DocRandal

4 million credit buy backs sounds like a vulture insurance plan; I lost one recently. One thing I've noted is that combat "ease" really depends on getting a few engineer upgrades; the dirty drives that Dr Wookie mentioned for extra speed, an amplified power plant for the vulture to rectify its main drawback (not enough power to feed the two front guns), and then either shield improvements and/or modifying the weapons to be ionic or corrosive for extra shield impact and hull damage, respectively. That extra speed really helps though.

According to the recent Thumbs cast, this may be the end of Emperor M(W)ario.

Something you may want to invest in at the start is the smallest/cheapest possible fuel scoop so you can scoop fuel off of type FOGKBAM stars, which will increase your effective range and saves an incredible amount of time for long-distance missions.

http://gizmodo.com/soft-robot-hand-brings-a-gentle-touch-to-the-future-1789977174 The softest of robot hands to find your weak spots.

Yes, there was a couple of times where crackling was especially noticeable.

My Last Night: spydersvenom [6:04 PM] Was that your email on the newest idle thumbs about desert golf? docrandal [6:45 PM] Holy crap really? [6:46] I sent that to Chris and then saw that the news posting was about two months old and went 'idle thumbs email fail'. Well, Threat Eliminated. Thanks Chris! Sorry for not including a phonetic pronunciation guide for my last name!

Elite:Dangerous PS4 announcement for release Q2 2017. When asked about PSVR capability (the obvious question) Frontier Dev said " Obviously we care about it as we're a flagship VR game. No news to announce on that... today." To their credit they appear to be using all in-game footage this time! (Edit: Except for some CG text and numbers for readability, and they're including features that aren't in the game yet but will be by the Q2 2017 launch date (asteroid bases, pilot customization, that new capital ship class (generation ship?)).

They are coming. http://boingboing.net/2016/12/01/one-small-step-for-a-robot-on.html

If you're interested in combat, this is probably going to be profitable (higher at better relationship ranks) for a time before they re-balance it:

Rare trading is still there but has been eclipsed by mission running. I think the long-distance haul missions, planetary base skimmer destruction missions, and passenger missions pay decent amounts. You may need to run courier missions at first to build rank with faction you want to stack missions with. Also a good time to just build rank with Empire/Federation. Dr. Wookie may have more suggestions. Edit: I looked at the community goals. It's always worth dropping off any accumulated exploration data at a nearby exploration data community goal site; free cash.

Declare for a power: Not recommended at this time. It's designed to be an "endgame" mechanic and it needs another re-iterative pass right now which FDev says they're working on. In its current form it takes a lot of dedication to reap the rewards (specialized equipment, credit payouts). Engineers: Yes. You DO want to find the engineers. This is the main ship power progression path right now if you don't want to do the basic trade/explore/combat part of the game. Just getting the "dirty drives" and efficient warp engines that can extend your jump range up to 50% is a major quality of life boost. Also, thermal/corrosive lasers make combat much more enjoyable. Quicktip if you're coming back after a long hiatus: Dropping proximity mines behind you in trade ships is a nasty surprise for those NPC pirates.

Lights: Mainly useful for maneuvering in asteroid fields. You can honestly just leave them "on" all the time if you want. Space combat and planetary landings are the more flight-simulation parts of Elite:Dangerous. The game runs on a Newtonian physics model with slight limits added on for game play reasons (no near-lightspeed acceleration outside of 'supercruise/hyperspace warp-like travel' being the main limitation). The default "flight assist" makes the ships feel star-wars-ish 'swoopy' but that can be toggled off if you want to get thrust vector maneuvering on (which is extremely effective once mastered). There are docking autopilot modules you can fit into all ships to solve the docking issue. Later edit: The other main critique about the game is apparent depth of procedural generated content. Frontier Developments chose a 'Minimal Viable Product' with continual content patches and re-iterating systems strategy which is why they've been live for two years and Star Citizen is "delayed until ready". If there's not enough content that you like, you have to make the call over whether to do a Steam return or just wait for more content to be released. Frontier is in it for the long haul.

The avalanche had already started; it was too late for the pebbles to vote.

I haven't spent any money on ship skins and only have the free ones they gave away in the last two years. However, I may eventually break down and get different colored laser beams once they start offering those. The next bugfix patch came out today, fixing a lot of the critical bugs with the latest content patch release. I'm hoping we get a content pass on exploration and scanning after the end of season 2 content (capital ships, multicrew, aliens (assumed)).

Moving in on Thumbs turf: Blizzard and DeepMind, which was acquired by Google in 2014 and is now a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., have just announced opening up StarCraft II for AI research. DeepMind was the company that made AlphaGo, which beat Lee Sedol, a grandmaster of Go, in a best-of-five showmatch with a score of four to one. They hinted at possibly having a BlizzCon champion, some year, do a showmatch as well, which would be entertaining.

2.2 patch notes: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/300177-Elite-Dangerous-The-Guardians-2-2-update

Congraulations on Tycoon commander! By the way, what color settings did you use to get that "cool blue" UI?

Maria Yablonina developed a system for wall-climbing robots to weave fibers into useful structures on vertical surfaces, like this hammock-like web that can support a human. The bots can even trade the threaded bobbin between units. This iteration requires each unit to be tethered and controlled by an operator, but the proof of concept hints at the possibilities of more automated processes in the future iterations.

1) I haven't played in VR, but Wookie has? I've heard generally good things. 2) It's as grindy as you want it to be. I log in from time to time, do a little exploring, trading, combat, missions, mining. The only progressions are 1) Getting bigger ships and 2) Getting custom modified components for said ships. But you can do everything in the starter ship if you want (you just won't be as efficient). I haven't played for a couple of months (work, life, and other games got priority) and I have no worries that I'll be able to jump right back in when I load it up again. I am not "rich" by Elite standards...I only have a couple of medium sized ships (Asp Explorer, Python) and none of the larger ships. 3) There is a space asshole problem on the open server, but you can play on the Solo server or on a private server (The Mobius group is a large PvE-focused group that plays on a shared server instance) https://elitepve.com/ . I always play Solo so there's no space assholes bothering me other than NPCs. I can understand wanting that 'suspense' but I just don't have time to deal with space assholes bothering me when I'm mining my own ore. I like Elite, I was playing the original on my AtariST back in the late 80s, and it's a good space trading/exploration/combat game. With the patch coming next month it'll pretty much be a feature-complete updated version of Elite 2 and 3 that got released in the 90s, which is what I wanted. And there's more coming. FYI, the game greatly benefits from using a joystick (with or without throttle) or console controllers.

http://www.polygon.com/2016/9/15/12934808/destiny-owl-sector-rise-of-iron-crucible-arg Destiny ARG underway?

Planning on getting back to Stellaris after the 1.3 Heinlein patch. (Hopefully it'll include the mid-game planetary events as well as all the other great-looking re-iterated design and balance changes).

Ice is no longer any protection. Soon.

Sorbicol, I think the creator plays on a 360 controller, and since it's out for xbox one, compatibility shouldn't be an issue. Links from a quick search of the forums: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/283674-Coming-back-after-a-year-how-do-I-use-the-xbox-one-controller-couple-questions?highlight=360+controller ("just select default context") https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/254642-Xbox-360-controller-bindings-on-PC (resetting controller bindings) Dr. Wookie may have better info.

The outro is ripe for use in Wizard Jams.