I like exploring in computer games, music, cricket, drawing and pizza and sharing those with people. Oh and I also inherited the name Sleepydwagonman too ! The site is a work in progress at the moment but it's getting there, features will come in over time !
I’ve been blessed with something quite lovely today. They’re guesting on today’s Advent pic …
May also contain Lucrehulk Battleship
Isn’t it lovely ? Also adorable. How about a better look ?
Has great taste in snacks
I love it. He’s a custom dwagon made for me on behalf of a very dear friend, inspired by my own dwagon pics. I was still in work mode when he arrived but now that’s dropped I’m genuinely a little bit emotional :-).
A lovely and very special gift. THANK YOU !
I have been struggling a bit lately, probably because Brain wants to go on Xmas leave already. But Dwagon has picked me right up.
I’ve been doing internet spaceship again over the last few days. The objective was to get to the first waypoint in “The everlasting expedition”. It’s way off to the Western edge of the galaxy. Here’s the map :
Green means whoosh
The more dense line scrawl to the middle right is where we live in our galaxy and the rest of the scrawl shows where I’ve been since resetting. I’m hoping to circle the galaxy on this outing. Only about 250,000 light years to go. It gets pretty difficult to navigate when you’re on the fringes of the galaxy like that and Searching For Dragons needed another little refit to give her the jump range required.
110 light year jump, without a neutron star
Yep. Long way. And I suspect being off angle like that is going to really upset some people who see this :-D.
Where stars ?
It’s an odd sight too, because there are usually many more stars in sight than what’s in that picture.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Where is it ?
I think that might be the Andromeda galaxy painted on there in the lower middle.
4 billion stars
And that’s us looking back at our galaxy from the extreme edge.
Pretty.
I don’t think I’m going to be talking about the games I intended to mention tonight. (Master of Orion 2). They’ll wait for another day.
Dwagon is such a thoughtful and lovely a gift and I’m still massively going Aww 😀 <3.
Searching for … landing spot ?
That’s where I left the ship tonight. Stay safe everyone, be well.
Today might have been a good day to talk about Falcon 4.0 !
Instead, I’ve brought forwards talking about a different game that you’ll probably recognise instantly. The draft plan had the original game right at the start and the new game at the end but I’ve been swapping things around a little bit as I go.
What’s behind the door ?
Don’t tell them the odds
At some point, I’ll figure out what arcane combination of thing to do to get the focus how I want it. Or while the Pixel 4’s cameras are better than the Galaxy S7, it isn’t quite as good at doing super close up photos.
Millennium Falcon today ! Venerable workhorse of the series and fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Home of scoundrels and leader of squadrons.
This ship type found its way into the various games too, not necessarily as the Falcon, usually as the Corellian YT1300 light freighter.
The ship made me think of Elite Dangerous. A ship roaming the known tradelanes, going from place to place looking to make a quick profit while avoiding the attentions of the authorities and casual pirates. Bit like Elite ! Come to think of it, bit like Freelancer as well.
I’m going to do a little side note here though … I’ve been struggling lately. Been feeling the effects of this year building up on me and can hear that burn out clock ticking away again. I’m on duty for work until Thursday evening next week, then off until the new year. “On Duty” ? That’s one thing we’re getting used to with this pandemic. I struggle to call it “in work” if I’m working from home. On duty feels like it covers it better.
Our place has been continuing to work as before, just distributed around working from home instead of in the office. It’s been an odd difference … It’s let me experiment with protobeards (the current one comes off soon, itchy factor is rising) and not having time lost to the trip in to work and out again is very welcome. So work is still fine.
It’s everyone else’s attitudes to the pandemic and other things that is continually wearing. I don’t like talking about that too much here because you get too much of it from elsewhere. We should be handling it far better than we are. The controls on infection rates should be getting put in earlier and stronger. And they should be getting followed by the general population.
I should not be getting double glazing salesmen knocking on the door.
The later the controls come in, the more hold the infection will have taken and the longer it takes for the fire to go out. Personally, I think people have given up on trying to keep a lid on it and are now treating a very serious illness as nothing worse than a cold or the flu. It’s not just here, the England team just came back from South Africa after the cricket tour there was cancelled due to increasing covid infections occurring in a supposedly bio secure bubble which was anything but. The England people gave probably too many chances … yet are now being accused of coming home when they shouldn’t have.
So I’m annoyed at that.
I’m also not angry … but very disappointed at the attitudes around a couple of big games at the moment. One just got an expansion, one is benefiting from rabid levels of hype. People are falling over themselves to play both. Yet the new game is getting its notoriety partly from disgusting marketing methods and the expansion one had everyone coming out in arms about their treatment of a protest.
Yep. Not angry, just disappointed. I won’t ever be playing either of them. Mind you, “not angry, just disappointed” sums up what I think of The Outer Worlds too. It had massive hype … but I found it dull, disappointing and indulging in the laughs through lowest common denominator humour that seems to be a hallmark of Epic Store exclusives.
Elite ?
A Shadowy Start
I’ve apparently gone rather overboard on the screenshots since restarting … That was an opportunity shot after emerging from one of the starter system stations into a rather glorious eclipse.
Basking
Since then, there have been many stars.
BUGGY !
Many bases to explore. And plunder.
Where buggy ?
Sadly no buggy on this occasion, it didn’t fit …
Yellow star, third planet
Visited familiar places along the way.
Eeek
Had Outside Context Encounters …
Charge the shields
And done a little archeology too.
Rocky
And there have been some very pretty locations to visit too.
Elite Dangerous has been a great game for me over the years I’ve been involved with it. I’ve hugely enjoyed getting up close to the various astronomical phenomena that have been included in the game.
And it’s expanding soon too with extra features that let you step outside the ship and bounce over the ground on foot. That should be pretty good. We shall see !
It feels like that Odyssey expansion has gone from A Long Time Away to Wow It’s Coming Soon ! I think that’s another sign of how time has gone very strange this year. It doesn’t feel like it’s 9 months since the pandemic situation properly broke out here in the UK.
That feels like it’s enough for today though.
Tired. Hanging in there. Enjoying the games when my body lets me. Definitely enjoying looking back at and remembering some older games. And winter break happening soon.
