Final Doxx Fantasy and (Spaceships)

Hello everyone,

Another week in the books … Getting closer to Easter ! I’m enjoying the Mini Eggs while we have them. Hmm, maybe it’s find for the Mini Eggs avatar …

Picture. A small packet of chocolate Mini Eggs beside a Pocket Dragon sniffing the air. The Pocket Dragon is wearing a chest tabard that says "Feed Me"
Tasty Things

It’s the usual things this week. Work, which I don’t talk about much here (it’s a separate thing). Relaxing in the evenings, I’ve been enjoying watching Fringe again, it’s been getting repeated on SyFy channel over the last month or so. It was a cracking series in its day and still stands up really well. It felt like there was a plan going through its arcs.

I’ve abandoned a book ! I’d been attempting to get into the 1978 novelisation of the original Battlestar Galactica. From the book, it’s obvious that there was a lot more thought gone into the backstory of that earlier version than went into the new one. I think that’s what soured me on the new series. The space scifi action stuff was amazing but it fell apart for me with the psychological aspects and … a lot of it just didn’t make sense. It hit a pinnacle with the storming of New Caprica episode and dived down a tunnel from there.

The next book is going to be Shadow Captain, book 2 of the Revenger series by Alastair Reynolds. Haven’t quite opened it yet. Later :-D.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the Anaconda from her starboard bow pointing right. In the background is a white planet with surface features that look like scarring. There are delicate rings around the planet. The galactic ribbon is in the background.
Ringy Loveliness

A little bit of internet spaceship happened, to be honest though I wasn’t feeling the spaceship thing much this week so I only did a short hop. Still 64,000 light years from home. I ended up pitching up the tents in a canyon …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The Anaconda is landed, we see her port side. The buggy is to the lower right, in front of the back end of the ship. There is an icy looking canyon wall to the right. A very faint dark gas giant can be seen in the background.
A restful stop

XCom 2 has had another little look and I’ve figured out how to the get the old mods loading …

Game screenshot. Xcom 2. Character customisation. We see Natasha Bambam, in plated armour with blue fabric underneath. She has long blonde hair with eye shades. She wields a gun that looks like an elongated Corgi.
Let Slip the Dog Of War

That’s one of the silly ones, called the Acorg-47 mod. I won’t be using that one much (the other weapons are better and this mod is funny but silly) but it was a good test case to get things working again. Anyway, this was a semi frenzied thing today before stream watching started up. More XCom 2 at some point when I’ve done more customisation. It’s a good challenging strategy game and it’s great to see your people progressing through.

Oh and this also means that the Hello Kitty armour and weapon pattern mods are working again.

Talking of overwhelming wholesomeness …

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. A dazzlingly cute young lady stands in a city scene. She is in front of a cherry blossom tree with silvery pink/purple leaves that almost match her silver hair.
Baby Dragon Girl

I opened up Final Fantasy XIV again. I went away from this partly because my shoulder was giving me trouble but mostly because I got heavily distracted into Star Trek Online. I kicked the ST Online habit, mostly because I was getting bored with where its stories were going as well as the game mechanics at maximum level. It felt like you were doing the busywork that increases as you level more instead of enjoying the storylines.

Final Fantasy XIV is definitely an incredibly cute game. It’s engineered that way. I’m mostly retracing steps from my first character, albeit with a tank class instead of a damage class. Definitely enjoying it though.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character is standing up straight in a soft lit dream sequence. She wears a bronze metal chestplate with shoulder pauldrons, otherwise it's black leather gloves and black fabric trousers. She has a red Pointy Hat.
POINTY HAT

It’s going to take something good to pry that hat out of her hands. As Keldra Gondanne is a tank character, I’m looking forwards to finding some super shiny armour for this dangerous dragonlady. Maybe when I get to the part of the game where she can learn blacksmithing and armour crafting.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character is in the centre of shot in the background. 4 men are pictured left to right. A to be recurring character stands to the right with white hair and a black outfit with white sleeves. The dialogue says "Thank you. If you hadn't come along, those bastards would surely have slaughtered us all"
One merchant at a time

Just helping out there.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. Interior scene. My character and another lady are standing at a pedestal. A small robot thing is also there.
Beware the little guy

Game pops up fun stuff and definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously, which just adds to the charm. It’s pretty free with what you can do in game as well. Now my character has gotten to level 15 in the main “job”, she’s free to join other guilds too. So there’s the crafting guild, in this case jewelcrafting, gathering guilds … and other classes too. If you put enough time into the game, you could have one character that could be tank, melee damage, ranged damage, caster damage, healer … There’s lots of potential there.

And a storyline I’m looking forwards to playing.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character (in pointy hat), is standing by a balcony. There are bushes in pots to her left and right. In the background is a cityscape. There is a waterfall to the right and a set of domed buildings in the background.
City Housing Area

Some day, I’ll investigate the housing.

It’s been good being back in the game and being charmed by the characters and the story quests.

Did I mention doxxing above somewhere ? There’s something I really want to whinge about. But I can’t because if I do, you can find out stuff about me that I’d rather remain confidential. That’s so annoying isn’t it ? Venting denied on this occasion.

There’s also been the inevitable Mars Horizon (I have all the achievements now!) and Motorsport Manager. I’m close to the final phase of the GT car part of my current campaign. When they’re built up to maximum, I’ll quit that team and move on to the endurance racing.

Right ! To the book.

Have a great rest of weekend everyone, back soon.

Stay safe, be well.

Spaceships, a little racing, a little rescue and back to work

Hello everyone,

One week since my last, feels like it’s flown past ! It’s been one of those weeks too where I can’t really remember what I was getting up to either. (Yes I can, cracking on with work stuff and doing spaceship mining in evenings)

It’s a bit warm here at the moment …

I was looking for the melted dog pic but that’ll do as well. I struggle in the heat. Probably a lot of that is a metabolism that tends to the hyperactive states but I’m also carrying too much weight and British houses are set up to be heat traps. It’s not been quite as hot as previous years but it’s still been pretty toasty.

Internet spaceships ? I’ve been doing more of the mining …

As usual, click for bigger. I’m playing in 1440p, so there’s lots more detail available than is in the thumbnails. Here we have the good ship Towel of Space, hard at work again amongst the asteroids. The little lights there are collector drones that go out to fetch the bits you blast off the asteroids.

The good stuff is in the rings around planets.

Loads of asteroids to have a look at in there.

It speeds things up if you get close, although you’re probably not supposed to get that close. Spot the shields activating to stop an impact from the rotating asteroid !

But something unusual happened yesterday. One of the pilots on the Kolo discord reported that they were in deep fuel trouble, as they’d been disadvantaged by getting moved by the game and got stuck without a fuel scoop or a station to refuel at. So off I pop to a station to get a small module refit …

And we’re off to the rescue. There’s an organisation called the Fuel Rats which does this as their thing that they do in the game. It’s the first time I’ve run a rescue like this.

Felt good too. And apparently the people on the discord liked catching up on the story as it was unfolding last night (we were using the discord to coordinate before getting online).

I’ve been in the Motorsport Manager game too, starting again with an open cockpit racing team (think F1). I’ve been curious about the mods for that game which essentially do a total conversion. I haven’t gone for those yet. There are a heap of mods that are essentially massive cheats for the game, I avoid those as well because I’ve figured out how to win at the game without that kind of assistance. My team was up to 5th in the lowest (of 3) championship in the third season and the races are being enjoyable to run the strategy on.

I had another little look at FFXIV again today. It has an effect on my neck and shoulder, so I haven’t been quite as addicted to it as I could have been. But it has a certain draw that’s kept me coming back. I’d rate it as being well worth a play if you enjoyed your levelling time in games like WoW.

And my little punchy catgirl has outfits that I can show off on camera again !

This is checking out Gridania.

Looking at the scenery around the town.

And being taught new dances by the locals. Need to get more outfit though. That one was provided by a quest again.

That’s one of the things about this game, there’s a certain joy that comes over in the actions of the characters that come up on screen.

Both this one and Elite have been good ones to disappear in this week. I’m finding the mining in the internet spaceship to be a calming experience that I’m enjoying. It was great to run the rescue last night. And FFXIV’s Eorzea was being charming again today.

Stay safe everyone, be well.

Final Step, New Journey

Hello everyone,

I have masks !

They’re from a small scale supplier called Beverley’s Masks (linky), which I found via one of the discords. I like the designs, they’re cheap (£5 inc postage to UK) and they arrived on Wednesday after I ordered them on Sunday evening. Very happy with that. Would definitely recommend. I have my new Elite t-shirt as well, which was ordered as a second item to an Elite themed mask … I haven’t got the mask yet.

Three cheers for Beverley’s Masks, a hearty BOO HISS for Frontier’s suppliers.

I’ve been trying out a new game … I might well be in there a fair bit over the next week (hands permitting) because I’ve been enjoying it so far.

That’s Bashara Dannalae and she has a Pointy Hat. And an outfit that she’ll catch her death of cold in. (A better one will appear later).

The game is Final Fantasy XIV and it’s started out as a massively charming massive multiplayer game so far. They must have done a huge amount of work getting the facial expressions and emotes just absolutely perfect. It’s a very pretty game and I’ve been enjoying my time in it so far.

Bashara ventures forth … to adventure !

An upgrade later and she’s visiting the housing district. I haven’t checked this aspect of the game out much so far. I’m only on the free trial at the moment although I get the feeling that I might race through the content on offer and get to the free trial level cap before the game goes on sale again. We shall see !

And that’s Bashara as I left her this evening. Better armour, a hat with Two Pointy Things and an eagerness to punch lots of things while in search of more story to play through.

But I needed to break for munchies and I have to manage my hands these days.

I’m on leave next week though ! So lots more time available. I’m not planning on going too far although I think I’ll venture out at some point (with my masks!) when the latest cricket finishes.

So if Final Fantasy XIV is the new journey, what’s the Final Step ? The Drew Wagar Elite Lore Tour came to a close yesterday evening and I had the privilege of being involved in the final stream. Fun times, quite probably the coolest thing I’ve been involved in with a game.

Let’s see if this works … oh well, (the movie clip thing only does Youtube) … This link will take you to a 53 ship mass hyperspace jump at the end of yesterday’s stream. It was pretty awesome to have my little ship along for the ride.

As usual, click for bigger. Spot little Tea-89 creeping in to the shot there showing off her markings.

It was great to see so many ships in one place.

There was a decent variety of pretty ships to look at too, most pilots had gone for the more long ranged ships but there were some of the different types too. That shot includes a Beluga Liner, several Anacondas, a couple of Imperial Cutters, Asp Explorers, Krait Phantoms, a Dolphin,, an Orca, an Imperial fighter, a Federal Corvette and a couple of Cobra Mk3’s.

Time for a better look. Up in the top right is the megaship Zurara, which I’ll talk about later.

It’s been great listening in to Cmdr Wagar’s Lore Tour. He’s got a very listenable to voice and is massively keen for the Lore that’s gone through the 4 major Elite games. (Curiously, he shares my frustration at the development of the lore dying a death since the start of the year).

But all good things come to an end and there was no more Lore for now to tell. This is just before the final gathering for a formation flight past the Zurara …

Setting up for a spectacular mass hyperspace jump out of the system. It was great to see and I think Cmdr Wagar got a massive kick out of it during the livestream. It’s always good to see a big grin. (Link to clip again)

As for me with the Internet Spaceships, I’ll be making my way back more slowly … hopefully visiting some places along the way. But a bit slower because I think I’m a bit burned out on the game. There are more pictures to come though !

Time to say good night though and I think … open up Existence by David Brin.

We’re not out of the woods yet with what’s going on outside. Looks like there’s still a lot of dangerous people out there who aren’t taking the corona seriously enough. Live how you want to, if you don’t feel safe in a particular situation, get out of there.

Be safe, be well, enjoy what you’re getting up to.