Author: Sleepypete

I’ve been kinda looking around for another game to grab my attention.

I’ll keep an eye open for what the various online people are playing, they can be really good at showcasing the new games as they come out. And some not so old games too. Plus as you watch them play, you get an idea for whether you’d enjoy the game and whether it has flaws that would really wind you up.

I’m likely to get another strategy game at some point, as I did enjoy the space strategy epic which was Moo2. The current candidate is Stellaris but … it’s a bit too new, I have no intention of paying full price (£35) and it looks like it has a few critical bugs, including AI bugs, which make it a “chuck it back in the oven and wait a bit” game.

What’s the latest attempt ? I’ll just leave this picture here :

There’s a certain type of game. Games that looks pretty stunning in their own right. Games with … excellent character models. Games with certain other … assets.

After World of Warcraft made MMOs really popular, other Massive Multiplayer Online games have been coming in. There’s a lot more competition for them these days. The latest trend is to take advantage of the Asian market. Koreans are nuts for their games. The Japanese too. And they have a different character to more Western games.

Some of it is the level of grinding;
A lot of it is the look;
Some is the story;
And then there are the character outfits …

I had a peek at Guild Wars 2 when it came out but it didn’t really grab me. It did have the archetype of Very Tall, Very Thin, Very Big Eyes, Huge Cutes. The anime and manga market is promoting a certain look.

Blade and Soul caught my eye too for a short time but I didn’t actually load that one up. It didn’t seem to have much new over older games plus I didn’t like the look of the rhythm based combat system.

Gotta get on with the gameplay if you’re going to enjoy a game.

The latest is one called Tera … Which is very definitely inspired by the Korean look. My gunner character, Icegelanna (Iceangel was taken!) looked pretty smart (although there was barely any character customisation available) and had a walk that looked like she was bringing trouble. Lots of trouble.

Oh and the outfits are like the picture above.

I did try to get an outfit that covered up everything ! Honest ! Go ask google for “Tera gunner outfit” and see what abominations are available … for a heavy armour class … and how little they cover.

It is sexist, very much so. But that shouldn’t really be important for a game, although I’ll come back to that in a bit. Pretty graphics enhance a game but they shouldn’t be its core reason for playing.

Gameplay ?

I looked at Tera in the hope that it might satisfy a few things : combat system, exploring a new world (big thing for me) and good character progression. The character progression and exploration are usually a given for MMOs. They have a lot of areas to venture through on your way to maximum level. Story is a great aspect of Warcraft now, although the character progression in skills and gear is very broken now (in my opinion) compared to how they used to be.

Tera’s combat system is supposed to be far more hit and move than other games of its type. But … could I get on with that hit and move ? You should really be able to do stuff like double tap left to dodge roll to the left. That should be an essential part of this game (I remember it being in Guild Wars 2).

Nah. Couldn’t get on with the combat system, other gameplay and the systems for leading you into learning the game are nigh on incomprehensible. Disappointing. It’s already been uninstalled.

Back to the sexism …

Pretty graphics do not make a game. Putting ladies in there in a state of undress gives you something to look at … but does not enhance the game in any way. Having that as a major selling point (like it seems to be in Blade & Shopping), is a massive put off point for me.

Not just games either. You know the cds in the shops with the lady on the front in a provocative pose ? I avoid those too. Cds are about listening to the music, they’re not about looking at the singer.

Sex does sell … if that’s what you’re buying. I’m not, I’m buying something audible or I’m buying a game.

In this case, I’m avoiding Tera and have already uninstalled it. The combat system and the systems that are supposed to lead you into the game … are poor and I don’t get on with them. If you don’t think you’ll enjoy a game, don’t play that game. Find another one.

Not sure what that next game will be, although GoG have a tempting sale on at the moment. I do have a library full of unused games though. I kinda miss the early days of WoW with the challenge and exploration of something new. It has gone a bit gear checkish though. Item level is king. And you need to crunch through all the levels (if not the content) to get the gear.

Poor fella.

Also watched XMen Apocalypse today. I enjoyed it, it was a good continuation of the XMen series with the most spectacular bad guy. It stretched belief but … it’s an Xmen mutants movie, it’s supposed to. I have no clue where they will take the franchise from here though.

Hmm – someone better drag me away from GoG …

That’s either a lot of pages or not very many …

And of course, everything makes more sense with context.

In a story driven book, it can be a pleasant collection of short stories. I’ve really enjoyed a few of those collections, especially :

Anne McCaffrey’s Get Off The Unicorn;
Heinlein
Larry Niven with the Known Space short stories
And many more too.

It can be the length of a novel with a good story which rattles through its tale and leaves you very satisfied by the end (Man Plus was an excellent 215 pages), or the length of a short story that has been thrashed out far beyond what it should have been (like the various Mass Effect books).

It could be part of a series of books which just keep getting better as the series goes on with the cliffhanger at the end of one book leaving you eager for the next and cursing the wait until you get your mitts on it.

(And then there are the books that start around this mark but then fester, grow and mutate into pretty crummy books. Yep, I’m looking at you Mr Weber with the Honorverse that went on too long).

254 pages is about what you get in computer magazines now, it’s a far cry from the 1000 or so you might have got with your PCW mag or Computer (spit) Shopper where you got a massive doorstop which was excellent for a variety of reasons : many adverts that were worth reading and collapsed the price down. The last time I bought a Computer Shopper (yep, I know, never again), it was 4 times the price and a quarter of the size. And one reason I got it was to find out about computer bits sellers. The ads in these mags are actually useful …

But the reduction in ads in recent times for those mags is probably a sad reflection of the industry, where instead of huge numbers of suppliers, the bad ones have died leaving fewer suppliers to fight for your business. Margins are tough and so is the business. Means we get stuff cheaper though :-).

The 254 pages refers to none of those though – but I am going to tease it out some more … cos I’m like that :-).

Yep. Evil.

And I will be wearing that other t-shirt at some point.

After having a bit of a collapse last week, I’m actually much better this week. I’m not back to as good as I have been lately, not yet. But a lot of the angry red has been reclaimed by Healthy Pasty White. Not fixed yet and I could very easily set it back again by being careless. But it is a good sign that my outsides have been reclaiming the bad again. Gives more hope.

Good signs. Must see if I can keep that improvement going with things like drinking lots of water to balance the hot muggy conditions we have here at the moment.

And no, 254 pages is probably not how long my doctor’s notes are. I have mixed feelings about missing seeing them last week. On one side, I made a promise which I didn’t manage to keep. On the other, I was so heavily affected by the allergy problems that an allergy test would have been a waste of time … again.

Wonder if 254 is anywhere near to the number of orders I’ve put in with That Delivery Place Which Does Not Pay Taxes. I think you know who I mean there. They’re big and the EU branch is based in the tax haven that is Luxembourg. I put in an order for Something Large and the delivery option I chose said to expect it Friday or Saturday when I’d have a chance to be in to accept it.

Imagine my surprise when an email pops up saying that it was arriving today … when I was committed all day at work. Cue an email to the customer service people, who allegedly acted and moved delivery back to Friday. Nah. It still came today as a happy surprise with a knock on the door around 8pm ish.

254 pages ?

That’s how many pages are in the book for the Lego Le Mans car.

It is in its box, silently taunting me. I can hear Vroom Vroom noises in my mind. Yep. And it’s not the neighbour with the deliberately broken exhaust either.

It’s going to be so tough to resist the temptation to put it together ahead of the Le Mans 24 hour race, which is 10 days away.

There ! Such a tease tonight. And I am so completely unrepentant.

And I’ll leave it there before another group of people joins that list of those who are going to hunt me down and murder me in my sleep for deeds done. My current boss will probably do that if we go through with the idea to get him a Metal Earth kit (DEFINITELY!) or a Nanoblock Titanic (cos – reasons) for his leaving gift.

I’ve actually done it !

I’ve given up on one of the model thingies … But not this one :

That’s actually Amazon’s pic because I’m not quite recovered enough to want to pose the model for the camera. Yep. Lazy. But I have improved since Thursday. More later.

The Nanoblock models are usually pretty easy to put together. Just like Lego, they’re based on rectangular blocks with bumps that fit into the block above plus a few other blocks that allow angles to go in. It can be awkward for the two following reasons but they’re not too bad apart from the challenge of fingers on small items.

Difficulty one – colour matching. The colour on the paper isn’t always the same as the colour on the block. This was especially true of the Pirate Ship.

Difficulty two – aligning one layer with the layer above. Actually not too bad when you get used to how the instructions are laid out and the occasional confusing bit of perspective.

So on the whole, the nanoblock kits are really satisfying to put together. And you can find the bits with a torch when you drop them on the floor. Because you know that’s going to happen.

Metal Earth models are a whole different ballgame. Reminder of what one is ? Here we are :

Looks ok doesn’t it ? Actually looks pretty shiny. And all that comes from a couple of laser cut sheets of metal that in theory, snap together into the Shiny Thing. The complication comes from the multiple different angles involved in the model. Instead of it all being right angles like Lego and Nanoblock, the angles are all over the place and the order is also non-intuitive for snapping fixing lugs into holes.

Very tiny, very difficult, even with the freebie long thin nose pliers acquired for the purpose (for free happily as I wouldn’t recommend them – the spring is the type that breaks frequently).

I’ve actually given up on my Metal Earth XWing, as it wasn’t going together particularly well. Lots of frustration and I think the metal was close to fatigue cracking … That’s another thing about metal models that involve bending, they’ll fatigue and crack eventually especially if you take multiple goes (like on these) to get them together.

I still have an AT-AT walker and the Normandy from Mass Effect to put together … soon. Not today though.

One thing that you may have guessed is … I wrote on Friday that I was having a particularly bad period where I just wasn’t interested in doing anything. Thursday was particularly fuzzy minded. But … As is normal for me, since acknowledging that I’ve managed to turn around the downward cycle and have actually improved a bit.

I’m not fixed totally (more in a bit) but a few tortured bits have almost recovered back to normality again. Is it warmer today ? I’ve been warm enough to take the jumper off instead of freezing under the fleece. My legs have improved nicely. They’re not fixed but almost there.

Arms are still ripped to shreds but they’re better than they were too. I need to invest in some tubigrip stuff to put on at night to protect them from my own worst enemy in this, me. Mittens have been suggested but I don’t think they’d work. I don’t think I’d keep them on.

My energy levels have improved a bit and should be up to going back to work tomorrow. I suspect that brisk walk to the bus and into work will wake them up. Knees are still battered but that’s another of those historical injuries.

But those pain levels receded to the point where I built the R2D2 yesterday and attempted to put the XWing together today.

Close out summary ?

Still wrecked. That hasn’t changed much. But a bad downward cycle has reversed and I’ve been improving again.
Metal Earth models are nasty.
Lego and Nanoblock are awesome. And the Lego Le Mans car is on its way to give me something to put together while the 24 hour race is on.
Been light on gaming over the past few days – haven’t wanted to attack that last Planetbase planet and Elite is definitely an In The Mood game.

One thing I’d like you to try and take away from this is – if you think you are on a downward spiral, stop. Think. What is happening ? How can you address it ?

For me, some of that is looking at what I do and asking myself – “Do healthy people do this ?” And in the case of me attacking my outsides, healthy people definitely don’t do that.

There’s a bit more to it than that. I’ve been drinking much more water over the past few days and I’ve been treating my outsides with some more Fucibet healing gunky cream. It’s good stuff that is and is the one healing gunky cream that’s worked over a long period for me.

Work should be fun tomorrow. Wonder how many emails I have waiting for me ?

And when is my foot going to find the XWing pilot that I dropped earlier and can’t find …

Crikey.

Holiday time is supposed to be when you rest, recover and recuperate. But this one seems to be having the opposite effect ! I can’t really remember too much of what I was doing yesterday. Perhaps it’s an ill ? Maybe. I think it’s actually the effects of me attacking myself a bit too much lately.

I don’t get that. I don’t think I’ve had anything of what was causing me to have bad reactions. Perhaps it’s actually something related to work. As in, the teacake and lunch may have been giving me the Stuff I needed to keep going.

The attacking of self is a major factor though. I really do have to figure out how I can stop that because I won’t get properly better until I can leave my outsides alone enough to allow them to fix. It’s actually my insides as well, although that can be chalked up to dehydration. I think I’m drinking enough (lots of water) but what I do drink is probably getting soaked up by repairs to my outsides, leaving not enough to keep the muscles happy.

I’m cold as well ! Unfeasably cold ! I suspect my metabolism has slowed due to not doing very much. Sometimes it does feel as if I should be wrapped up and trapped in a blanket like Kitty up top, until I heal.

I am healing though, the various damage I have will typically heal in 3 days or so, if allowed. I just keep redamaging it. It’s really frustrating to know that you might be that close to healing for good, except for your own efforts.

Enough about me though. What have I been up to this week ?

I did tell someone I was going to see the doctors again. That didn’t happen. Grr. Yesterday was a cloudy blur (plus I was waiting on a delivery that didn’t arrive until 4.30 ish – pictures of what that was when I put them together). Tuesday was also waiting for a delivery (more later!). Wednesday was lazy and today, I was too late. Appointments go very quickly at my local docs and you can only get them on the day. Monday was a chill out day part recovering from the long Comic Con day (so worth it) and part getting my old TV cleared off ready for :

Tivo arrived on Tuesday.

I have never met a piece of electronics that is so keen to do its job. It’s a cable TV box with a bunch of tuners so it can record multiple things and some intelligence built in to let it suggest recordings. The suggestions are a curious feature but may well get disabled due to annoyance.

One feature I like is that I can control it from my iPad via home networking (I have had to recommission my Powerline bits n bobs to make this happen). You know how clunky a TV remote interface can be ? Perhaps still clunky but a touchscreen can make it a bit smoother to do stuff. It’s definitely easier to delete all of the suggestions.

I watch my stuff in order. I won’t dip in randomly midway through a series, I’ll watch the story unfold over the course of a programme’s entire run. I’ll series link stuff that I want to watch.

What I don’t expect is for the suggestion to override what I’m watching. I don’t think the Tivo box likes the cricket as it has tried to change the channel away from it a few times. It needs more training and possibly that Suggestions feature being disabled.

Wednesday also saw me heading into Planetbase again to get the rush colony achievement. I have plans now for how to win at that game, the certain order of what to build in order to get things going quickly and keep them going quickly.

That’s curious, the Steam overlay thingy for the achievement isn’t on the screenie. The conditions needed were 100 colonists inside 30 days and …

250 colonists in 60 days for the other rush colony achievement. Sorted ! I only have the achievements from the Storm planet (lightning, limited solar, limited wind, limited build area) to come and then all done until they add some new challenge features.

I also found time to fly the Internet Spaceships again in Elite. It’s just had a patch which has changed a few things. One of those is the charity donation mission things to buy navy rank to let you have bigger and better faction only ships. They’ve changed all that, instead of it being 10k ish cr to buy about 1% guaranteed, it’s more like 250k to 1m credits. I’m being more economical there and only contributing when it’s value for money. (Context – typical profit per tonne is 500cr but I have been seeing 3000-4000cr per tonne occasionally).

They’ve also expanded the equipment and customisation considerably … Which has caused much angst. Beta testing is supposed to catch problems before they occur but I’ve been seeing videos of one shot kills on pretty potent, tough ships. There is also talk of the Plasma Cannon (big ball of slow moving, slowly reloading fire) working like a heavily overpowered machine gun.

Things have gone imbalanced, to the point where I’m just running from fights at the moment instead of sticking around. It doesn’t help there that my second Cutter (yep!) doesn’t have its full armament yet or full defenses yet. Need more in game cash. It doesn’t help that the ships that have been after me have been the big Anacondas.

Big Elite Ships :

Federal Corvette – best ship for combat. Not so good for anything else.
Imperial Cutter – best ship for trading, should have some combat potential. Fast enough to easily outrun pirates.
Anaconda – best allrounder, pretty good for combat, trading and exploration.
Type 9 Space Turd Freighter – best ship for trading that you can acquire without doing the grind to get the Cutter.

I said “second” didn’t I … IMV Min Max died to a smaller ship as I tried to go toe to toe with a pirate. Usually I can run away before the critical point but … oh well. Not this time. Oops ! Enter Cookie Morning :

Yep. I went for the black pain job as mourning for the first Cutter. I did have a happy surprise though today when the 12m cost for the insurance was reimbursed due to the craziness of the non player character ships.

Only 376m away from properly fitting it out. Could take a while. But I have been enjoying the game and it is a fairly relaxed playstyle which suits my current level of energy.

Shinies ?

There’s a preview. These are supposed to be really tough to build so I didn’t really want to start while I’m having lots of pain. Perhaps the Nanoblock R2D2 first :-).

I think it’s taken me a day or so to recover from the Comic Cons !

Many lovely sights were there, including the lady with the book above. Possibly the best costume we saw on the day.

I was over there with Cupid’s Gift and I hope she had a really good day. She was definitely hunting down the cosplayers for pictures, although she was being incredibly shy with asking for the pics. (Haha, the shyness didn’t last – pics are on my Facebook but I don’t put pics of me or friends here).

In we go, past the gauntlet of Imperial Stormtroopers. They let us past, saying something about droids. Some people like the ones above … not so lucky. But everyone knows stormtroopers can’t hit anything so I’m sure they got away unscathed.

We spied a couple of warriors locked in mental combat, waiting for their opportunity to strike the deadly blow.

While others carried on the memory of those who came before us. Remember your veterans ! They sacrificed to make this a better world. The Sergeant there was doing his people proud.

(As always, click for bigger, these were taken from my proper camera with far more pixels than this screen can show !)

There were lots of people there, possibly too many for me !

They’re still sizing each other up.

Could the lady with the book have them under some kind of spell ?

Definitely plenty of people to bedazzle, even at the early time that this pic was taken.

Including those taking a little time off from defending the galaxy from the overwhelming threat of the Reapers.

Perhaps they were looking for Shinies to take back to the Citadel ?

They did have help on hand, in the form of this majestic Imperial warrior standing perhaps 8 foot tall there in her armour. Serve the Emperor with all your heart and soul and it will give him the strength to stave off the forces of the ever insidious chaos threat.

Could they be protecting us from the Cat People ? Meow.

Definitely looking forward to the movie this lady will be in later this year (Suicide Squad).

And I wonder if this Bonnie Lady had her outfit inspired by the lovely Kaylee from Firefly ? One of the more beautiful outfits on display on Sunday. She was incredibly shy with it though.

There’s one outfit I’m looking forward to wearing soon.

I wonder … This fella has a movie coming soon too. I have high hopes for that one.

It did become time to leave though and we had a lovely meal at Westfield Wagamamas after (really heavy traffic to get there though !)

And I think they’re still locked in that mental combat, waiting for the other to strike …

Really enjoyed the day out over at Comic Con :-).

More soon ! Been playing with a new Tivo and … my Internet Spaceship was destroyed. RIP IMV Min Maxer. I need suggestions for the name for the successor ship.

This time tomorrow,

I’ll be half asleep enjoying the start of a holiday week off !!! Hurrah. I feel quite beat up at the moment :

General tiredness – After the health issues of the last few years, I still haven’t gotten all of my energy back. It’s there in traces and occasional bouts of hyperactivity but on the whole, I find it tough to summon up the energy to do Stuff. I still battle through and do it but it does take the equivalent of the Big Electric Cattleprod to get me started.

Outsides that don’t like me : this is really frustrating still. I’ve had this condition for … 5 years now ? And even reading back in posts around 3 years old, I feel I’ve been on the cusp of recovery for all that time. But I never get wholly better. More in a bit.

Work stress – work’s ok. But it’s not the technical messing about with fancy bits of kit work that I’d like to be doing. There are other things causing stress which I can never write about here. The people, on the whole, are pretty good still and that’s what’s really important to me. I mirror the people around me, good people make me happy, bad people make me pick up on what makes them bad.

Insides that … need some time to get better. Some bits are good, some bits are bad. I’ve had a few issues over the last little while (I am allergic to hayfever tablets if you can believe that) and they typically need management. That said, the symptom of the hayfever tablet sensitivity has gone (thankfully because it was go-to-doctor scary!). My muscles and bones will appreciate the downtime they’ll have next week.

Outsides ?

I have been steadily improving over the last little while. I have recovered to the point where I think a few clear days or a clear week may see me finally fixed.

But … I’m not getting that clear time.

It is pretty awesome to be back to the point where I can aggressively use the towel after having a shower, instead of being delicate to protect battered skin. Yep. You read that right, my skin has been that tortured. That’s one of the cruel things about a skin condition like mine, like Psoriasis (which isn’t what I have). Keeping it clean definitely helps … because it gets rid of the bad stuff. But it can also make it worse as tortured skin can’t handle the act of being cleaned … or dried.

Apologies for being slightly graphic there – I don’t like to expose what I’ve been living with. It’s my struggle and I really shouldn’t need help with it. To beat it, I need to have more self discipline to not aggravate the damage. The cause is with me and the fix is with me too. To bring other people in would … not help much ? People know I’ve been struggling and that’s enough, I don’t need the special treatment, I do struggle with the energy but I can keep up with the workload.

Other people have it far worse than me. I can see the end of this fight, other people are locked into it.

And I have had a little help with it – someone lovely bought me that Aveeno moisturizer a while ago. I haven’t been using it as much as I should really be but … It has helped. Have slapped on a bit more tonight to see if it helps (it will).

My condition has slipped backwards again somewhat over the last week. It’s a causality loop :

Itches begin.
I attack the itch.
Skin goes on fire from the consequence of me attacking the itch.

In engineering, we call it a positive feedback loop, where the reaction to a control input constantly increases and the system has more and more extreme responses to a stimuli and eventually breaks. I’m not broken any more but I do need to get that feedback back to negative feedback, where the stimuli (the itchies) are gradually damped down to zero. And then I’ll be fixed.

It is good to be getting back to normality. I’ve been away from that for a long time but I am steadily seeing bits of me that were torn up, return to smoothness.

To better things !

But first – if you are struggling with something, remember a few important things :

YOU ARE NOT ALONE !
We all struggle and it gets the better of us sometimes. And that’s ok ! The bad thing to do is not recognise when things are getting the better of you and bottle it in. The way out of it is to clobber a friend, drag them off somewhere secluded, handcuff them to a chair and talk it out with them. If they’re a good friend they’ll listen (and maybe not call the cops after you let them go).

Friends will help. Or you wouldn’t trust them as friends. I have a small number of awesome friends who know how to make me smile. I like to give a little back to the world by seeing if I can make other people smile.

Some friends will help just for hugs. Hugs are awesome.

Find something to look forward to (see below).

It’s a fact of life that we can’t deal with everything that life throws at us and it’s ok to recognise that. We are not invincible or invulnerable. It’s ok to have a little scream, cry or tantrum when life gives you onions. Or was it lemons. Or oranges. Oranges make me struggle to breathe.

The important thing is – keep fighting, keep struggling. Fight one battle at a time. Stay in the game. Positive Mental Attitude can be really tough to maintain, especially if your mind is battling against you (depressives will know what I mean there). But positive attitude is the best way out of a bad situation.

And it’s ok to borrow a bit of positivity from friends.

That’s me too !

I’m exhausted with one more day of work to go before a sleepy week off but I am really looking forward to Sunday. Because that’ll be Comic Con with someone awesome.

It’ll be a long day but her enthusiasm is infectious. You know I mentioned Mirroring people ? I’ll catch that infectious enthusiasm and it’ll make me really enjoy the day. She’s a smart one that one and lots of other adjectives too. She brings out the better sides of me.

I’m looking forward to having a good wander around there too. I suspect a good few things will escape with me and the little lovely one.

Oh I also look forward to the messages that come in from various people too and there are few of those that let me be unguarded me.

LTK from work who is an absolute pro who I can discuss all sorts of things with the LTK.
CK who reminds me that not all people are dumb, he reminds me that Thinking Is Good. And I can talk games with him and Bionic Dwarf (and Luth too but he’s been a bit preoccupied) and all sorts of other historical, philosophy and other subjects that would just bounce off your typical Chav. Oh wait, those thoughts would see a Chav a mile off and run away screaming (I dislike chavs).
Snow Queen who I still chat to occasionally (not enough!). Couldn’t help today but it was good to borrow her knowledge today with something work related.
The Front Door people who I can have fun with, which lightens the strain of getting output from certain people (harder than getting blood out of the stone).

Yep.

Looking forward to Comic Con. It’ll be awesome.
Looking forward to sleep. It has been fleeting lately due to the allergies making me attack myself again.
Dunno about the Tivo box that arrives on Tuesday, I still need to clear 14 hours of recorded stuff before turning off my old TV box for the last time.
Ambivalent about missing the sport for Comic Con. Comic Con massively beats the sport :-).
Looking forward to establishing a Planetbase Pixel People base on the Storm planet. Love that game.
Looking forward to watching SpaceX’s rokkit launch livestream tonight. Starts in 5 minutes from this line.
Looking forward to watching Le Mans and building the Lego Le Mans car, although there’s a little negotiation to do because it clashes with Father’s Day.
Looking forward to adding new music to the library, the last music I added was Enya’s latest (meh) in April.

And looking forward to seeing some Likes and Hits and dare I suggest, a little feedback ? from this post 🙂

I struggle to find the worth in what I post. I know people keep coming back to read new posts but I don’t really know what they are thinking as they read. What would they like to see here ? I know I jump around a fair bit in topics.

Let me know !

I suspect my next post will be a Colour Of Comic Con post, although I am overdue another Alphabet of the Human Heart post.

See ?

Yep. Sunshine just trying to break through the clouds over yonder.

Thursday was the now traditional day out at Lords to watch the Interservices Twenty20 cricket matches. It’s a tournament held at the home of cricket, Lords, that sees three games played over the day between RAF, Royal Navy and the Army. First up was a decent tight close game between RAF and Army and then the tournament format is that the losers stay on and the winners get a break.

Not quite sure what I’d think of having a break in games like that. Sure, it gives a chance to rest, recharge, get the munchies on board but you’d also stiffen up somewhat over the downtime.

Someone mention cricket ?

As always with these pics, click for bigger. All of these were taken with my proper camera which I get more and more impressed with the more I use it.

You can zoom in really close to the action and still get the sharpness in the pictures. This one sees the RAF keeper being pretty sharp, having taken one stumping already in the game.

This one saw a potential 3rd Umpire decision as the Army’s player of the tournament had a disputed catch which I thought was a bump ball (bounced immediately after being hit). It was well held out near the boundary and the decision of OUT was eventually given. Army guy was not happy.

But dubious catching (seen it before in these games where the RAF get the benefit of dodgy catches) was to no avail and the Army win the first game in the last over. Closest game of the day.

On to game 2 with Lords welcoming the RAF into bat and the Navy on to the field. After a reasonably tight start, RAF commenced ultimate THWACKage with a score of over 200 being rattled up. The friendly pigeons in the crowd were looking for helmets.

There goes another one into the crowd.

Oh I should say – the camera techniques here involve nothing more than an instant camera (Ixus 265) being braced on my knee with the pictures posted on the day going via my phone. The Canon can broadcast its own wifi signal which the phone can connect to and either control the camera or pull off the images for onward posting. Nifty. And the camera didn’t even budge off full battery despite the 80 pictures, while the iPhone battery died at around 3pm.

Navy couldn’t live with the Thwackage and succumbed to a hefty defeat. Bring on the Army for the concluding game.

With the RAF boys going back to the 5* hotel for tea and medals.

Decent crowd in to, bringing the atmosphere. Lords was almost at its best as usual. Not all of the ground is open for these games, plus the Warner stand is being rebuilt and modernised at the moment. One of the four floodlights is currently down, plus the building site is out of bounds for us public people. I like Lords because you can walk all the way around the compound around the stands. It’s an excellent cricket ground with great facilities. Wonder what the new Warner stand will be like when it’s opened.

Navy had a bright start to this game but lost a few too many wickets in clusters and couldn’t recover enough. A reasonable total of 129 was posted and then …

Bash. That target was bashed into submission with a quarter of the Army’s innings remaining. Player of the tournament finished with an admirable 88 not out in this game.

And then it was me heading off to Part 2 of the day. Long day this one. Let’s see :
0700 – get on the road to Lords, target arrival time at the Underground station 0930. I happened to start late (misread the clock!) but still got there roughly at 0930. (It’s when off-peak fares start).
1900 – depart Lords, head on the Underground to Westfield. I had a mission …
2200ish – depart Westfield to the Underground station.
0100 – I think this is when I got home after a 2 hour drive shouting along to the music on the phone (it can charge up in the car) to help me stay awake.

The Westfield side trip was to solve one major problem I’ve had on the London trips – having adequate munchies to keep me awake and active. I’ve usually had to resort to service station munchies which are … pure fuel and not particularly great fuel at that. Having a Wagamama’s munchie was very much appreciated.

And will almost certainly* be repeated on Sunday after MCM Comic Con :-). Really looking forward to that especially as :

*almost certainly ? I’ll have someone lovely along for Comic Con and she’s a Wagamama’s addict. Final decision on where we munch is up to her … but I’m pretty certain it’ll be Wagamama. There is a huge amount of choice though.

I should have really posted this on maybe Friday but I was pretty wiped out after the long day. I must get out more as, even though it was a long day, I shouldn’t be as wiped out as I was then. Perhaps it’s digging into the reserves so much, the reserves need time to recharge.

It was good seeing England win in the cricket again yesterday :-). Plus I’ve been on the Planetbase again … I have 3 planets complete now out of the 4 and I’ll pick a time over the holiday to do the fourth.

I was hoping I could get the Fast Colony achievements done but that wasn’t to be this time. Something to do with meteors hitting domes with people in a bunch of times and an out-of-food speedbump hitting at about 80 people. I think I’ll manage the fast colony achievements at some point though.

But not yet. Chill out time for me at the moment ahead of diving back into work next week. Oh and I need to clear my box of recorded stuff before a forced upgrade happens on that holiday week.

First though – Comic Con ! Looking forward to that, especially as it’ll be the first time I’ll have seen one lovely person since just before Xmas.

See you soon ! And enjoy what remains of your weekend. It didn’t rain on Thursday but I think it’s been making up for that. Bit damp out there at the moment …

There’s been a few game related posts lately hasn’t there ?

It started with someone lovely asking me a question along the lines of “So what games are you enjoying at the moment ?”

And I think that reminded me that I really do enjoy playing the games. I find them relaxing, enjoyable, interesting. Depends on the game of course. Something like the new Doom would stress me out with its high paced action. I have my eye on a new strategy game called Stellaris but I think that one would annoy me as soon as I ran into end game micromanagement and the various AI bugs it has.

(Will still most likely pick up Stellaris the first time it goes on sale).

Games should be for relaxing with or for fun. Or in the best of times, both fun and relaxation.

That’s how I’m finding Elite, some of the time. Also Planetbase. The thing about modern games is that you have to learn their characteristics. They have much more complication built in because that’s what modern machines can handle, it’s expected from the players. I’m enjoying Planetbase as a space colony builder, much more than I did with Banished. I found Banished quite frustrating when your colony would just go into death spiral for very little reason. Planetbase is much simpler and its AI rules can be understood, warts and all.

Let me tell you about some of what I’ve been doing in Elite over the weekend … But first !!! Pictures.

As always with these, click for bigger.

Aww look. The beast was sleeping in her hangar. There are a few ways to make the money in Elite and I’m needing a fair bit of cash to fit out the Beastie in the picture above. She’s called Imperial Merchant Vessel Min Maxer. I had been running a much smaller ship which felt like a race car after flying the big ones. The littler one was all about dashing around the galaxy quickly trading small volumes of cargo.

Making the cash ?
Combat is one way – I’ll do this later because I want to get to the maximum pilot ratings for combat, trading and exploration. But I’m not really in the spaceship game for lots of mindless shooting.
Exploration gets a reasonable amount of cash but it is slow. The fortnight trip to the centre of the galaxy and back netted I think around 20 million credits.
Trading rare goods is a decent option if you don’t have much capital or cargo space. You can get profits of around 16,000 credits per tonne and upwards. But you do need to travel long distance to get the profits.
Running long range smuggling missions – this can get you loads of cash but … if you get caught by the Rozzers, you lose all the reward.

And the last way, which I’m doing now, Space Trucker.

This is where the enjoyment comes in and the relaxation. As a wannabe astronaut in my early years, games like this, like Planetbase, like Take On Mars (be The Martian) when it’s ready (not bought it yet but I know what it could be) really speak to that kiddie in me that wanted to be on a different planet.

It was feeling too long since a picture. There we go ! I grabbed this one because I couldn’t believe how close the big companion planetoid was to the one that I was looking to land on. They were about the same size !!! Orbiting really closely too. Like, probably closer than our Earth and the Moon.

That’s one thing about this game that keeps me coming back. All the new things. The sights. The sparkly objects in the skies :

There she is, basking in the light of Facece’s sun, with the heat dissipators open over the stern section. Definitely a pretty ship in near silhouette;

And with this particular line of ships, they designed in some beautiful organic lines. This level of complexity of ship model wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago. The suns are active as well, most of them rotate, many have streamers of solar flares erupting from the surface. There are black hole gravity distortion effects;

I can’t remember which sun provided the redness there. There are some amazing graphical effects coming in there though. The Main Sequence of stellar objects is modelled, which brings in all the variation of stars, as well as the proto T Tauri stars and end stage stellar objects like white dwarf stars, neutron stars and black holes.

Astronomers definitely lucked out in being able to study some incredibly beautiful phenomena.

It does help that it’s a really beautiful game. Perhaps a little empty ? I’ll be curious about No Mans Sky when it comes out. That could have the gorgeous outer space graphics combined with lush landscapes on the planets. We’ll see there.

Oh ? Those trading things … I got frustrated with what I think might be a bit of a bug at the moment. The police are really good at scanning you right now, better than what I remember. So when the Rares Trading involved smuggling illegal items, they’d spot those even when I hid in the station. When I tried the Long Range Missions, I got spotted after the first drop off.

So I went back to the massive ship, which is trading 720tonnes (the Python carried 240 tonnes, the Asp 80 in long range smuggler mission spec) at a time. I have no guns though, so if anyone tries pirating me, I just run. The Cookie Cutter has the turning circle of an asteroid (could be worse, the big freighter has the turning circle of a small planet) but it’s pretty nippy. It’ll get nippier too when I upgrade it.

And there are so many upgrades to come. I’m 54 million credits away from a “Starter Spec”, i.e. way below what I’d call a proper minimum spec. Lots of running away to do until then. I’m 287 million away from the top trading spec. That’s maybe 287 trading runs …

And I’ll enjoy every one of them. Especially with the inflight snacks that Cookie SpaceWays promises :

Yep. I did the Cadbury Does Spaceships thing again :-).

Fly safe, drive safe, be safe. Enjoy yourself !

It’s here again !

Yep. My twitter feed is going nuts at the moment. Oh – I’ve that picture before but it sums it up so well. I’ve used this one before too :

That sums up some of the entries pretty well too.

Eurovision is a curious thing … and that’s before you get to the nationalistic judging. It’s a cultural thing we indulge in every year, a song contest where you have the occasional cracker mixed in with so-so songs, wannabe popstar songs who are just missing something, the toneless hacks, the weird, the attention seekers and the just plain bad.

But we still watch it (or I’ll have it on for the songs and then put my own music on while the judging is happening).

If I remember right, Sweden’s song won last year on the back of a very gimmicky stage show and a highly repetitive song. That’s one of the themes, a mediocre song is buried underneath a boppy dance track or the gimmicky stage show.

You also have the curiosity of performances so bad they must be planned that way. (I don’t think Sweden wanted to win it again this year).

Who do I like so far ? It’s on song 12 by Poland so far and from what I’ve seen, Belgium and Bulgaria are fairly ok. (I’m not going nuts over them by any means).

Apart from Eurovision – I’m having a chilled out weekend after burning myself out somewhat in the week. I really need to curfew myself from the games because the Pixel People Planetbase game has a combination of Just One More Day ridiculous addictiveness combined with being supremely easy to play. You just tell your Pixel People what buildings to build and what to put in them and that’s pretty much it. There’s a little more interaction and the orders take some planning but … that’s it.

Actually makes for compelling gameplay as you see if your Pixel People can get through the latest disaster. So far on this planet, the Ice planet where you are dependent on wind power only, they’ve escaped* death from running out of air due to lack of power and they nearly ran into a food crisis …

*(escaped – translation : after half the colony died at once due to running out of air, I reloaded an earlier save and then learned how to manage the power better).

Yeah – I’m putting the time in on this one and really enjoying building up the bases. On the Warm Out There Base :

I’m in that Job Done phase where the colony needs to grow to 300 people and I need one more technology. Job Done being where you have all 10 milestones for having the colony a certain size, for surviving, for having robots, all the techs, building daft monoliths, things like that.

But I have been playing it at daft times like 2am, 3am, even 4am. That’s when you have to look in the mirror and ask “Am I addicted ?” and answer in the affirmative. And addictions are really bad things to have.

(We have a definite Boy Band wannabe on Eurovision at the moment – definitely not my type).

I’ve also been playing the Elites, as I tour around the galaxy trading in all sorts of rare goods. If you don’t have much capital (and I started this run on 800k credits), then rares trading is really effective. Normal trading tends to net you around 500 to 1500 credits per tonne. In the Cutter, that will be far more effective with its 700t cargo hold. Rares trading gets you 16000 credits per tonne. It can get the balance built back up again fairly quick.

Oh – Croatian tailoring and dressmaking – there are … no words suitable.

Elite ? I’m about 6 million up so far and just started the next run around the rares circuit. When I finish that run, I’m going to try out the Long Range Smuggling which supposedly gets you up to 20m-30m credits per hour. Not a bad boost !

But I may be having a break from the Elites because the rozzers caught me smuggling stuff and I didn’t realise until a few systems away. They first give you a fine and if you don’t pay the fine within a week, you get a galaxy wide bounty on your head. And then the cops and stations shoot you. That doesn’t end well. So I’ll keep my pilot in the station while the bounty is active.

Eurovision – I think Spain forgot to fill in the gaps in the lyrics in their song. Pretty lady, has a bit of a voice but needs to stop with the heavy breathing.

Where was I ?

Possibly enjoying the gaming a little too much. I was pretty wrecked yesterday after finishing work. I’ll reserve my strength for when I need it but then go zonk when I don’t need the strength. So I started switching off after walking out the door from work.

So nearly bought the Lego Le Mans car though. It’s on offer for 20% off.

Oh – another Boy Band wannabe ! Seen an Ed Sheeran wannabe tonight too. Haven’t seen anyone that I’d be interested in following up on though. There are usually one or two.

On another note though – telly cricket season starts very soon ! Awesome !

Yep. I heard that groan. It’s just like the one from the last entry (didn’t catch who ! Malta up next). (oh – it was Ukraine, terrible song, not the way to put a poolitical message across)

Time to disappear now into maybe more buzzing around the galaxy.

Oh scary ! Big Disembodied Head ! Phew. She got her body back. Not many more left now.

(picture is from story at the link)

Again with the flashing light show ! Georgia have actually gone for a song that you might hear on the radio. Shoulda finished it off though.

If you don’t hear from me again, I’ll have been reduced to a dribbling photosensitive puddle courtesy of the various light shows.

I think I need a bigger Internet Spaceship hangar.

Or hanger too as I just nearly typo’d there. That’s such a common typo !

But before I go off on one about typo’s …

Shiny. And with a boarding ramp beckoning …

Hangar :

Is something you put aircraft in to protect them from the weather.

Hanger :

Is something planes hang from.

Haha ! Enough of silliness ! Internet Spaceships ?

The picture above was of a brand new ship for me. So new, I haven’t taken it out of the station yet. (I need more in game cash to fit it out properly). But I did take it out of the hangar with the intention of Cadburyising it :

That’s not the Cutter, it’s an Imperial Clipper that I actually still have. It’s in mothballs in one of the other space stations. It’s so pretty I wanted to keep it instead of stripping it for parts when part exchanging it for the next ship.

Yep. Finally finished that rank / reputation grind I’ve probably mentioned here a few times. No more having the game open in the background, occasionally hitting the “donate money” button when it was available. Nah. I had a good little session flying around the place doing missions in the Python called “Michonne’s Wagon”. If I get another Python it’ll be named after Guido van Rossum, the inventor of that programming language.

(Name comes from the HeyChrissa stream. Michonne is the main character in something she’ll play soon and Wagon comes from what they keep calling me – I go by the name SleepyDwagonman there and they keep calling me the Wagonman … haha ! And Michonne is said very similarly to Mission, which has been the prime purpose of the Python)

The Imperial Cutter is going to be called the IMV (Imperial Merchant Vessel) Min Maxer, unless I find a better name for her when I get more cash. My trading vessels have all been named with various cookie related themes and Min Maxer combines Cookie Cutter with how that phrase is applied to gaming. The Cookie Cutter build is designed for a purpose, to beat a specific opponent. It protects against the attacks and attacks the weak spots. It minimizes certain elements, maximizes others.

I will Cadbury-ise it (make it partly purple !) at some point but the base screenie I grabbed didn’t have the right lighting. Here it is :

As the Imperials say, it needs to bask in superior lighting.

The problem with making it purple is being able to select the ship, instead of the surroundings. I may try again later, selecting the ship with rubber band lines instead of the similar colour selection tool.

One thing that hits you in these games is a definite feeling of “Ok, job done, what next ?”. I probably won’t go back to Planetbase after completing the 4 planets (almost complete on the 1st) and getting all of the achievements.

With Elite, the plan is to set off in another ship, the “Fly You Cookies Fly !“. It is an Asp Explorer and I’m going to set off around the populated systems bubble trading all of the rare items. I’m going to try the long range smuggling route as well. I may even … set off around the galaxy in the Fly …

Picture ?

Shiny gold ship is shiny.

Oh and I’m also trying to stop myself buying yet another game. It’s called Stellaris and it’s in the space strategy genre that I’ve enjoyed playing for a very long time. The sad thing about the genre is that there hasn’t been much to come out to beat the ancient Moo 2. This one does look promising though.

But I will resist.

I will fly my Internet Spaceship around the galaxy. I will build colonies for the Planetbase Pixel People. And only then, will I look at putting those two together with Stellaris.

Enjoy the rest of your weekends !