My quest for a homemade clock

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 6:11 am

Well...I was bored and decided to make an offline program for everything. I was going to start with a clock(seemed easy) for Vana'diel time. I was then going to put in a crafting calculator and recipes and all the other little goodies you screen the internet for into a nice little .exe.

Why? I was bored ok.

I got the code for the Mithrpride clock and went to the task of mutilating it into something I could put into VB. The thing is...

according to what my code keeps spitting out FFXI has been out for about 1015 days old as of the day I post this. The thing that gets me is that http://mysterytour.web.infoseek.co.jp/ffxi/us/ seems to say that vana'diel is 1054 days old. I was just curious if they have it wrong over there at mysterytour. I would ask if it matters but I doubt that the mithraclock would work if it mattered.

Josiejo · Post by **Josiejo** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:24 am

Is it ever stated anywhere how many Earth hours make up a Vana'diel day, and how many Vana'diel days make up a Vana'diel year? I assume that all you'd need is that info and the exact time each server was activated. Divide total hours that have gone by since the activation time by the ratio (Earth Hours / Vana'diel Day) to get the total number of days old Vana'diel is, and divide that by the number of days in a Vana'diel year to find the Vana'diel date.

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 2:24 pm

That is exactly how the mithra clock works...I was just trying to check my math it doesn't seem to add up with what mysterytour claims the age of FFXI is.

Neoshinobi · Post by **Neoshinobi** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:29 pm

One Vana'diel day = 1 Hour.

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:06 am

You sure about that? I checked the IRC room and asked Golddess. She said one vana day is 57.3 mins but she might have been joking around.

Sugarpie · Post by **Sugarpie** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:13 am

1 day isn't a complete hour, i would go with with 57.3 thingy cause as a big fan of T.V i spend hours watching T.V and hours looking at the comp screen, a vana'diel day is JUST short of 1 hour

Gyoenastaader · Post by **Gyoenastaader** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:17 am

1 Van' day = 57 minutes and 36 seconds

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:37 am

lets see...My clock is accurate up to the Vana'diel year!

Getting closer

Poge · Post by **Poge** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 2:17 am

I posted this about 3 months ago:

1 year = 12 months = 45 weeks = 360 days
1 month = 30 days
1 week = 8 days (Light, Dark, Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Ice, Lightning)

1 game day = 57min, 36sec RL
25 game days = 1 RL day
175 game days = 1 RL week (1 Conquest Period)
84 game days = 1 luner cycle = 3days, 8hrs, 38min, 24sec RL
1 game year = 14days, 9hrs, 36min RL

The Conquest period starts at midnight, Monday morning in Tokyo time. (10am Sunday EST)

No, this doesn't make perfect sense because 1 Conquest period has 21 weeks and 7 days which makes it start on a different game day every RL week. (ie. the conquest period will start on a Darksday on 1/23 but it will start on a Lightningday on 1/30). Also 2 conquest periods is only 350 days and not a full year, 360 days.

They couldn't fix this by shortening the year by 10 days because the months are set up for Ballista. There's a Ballista match every 2 days, at 5 different level caps, and 3 matches at each level cap. 2x5x3=30 The matches are set up to be the same every month except for the location which rotates between the three Ballista zones.

It's done this way for a good reason though; by making a game day slightly less than an hour long, weekly events occur at different times. For example, RSE times are different every RL week by about 16 hours. It would suck if your RSE time was the same every week and those three times didn't fit your schedule.

I have no idea why the luner cycle is 84 days. I'm sure they have a good reason but it just seems arbitrary.

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 2:49 am

Thank you so much!

I've given up trying to reinvent the wheel...I'm just porting the Mithra Clock into VB.NET lol.

Josiejo · Post by **Josiejo** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:59 am

Have you tried to contact anyone at mysterytour? Maybe they have some explanation??

Kahvi · Post by **Kahvi** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:45 am

I have no idea why the luner cycle is 84 days. I'm sure they have a good reason but it just seems arbitrary.

Well there's fishing which consumes alot of time. And the best fishing times are full moon and new moon. It would kinda suck to put the lunar cycle at 28 days and cram everyone's fishing into 1 hour every 14. in effect this would also end up binding full moon and new moon to certaindays of the vanadiel week.

The way the moon phase is set up now, each phase covers at least 7 vana'diel days, giving the crafters of all the guilds a chance to craft when the moon phase is optimal for them and their crystal.

Now for a geological explanation...
It is very possible that the centrifical and centripital forces that keep the moon in place are weaker than on Earth. Thus allowing the time it takes to make one revolution around Vana'diel to be longer in length. Also note, that while much of Vana'diel is mapped, there is the possibility that there is more out there to map and locate.

Post by **Sugami** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:53 pm

Full moon effects everything

Fishing, mining, harvesting, logging, drop rate, drop goodness, etc.
Not sure about new moon, my friend is logging his mining results but I'm pretty certain there are less mining points to less % of the moon but the results may still be good at new moon *shrug*

Waef · Post by **Waef** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:27 am

I can't wait for the clock to be done...should be really cool

It sounds like you've put a lot of work into this to, so keep at it, don't give up.

Neoshinobi · Post by **Neoshinobi** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:17 am

Wasn't the most accurate...But I actually got the 1 day = 1 hour from the {Carpenter's Landing} ferry...

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:32 am

It looks like I have almost all of the functions from the mithratime.js file in thier VB forms...Now I need to actually make the clock =P

EDIT: Atleast I WOULD be if I could figure this out.

Code: Select all

/ Time in Earth seconds since the Crystal Era began
vBirthTime = (((898 * DayPVYear) + DayPVMon) * HourPDay * MinPHour * SecPMin) / VanaToEarth;

// When Vana'diel was "born" in GMT time
Bday = new Date();
Bday.setUTCFullYear(2002, 5, 23);
Bday.setUTCHours(15, 0, 0, 0);

// Time in Earth milliseconds since the Current Era began
localBirthTime = Bday.getTime();

Diff = vBirthTime - localBirthTime;

What exactly is the "Current Era"?

EDIT2: yargh...Java and C++ get to use a .gettime() method to calculate the milliseconds from an arbitrary date...I get to figure it out the hard way lol.

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 2:11 am

I'm Done

I'd like to thank all the mithra out there who helped me out! I now have a working VB clock!

Prrsha · Post by **Prrsha** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:28 am

Mithrrras are always willing to lend a helping hand!

The first rrrule: Help any adventurrrer in need!

Josiejo · Post by **Josiejo** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:51 am

Time to post a link, right Jay D.?

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 1:44 am

lol what do you need it for? It's just phase .1 of what I set out to do...I'll let you guys know when something of value comes out.

You know...something that will stop my ls from saying "Thats it?"

Kahvi · Post by **Kahvi** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 5:17 am

Prrsha wrote:Mithrrras are always willing to lend a helping hand!

The first rrrule: Help any adventurrrer in need!

To quote the Star Onion Brigade..

"The Firrst Rrrule!!"

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 6:03 am

Well...I've made something that isn't a disappointment but I think its mostly because of the stolen fan art.(I wish I knew the email of the guy who made the pic).

The site I have it hosted on is wierd. Just click the link and it should download automatically and run. If you trust me try it out. Frankly I wouldn't trust a guy who posted something like this.

http://www.pypehosting.net/files/clock1.exe

I won't get my feelings hurt if you don't want to check it out.

EDIT: You might feel safer if you right-click>save as. Atleast then you can scan it.

Also if it doesn't work make sure you're updated with all the .NET updates.

Lihera · Post by **Lihera** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:00 am

Checked it over, it's clean. I love it as well

THANKS!

Jay D. · Post by **Jay D.** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 8:33 am

Well its summer time and thats the time when a young man's fancy turns to writing little VB apps. ^^

Now that its summer I have time to work on this thing a bit more. I know this is dragging up a pretty old thread but I didn't feel like starting a new one.

I've been having trouble finding people to give advice on this thing because any crafters I know only come online when they need to get something done and everyone else is pretty clueless. =P

I'm hoping for some comments, suggestions, incorrect info in my app that I was too sleepy to spot when I wrote the code...anything! Its still a work in progress and I plan on adding more recipes past smithing lvl 30 and and more guilds besides smithing but it gets boring people! Just that was a screen full of text, no spaces.

http://siegecraft4.myftp.org/users/JayD/Beta%20Test

Just copy all the files into a folder anywhere you like and it will work. If you dont copy the .gifs it will crash.

I'm greatful for any feedback I can get ^_^

EDIT: I still never found out who made the fanart for the background. If you know please say so and I'll credit it to them.

Nobodyreal · Post by **Nobodyreal** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:54 am

For a fairly accurate (though woefully incomplete) database of crafting recipies, check out Openmoogle.

I have yet to verify anything there as actually being inaccurate, though last time I checked it was at least one major update behind.