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Namefag Edgelord
Nov 10, 2015

by Cowcaster

Terrible Opinions posted:

sanitized version
translation: any shred of potential evidence conveniently removed under the guise of protecting me, even though this information could easily be communicated amongst yourselves via PM or private VOIP without breaking any laws.

:owned:

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Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Actually it's because Fishmech is trying to avoid running a foul of the anti-harassment rules regarding the sex offender registry, though he did specifically hint that non-US based goons could share it without legal danger if they weren't cowards.

LCL-Dead
Apr 22, 2014

Grimey Drawer
Newest reply. Somehow being gifted something, melting it, rebuying the LTI version and gifting it back counts against my account even though the actual transaction is listed as $0.00USD in the billing page, therefore not contributing to overall amount spent.

CIG CS Patrick posted:

Thanks for getting back to me and pointing out the miscalculations.

I have found that 556776 had its upgrade applied after it had left your account - that is $55 I had counted as reducing your total refund amount, wrongly so.

Likewise, pledge 998208 also had its upgrade applied after it had been gifted away. Here, I wrongly calculated $30 as reducing your total refund.

The LTI swap you refer to still removed store credits from your account and thus reduces the refund amount. Note that pledges, and by extension store credits, gained by having received gifts only retain their value within our system. Credits gained this way cannot count towards a total refund amount.

The reworked refund amount I now get is $45.00. Please let me know if you see this differently.

In addition, you are correct the ToS do not speak of the particulars of how refunds are worked out. This is because we are only legally obliged to offer refunds within 14 days of a relevant order having been placed. As a courtesy this 14 day policy is even applied to States and countries without digital sales tax.

The refund we're offering you falls outside of these 14 days and is, as such, a courtesy.

Due to the great workload already involved in dealing with refunds, we cannot account for gifts gifted across a multitude of accounts. The early pledges, in particular, have upwards of 20 owners, if they had not been reclaimed already.

Therefore, pledges originating from your account and gifted are forfeit. Likewise pledges originating from another account and gifted to your account are forfeit to the gifter and retain their store credit value only within our system. Comparing gifted pledges to gift cards, it is common practice that gift cards are non-refundable.

Please know that this is not an elaborate attempt to deceive our customers but rather recognises the unreasonable amount of time it takes to honour a refund inclusive of all gifts.

Strictly speaking the support you gave us are pledges - donations made to us for the development of Star Citizen. In all refund cases I deal with, we are refunding money which had already been budgeted. The damage your refund causes us, therefore, is much more than the simple reduction of funds.

We feel this is more than fair, all things considered.

Regards
Patrick

Customer Service Manager & Lead Moderator
Cloud Imperium Games

Reply:

LCL-Dead posted:

Patrick,

I appreciate the explanation.

However, I am still at odds with your math when put in comparison with what my billing statement actually says on the RSI website.

"The LTI swap you refer to still removed store credits from your account and thus reduces the refund amount. Note that pledges, and by extension store credits, gained by having received gifts only retain their value within our system. Credits gained this way cannot count towards a total refund amount."

Those store credits generated from my receiving of a gifted ship, reclaiming said gifted ship and then regifting it back to the original owner after purchasing it with LTI, don't count towards my overall amount spent and therefore cannot be figured into the equation the way in which you are doing. You can verify this on the billing page of the account, as I stated in the email before, where total USD spent is
$0.00. I did not use store credit from gifts to purchase the redeemer. I used store credit from ships I had bought myself, adding money here and there to make up $20-40 differences in cost.

The store credit generated from the two items I pointed out was on and off of my account within 20 minutes of the gift being received and was not used towards the purchase of the single ship currently residing within my hangar. I am not claiming that it was my own money, nor am I trying to get that money (The store credit from the two items I pointed out) back in any way, shape, or form. There are no substantial gifts that were reclaimed that stayed within my store credit pool up until I bought the Redeemer package. The only gift that stayed on my account for more than a day was a Constellation package, with it's Aquila upgrade I bought, that I eventually gifted back to the original owner when he decided that he was going to stick with the game rather than close his account. I am not seeking back any credit from that transaction either. So, in all, there is maybe $20 in gifted credit that is not valid as a refund.

I am merely seeking the cost of the redeemer which, if you do the math, covers everything I spent on this game myself (even if it is a convoluted mess of gifting and reclaiming to work through) plus the $20 I spent on UEC in order to purchase hangar flair.

I realize that any and all refunds, while only allowed through the goodness of CIG's heart, are detrimental (even if infinitesimally so) to the development process of Star Citizen. However, with that being said, if the development process had been managed better then we wouldn't even be having this conversation to begin with.

I would provide more information on the account if I could access it from work but I am unable to do so at the moment due to category restrictions.

LCL-Dead fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Nov 10, 2015

Loiosh
Jul 25, 2010

grimcreaper posted:

I think the best part is that by the date being used in the game I am willing to bet that any kind of ship in that class would not have a cockpit window at all and the helmet itself would be linked to a series of cameras on the hull giving the entire hud, etc, inside the helmet with a perfect view of everything outside.

This is kinda how Enemy Starfighter works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjjQtge5ssQ&t=1m23s The conceits are that there is FTL travel and communication, and that most ships are drones being controlled by AI. Pilots and commanders exist in a central control ship and can control and command any existing ship in the fleet. The entire game is being made by one dude originally as a side project to learn Unity.

EightAce
May 10, 2015

Watch it all come crashing down on his head and wonder why any of us gave him money in the first place.
......

EightAce fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Apr 8, 2016

MarcusSA
Sep 23, 2007

LCL-Dead posted:

Newest reply. Somehow being gifted something, melting it, rebuying the LTI version and gifting it back counts against my account even though the actual transaction is listed as $0.00USD in the billing page, therefore not contributing to overall amount spent.

The whole thing is confusing as gently caress.

Loiosh
Jul 25, 2010

Aesaar posted:


They're working on this sort of thing now. The F-35 is meant to have it. Whether it works or not, I have no idea, but it'll almost certainly exist within the next 20 years or so.

Initially it was terrible. The first vendor they had (for a decade?) could never get it to work, and they had to switch to a new vendor because there were severe issues with latency and reliability of the software. A friend, who worked on the project but now moved out of country, said that the only reason the F-35 is in the (mostly corrected) state it is in is because they kept throwing billions at the project.

'When you throw that much money even a lump of clay can be fixed into something flyable' was the gist of his many posts on the subject.

Thor-Stryker
Nov 11, 2005

Beet Wagon posted:

I seem to remember something CIG posted way back when during the Freelancer "Strut-gate" thing about considering something like that but ultimately deciding it didn't really fit the aesthetic they were going for. Some fan did a really cool mock-up of the Freelancer with no glass like that.

Or they could just put the engine to work and make the frame turn 75% transparent so modelers still get some justice out of their horrible cockpit designs.

Hell, the AH-64 Apache has been using a FLIR/PNVS system (Cameras) for pilot view since its inception. Which is all the more comical since the Cutlass cockpit is modeled off of one.

AP
Jul 12, 2004

One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them
Grimey Drawer

LCL-Dead posted:

Newest reply. Somehow being gifted something, melting it, rebuying the LTI version and gifting it back counts against my account even though the actual transaction is listed as $0.00USD in the billing page, therefore not contributing to overall amount spent.

He's just making poo poo up and thinks you'll believe it.

theultimo
Aug 2, 2004

An RSS feed bot who makes questionable purchasing decisions.
Pillbug

AP posted:

He's just making poo poo up and thinks you'll believe it.

Star citizen in a nutshell

Loiosh
Jul 25, 2010

Thor-Stryker posted:

Hell, the AH-64 Apache has been using a FLIR/PNVS system (Cameras) for pilot view since its inception. Which is all the more comical since the Cutlass cockpit is modeled off of one.

That is in the cards. Some items, like FOF tags and gimbaled guns (aims) are projected into the helmet just as they are with the F-35.

Speaking of that, has anyone had their display screen cracked in E:D? My roommate had that happen recently. He got shot through the screen. Not only was his atmosphere evacuated (and had only 10 minutes to land or he would asphyxiate), but that also cracked the display so a bunch of his HUD elements were fritzed. Looks like:

LCL-Dead
Apr 22, 2014

Grimey Drawer

MarcusSA posted:

The whole thing is confusing as gently caress.

It's simple to me:

CIG is going through accounts when refunds are requested and comparing the amount of money spent (Which can be found on your billing page as a total amount) to the amount of money you gave away as gifts to other players.

What's happening here is Patrick is figuring store credit into the "amount gifted to other players" when that store credit did not originate from either a purchase I made or a gift I received and kept.

Example:

I received a Digital Colonel package, non LTI.
I reclaimed the package for a store credit of $125.
I repurchased the package with LTI for $125 in store credit.
I gifted the package back to the original owner.

The funds are now gone and do not factor into my total amount spent. They never did to begin with.

He's factoring that $125 into the amount of money I gave away and using it to take away from the amount of money spent that shows up on the account billing. The problem with that is that if you go into the billing statement and look at all ships bought with store credit, they do not generate more numbers onto the final amount spent. They are a $0.00USD transaction.

Not counting money I received to purchase LTI ships for people, I only spent about $400 on this game. I'm just trying to get the $300 or so that wasn't in subscriptions and legit gifts to my friends back.

1500
Nov 3, 2015

Give me all your crackers

LastCaress posted:

The FM problems are indicative of a problem that I have been critical of CIG for some time now. CIG (CR) have lots of ideas, the problem is that they are just independent ideas and are not merged together to create a cohesive whole. Many of these ideas run counter to each other, "realistic" physics but "rule of cool" ships, "realistic" physics but physics will be different for each ship( same size engine is different across the ships), delayed ship replacement but short TTK, limited game resources but selling power for real money, just to name a few. But lets look at the FM.

So the reason you use control systems is because you have to, no one wants to use control systems but that is how it works in the real world (its a lot easier to fake it). A PID controller (when compared to a PI controller) is faster, and more precise, but it is much more finicky and requires a lot more upfront work to get stable in a system. While a PI controller is easier to implement and has more tolerance and requires less upfront work. The early AC showed classic signs of being underdeveloped and ultimately underdamped. This got "better" when CIG started putting other controls on top of their original system in order to compensate for the fact they could not get the PID control to be critically damped. This is why the ship are impossible to handle using fixed weapons, and why the thruster values are so high, they are trying to compensate for problems in their PID control system.

So CIG want to have a Control system for each ship, that means each ship will have a different control system with different weighted values, nvm the thruster placements. This means each ship will have to be set up individually just for the stock fitting, then you have to change that control system each time you change the thrusters and other equipment, its a nightmare. The new system is going to make the system easier to set up but it will still require a ton of unneeded work.

So why implement a PID? There is no good reason, it does not make any since when you are talking about the number of ships CIG are creating and the number of changing variables, and because it does not add anything. One excuse that I have seen as to why have a control system is so that when you lose a thruster you will feel its effect. The problem with this is that a Control system is designed to not do that, the most you will feel is that everything will be sluggish, you will have no idea what happened or what you lost, just that you lost power. For a space craft, every action has to be met with an equal and opposite action in order to hold steady. So lets say you apply thrust to pitch up, you have to apply the same amount of thrust down to stop. So lets say you lose a thruster, the action will be the same, its just that now the control system will force more power to be applied in order to achieve the same steady state. Lets say that to make a specific pitch up at the desired rate it takes 10N of force from each nozzle (4 total, with each nozzle capping out at 20N for a max deflection), and the same then for stopping that action. If you lose a nozzle then all that will happen will be that each of the remanding three will apply more thrust, up to the max point. The pilot will not even tell anything has happened, because the controller (if working correctly) will change everything behind the scene so that the operators actions have the same effect, the only effect will be that the max pitch rate will be lower due to the now lower max thrust available.

The idea that you have to fight the controls is also a work of fantasy, because that is not now a control system works. Lets say that the ship is listing to the right and so you have to correct this problem with the stick, well in the real world that would not happen because the control system is able to input the exact same amount as you the operator is doing and the control system will do it faster and instantly. The control system will just compensate for that action and you will continue to fly straight with the stick centered. The idea that you could turn faster in one direction then another also makes no since, as the force applied to stop the faster spin has to be available in the opposite direction to stop the spin. Now if you want to set up a scenario were you can spin faster one direction but it takes longer to slow down, ok but then its the player that is now the control system (again because SC has fixed rates, and speed caps), and is no different then ED's AF system (using this you are the control system).

What CIG are implementing runs counter to what they appear to want flight to be like.

Ah plagiarism, you just quoted me without quoting me.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=57576&page=552&p=3027637&viewfull=1#post3027637

1500 fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Nov 10, 2015

G0RF
Mar 19, 2015

Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet.

LCL-Dead posted:

Newest reply. Somehow being gifted something, melting it, rebuying the LTI version and gifting it back counts against my account even though the actual transaction is listed as $0.00USD in the billing page, therefore not contributing to overall amount spent.
Reply:
They're going to effectively end up being 'out' the money they're refusing to refund you just by having to constantly spend time explaining why they can't accommodate your request.

They have thousands of tickets to reply to-- now I see why.

AP
Jul 12, 2004

One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them
Grimey Drawer

LCL-Dead posted:

It's simple to me:

fyi, plenty of people have got full refunds of entirely gifted credit as long as the credit was less than the amount spent on the account. The reason they are making poo poo up and pretending there is a process now is that the number of refunds has become noticeable and therefore attempting to keep some money tightly gripped in their claws makes more sense. He even admits that none of this crap is written down anywhere and they've using the "donation" line again which is frankly pretty hilarious.

Hey Patrick if you're reading, go get a decent job somewhere that doesn't suck and have you doing this dodgy poo poo over pennies.

Namefag Edgelord
Nov 10, 2015

by Cowcaster
lol AngryBritian.txt

Christ, how do I explain this? Look, I don't even think you're capable of actually sounding menacing. A Brit trying to be mean to a New Yorker is kind of like this:



This is you. This is how you sound to me:

1500
Nov 3, 2015

Give me all your crackers

Plankalkuel posted:

Nice post. As someone who has his background in Control Systems, their approach is indeed very counter productive. In theory, you probably could actually automate controller design for the ship thrusters in the design pipeline. I bet you, they haven't done that and are, in fact, adjusting their P, I and D values by hand (NEVER DO THIS!). The whole thing strikes me as something that's indeed easy to fake. In my experience, physics simulations and control systems can interact catastrophically (e.g. if the controller is "faster" than the simulation). In the same vain, change the controlled system (e.g. loose an assortment of thrusters) and your formerly stable controller may become unstable, leading to the ship spazzing out. I imagine both these issues to be very similar to general game physics issues, so debugging might get interesting. So why not fake it and get rid of potential headaches.

I also have a background in Control Systems, and that is why I wrote that. It is much easier to fake it then do what CIG are doing. There is also the problem that control systems are run on real time systems (windows is not a real time system), and as such are taken care of as fast as possible, if we take what is happening in AC, controls get worse as your frame rate drops, it might be because the control system is not getting updated and so you are actually losing control of the ship because you computer is not getting around to makes those calculations.

Loiosh
Jul 25, 2010

1500 posted:

I also have a background in Control Systems, and that is why I wrote that. It is much easier to fake it then do what CIG are doing. There is also the problem that control systems are run on real time systems (windows is not a real time system), and as such are taken care of as fast as possible, if we take what is happening in AC, controls get worse as your frame rate drops, it might be because the control system is not getting updated and so you are actually losing control of the ship because you computer is not getting around to makes those calculations.

Yup, this is one of the issues they've admitted to and are supposedly working on with the flight system update. To the best of the ability with the limitations of running in Windows, on non-realtime hardware with wonderful quality** drivers in the way.

Speaking of that, the sensor mapping for consumer joysticks is a thing of sadness: http://www.simhq.com/_technology3/technology_174g.html

I'm sure that's helping in addition to all the performance issues and latency each stage brings into a game engine on Windows.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




Loiosh posted:

Speaking of that, has anyone had their display screen cracked in E:D? My roommate had that happen recently. He got shot through the screen. Not only was his atmosphere evacuated (and had only 10 minutes to land or he would asphyxiate), but that also cracked the display so a bunch of his HUD elements were fritzed. Looks like:

Yup that happens if you get your cockpit shot off, it can shatter in a few ways and makes flying slightly tricky as you can't see the HUD. Closest I've been was boosting into a station with 7 seconds left on the clock.

celewign
Jul 11, 2015

just get us in the playoffs

LCL-Dead posted:

As a side note, this was the last email I received from CIG:

I have no idea why you think you should get a refund when you GIFTED people $800 of useless poo poo. You can't get money back on things you give away to other people, that money is no longers yours to get a refund on. Basic common sense for christssake. You're an idiot and you shouldn't get your money back. I can't believe I'm saying this but I side with CIG on this one. You're an idiot Maryland ex marine everything about you screams idiot.

I'm stationed in Maryland and everyone here is a total idiot you fit right in.

Berious
Nov 13, 2005

LCL-Dead posted:

Newest reply. Somehow being gifted something, melting it, rebuying the LTI version and gifting it back counts against my account even though the actual transaction is listed as $0.00USD in the billing page, therefore not contributing to overall amount spent.


Reply:

So first they find nothing, then you come back and magically they find some token gently caress off and stop bothering us money. Do they pay someone to comb over webs of gifts and melts and LTIs manually then negotiate back and forth until the backer caves? Can't save much more than just playing it straight and refunding what you spent in the first place.

Shady as gently caress, I'd stop talking to them and face the shame of explaining jpeg ships to your bank.

Solvency
Apr 28, 2008

Trade, sir! Discover it! This is you, this is a clue. Get a clue, discover trade!

Aramoro posted:

Yup that happens if you get your cockpit shot off, it can shatter in a few ways and makes flying slightly tricky as you can't see the HUD. Closest I've been was boosting into a station with 7 seconds left on the clock.

Also, the sounds become very muted, like listening to everything with your head underwater. Elite: Dangerous's sound design always amazes me.

G0RF
Mar 19, 2015

Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet.

Loiosh posted:

That is in the cards. Some items, like FOF tags and gimbaled guns (aims) are projected into the helmet just as they are with the F-35.

Speaking of that, has anyone had their display screen cracked in E:D?

Yeah, it's bloody brilliant. Here's what it looks like when it happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I_SS7jYQ30

The race to get your ship to a station - especially if you're hauling lots of loot or don't have cash reserves to cover the insurance rebuy on your ship - is one of the game's greatest bits of high stakes drama.

It's so elegantly done, too-- losing the navigational overlays makes the whole thing all the more rich. I'm sure Star Citizen will copy it-- overcomplicate it in an attempt to 'one up' Braben-- and completely rob it of fun, as is their wont recently.

LCL-Dead
Apr 22, 2014

Grimey Drawer

celewign posted:

I have no idea why you think you should get a refund when you GIFTED people $800 of useless poo poo. You can't get money back on things you give away to other people, that money is no longers yours to get a refund on. Basic common sense for christssake. You're an idiot and you shouldn't get your money back. I can't believe I'm saying this but I side with CIG on this one. You're an idiot Maryland ex marine everything about you screams idiot.

I'm stationed in Maryland and everyone here is a total idiot you fit right in.

Your reading comprehension appears to be poo poo, friend.

dyzzy
Dec 22, 2009

argh

It wasn't even funny or cultish, what an odd thing to copy-paste.

dyzzy
Dec 22, 2009

argh

LCL-Dead posted:

Your reading comprehension appears to be poo poo, friend.

Your case is like a wet dream for CIG support: a tangled weave of grey market shenanigans (that they supported and enabled) that they can hand-wave at and say "no refunds!"

Your best bet is probably Paypal/Bank chargebacks.

Namefag Edgelord
Nov 10, 2015

by Cowcaster
Jesus Christ LastCaress that is disgusting and pathetic. :barf: Who the gently caress plagiarizes poo poo on a forum? You're not getting graded dude, wtf is wrong with you? Kill your family and then yourself.

Namefag Edgelord
Nov 10, 2015

by Cowcaster
Seriously why would you do that? Did you think we wouldn't find out? Or maybe you didn't think at all?

Legit Businessman
Sep 2, 2007


Namefag Edgelord posted:

Seriously why would you do that? Did you think we wouldn't find out? Or maybe you didn't think at all?

Irony, thy name is childfucker.

celewign
Jul 11, 2015

just get us in the playoffs

LCL-Dead posted:

Your reading comprehension appears to be poo poo, friend.

I'm sorry LCL I shouldn't take it out on you. I get very unhappy when I see people spending hundreds of dollars on this game. It's a very kneejerk response.

I still hate MD though, gently caress this state.

LCL-Dead
Apr 22, 2014

Grimey Drawer

dyzzy posted:

Your case is like a wet dream for CIG support: a tangled weave of grey market shenanigans (that they supported and enabled) that they can hand-wave at and say "no refunds!"

Your best bet is probably Paypal/Bank chargebacks.

Probably bank if I were that horribly worried about getting all of the money back.

celewign posted:

I'm sorry LCL I shouldn't take it out on you. I get very unhappy when I see people spending hundreds of dollars on this game. It's a very kneejerk response.

I still hate MD though, gently caress this state.

I agree, gently caress MD. That's why I don't live there and haven't for the last 10 years. I also didn't gift $800 worth of poo poo to people. Patrick is making mistakes that added up to $800 worth of gifting/reclaiming gifts. The real figures are more like $350 worth of my money (Which I'm still ashamed of at this point) and $400 worth of friends money and gray market stuff. I only legit gifted 3 ships. Two to a buddy (Aurora/300i) and his wife and one to another close friend (Hornet).

G0RF
Mar 19, 2015

Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet.

1500 posted:

I also have a background in Control Systems, and that is why I wrote that. It is much easier to fake it then do what CIG are doing. There is also the problem that control systems are run on real time systems (windows is not a real time system), and as such are taken care of as fast as possible, if we take what is happening in AC, controls get worse as your frame rate drops, it might be because the control system is not getting updated and so you are actually losing control of the ship because you computer is not getting around to makes those calculations.

I love reading your posts on the Frontier SC3 thread, 1500. Glad to see you popping in here.

Mirificus
Oct 29, 2004

Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

Namefag Edgelord
Nov 10, 2015

by Cowcaster
Holy poo poo I actually met this dude at Pax East two years ago, he bought me a Jack Daniels on the rocks! Sad to see he's since lost his mind.

This was the "this is bullshit!" event where the whiteshirt dude was "heckling" Chris for having a lovely, unprepared, 90 minute late failure of a presentation.

Whiteshirt dude was right all along, the rest of us were fools. :smith:

Namefag Edgelord fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Nov 10, 2015

Loiosh
Jul 25, 2010

Explain how!

:10bux: can be exchanged for goods and services.

Beexoffel
Oct 4, 2015

Herald of the Stimpire

G0RF posted:

I'd pitch in- though I think maybe it'd be better to have a joke to that effect in Latin. So it's not too on the nose.
"Perdite omnia!" if I've done my research properly.

Google Butt
Oct 4, 2005

Xenology is an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. At its core is a flawed assumption...

that an alien race would be psychologically human.

Seraph spends most of his time thinking about the sa forums, online and offline.


Lol

Google Butt
Oct 4, 2005

Xenology is an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. At its core is a flawed assumption...

that an alien race would be psychologically human.

The greatest self own of all

Namefag Edgelord
Nov 10, 2015

by Cowcaster

Google Butt posted:

Seraph spends most of his time thinking about the sa forums, online and offline.
[citation needed]

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Google Butt
Oct 4, 2005

Xenology is an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. At its core is a flawed assumption...

that an alien race would be psychologically human.

Your posting

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