Sleepypete's Pillow

Hello everyone,

I’ve been checking out something old. Well, not so old actually. It came out in 2017 but wasn’t particularly well received when it did come out. Perhaps unfairly but we’ll come back to that later.

Ok. Quick peek first … For the thumbnail you know.

I’ve been continuing to accessorise … Gadgets are cool. I need a cover or preferably a wallet style thing to cover the front of the phone when I’m not using it. Partly because the back of it is so slippy, the phone likes to end up on the floor. Partly because it’s showing a tendency to open while it’s in my pocket and end up on screens like the EULA for Apple Music. Yep, it’s done that several times so far …

So I’m looking for accessories for it. There’s another thing it keeps slipping off … I have that Bluetooth speaker and wireless charger ! But the phone is so slippy, it doesn’t stay on the charging pad due to the vibrations coming from the speaker. I know ! Crazy, right ?

The speaker thingy is an Oslo Energy device bought from John Lewis (disclosure note – not provided) and I like what it’s giving me as a speaker already. The Cambridge Audio speaker I had before seemed not quite right in what it was sending out in audio. This one is louder and purer. Perhaps because it’s louder. Volume tends to cure bad sound.

So the laptop is currently sending music to the hifi through one Bluetooth widget and system audio (like stream audio) to the Oslo Energy thing. On the whole, the system copes pretty well but I have been hearing periodic audio break up from them as probably things get busier. I haven’t heard it yet tonight though.

I also have another Ugears model to put together at some point.

Internet spaceships ? I’ve been enjoying going back to Mass Effect Andromeda. I was probably on a down when it first came out, plus I’d been watching it on stream and was getting a bit spoiled on it. The memory has faded since and the temptation came back to play it.

There’s one taken from the game’s own screenshot mechanism. Nothing so sophisticated as a F10 For Screenshot button, gotta use a console command unless you have access to an nVidia card for their Ansel feature.

One on the ground, showing the early crew, your rover and the scout spaceship they give you. I’m steadily turning up the graphics but these early shots were from cruder settings. Hopefully better later.

That’s another from pretty early in the game, as I’m getting used to the Ansel system. In the foreground, we have Sara Ryder, Pathfinder protagonist and the character you play in the game. She’s thrust in to the role due to events in the prologue and the game takes a theme of happy go lucky, make it up as you go along and shoot lots of things.

I’ve been enjoying it so far, although the last couple of sessions haven’t had any combat. That’s one thing about these games, it doesn’t have to be pew pew all of the time, I’ve been enjoying watching the stories unfold and I think the developers had an over riding first priority of FUN with this one.

And then there’s another one of our girl and her spaceship.

By the way, I play as the female protagonists because I like the voices. Jennifer Hale was marvelous as Commander Shepard in the first games and Fryda Wolff makes for a lovely Sara Ryder so far.

Oh and there’s also been Stellaris (the wars continue), Motorsport Manager (last season in the lower league coming up I think) and Elite’s been on the back burner for a few days. Oh and I’ve been enjoying England doing well in the cricket too. If the weather cooperates tomorrow, there should be another win happening.

I did find some gorgeous things earlier this week though.

Later !

Hello everyone,

We all went back to work this week, so you can guess what that means … traffic mayhem ! I kinda avoided it for a couple of days by disappearing mostly before the traffic kicked off with the getting bad but got caught out in the mornings.

But first … thumbnail pic !

I’ve been out and about again finding the pretty things with the internet spaceship.

The phone thing has been resolved, although …. I now need accessories. I’m liking the Pixel 4 so far and getting used to how it’s different to the Galaxy S7 but there is something that’s a bit too good with it. It’s too shiny. Which translates to it being super slippy and having a tendency to bounce. So it needs a cover. I think the Pixel 4 is perhaps a bit too new and rare though for suitable covers to be widely available though for an acceptable price. Will have to keep looking.

The other accessory I’m looking for revolves around keeping it charged up … The battery life has been good so far but I like to have the ability to charge up from multiple places. That means leads for home, work and the car. Because …. everyone forgets to put their phone on charge overnight sometimes.

What I’m likely to be acquiring is a combined bluetooth speaker and charging pad and that will help out keeping the laptop audible as well as charging the phone. Cos I have limited plug space as well ! And a combined bluetooth speaker and charging pad will save a socket. I’ve been doing a little research there too, as I already use bluetooth for sending audio from iTunes to my hifi and I’m relieved that I can use two separate devices for sending audio to two different places. Phew ! (It stresses the bluetooth a bit and the audio can break up sometimes but I’m ok with that)

Bit of a bang heading back in to work but it’s good to be back and around people again.

Oh and … watched Knives Out as well on Friday. I’d recommend it if you’re interested in fun, smart, witty detective stories. Definitely one that I enjoyed.

Internet spaceships ? I figured out the answer to “What next?” And it was “Go find pretty things”

Bit of a false start with a visit to the local prison ship. (Oops)

And then we’re off in the latest addition to the fleet, the Searching For Potatoes seen here picking up some improvements. Yep, another meme name.

From fairly early on in the trip, checking out a ringed metallic planet.

One thing I’m enjoying about this ship is a more open cockpit. Gives more chance to look at what’s around.

This particular trip is taking me around stars of scientific interest. The cockpit pic was of Betelgeuse, a red super giant which could well be starting the next stage of its evolution. When its hydrogen runs out, it starts to burn and fuse heavier elements. The redder star is a carbon star, which may well be what Betelgeuse evolves in to.

Pretty ship is pretty. I like the design of this one too.

And silhouetted in from of VY Canis Majoris, another red super giant.

A more humble star, with rings … Which may be a bit daft astronomically.

Been hunting the nebulae too …

The game has been stressing my wrist a little apparently though. So it’s good to find a place to rest up and repair. So this is the last one for today’s post … on approach to the Orion Nebula Visitor Centre.

Back later this week for more !

Hello everyone,

Happy new year everyone. I hope it’s a good one for you all.

I’ve started the year with a bit of a saga … I currently have 2x Google Pixel 4 phones. Oops. But first … thumbnail !

What could it be ? More later. There will also be Internet Spaceships and other spaceships.

Phone saga – I attempted to upgrade to a Pixel 4 last week but … did it through the new phone bit instead of upgrade bit, so there would have been issues keeping my old number. I’ve had that number for maybe 25 years now ! (Depends whether I had phone before uni or after) Don’t wanna lose that. Long story short – the new one is cancelled, upgrade has been delivered, all my 2 factor authentication people will be very confused by now (as is the bus ticket people !) and I need to smuggle the new one back to Three again. Apparently the shops can’t take returns from online, which feels a bit daft. It seems like the shops would be the perfect place to transfer custody and check that all the bits are in there.

Internet spaceships has seen a new arrival :

That’s the Searching for Potatoes, a name inspired by the lovely Kolo and that ship will go around the galaxy over the next few months. Should be good. There were some shenanigans with the old ship first though …

Including some planetary base exploration …

Shenanigans in the rover …

Oops.

That ship looked like it came down pretty hard.

And … new games may have appeared :

It’s called EarthX and it’s about managing a rocket launching company. Looked promising, although it’s an early access game (by a 17 year old on their own – awesome job already) so it’s not done yet. The initial peek was fun.

Back to work tomorrow. The holiday period has been pretty dominated by what feels like a mix of nasty cough and benign cough. The cough itself wouldn’t be too bad … except there’s been a few incidents where it has felt like I’ve had a brain shut down and reset due to coughing too much. Not good, hopefully all gone !

But … about that boat ?

That’s what’s in the box. I’m trying something new here … the new phone automatically uploads pictures to my google account so instead of copying them over via Bluetooth, new technique time. Hope it works out.

Every ship (well – most of them !) starts with a keel laying and my first exposure to elastic bands on this project. There may have been some sorcery with knots required but on the whole, the kit went together pretty smartly with the knobbly bits fitting in to the holes snugly. It won’t be coming apart in a hurry and minimal sanding was needed to encourage things to fit. (Disclosure note – I bought the kit, watch for post and packaging costs – 1 place is cheap, 1 place is super pricey on P+P).

A side panel appears.

And the mechanisms start to take place. There is a driving wheel and a pair of wheels that give the boat a wobbly motion. And a wind up thingy !

And the starboard side goes on the boat. Including pendulum … Oh as always, click for bigger and more detail with these.

Decking appears at the stern. Wonder what that is right near the stern ? More later.

The bow of the ship with the forward hull in place.

A view from a more assembled starboard side.

And much more assembled now. There’s a fair bit of mechanism inside there. This is actually as complete as I’ll take the model !

A view of the bow.

And port side. There’s a lovely finish on the model. It isn’t varnished (would probably interfere with the flat pack and assembly!) but the wood is lovely and gives off a nice woody smell.

Last one from above.

The mechanism is pretty tight so it isn’t doing its elastic band powered forward movement thing but I think that’s misalignments from me during build and a need of some of the waxing to lubricate the joins.

Would definitely get another of these :-D.

Hello everyone,

Last one in this series of posts ! I’ll start with the pic I grabbed at an opportune moment :

Dramatic innit …

That’s my big freighter about to punch its way into hyperspace … through a space station. Hopefully it gets in there before it goes all Last Jedi on it.

What is it ? The game has a form of warp drive called a Frame Shift Drive. It’s pretty much the same as a warp drive, except that it can’t go from star to star (except inside a system), it just lets your ship go from place to place within a star system. Going from system to system uses the same Frame Shift Drive … except it means a jump through hyperspace.

Ignore all that … it’s gameplay mechanics that work for the game and the player.
Sublight – for combat and docking.
Warp drive in a system – lets you go places quickly.
Hyperspace – this is not a loading screen that takes you from system to system.

And because Warp Drive is already probably copyrighted by all kinds of people, it gets called something different with the same meaning.

I’ve been in game again today and yesterday. The current aim is to ramp up the rank with the Empire to unlock the last faction ship. I’m taking it in small bites instead of one big grind but it should be done by the end of the week and then I’m off to find some mysterious tip off places. And hunt for minerals.

(one slight discontinuity later …)

Apparently I was really tired, closed my eyes for a second and half an hour went by ! Oops.

New phone arrived today. It’s a Google Pixel 4 and I’m not altogether convinced just yet … The extra fascia buttons on the Galaxy S7 confused a lot of people but I’m not convinced by the alternatives just yet. It may take a little getting used to but at least I should be able to use internet on the phone without having to reset it into airplane mode and back on again to sort out the Samsung malware, like I had to do on the old phone.

Oh and then there’s the transferring over of data and credentials from the old phone to the new one. It’s copied across data just fine but I’m having to remember credentials that I haven’t entered for a Very Long Time. Just means an excuse to update the passwords.

I can feel that latent sleepiness overtaking me again (it’s because I didn’t get much sleep last night and was active at 8am today waiting for a likely delivery of phone not long after) so it’s time to wish everyone a happy new year and leave with one last picture :

There we go. Not my work but a great one by whoever dropped it on to the Steam forums. It comes from a slight accent difficulty by the cockpit voice lady person …

Happy new year everyone.

Hello everyone,

Day 30 !

Today’s theme is credits, which in the Elite universe is money. Everything revolves around the credits, although you can’t actually buy everything in the game with credits. You have to go out and find Stuff.

Picture ?

Couldn’t resist. Especially as I get to eat the chocolate coins later.

A different clook from a closer angle.

Yep – everything revolves around the credits and the commodities range from an ultra cheap 9 credits for a tonne of water up to almost 1.7m credits to sell a tonne of Void Opals. You have to go out to find and mine the Void Opals, which is something I have in mind to do in a future ship. I need to mine 500 tonnes worth of Stuff and 500 tonne of Void Opals will be worth a fair bit.

My current ship, the Odo’s Courage would cost 113.5m credits to buy again. (Here’s a link to the fit). I had a bit of mission running today, which got me another Empire rank with another to follow when I get the right mission, raised I believe another 10m (Inara is being a bit slow to update).

Here’s how the credits and assets have accumulated since I restarted at the end of April :

There are a few weird blips up and down there where Inara has to catch up to where it’s done imports of the data but apart from that, it’s been a happy steady upwards climb there. The blip before July was a shorter exploration trip in the Searching for Tea :

And the blip upwards around August saw me returning from a trip halfway around the galaxy in the Chrissa’s New Potato :

I had to abandon that particular route because the Potato didn’t have the jump range to visit a very tough to reach star but that ship did really well for me.

And onwards we go. I gotta get back to a cooling pizza :-D.

Hello everyone,

What’s up with me – lots of cricket watching, a fair bit of going to bed a bit too late and getting up a bit too late too …

A lot of Motorsport Manager has been happening too. The game is at that very interesting phase where my team is building up towards the money making buildings. Getting those gives your team the income to compete at the higher level. Except, so many of the parts (wings, engine, gearbox) are forced to be standard so there’s not that much difference between all of the cars. It’s just brakes and suspension, which are reasonably minor cars.

Makes for close racing and I’m actually having to work my brain to win. (Mostly because the other best team has better drivers than my team – working on that !) Been enjoying that and perhaps doing a few too many races on it …

Been missing the internet spaceships a little though.

We’ll come back to that one later.

The Elite themes for yesterday and today were Aisling Duval and Imperial. For those not aware of the Elite lore (most of you I think !), the Empire in Elite was a group that splintered off from the Federation of Earth and left, eventually becoming their own Empire. One big difference is that they allow slavery as well as living mostly in space. They’re also led by hereditary succession and the latest succession was part of an in game event a year or so ago.

Yesterday’s theme was Aisling Duval :

When the Powerplay mechanics were introduced a couple of years ago to boost in universe player vs player action, Aisling Duval was brought in as the People’s Princess. I didn’t think I’d be drawing that one (I think my brain has gone on a general break over the last couple of days anyway), so no post yesterday. That picture is from the wiki, although the wiki has taken it from in game.

Oh ! I’ve also been enjoying listening to the music when the cricket hasn’t been on. There’s been :

England playing in South Africa – I’ve been watching this time delayed after emerging from slumber. (I’m catching up on bad sleep – feels like I have that Thing in the back of my throat that’s tickling and needs to be ejected – I sense you know that feeling).
New Zealand playing in Australia – I’ve been watching this until really late.

Both games finished last night though so … time to rebuild the sleep patterns I think !

New music has appeared :
Far Lone Sails soundtrack – I’m enjoying the atmospheric pieces on this.
Carly Rae Jepsen’s Dedicated – fun disco dance style music.
Stacy Kent’s Raconte-moi – a singer with a very cute sounding voice singing lovely songs.
Christine and the Queens’s Chris – edgy, not quite sure what they want to be, sounds good.

And more music is likely to join that. Another game has joined those in the library, Football Manager 2020. It’s curious to be going back to that series. It’s one that you can have on in the background while doing other things.

I think it’s time to put a marshmallow order in actually. And a ugears order too :-D.

Back to Elitecember – today’s theme was Imperial and one task I’ll look at doing over this week is levelling up the Empire rank. I’m currently at Baron with another 5 ranks to go before reaching the rank required for their biggest ship. I thought I’d try somewhere new …

That’s the Odo approaching the Pew-1901 station in Aditi. That’s a system a little off to the edge of space and I figured it would be a good place to go for missions that just go to the local systems. Didn’t work out.

Nice looking station though.

Especially when you get inside. This is the Odo repainted in a more Imperial livery.

Last one.

Imperial stations can be pretty posh and I was lucky to not need to do much jumping around before finding this one. Shiny !

Hello everyone,

Back home again after the Xmas festivities. Tired, so no drawing from me for Elitecember today but I’ll have some pics in a bit including some sketches that happened while I was away.

I had an oops when I left and realised when I was about an hour up the motorway. Realising when I’m an hour away seems like a standard thing for me. I forgot the advent calendar ! This could only mean …

Marshmallows today !

The advent calendar had 2 doors remaining. On the 24th, we had a Mint Choc Best Chip marshmallow and for the 25th, a hot chocolate with marshmallow thing. The spoon remains and will be consumed imminently.

I’ve picked up some more goodies …

Tasty.

Good little Xmas break. Tired now though. It was good to see the sister and blokes again and definitely good to see the mum. Many tasty munchies were consumed.

Items were procured, in some cases built and exchanged :

Tiny papercraft frog from the Jigzle people (of last year’s Squirrel). This one went together much better than the squirrel. The shop had more stuff there from a place called Ugears and I’ll be ordering something from them imminently too. More when it arrives and gets put together !

Good to see the dogs again too. Here we see my arm being a hostage to a rather tarty Murph who was definitely enjoying belly rubs. Let’s see that from another angle :

Same rubs different day.

Icey was much more chilled out this time around.

Perhaps compensating for the Slurp Monster :-D.

I thought I’d try a little sketching again …

Could have done with more light shading around the eye.

And the Icey one enjoying a little snooze.

Back home now, looking forward to some determined chill out time to recharge the batteries before going back in to work. I’ll need to head out again at some point due to :

Cooker
Need new shoes
Glasses
And because it’s not good for me to stay indoors for that long.

Elite pics ? 25th was missing because it was Covas, or voice assistant and I had no idea what to do for that one. For the 27th, the theme is Gas Giant and I’ve run in to a few of those …

A ring around a gas giant on the way to the Rosette Nebula.

That’s from when I restarted the character and found myself outside a station orbiting a planet in eclipse. Pretty.

Last one for today is where I found a moon on the verge of a gas giant’s rings … with a wonderful canyon to park by.

Hello everyone,

Day 26 of what’s now Elitecember !

Hope you all had a great Xmas and are heading into a food coma Boxing Day.

What’s the theme for today ? It’s life support today.

I like his spirit.

Hopefully you all had sufficient cake yesterday. Perhaps too much :-D.

The ships in Elite are set up a bit curiously when it comes to life support … and a lot of that is down to gameplay mechanics. Your commander flies the ship wearing a flight suit … but the air they breathe is ship air. Suffer enough damage to the canopy and the glass screen separating you from the outside will blow out and then you’re down to what remains in the emergency supply to get home. And that’s better or worse depending on how much cash (and weight) went into the life support system.

I don’t think I actually have a shot with the canopy blown out (It’s not something you want to do too often). As well as the air, you lose the external Head Up Display references too, as the system attempts to project them on to glass that isn’t there any more. This can be a problem … Although not as big a problem as it could be as there are other references you can use.

Add that to the limited amount of time left to get to safety and it’s nervy times. It’s not like you can get out and push when you’re in a spaceship :-).

Anyway, that’s it for me for this Boxing Day (erm – actually writing this on the 23rd!). May add more later.

Hello everyone,

Day 24 ! What’s the last in the Star Wars collection today ?

Last in the set is a Xmas Porg.

These critters came in for the last few movies, apparently because the island that those scenes were shot on was covered in Puffins and instead of trying to shoo them away, they CGI’d them into Porgs.

But … what’s that in the background ?

What’s happening around that fire ?

Oh.

Oh dear.

Don’t look.

You looked …

Today’s Elitecember theme is “Moon” and I’ve found a few of those over the last month or so … Will our Dwagon Commander find one ?

Is there a face in that moon ? Dwagon wants to check it out.

I found this curious little arrangement. The planet is off to the left and the moon is just about visible eclipsing the sun over to the right. Can we get a better look ?

That was on heading in to this couple of planetoids.

And on the other side. Little moon is in eclipse again.

And a little potato moonlet seen from the Captain of Elysium.

Not sure if a post will come out on the 25th, we shall see what happens ! The Elitecember theme for the 25th is Covas or Cockpit Voice Assistance. I have one idea of what could come out for that but it would need a considerable stepping up of my skills to bring out what I have in mind. We shall see !

Addendum – I forgot to bring something with me ! No marshmallow advent calendar today. Catch up when I get back.

Have a great Xmas everyone.

Hello everyone,

Firstly, before I dive in, the next few posts are going to be a little weird in how they come out. I’m not sure how much writing chance I’ll get over the next week so I’m writing them in advance and hopefully adding in an update or two. This one might be a little shorter than usual too, because I’m actually going to be writing three posts now !

Day 23 ! What’s behind the doors …

It’s a favourite of the original movies, the Gonk droid wrapped up in festive colours. You can get a Gonk droid now (and an R2D2) with motors in from the Lego people. (Linky) It’s the Droid Commander set. Shop around though, you can get that set so much cheaper than the £180 that Lego are asking. (More like £125 from a local shop).

It’s another set I’m very curious about … but space is even more of a factor with this one.

The marshmallow is another Butterscotch marshmallow.

We’ve hit the last of the Mass Effect posters ! I think they’ve been pretty good. They borrowed a decent amount from other scifi but they created a wonderful universe for Mass Effect, that you could happily lose yourself in. And the games did an excellent job of letting you do just that. I must play through them again some time and do that journey again.

The Elitecember theme for today is Shields and after getting his shiny new Sidewinder yesterday, the Dwagon wants some defences for it.

I don’t think those are quite the right kind of shields but his heart’s in the right place.

I was enjoying doing some combat in the Fer-De-Lance acquiring some more pictures for this theme …

Ockali there was about to have a really bad day as their shields failed and the guns started chewing into their hull. The combat damage looks fairly spectacular in game, as lasers leave molten scars in the hulls of your enemies.

But you have to get through those shields first. This over curious (aka canned scripted lines) fella was about to get a surprise as my guns lit up those shields.

And another enemy feels the force of those multi-cannon. This one was firing back though, my shields are a little down and the distortion starts coming in on the displays.

I didn’t win all the fights that day (I was very surprised by how effective a little fighter was) but it was a good day in the Gingery Nonsense.

Back tomorrow for you with more of the saga of the Dwagon Commander.