Is it really another week gone by since the last post ? Oops 😀
What have I been up to … 2 books finished, Sojourn and Murderbot 4. I’ve been doing the internet spaceship thing again as well as attempting to salvage spaceships … I’ve got the anticipation rising in another window for the Perseverance mission and the rebellion against alien invasion has begun again. That feels like a lot …
Yep. I’d been avoiding flying the internet spaceship because the cold weather was making my muscles really unappreciative of me. But they’ve relented a bit now and it was good to get around again and see sights like the black holes again.
I’ve been continuing to go through the books again, finishing off Sojourn by R.A. Salvatore, the last of 3 Drizzt Do’Urden introduction books. This one is the better of this trilogy, it felt like it had more scope to breathe and say something new that hadn’t already been summarised in the books that were written before. (The intro trilogy was written after the Icewind Dale trilogy but came earlier in Drizzt’s timeline). A good tale, sets things up nicely for The Crystal Shard, the book that really kicks off the stories.
I also read through Exit Strategy by Martha Wells, book 4 in the Murderbot series. This one sees our intrepid Murderbot head off to more adventures in possibly hopeless scenarios. Can’t say more for spoilers. These are expensive novellas but I think if a book is enjoyable, it’s also worth it. And the Murderbot diaries get in, tell their tale and get out again before they overdo it and outstay their welcome. Bit like the Douglas Hill legionary books, those were shorter than average but also tightly focused on their narrative.
That’s where I stopped after Monday’s shorter session. Nice place. The ship is on a moon of the ringed water world to the top right of centre. That water world co-orbits with the farther away ringed gas giant to the top left. Nice place.
That’s Hardspace Shipbreaker. It’s an in development game in early access. I only had a quick (90 minute) look because they’re doing a major update soon and they’ll reset all progress. It was a promising start though. You play a salvager who is taking the chance to flee a dying Earth, choked by overpopulation and pollution. The cost is massive debt and essentially indentured servitude to a company that has you cutting up spaceships for parts. But that’s just the set up for the game. It’s a curious mind exercise seeing how efficiently you can do the job while avoiding hazards like explosive decompression and …
May have blown up the reactor by sending it down the inside of the ship instead of towards the reclamation barge. Oh well. Being exploded by unstable reactors is not a way to get out of your contract apparently because they just clone you from parts and put your mind back in the new body … and charge you for it.
Hardspace Shipbreaker is set in a pretty hard universe setting but from what I hear, your lot as a person cutting up spaceships is actually much better than the average …
I watched the Netflix thing Space Sweepers yesterday too. I would thoroughly recommend watching this, even if you’re not bothered about space scifi. It has that as its setting but it’s more about the characters and sheer energy pushing it through a somewhat silly and highly entertaining story.
Oh and my eyes ended up moist at the ending too with alternating “YEY !” and “NOOO!” and more “YEY!” plus “that was sweet”. Thoroughly recommended watching.
That was a stop at Hypatia’s Lighthouse. I’m close to the North end of the galaxy now. It’ll be time to start the second half of the circuit to home, although I’m only 100k light years into a 280k light year trip. Lots to go.
I’ve opened up a game closer to home too … The setting is Earth in the near future in XCom 2. This is a sequel to the remake XCom game and the story goes that your side lost the first game heavily. Earth is now in the hands of the aliens, although they’re appearing as benevolent rulers of a pacified society. However, the population has been decimated, cities around the world are in ruins and a Mysterious Plot is afoot for the resistance to foil in this second game. I enjoyed XCom 2 more than the first game to be honest and it’ll be good to get the gang together again.
That’s the Avenger, a captured alien UFO that acts as your base for this game. Instead of being anchored in an underground facility as in XCom 1, this time you fly from mission to mission and area to area. It’s a concept that worked well for this one.
They did a cracking job with this sequel. And of course there is the soldier customisation …
Borrowing names for games like this helps you feel closer to what’s going on. I’ve got a few name lists already, including some names from previous playthroughs. It’ll be curious to see some of those old names come back again but for the randomly generated people, there’s going to be some outlandish characters created again. That’s Fuzzy of the Fuzzy streams (Twitch link), Fuzzy is currently addicted to Valheim …
One fun thing the game does is propaganda posters. This was after we snatched back a captured (plot things) character. Fuzzy’s on the left, returning character Cyberkitten (here’s a link to his blog) in the centre. He’s a grenadier this time so lots of explosions. GamingFtl aka Josh is on the right. The shorts were an oversight but I’m keeping them, they’re a part of the outfit now.
Many mods may have been added with extra outfits … There’s supposed to be a Hello Kitty emblem for the guns and armour though, it’s escaped !
So yeah, lots being looked at. Also back online with the work this week so it’s been good to escape back into the alternate realities of the games and the books after closing up the work laptop.
Time to hit post now though – have a great evening everyone;
Stay safe, be well.