Epic Build... Announcement?

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Supersnake.io - Still Going

New High score... level 50...

I actually made it to level 55 before something lagged out and I hit a wall... 

Three Games I Can't Face (Again)

Three games I often think about, but which I could never return are raising their heads with me lately, the first being Eve-Online.

I was invited back by a friend, whom wanted me and my three decently trained (for 2012) accounts to go back in to the game, and run mining operations for him.  If you're not aware, mining in Eve is pretty much staring at rocks, you have to be in a special place, and busy with other stuff to let your game time turn into this monotony.

He assured me there's loads of new stuff, "since you like mined Xel, there's loads"... But my heart just wasn't in it.  I did install the game, and try a free account for like 25 minutes, until I got utterly bored with it and had to stop.

My main problem is probably the style of game play, I loved Eve, I played way back before the new engine.  It was a clicky menu fest then, and it seems twice as much so now.

Though I still love the Armageddon!

The next is World Of Warcraft, I don't often get invited back to WoW nowadays, but when I initially quit I was asked perhaps every other day.  With the release of the movie however, my interested was peaked, and so I took a look... 

What have they done to my beloved Stormwind?

I just can't, I can't face it.  But I look back on my appearance on "Shut Up We're Talking" (which incidentally spawned this very blog) and I remember saying that damage & level inflation would devalue and dumb down the game... Boy, was I right, or was I right?

The third, and final one, is CubeWorld.  I was big into this when it came out, I begged a friend to lend me his account before I bought it (which he wouldn't - *cough* tight wad) but buying into it, was great.  It mixed Zelda with Minecraft with a proper olde tyme Adventure feel.

I had high hopes it would become part of my regular rotation, unfortunately, development seems to have utterly stopped, and it blows in the wind like dust from my gaming bones.

Do you miss an old game?  Do you insist you have quit a game, or stopped subscribing to it?... Let us know what it is in the comments below!

Arma 3 - Coop - Medic by Night, Light Machine Gunner by Day

Today's coop round finds us running around as a medic by night, and then a light machine gunner by day...

I also get very grumpy with a certain helicopter pilot... or is that wanker who thinks he can DJ in a game?....

Arma 3 - Coop Play - Infantry Havoc

This stream saw us take up the role of medic for Alpha Squad, we were inserted into the AO via nighthawk and moved along the coast from the low ground, things went pretty much wrong from there on in, we lost our recon team, our A10 over cover was shot down, our support helo was shot down and when we were tasked with rescuing the pilot he was shot dead upon our arrival.

The stream picks up nearly an hour into this havoc, and finds Alpha pinned inside the perimeter of a small electric generating site, the roof of the generation hall has proven deadly, and we're running low on ammo...

After that hiccup the stream continues with the massive push by the enemy, so many soliders (rendered in ultra quality) are approaching the server is struggling to control them all, and my 770 GTX is struggling to render them all.

Finally the fire fight is over, Alpha Evac is ordered, we pop blue smoke, though the support pilot does not land on our marker... But we lived to tell the tale... Or did we?

WarThunder: That's It I'm Done (I Quit)

After experiencing this... Ludicrous situation in "Realistic" battle in WarThunder, and recording, and reporting the issue... I finally, got a reply...

And you know what, I'm tired of getting replies which tell me I'm a fool.  First of all they keep insisting on a DXDiag report, despite my playing on Linux and hence using OpenGl, but I indulge them and provide the graphics report... Quite why my having a GeForce 770 GTX or a 260 GTX2 or whatever makes a difference in this situation, I'll never know, but it all just seems they obfuscate dealing with the actual problems by asking other questions.

And then for the chap to say to me "I'm not going to given an opinion without all the information"... After giving a 500 word explanation, I gave up, I quit...

Yes, I've quit WarThunder... I had a good run, I enjoyed parts of the game, but I find other parts so frustrating, and the main problem is the Russian attitude to everyone working there, the customer is most certainly the bottom of their feeding pond, and that attitude is just wrong.

Which is a shame, it's by far the most accessible and prettiest flight-sim out there, just their accuracy and attitude stink.  Their grasp on history for the era is very much tainted by the post patriotic war teachings of the Soviet Union, but that's understandable they were brought up in that era in that academic stance and culture, so they're going to be defensive and re-write the truth.  But I've heard them even opinionated that English people have a "Different Memory" of the second world war to the Soviets, well aside fom fighting it for longer, and supplying them with arms, which they conveniently deny, yes of cruse we did, we're a small island nation who were beaten on land, you are a huge land nation beaten to a bloody pulp through the paralytic effect of despotic leadership, the purges he'd carried out and the cult to which you all had to cow-tow in order to keep your life, let along fight the invader, even General Zukov had to cow-tow to Stalin in the end... But to let that still tarnish your memory of the truth is just beyond me.

So, what am I going to play?... Well, I've already re-installed World of Warships, and I'm enjoying it, and yes I know WarGaming; like Gaijin; is a Russian company, but unlike Gaijin they have head quaters at least in Europe, Cyprus to be exact.  They support the same dog shelter the wife and I have been supporting for years!... For example.

I'll therefore be spending more time there, I've already unlocked the Kongo Tier V Japanese battleship, and I'm back in the swing of things.... As my stats tell you in Co-op at least.

I've also got Crown of the Gods, Special Ops, Sniper Elite and a bunch of other stuff in the pipe-line to enjoy.

IL2 Cliffs of Dover, Battle of Stalingrad and DCS World will also have to step into the place for flight sims I have.

That's all.... MagzTV said it better than me... "WarThunder, fix your shit".

WarThunde - Performance - A Girl Gamers Opinion

In my quest for better Energy Fighting I've had a friend of mine reporting back to me about her efforts to do the same, starting as a fresh, but wary realistic battle pilot.

Her first problems were getting an aircraft to climb to usable altitudes, whilst I myself have been reaching to the 5,000 meters and up altitudes, she reported to me that being around 3,500 meters was about the average for her climb before engagement.

However, I realised she was quickly unlocking planes and jumping into them without upgrading them, so I've had her work on unlocking the upgrades for just one aircraft.  She chose the P38e, the first P38, as she prefers the nose mounted armaments and has only worked on the US air tree so far.

So, this P38e, rather poor in climb and acceleration, with a constant overheating problem.  She reports she can WEP to around 2,500 altitude, then has to level off, back off the throttles to bring the heat down out of the red indication.

This limitation, even after unlocking the better engines and other performance modifications left the plane under armed, and so with the ammunition belts unlocked she began to play, striving for altitude and then diving on targets.

Her problem, immediately struck her, as the same as mine... She could dive and attack, but targets were often initially only visible at very low altitude, so she's waste all her potential energy at near ground level dives...

Some targets would be at least set a light and go down, others would be problematic to hit, easily ducking under the guns of the low agility P38.

Whilst other targets seemed to only be hit after they've passed...

Her overall impression, un-inspired by me, is that once she had dived, once she had got into the tangle, trying to help team mates and knocking down targets; she would be immediately jumped by, usually unseen, more manoeuvrable opponents.  Whom would be on her tail and tear her to shreds.

Only with the intervention of a team mate - which she assures me has been dramatically infrequent - has she reported escaping to repair or at least make a soft landing somewhere, or even just flying around damaged unable to land, hoping for the end of the match.

This situation, seems rather odd, for historically speaking American aircraft, didn't operate in this manner, this mad clamour for altitude didn't happen, they had a leisurely climb from their bases in England then up over the English Channel, a minimum of 26 miles, but usually more like 40.  In the game, and yes I know it's a game, one gets between 10 and 20 kilometres.  Very much less than half.

German fighters I've found do climb well in this space given in game, but this perhaps reflects their post 1940 role of mainly being interceptors on the Western Wall, prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union, I'm not sure, but certainly this cat and mouse, dive to kill then be killed situation is related to the balance of performance at height or manoeuvrability at low level.

I'm not going to say anything about the seeming over performance of any nation versus another, but certainly the tangle of an Energy Fighter, finding itself below a more manoeuvrable opponent simply results in a dead energy fighter.

So far I've not found a case where my 109 can out climb a P47, or P51, I've not found a situation where in a dive I can outrun them (these being the opponents I now mostly face), and don't even get me onto the subject of performance with mid tier Spitfires.

As for Susan, her problem has been disengaging also, she can't turn, she can't out climb, she has only the P38e model... One can say "Use a better plane", but still it should be a better plane than the ones it's pitted against, America had the choice of model and employed the P38 for a reason, but that reason in game is not it's fitness for purpose, it's it just being there.... being part of history.

Realistic, she says, should be more real.

More Chess - Toxic Players

I'm beginning to find the online Chess community a bit more feeble than I remember... I used to play on Yahoo Games Chess, years ago... I even met a lass through it once, seriously, chess got me laid... However, playing on en.lichess.org, I keep having my opponents leave the match!

In this case the chap had the upper hand, my opening went wrong, he moved his bishop aggressively into my centre, but then my knights rescued the situation and he left?!?!?!  Leaving me to just have to wait for his time to end or "claim victory".

WarThunder - Simulated Log

I've been spending time, time after time, trying to get my Track IR set up just right for my new monitor positions on the desk.  Last night, I think I finally cracked it, but the unit does seem to be very quirky.

But, un-phased I went into WarThunder and queued for some Simulated Battle... Long Queue times they were too, 6+ minutes.

I flew out my BF109-G2/Trop three times in all... My take offs were good, handling was good, climbing to altitude and maneuvering all pretty good... I got one burst at a target and got hits, but beyond that my whole flyouts were total disasters, the first flyout, I was hit from below and behind by a Russian i185... This plane was painted bright red, and I simply never saw it, the rear view from the 109G2 is pretty bad with the armour plate, plus he was below me, but I was in a descending left hand turn and he just swiped up and got me, it annoyed me that I was at over 1800 meters, and he must have been at ground level and saw me against the sky, whilst I could not discern him from the ground clutter.

Next, fly out, twice I approached dots only to find they were friendly players, whilst watching in the combat log friendly bombers get slashed from the skies.  Not one of those bombers called out a location for the enemy, so ther was myself and two Fw190's flying from enemy bomb target to target trying to find anything to shoot at.  We finally ended up in a swirling fight around cloud level at 3000 meters, I closed on a target trailing an fw190, if the 190 had just turned or done something else it would have been a better engagement, I fired a burst, it missed, he then split S, and I went into a hi, yoyo turn... and boom, my tail was shot off by a second unseen Russian aircraft, not only did I not see him, but he was at less than 100 meters when he fired, and I didn't hear him... I could hear the other two aircraft, and was recording, I went back and could not hear this guy.

But, even with better look-out I would not have seen him, again because of the G2's armour plate arrangement.

The final flyout, just annoyed me, I flew at near tree top level, against the ground clutter, I circled over brown fields using the brown summer camo the aircraft has to best advantage... I'm there looking all over, I see dot after dot coming from the German direction, finally see a dot coming from the Russian base direction, and move to intercept... As I move... BOOM... one shotted by a Yak.

I just, don't know... It's clearly player skill, or their knowing how to spot me, but I didn't see this guy, and I tried every trick I know to stay low and fast to blend into the ground clutter.

I'm playing the game on Ultra high settings, and I'm figuring I might do better on ultra low, because it's just a case of who see's whom first in Simulator... or of course as GrmlZ pointed out this week, who is in a bomber wins.

World of Warships: Bouncing Shells

I've seen a few players trying to ask whether you can bounce shots in World of Warships...

Well, lets take a look at this situation, I'm approached by a cruiser (a tier 1 USS Erie, I think?) and as you can see I clearly bounce a shell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY0Ik39lhBI&t=13m48s

I've seen this with AP rounds from anything well angled, even seen myself bounce a shell from a South Carolina battleship.

World of Warships: Russian Tech Tree - My Attempt to Flesh One Out

I have been playing a lot of World of Warships, since it's public release last week, however unless you're willing to buy the few Russian and single British premium ships you're ONLY going to be playing American or Japanese fleets.

Other nations are coming, and we can flesh out the navies of Britian, France and Italy from the era the game covered quite easily.

Unfortunately the same can't be said of the Russian (or rather Imperial Russian/Soviet Navies of the same time span), this is a distinct problem for WarGaming; they are after all a company owned, based and run from Russia.

Looking at the state of history itself, we can look at gun armed cruisers which have served the Russian states and draw a line down the center of a potential Russian Tech Tree with relative ease, my personal line up for cruisers would be:

* Tier 2: Pallada (1899) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Pallada_(1899)

3 smoke stacks, still has sailing rigging, armed with 8 six inch guns and a good secondary armament, this would compete with the US St Louis class, but be a step below them.

* Tier 3: Varyag (1988) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Varyag_(1899)

4 smoke stacks, but now armed with 12 six inch guns this is the Tier 3 Cruiser for DPM (This ship could also be copied back to the Japanese line as a Tier 3 premium named "Soya").

* Tier 4: Aurora (1903)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Aurora

A newer design, this should boast better speed & turn than the preceding ships.  And would get a very accurate model, as the actual ship is still in service.

* Tier 5: Krasny (1932)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Nakhimov-class_cruiser

The first modern cruiser, almost looking like British Town class cruiser, but with the tripod mast and vast number of small calibre weapons.

* Tier 6: Kirov (1936)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_cruiser_Kirov

A much more modern cruiser, and certainly a ship able to stand up to the Japanese and American ships of this level as it has the three 7.1" guns, plus a 4" gun.

* Tier 7: Chapayev (1946)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapayev-class_cruiser

This is the first ship to stretch the timeline, as Stalin had little interesting his Naval forces, we have to jump from a class of ship in 1936 to beyond the Stalin Purges of the late 1930's, to beyond the Great Patriotic War to a design laid down only in the closing stages of that war, when Soviet coastlines along the Baltic and Black Sea became the frontier of Stalin's realm, and hence of interest to him.

* Tier 8: None, since the Chapayev would be so powerful, like we have gaps in the other cruiser lines, this is where I would pull a gap, but I would make the Chapayev have interesting upgrades.

* Tier 9: Zhadanov (1948)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlov-class_cruiser

Again like the Tier 7 choice, this is really a post-war, Cold War, ship, but we can still see it hosting big gun armament even in 1981.

* Tier 10: Sverdlov (1949/1950)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlov-class_cruiser

Pretty much the last ship in the Cold War Soviet Arsenal I can find with Big Guns, and it's the latest in date, though really Tier 9 and 10 are very interwoven here.  The difference being the Tier 9 ship was historically converted to a command cruiser in 1950, therefore in the tree here, despite them both being the same class, they have different looks and hulls.

This struggle for pertinant cruisers is tough, but at least the Cruiser class is well represented in some numbers in the Imperial Russian and Soviet Navies, battleships most definately are not as easy to pin down for defining a tech tree.

How WarGaming resolve the start of the Battleship line will however, reflect a choice between; I think; either paper ships or real historical vessels, or even a mix of the two.

Paper ships being those designs which never left the drawing board, and my solution to the Battleship line for a Russian lineage would have to start Historical and end up in the land of paper designs, lets take a look:

* Tier 3: Borodino (1899)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borodino-class_battleship

These ships have to I suppose fit a hard Historical niche, that of being near in era to the Kawachi, but ultimately being defeated by the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.

* Tier 4: Ioann Zlatoust (1905) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_battleship_Ioann_Zlatoust

These are contemporaries of the vessels of other nations ships for the pre-WW1 era, notably a peer of the Kawachi.  The look of the ship is almost the same as the US St. Louis, but it's large fore and aft turrets really should be emphasised.

* Tier 5: Imperator Aleksander III (1914) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperatritsa_Mariya-class_battleship

This design leaps over two classes between the Zlatoust to here, and I've chosen this name from the three ships of the class as it's the easiest for a western tongue; such as mine; to wrap around.  It is also the first centreline, uniform, armed battleship in the Russian line, this is a part of the Russian tree design, their cruisers are better... Interesting historical notes also points to obvious upgrades which could be made part of the ships progression, such as the 1915 gun upgrades, and wartime modifications to the Anti-Aircraft armament.

* Tier 6: Marat (1911)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_battleship_Petropavlovsk_(1911)

Another all centreline uniform armament, but as this ship was renamed and upgraded in 1921 it supersedes the Tier 5 offering.

* Tier 7: Novorossiysk (1937) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Giulio_Cesare

With the October Revolution sweeping away the Imperial Navy, we have a hiatus on the start of Soviet battleship production, therefore I think we should either NOT have a Tier 7 ship, or that we have this ship.  Or potentially this ship becomes a Premium Battleship for Tier 7.

* Tier 8: Arkhangelsk (1916)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Sovereign_(05)

Our next ship has to be a WW2 Loaner, the HMS Royal Sovereign loaned to the Soviet Navy by the Royal Navy.  I believe there could be an interesting Premium ship cross over here with the Revenge-Class ships in the Future Royal Navy Tech Tree and this ship.

* Tier 9: Blank - I just don't want a ship here, as per the Japanese line.

* Tier 10: Stalingrad (1951)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad-class_battlecruiser

A strong post-WW2 era battlecruiser design, the Stalingrad was built at least, however, they are paper ships, as none were commissioned.

Now, that's as strong a historical line up as I could ring out of the mish-mash of vessels caught out by the turmoil of the country in the first quater of the century and the events of the second quarter.  However, it leaves the aricraft carrier line for the Russians.... And... I can't really define one... 

Aircraft carriers are just missing from the Imperial and Societ histories, the Imperial era because it really ended as flight was first discovered, and before major advances could be made into powering and landing aircraft from ships.  The official history even goes so far as to explain there were later Soviet era Naval Aviation units, but they appear to only have been based out of naval bases, rather than from ships themselves.

Indeed, the Kiev vessels of the early 1970's are the first carriers of note, and clearly they far out stretch the timeline of the game.

This leaves Destroyers... 

* Tier 2: Sokol (1895)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Imperial_Russian_Navy_destroyers#Sokol_class_.28240-300_tons.29.2C_27_ships

Able to reach speeds of 30 knots, and armed primarily (it seems) with torpedo's the Sokol-Class were early and equivalent destroyers to other nations.

* Tier 2: (Premium) Hai Long (Burakov) (1901)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Imperial_Russian_Navy_destroyers#H.C7.8Ei_L.C3.B3ng_.28.E6.B5.B7.E9.BE.99.29_class_.28ex-Chinese.29_.28312_tons.29.2C_1_ship

A faster shorter design, as a premium it might work well.

* Tier 3: Bravyi (1901) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Imperial_Russian_Navy_destroyers#H.C7.8Ei_L.C3.B3ng_.28.E6.B5.B7.E9.BE.99.29_class_.28ex-Chinese.29_.28312_tons.29.2C_1_ship

A member of the Buinyi Class this it a low gunned, but higher torpedo armed vesel.

* Tier 4: Likhoy (1901) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Imperial_Russian_Navy_destroyers#Leitenant_Burakov_class_.28237.2F320_tons.29.2C_11_ships

* Tier 5: NONE

* Tier 6: Del'nyi (1907)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Imperial_Russian_Navy_destroyers#Deyatelnyi_class_.2F_Project_of_1904_.28382_tons.29.2C_8_ships

* Tier 7: Novik (1911)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novik_class_destroyer

This should be a WW1 class ship, upgraded to WW2 ability.

* Tier 8: Kaptain Kroun (1923)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orfey-class_destroyer

The Ofrey class are our first in the tech tree truly based in World War 2, and the first ships designed and built for the Soviet Navy during the Soviet era.

* Tier 9: Prymyslav (1915)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orfey-class_destroyer

This is essentially the same as the Tier 8, except it emphasises guns over torps, as per the Kroun.

* Tier 10: Ferdinand (1928)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regele_Ferdinand-class_destroyer

This is perhaps one of the best ships native to the Russian forces.

Premium Destroyers could, as per the battleships, cross over with the British Royal Navy Town class destroyers, which were part of lend/lease to Russia during world war two.

The final element missing from my speculative Tech Tree would therefore have to be a starting point, a Cruiser or Patrol Boat Class to get people into the Russian line... I wondered about the "Admiral Nakhimov", the 1884/5 Armoured Cruiser

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_armoured_cruiser_Admiral_Nakhimov

Elite Dangerous - Trade Tool Sneak Peak - Update - Progress Pt12

I have been starting to set up to record my programming and testing... Here is a test stream - I didn't have my joystick plugged in, hence the erratic flight, but you can see me pop up the trade data and it quickly find me a worth while trade in system.

http://www.twitch.tv/xelous/b/631915041

And one of my coding environment....

http://www.twitch.tv/xelous/b/631920214

Update: You can now support this project at Patreon!

Elite Dangerous - Trading Tools - Office & Server Update - Progress Pt11

Update: You can now support this project at Patreon!

Where have I been?  And what have I been doing?

Well, I've not been coding, not one line of new code has passed my finger tips.

What has been happening though is a complete remodelling of my office and work area, I've been to ikea and on my zero dollar budget (yes, no-one has yet dipped into their pocket to sponsor this project) I got a very cheap new table, a monitor rising shelf and made my power arrangements safe.

This new work area has then seen over 18 hours of solid testing, from system to system, station to station, collecting data.  As well as using the analysis tool to make advantage of it.

My next quest/test will be to allow manual editing, or at least suggested editing, of the database to remove, or correct those sometimes mis-detected names of commodities.

The test after that will be to go and find some rares, see how they process out, and begin a list of them spotted, so as they can be highlighted in the analysis tool.

The data collection server is also a priority now, the old Power Edge 2650 machines have been decommissioned, and I've actually donated them to a charity so they can perhaps sell them and make some money.  The new server is a Pentium 4 based box, which will be running Ubuntu Server, or maybe Arch... Though in the long run a Raspberry PI 2 running Arch may take over, if suitable network storage can be arranged, or if I can power a 2.5" 5V HDD from the Pi itself via USB for storage.

Cheap cheap, this is the way.

I've had more correspondance from potential users and people just asking for the program, it's not ready folks, help me to help you by supporting the project with a donation, or through patreon.

As for those still asking "why", simply because I don't want to run on my computer things others have written, I find some tools collecting market data must be simply opening the Elite Dangerous process, getting the tokens set to read the memory and slurping out all the data they want.  Frontier asked other projects to stop doing that, so we won't even state.

And then why am I doing this alone?  Because I like to code, it's my profession, not just a hobby, this isn't just a script thrown together in Python, or a slap dapse executable thrown out there with who only knows what malware attached, no this is a formal project, with revisions, a coding standard and it's letting me get to grips with OCR, something I've always thought about needing, but never got to use.

More updates at the weekend folks.

Update: You can now support this project at Patreon!

Elite Dangerous - Making my First Million

Elite: Making my first million.... 

Lots of my tool writing for Elite is for market data, this is because I'd like to be able to easily turn a profit trading from the beginning, unfortunately in the year 3301 (when the game is set) they've clearly done away with any form of spreadsheet or useful market analysis... I mean, they give you a tab to check a price against a known other location, but you have to have bought the data and... argh it's all so annoying, when we today have tools to find the best buys why doesn't the Elite galaxy?.. Argh...

So, markets and trading aside, how would I go about making my first million?... Simple, here's how (takes a deep breath).

Start out in your Sidewinder, immediately start doing the short hop cargo & data delivery missions, until you have around 15,000.  This can be anything from 10 to 15 missions, as they generally pay around a grand, importantly though run into and out of the same station over and over, so you build reputation with that station.

Once you have friendly status you will start to see "Can you be the hero" type missions, these are where you are tasked to fly out into space and find things lost to the faction, like "Black Box" recordings from destroyed ships, "Art work" from convoys intercepted on their way to the station, "Rebel Transmissions" from opposing factions.

Accept these missions with relish!

Undock and fly to Unknown signal sources, when you land within them you're either going to find opposing ships, the feds or just the cargo flating around.

Obviously, if it's the cargo, scoop it up and fly home, more about that later.

If it's opposing ships, you can slowly learn to fight back, I do fight and defeat upto Cobra Mk III in my sidewinder, more about my fitting later.

If it's the feds however, and this is important for docking, if you are carrying the cargo more often than not that cargo is listed as "stolen", so if the feds (or a station) scan you you will get fined... Don't get fines!... Run away from the feds as fast as you can, never submit to an interdiction with the cargo on board, and if there are feds around when the cargo is found, wait for them to fly away then collect it up.

For docking, come into the station from frameshift and stay at least 8km away, move around at this distance without approaching the station, and align with the docking entrance.

Then, full power to engines, and boost... Request docking permission... and hopefully as they accept you should be about 5km from the opening going pretty fast... Stay aligned, boost again and get through that opening, the moment you pass the blue power curtains you are inside, you can drop your throttle to zero, remove power to your engines and drop your landing gear... this way you shed your speed quickly... A hard pull up or push down on your controls to turn the ship will also shed the speed you built up.

Hopefully you should be inside and can dock now, handing in the cargo for the mission reward.

But importantly you also want to be running these missions out of a station with a Black Market, because if you're sent off for 2 rebel transmissions, but you find 6!... well you can sell the remaining 4 on the black market, and this makes you a LOT of money, more than the mission!

Ancient Artifacts, Black Boxes, Rebel Transmissions and Rare Artworks are the four main items I've been smuggling this way...

If you're forced to undock with these kinds of cargo on board, get as lined up but far from the opening as you can, accellerate and boost out of the power curtains, then boost again as soon as possible, to speed in a straight line away from the station and avoid getting scanned.  Fed ships out there will be your main worry  rather than the instant death of the station opening up on you.

Now, for my fitting, I run the sidewinder as purchased, but have:

1 Pulse Laser (primary fire group) - fixed

1 Cannon (secondary fire group) - gimballed

Removed Basic Discovery Scanner for 2 x Cargo space.

This gives me a total of 6 cargo spaces, and enough punch on the offensive.  I use the laser to take shields down and then hammer targets with the cannon, with the cannon being a limited ammunition store also it forces me to go hand in my bounties and cargo sooner rather than when it's too late.

Other improvements to the ship have been a better set of power generators, power relays, life support, jump drive etc... everything has been slowly upgraded as I've found better, but my fire power has remained the same.

My engaging tactic is based on the shield status, if no shields I get behind the target and open up with the cannon and laser, if shielded I just lay on them with the laser until it's 1/3 of the way and then hammer them down.

An opponent Sidewinder will take (with no shields) maybe 5 cannon shells to go critical and explode.  Eagles take as little as 3.  Cobra's are harder nuts to crack - but I do crack them.

I can, running this set up, earn 100,000 credits in about 45 minutes, depending on how many bounties I hoover up, but just doing cargo one can easily make 16,000 per excusion.

The best trading run I found required me to have a Hauler (12 cargo slots) and 64,000 credits to buy metals and port them off to another station for 14,000 profits per run.  But I was vulnerable to attack, and it was very boring.  With this sidewinder driven approach, I got to experience a bit more of the universe, I experienced markets, black markets, missions and combat... Much more varied.

What was the rub?... Well, with the free sidewinder insurance I risked only my current haul of bounties and cargo each fight/docking... But even so the upgrades to rebuy the whole ship was very cheap, with a 15 light year jump range, a bunch of power and other best in class units my repurchase price is only 7,436 credits.  More than affordable to enjoy and play the started game.

My next challenge is at what credit balance to make the jump to a viper or cobra?... I have my cool first million... I think the viper might be the way to go for this play style... And start kitting it out.

WarThunder - BF110 Great Plane

The other night I finally broke my drought of aerial kills whilst flying out in my BF109E3, taking down two US F6F's and then a Russian Lagg-3... These were unfortunately in Realistic Mode...

I had spent quite a lot of time in Simulator battle, for little reward, I'd flown out in both my 109E3 and E1, had this on several aircraft, notably a P38 with it's obvious planform.

However, in Simulator I've been listening to other people for "improving" visibility of the distant dots... and I can only say its made things worse.  I had dot popping and my spotting levels dropped dramatically.  So I'll be returning to my standard settings tonight.

The switch to realistic mode however came from wanting to grind another plane entirely my BF110C, which I've had aced a very long time, I suddenly spotted I had a skin I could unlock.  Unfortunately for Air Kills, and the 110 is not going to compete for air kills in Simulator... It's definitely going to struggle in Arcade.

Hence, realistic was the middle ground.

Flying out, I was immediately into one of my favourite missions "Malta", with 2 x 250 kilo bombs I expected to make a run on ground targets and then mop up... Needless to say, that's not how things panned out.

Opposing the scratching of Italian MC class fighters myself in the 110 and a single 109 were a ground of 4 spitfires, 2 hurricanes, a gladiator, a Beaufort and a player controlled fury... They clearly had more guns in the air, and more ammo for those guns.

I constituted, by far, the most armed plane, but was - even compared to the Beaufort - the least manoeuvrable, so I took a right hand bent to strafe the beach, drop my bombs and clear the landing for Zone A... Whilst I hoped the other fighters at least found the enemy for me to climb above and pounce on.

However, by the time I got to the beach the 109 was already there, shooting up the artillery, just so he got "First strike".  To add insult to this injury he was then almost immediately shot up by the Beaufort who swooped in behind him and let his gunners set him smoking...

I really couldn't abide the 109 doing this, and told him so, but I pulled up and over the cliffs, used an energy climb (still carrying my bombs) to come out above level and slow behind the Beaufort, unleashing a stream of cannon fire at him I silenced his gunner, but only after taking coolant system damage to my right engine, and then a longer burst I killed the pilot and the British bomber plunged into the waves for my first kill.

Damaged and low, I dropped the bombs into the water and returned to base, complaining bitterly to the 109 who was also on approach.

Repaired and rearmed I was out again and ran my bombs over a light bunker, missing, but taking out the accompanying AA and artillery pieces.

At this point the HE111's on the team were on their return sweep, low and fast they tried to out run the enemy, however, one of the bombers was swooped on by a Hawker Typhoon, turning left and staying below this Typhoon however I avenged the bomber and tore the right wing off of the aircraft.

Using my speed to swing up and yo-yo over I came into a head-on with a Hurricane, who burned, then I switched to my rear gunner to start spraying a Spitfire, who soon spewed black smoke and turned off me, but I had taken heavy damage to my right wing now and the aircraft had a constant list to the right.

Pulling up I took a snatch shot at extreme range towards what was the player controlled Fury coming in on me, tearing off his lower left wing I carried on my turn in a lazy left and then levelled off as another spitfire peeled onto my tail and started to put shots into my left wing.

Both wings beat up I had this spitfire smoking both black and white, but I was doomed, I tried to hit the spit with some fire from my forward machine guns as he over shot below me, but in the now terminal dive I don't know if I got a hit, however both he and I slammed and skidded across the field margins of Malta ending me the game with 5 ground kills, 5 air kills and a big smile on my face for the first time in ages.

Elite Dangerous - Still Not Going To Play It

I am not going to play Elite Dangerous... Let me get that said, not because I have to eat humble pie and say it does not look a bad game, and unlike my prior posts David Braben has proven himself to NOT be a snake oil sales man, as he has delivered the game to the masses (least as a test/alpha/beta so far)...

But, that said, watching someone competent play is interesting, prior to seeing the below videos I've only watched some mediocre coverage from Jingles and then the terrible developer example videos from back when they were still looking for online funding...

Ralfidude however, a YouTuber with a plethora of DCS and other flightsim coverage, has taken to the space ways, and he's given us these few videos with his coverage of the game... Looks good.

My problem with the game is not the game, I love Elite, and I understand it there is a single player game involved in this title... However, its the online play which counts and it seems to me there are too many ways for people to grief.... And I did all the griefing I needed in Eve-Online.

I'll admit though, Ralfi's Videos have me tempted... But not for £50... Fuck that price point with their millions upon millions start up capitol already in the bag!

Minecraft Ordeal 4

For my Minecraft Ordeal of late there's so much to tell... I've been renovating my home base, expanding and linking places with rail, I've been in the nether and finally found netherwart so started to brew potions, I've also found a village and turned it into a fortified position and also caved...

I've caved so much that the skeleton spawner has more than quadrupled the number of skeletons it generates, but my caving duties are still not done through my hole base chunk.

 

I've done the base out in a combination of yellow and orange colours, notably a lot of sandstone, for which I like the texture I have loaded...

My rail links come into a new arena like area I've opened up off the side of the base

Where rail links slice at a set level I've kept them below ground and capped them with glass causeways

And of course this new rail infrastructure has been pushed down into my dep mines

I've kept the inside pond in the base, for night fishing... Though I'm yet to find any wolves or cats to tame...

My next projects will be a highrise rail link to the fortified village, villager breeding and then I have a stables to build with the many mules I've acquired.

Heroes and Generals - Bugs & Problems

I played a game of Heroes and Generals last night, it was the only bit of relaxation time I got, and I'm sad to report it was not very relaxing... The game is of course only in BETA, so subject to change, and I hope to god changes happen, because there are some very very annoying problems with the game.

The biggest problem I found was the strange lack of a tactical direction, what do I mean by this?... Well in the game you have your missions, they have set objectives, they show you them, but then they don't actively reward you for them, so sitting on an objective, defending gets you no points.  To earn points you have to let the enemy take it, or neutralize it, and then recapture it... This is of course playing with fire.

Once you let the enemy in, you're asking for trouble, and sure enough once the clever souls around me figured they ONLY got credits/rewards for letting the enemy in we were screwed, we lost defensive location after defensive location, but the canny sods climbed up and up in the scores... Over all we lost, but they got massive scores, and I can't help but think this was backwards, and a better metric should be rewarded for defending, e.g. being within X distance of Y flag whilst that flag remains friendly and Z enemies have been within a certain distance... So the flag is being pressured, but you're stopping the enemy... Not letting them physically neutralise it.

The next frustration was the snipers and tanks... Players were sitting far away, untouchable, nailing whole buildings with fire... So what?... Well, we had to spawn in those buildings... So you spawned and were blown up, you spawned and were head shot, you spawned and were shot... Then you finally get a spawn away from the rest of the action, and you get shot running back over and into cover... Because the mission did not encourage or provide a counter to the enemy... If you can't see 'em, you can't shoot 'em...

And then, even if you did shoot them, and hit them, in the early tiers you really don't do any damage to the enemy... I was hitting people with my G43 and so frustrated that I could shoot 3 4 or even more times and they'd just run off... Then someone else gets one hit and they get the kill... I must have seen this fifty times (I'm not joking), and it annoys me greatly.  WarThunder handle this better with their assist system.

Then of course there was the anti-tank and grenade mechanics... Grenades, what a useless thing they are, I've seen them fall at an enemies feet, and blow up, and the enemy survives... Anti-tank weapons, I hate you can't fire them from the hip... But then I've had it so you can't fire at all... So bugs bugs bugs... Plus the bullet drop rate it terrible on the projectiles, they fly like British spring fired anti-tank rounds, not the rocket propelled rounds they are!

Next, collisions... I was on a bike, going across and open area, an enemy plane dived down and rammed me with its wing, this killed me... the message... "Xelous (Killed) Xelous"... NO I DID NOT!... I didn't kill myself, I was rammed, by a plane!

Finally, the weapon upgrade pathways, are about as clear as mud, there's no clear benefit to any one set of upgrades, they are so very very costly, yet when you mention this the elitist of gold spammers call you a fool or a noob because your weapon is weak... I find this very annoying.

Still, am I enjoying the game?... Yes, am I going to be interested in how it develops, yes... Am I going to continue to explore the title, yes...

But above all this, I hope the weapons get balanced, and this tactical problem of a "direction" and more reward for actually carrying out the mission is given.

Worst case for me last night was in a defensive mission, I was only rewarded +53 for capturing an outpost... I was meant to be defending an objective, not running away from those three objectives to re-capture something else... Very counter intuitive.