Kitsune wrote:
Exactly what kind of information would FPI be looking for, and is there anything more you could say about them?
Well, my first project several years ago was to figure out the conversion between D'ni time and surface time, which resulted in an article for DPWR.net and eventually resulted in the CCConverter program.
I spent much time observing day/night cycles in Gira and Payiferen, and now I maintain a kind of almanac of predicted times for Gira sunsets and Payiferen sunrises and sunsets.
Some of the work others did on gathering sky-color data in Negilahn and charting the changes would have made a good FPI project. Watching the weather in Delin for signs of a pattern to the changes is a good project, though very long term (and it may turn out that it isn't on a cycle at all, but just on a switch that Cyan throws when they feel like it).
Gathering data on the behavior of the ovens is a good example of the kind of thing FPI would do, and I'm sure the future will bring us more Ages with day/night cycles or other events or equipment that needs similar study. One of my current projects is taking daily snapshots of the lake from a couple of good locations so that we have a record of the changes over the course of the lighting effort.
What it comes down to is that I look for anything that can be measured in some way in the game, then work on collecting those measurements and finding useful ways to summarize them.
FPI could also assist other groups in large data-collection efforts for their projects. Someday, for example, it might be possible to assist the Guild of Cartographers by gathering KI coordinates in various locations for their mapping efforts, following their instructions on where they need such data collected.
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