis)

[imadaleknotanengineer]

25 April 2022

Skully helped me finish up the hinge for the one person opening the weekend prior and after I'd gotten off work on the 25th I'd immediately began working on disassembling and painting/repainting what needed to be touched up as well as finished repainting the skirt. You can see in previous photos it had a much duller black that was matte finish. I wanted to have a more gloss finish on it which, in turn, gave a richer black.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

18 April 2022

Ran into an issue where the paint would fade and go patchy after it dried. I wasn't used to working with metallic paint, especially not metallic automotive paint. I started with a base of glossy grey that I used for the shoulders and had already done some slats (successfully) but some stubborn slats and hemis had the odd discolouring. The issues with the slats and hemis were the same day. I thought it was something to do with the weather at first (maybe too windy, hot (was around 23°c), or humid (was about 73% the day of this happening and it said on the cans below 80% is good).

I asked for help in the Florida Dalek Builders Facebook page and was told to sand the pieces down first and that did work. I believed the issue was the surfaces got too smooth for an even finish.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

13 April 2022

I got the rings finished. Nearly did the bolts in silver but I really did not like how difficult it was, as nice as it looked to have them silver. I just could not get it to go down without overspray or underspray and I was on a time crunch for MegaCon.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

20 March 2022

Huge thanks to Skully for helping design and build the frame/hinge system to allow me to open Hal by myself (prior to this point I needed 1-2 people to help manually take off either the entire top half at once or each part, shoulders up, one by one to get out). This day was a lot of spray painting.

I got the frame de-greased and painted, started the dome and dome bits, started redoing the hemispheres, was working on redoing the slats.

One thing I did that people might not've noticed but, in my opinion, made all the difference was repainting all bolts that were visible on the outside with a metallic spray paint. That made all bolts uniform to each other as well as with the rest of the bolts that weren't part of those sets. The slat bolts were also different from the screen used ones (which are just caps hot glued into the slat divots) and are carriage bolts with the numbers sanded off. This looks fantastic, but unprotected it started to develop some very minor surface rust. I sanded that off and sprayed over it to protect it and cover any surface imperfections from sanding.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

3 December 2021

Family came down for Turkey Day and my dad helped me figure out the issue with the lights and we tried to put in the better speakers.

I only have a bit of knowledge about wiring/rewiring electronics from the various projects my dad did with my brother and I as kids so I ended up blowing out the amp board by wiring the speakers in parallel rather than in series. There wasn't enough resistance with the two speakers to slow the flow of electricity. We did manage to identify and chart all the electronics in the dome as well as where connections go and what each board's purpose is and were able to find them online. This meant I could easily buy a replacement for the amp board and if any others needed to be replaced I could do the same, plus I had schematics to know how to wire it back in. We also started some schematics for a redesign of the brain box.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

23 November 2021

Hal is apart again for some more repairs. Trying to figure out the flickering lights. Just realised there was a plug I could remove the brain box from the rest of the dome to make taking it apart a bit easier.

Further fixed the cable management by affixing zip tie pads along points in the dome so it's easier to identify issues/make changes in the future.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

3 November 2021

Took the seat out of Hal, want to replace it with a bench that's also higher up. That's both to make room for electronics under the seat and to add height so I can see better while sitting more comfortably. Hoping this will also make some room for the supports to open/close the top half. At this point I also took off the arm and back of the seat so it wouldn't be rubbing against the sides. I set the remote in my lap from this point forward.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

22 October 2021

Part three of this post see part two here

WARNING!!! FLASHING LIGHTS HEAD!!!

[imadaleknotanengineer]

22 October 2021

Part two of three of this post see part three here

[imadaleknotanengineer]

22 October 2021

This was the progression of getting my MF-102 (Moogerfooger) voice changer set up. First one was just with the amplifier, second was the first attempt to get the audio to go through the dome, it was a cheap speaker and seated right up against the wood base for the dome so it did terribly with bass. My solution was to add some spacers to give it some distance between the wood and speaker.

Amp is a Roland Micro Cube-GX which was suggested by a fellow Florida Dalek operator, Paul.

See this post for the second video and this post for the third video.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

21 October 2021

Hal got his underbody lighting installed. I'd gotten strip LEDs that had a remote access feature via Geeni to change brightness, saturation, colour, and more, and adhered it under the wood portion of the base. I had to take off the skirt and fender to get up under there.

I believe I used the Prisma Strip Smart LEDs for that, I do remember it was ~$15 at Walmart and I later got more to light up the interior.

[imadaleknotanengineer]

23 August 2021

Hello! This will start my documentation of progress for Dalek Hal!

This was my first time trying to take him apart to modify him/fix something. For the most part I'll be copy/pasting descriptions from the old posts.

Had the dome charging for a good while and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't turn on…. Turns out the connector for the battery came loose. No real repairs needed here but I think seeing my old brain box and comparing it to when my new one is finished will be nice (EDIT: almost 3 years later and yeah, it does. Also I was still too scared to open the brain box at this point) and others get a chance to see what his dome electronics used to look like.