skyrim - Sleepypete's Pillow

Been Truckin’

March 19, 2022

9:54 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again ! I really must get back into the habit of posting reasonably regularly again. I may have been diving into some game addictions again … Oh and cricket’s been on (it hasn’t been great to be honest) and I’ve been diving into the work stuff.

Game screenshot. Skyrim. We're looking up at our character. She's pretty much just a silhouette against a sky which has orange aurorae fading to yellow and green. There is also a ribbon of stars to the top right. We can see a few tree tops as well. — Head in the skies ?

Yep. The new Skyrim save happened and I’ve been collecting mods again. I’ll never share the full collection of mods (most modded Skyrim installs will have a LOT of mods) but some of the big ones are Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Enhancer which makes everyone prettier. Apachii Sky Hair adds great hair styles. There’s a map enhancer, some quality of life type things like the achievement re-enabler and a thing that tells you what books you haven’t read yet. Realistic water, weather and better road signs amongst other texture improvements.

There’s a Death Alternative mod in there which changes what happens when your character is defeated. Normally, you just reload a save. But with mods like Death Alternative Your Money Or Your Life, things happen like being ransomed off, robbed, left for dead and other things that you can actually recover from. Sounds odd doesn’t it ? But it does let you recover from a situation without the reload and another mod sets up having to rescue the people who were with you which gives a reason to explore more. Oh and there’s an Alternate Perspective thing, which alters the cliched start.

Game screenshot. Skyrim. We're looking at the back left of our character. She's wearing an orange dress top above a light green skirt. Behind, is a medieval city type scene with stone brick buildings to left and right. A sign to the top left says "Winking Skeever" — Solitude in Solitude

In my case, I started my character as someone stepping off a boat at the Solitude docks and we’ll see where it goes from there. You can even go into the main story if you choose to. What adventures will she have ? She’s already in the garb of one who likes to hit things with a big sword. I haven’t got the mod set complete yet though. Seems like most of the time I spend in Skyrim isn’t so much the adventuring, it’s checking whether mods do what they’re supposed to do and sorting out incompatibilities.

It’s a game I’ll keep coming back to. It’s very easy to play, they’ve scattered interesting things to do all over the rather extensive map and the mods just add more to that. Oh and I’m being very curious about Elden Ring as well because a lot of people are really enjoying that. It’s another open world adventuring while bashing things with pointy things game.

There hasn’t been much Elite lately. To be honest, it’s an extremely pretty game but the hold there isn’t as much as it was. I do enjoy the space trucking though, which brings me to …

Don’t mind me, being on the hard shoulder

Since acquiring another gamepad controller, I’ve been enjoying the driving games again. Forza Horizon 5 is one, I’m a bit relieved that I got that on Game Pass instead of shelling out the £50 for it. It can be a hugely fun game … but it also has a lot of annoyance and shallowness to it. I think I’m getting bored with what it wants you to do already. Fun while it lasted but shortlived fun. The screenshot above is from Euro Truck Simulator 2 which I’m being very happily addicted to. Just one more run … honest. Oh and it’s also from the early days where I was getting used to the actual driving on a controller.

I do like games that have a story unfold as you play them. The story this time is starting as a journeyman driver who does jobs in other people’s trucks. After a while, you earn enough to buy your own truck …

Game screenshot. ETS2. We're sitting in a left hand drive truck, looking left our of the driver's window. We're currently going over a bridge and we can see a wide river channel stretch out into the distance. — Pretty river

Not actually my truck. I couldn’t resist taking that screenshot though. The map is very extensive, potentially covering all of Europe. I started off in Cardiff but the character hasn’t been back there for a while. As you do more runs, you get more experience which lets you carry more varied cargo and go longer distances.

It’s been compelling so far and I’ve enjoyed going from place to place across Europe. I said “potentially”, because a decent amount of the map is hidden behind expansion downloadable content which you have to pay for. So that’s half of France, all of Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, part of Turkey, Scandinavia and other parts of Eastern Europe. There’s a huge map there and I’m invested enough so far that when the game goes on sale again, I’ll buy more of the DLC and roam to more places.

Oh and this is perhaps going too much into the geeky but you can link up your game to a World of Trucks service and have your progress logged and jobs given via there. Here’s my link and I’ll pop it in the links to the right as well.

That’s the thing. There’s games that you enjoy for a few hours, there’s games you can get really invested in. There’s games that transport you to somewhere else for a while. Games that have a story open up as you play them. I like the story games, whether that’s a finite scripted story like Horizon Zero Dawn (must go back to that), the building up of the Sleepy Star Fleet in Elite or starting from nothing and building up a trucking company. Or being a tough lady with a sword sorting out the bad people in Skyrim.

Tonight though, it’s watching the ever lovely Tashnarr in another story game, Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve played that a bit … but I kinda bounce off the massive multiplayer game playstyle now. It’s fun watching though. Especially if you have a good book to dive in to as well.

Time for the Armageddon Inheritance !

New year, new lockdown

by Sleepypete

January 5, 2021

9:20 pm

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books, internet spaceship, music, skyrim, stayathome

Hello everyone,

I know if I was to start writing about what’s happening in the UK at the moment, it would start an avalanche of ranting. So I’m going to try and avoid that :-). Yep, lockdown again … although personally, I’m not seeing much change there.

However, there are a few things that are getting more urgent that are on hold for now until it’s a bit safer to be around people. I was back on duty with work today, we have the facilities to allow us to work remotely. It did feel a bit weird though. (Could have been the lack of sleep from Brain not wanting to shut down for Land of Nod !)

Thumbnail pic ?

There we go. I haven’t been travelling too far in real life but I have done that travel to far away imaginary planets in the internet spaceship. Some are places that are recommended by the sightseeing sites (https://elite.kamd.me.uk/), some are places that I’ve run across in the travels. I have a few rules (pointers ?) there for places that should be worth a closer look. It’s good to get there in sunlight too …

Light makes the screenies more usable.

It hasn’t all been internet spaceships though, I’m having to somewhat ration the time in the more active games. The shoulder was getting more prone to pain spikes last week. Wrist actually isn’t so bad but I have to watch for unwarranted moves in the wrong angles or I get the ouchies.

I haven’t gone too much further into Per Aspera, although I’m very intrigued by that one and I have a very promising start now with an established growing colony. I had that little look into Prey and will go back when shoulder issues and time allow. I started a new Mars Horizon run as well, this time as Russia with different rockets and a higher difficulty. Mars Horizon is a game that I can see myself getting all the achievements on at some point and then I’ll keep coming back to it for some chilling out times.

I’ve also been back moseying around Skyrim …

Another case for a little bit of light going a long way.

That’s the mine side of Markarth, a towncity built into the side of one of the mountains.

And after a little raiding of the local dwemer tomb. Need to complete that armour set for Lydia there. I’m going for the heavy armoured tank with big sword approach again this time. Stealth archer is another powerful build but I get in trouble with that one as the enemies close, so it’s more a case of letting them close and then chopping them up.

It’s not just games though. I managed to finish Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. It might be a while now before I go back to his books, although I do have Shadow Captain and Bone Silence of the Revenger series lined up. It’s not that Absolution Gap was a poor book, it was pretty well written. It’s just that over 660 pages it didn’t really go anywhere that was of interest. Kind of outstayed its welcome.

You can’t say that about the Martha Wells Murderbot series. They’re expensive … but they get in, tell their story and get out again before you can blink. Cos you’ve probably opened one of the novellas and read it in one sitting. Expensive … but more value in these ones than a lot of longer books.

Not sure what the next one will be, I think later on I’ll start Light of Impossible Stars by Gareth L. Powell to finish off that series.

One thing about Elite, the solar system generations can tend towards moons that are a bit close to each other …

That was my landing spot to finish one of the sessions … perhaps a bit of sulphur in those geysers ?

Here we had a pair of undiscovered water worlds that were orbiting each other close (the tides must have been impressive) and the Steam Horse Nebula in the background.

And that’s where I am at the moment, perched on the edge of a crater by a canyon system with the parent gas giant over there in the background.

It’s a curious counterpoint. In real life, we’re in our lockdown and we’re not supposed to be going anywhere (people are … mutter mutter mutter) and I’m pretty much just heading out for emergency stuff and restocking the food cupboards.

In the internet spaceship game, I’m off on a trip around the galaxy. But even there, it’s a kind of lockdown of its own. Normally in the game, I’d be either mining and going to the best selling station or I’d be on a trading route going from station to station. At the moment, it’s just me and the crew of the ship bouncing from star to star and the only interaction with people offboard is when I visit the fleet carriers dotted around the galaxy. Staying at home, with home doing a circuit of the galaxy.

That one had a nice perch, in the sun too.

Oh ! New music arrived as well with discount opportunities on a certain website I need to find a viable alternative to. Albums from the following have arrived and been enjoyed :

Katie Melua – Album Number 8 and her Ultimate Collection

Ellie Goulding – Brightest Blue

Lisa Hannigan with the hypnotic At Swim

Mike Oldfield with Tubular Bells II

And I thought I had the Per Aspera soundtrack, apparently not ! (I think I was going to evaluate it in game before buying).

Time to disappear into a book now for me. Be well, stay safe.

Advent Day 12 – Porgrim

by Sleepypete

December 12, 2020

3:29 pm

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advent, games, skyrim

Hello everyone,

Day 12 ! It was good to get the little rant out of my system yesterday. I needed it for a bunch of reasons.

Also really tired at the moment ! I think that’s the usual thing of seeing a long break coming up and my body and mind anticipating it. No idea still what will be happening over the break. As I got supplies in on Thursday and those usually last a fortnight, I’ll need to plan a little because that schedule will see me run out on Christmas Eve … Going shopping then would be a Bad Idea. I also don’t know if any traveling will happen, although the family is well aware of the need for distancing and isolating.

But … advent ! What’s behind the door and what’s the game today ?

Yes. I’m going to go to Hell for that caption. It’s a Porg today ! And I still need to ask google how to make the phone focus on what I want it to instead of the stuff in the background. (Or I need to pull the camera back a bit and crop the sides instead of just resizing).

And the game is Skyrim. Link being the bird critters. They’re in Skyrim too, except at the much revered and holy turkey. Do crimes against the populace, they don’t really care much. Harm a turkey, they’ll hunt you down and take your head.

Skyrim has been around for a pretty long time. That copy there is the boxed original PC edition (Oldrim), which was released in November 2011. It looks like I wasn’t too late to the party, with my first screenshot for Oldrim dating back to Feb 2012.

It’s one of those rare times when developers got a game so incredibly right, it gained instant popularity and is still being worked on 8 years later after being ported to a whole heap of different platforms.

I think part of that is because they drop you into a world with a beginning that you barely escape with all limbs and extremities intact and then go : There you go. Explore the world. Knock yourself out finding everything we’ve placed here. Main story ? Doesn’t matter. Just have fun in the world we created. And it’s a pretty sizeable world too :

Ahh, from an era where we got more than a leased digital code for our money … I must have a look at the manual again at some point.

I gotta admit, I never finished Skyrim but I still occasionally go back into it to explore some more. Although one reason for not finishing is that I’ll usually make a new character and start again. It is curious though … This is another 2012 screenshot :

And …

It looked great back then. Since, there’s been the Skyrim Special Edition released which improved the game engine and a multitude of mods have come out to improve the graphics, animations and interactions with the world.

Note, it’s from a different time of day and weather (yep, it has that too) which is one reason why the more recent shot looks so much brighter.

I think the mods are one thing that has kept the game alive for so much longer than you might expect, although they did an incredible job making the world come to life. I might well be going back in there later. (If not in Mars Horizon, Per Aspera, or Elite Dangerous!)

I must look to actually finishing a run through as well.

Someone needs to sort out the local dragon problem.

Or just look at that sky.

Back again tomorrow with … something ! Be well, stay safe.

To Mars … and beyond ?

by Sleepypete

November 22, 2020

2:13 pm

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gaming, internet spaceship, picture, skyrim, space, website

Hello everyone,

I found a new spaceships game … More like rockets perhaps though.

Before that though … today seems to be not such a great day today. I was having trouble getting to sleep last night (probably dust inhalation affecting my breathing) and I’ve emerged today with a headache. So it’ll probably be a quieter day today with less sources of input. Maybe.

Before I dive into rockets – a small thing about being cautious about how you market … The new blog came with a few things that are either useful or I’m steadily disabling as the truth of what they are reveals itself. The latest is OptInMonster. From its blurb :

“Instantly grow your email list, get more leads and increase sales with the #1 most powerful conversion optimisation toolkit in the world.” and they do this through popups, popouts, annoying things on the site (like an abandonment thing when I clicked on another window). Oh and they want money to do this, even for the free trial. They also appear to be heavily involved in botting, even with one of their bots writing in the name of their CEO.

Anyway, I started going through the “free” sign up suggested by their plugin and hit the close tab button as soon as it demanded a credit card number for the free trial. I then get an email purporting to be from their CEO (the bot) with the details that were in the form but not committed to be sent. If you are not recoiling in horror at that, then you should be. Oh and I couldn’t reply to the bot’s email because their reply-to address was a bad redirect and the content of their email was being flagged by the spam filters. I could not demand a deletion of my data on their system without deleting their email text in my reply.

It’s not a particularly rosy look there. If you’re getting someone to do your marketing for you, think very carefully about the image they are going to give you. You don’t want them to give you an image that you find abhorrent.

TLDR – OptinMonster bad, addon now removed from the site.

New game what’s this ? I’ve gone a little further in the Elite Galactic Circumnavigation quest but that one’s suffering a little due to the pain spikes (and Elite needs a little set up so I can’t munch dinner while playing). I went a little further in Deus Ex Human Revolution too and I’m at the point where the DLC comes in. Still not sure if I’ll play that DLC. Another Skyrim character got started …

There’s my warrior lady in front of the next place she’s going to raid. Skyrim is a beautiful game even after 9 years after release. It’s had some work though, I’m now on the Special Edition rerelease that came out in October 2016 and that’s got improved texture packs and weather mods that make it prettier still.

But that’s not the game that has got me addicted since it came out …

You may need to zoom in a bit to find the thing on the pad. One very nice feature I spotted follows on from something I said about Elite in one of the discords :

The comment on Elite was about some of the neutron stars that are epilepsy inducing. Their rate of rotation is incredibly fast, which means they become nasty flicker on screen. While I don’t have the epilepsy triggers to make me react dangerously to those, it’s still a very unpleasant surprise to come out of a jump at something I find difficult to look at due to the violent flickering. It was good to see options like these in an Accessibility section, even in a game where these effects are very minor.

Disclosure note – before I go on, I would HEAVILY recommend this game with the obligatory disclosure thing being that it is a copy I paid money for on Steam.

So what’s the game about ?

You start off in the late 1950s, as one of 5 space agencies and the aim is to get a manned base on Mars. It’s fairly open ended, although you want to get to the milestones along the way quicker. Cos it’s a game and you want to win, having fun along the way. The agencies involved are USA, Russia, ESA, China and Japan, although you can customise one of those to your liking with boosts and handicaps. My agency is the Dragon Space agency.

You start with sounding rockets and then move on to bigger and bigger things. It feels like it follows other games like the Buzz Aldrin game but it has its own very easy and simple gaming loop. Every spacecraft has an upper stage and booster below and each need to be beefy enough for the job in hand.

This was the first attempt at going to the Moon. The rockets have scaled up a bit since the sounding rocket. Sadly despite the great conditions, this one was also my first rocket to go boom (screenshot above). RIP Computer Astronauts.

One more thing about this game, it’s also teaching the resource management. You have Science, Money and Support as the aspects that let you advance faster. Science leads to newer and better facilities, missions and rockets. You need Money to build the rocket. And increased Support leads to more monthly funding, although you can’t rely on the monthly funding alone.

One thing that the original XCom game and others taught me was that if you spend all the money early on frivolous items, you have to wait longer to do more fun things and waiting is no fun. So my people were a couple of years behind history in getting people on the Moon.

But they made it in the end. One curiosity …

I wonder if the licensing fell through there. As Japan, I’m seeing familiar rocket names appear like Atlas, Titan, Delta. Ariane is available for ESA and I suspect China and Russia have their own distinctive names. That’s something for a later run. There is no Wyvern Heavy by the way and the space shuttle has a different set up.

If you’d like to watch more, what sold me on the game was Aavak’s livestream which he’s uploaded to his second channel (playlist link). He’s a lovely chilled out guy to watch with a very relaxing voice too. Nice fella. Beware, watching those videos may lead to buying of game.

But yeah ! Highly enjoying that one, learning its systems, going through the missions, figuring out optimal play. I’ll definitely be back for further runs because it’s one of those where you can play in a more relaxed style and those fit well with me when my arms aren’t happy.

It’s one that should be a cracker educationally as well for :

The resource management aspects I mentioned before. A close resemblance to historical space programmes. Easy to figure out gameplay loops. A wealth of Spacepedia information that I haven’t looked through properly yet. And it looks nice too.

The same publisher also has a Bush Flight Simulator game coming which I’m going to keep a very close eye on. There’s actually a few really promising looking games coming. Per Aspera will follow on from Mars Horizon by setting you as an AI building the first colony on Mars. Flight of Nova is an aerospace flight sim and there are a couple more I have my eyes on.

Actually feeling a little better now that I’ve done a bit of typing ! Hope you all have a great day, stay safe, be well.