DocRandal

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    345

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by DocRandal

  2. Posted

    I'm probably not going to talk about this on the podcast, but I found the ultimate way (for me) to enjoy No Man's Sky. I fire up a nice, long Hardcore History episode and I go about my explorations/farming/mining bullshit. It's ~perfect~

     

    I sort of always figured it'd be a good podcast game, but even better - it's the perfect semi-academic (rather than conversational) podcast game, because my eyes and hands are engaged, but my mind is completely free to listen and engage with the material. 

     

    Is it weird that I now associate the Anabaptists with weird, penis-looking iron spires? 

     

    Normal. Elite:Dangerous is my other podcast game.

  3. Posted

     

     

    Other notes:

     

    - Different star types (White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars) are going to get a revamp to look more dramatic reflecting their stellar properties (spin, gravity, particle emissions)

     

    - Volcanism on rocky planets, whether molten lava, ice, methane, etc.

     

    - Different starbase layouts depending on economy type (industrial, tourism, etc)

     

    - New starbase models

     

    - With the introduction of capital ships, capital shipyard docking bays

  7. Posted

    I put down elite a month ago after realizing the Engineers patch made me worse at combat and I lost a vulture farming pirates at low RES sites. Too busy now, but I may come back in a bit after I review how to bounty hunt under the new patch.

  9. Posted

    I'm glad you're enjoying it, I'm having an absolute ball! I have access to 4 engineers, and have had my first referral,mot someone who I don't remember from beta :).

    Hands down my favourite addition is the enhanced drives for small ships, which I highly recommend to anyone. The engineer(s?) that sells them does so via outfitting, so you don't need to do meet their criteria for accessing the workshop.

     

    Which engineer was that? Interested on putting those on a vulture.

  10. Posted

    The Engineers update has been nothing but good for Elite in my viewpoint so far. Unlocked 1 engineer, did some trading, enjoyed the new UI. The mission system revamp with better mission guidance, scanning USSs,  mid-mission optional goals - good. Galaxy map showing engineers and community goals - good. Granular mission results: good. I feel like I can hang out in a system for a while and not get bored as quickly. And I can tell that I'm still just scratching the surface.

     

    The metaphorical "mile wide, inch deep" swimming pool of Elite got a solid 6-8 more inches of depth. Good progress.

  12. Posted

    http://io9.gizmodo.com/cate-blanchett-jeff-goldblum-mark-ruffalo-and-more-w-1777838088

     

    Jeff Goldblum is in Thor:Ragnarok

     

    The Asgardians were too busy thinking if they could to think if they should

     

    "...Meanwhile, Jeff Goddamn Goldblum, who recently hinted that he’d be joining a superhero project, will play the Grandmaster—a cosmic character from the comics who is incredibly powerful, and uses said power to essentially dick about in the universe and play games (usually revolving around forcing people to fight against each other for his pleasure)."

  13. Posted

    When I was very young in the 1970s there were arcades in northern Wisconsin resort lodges that had a lot of electromechanical games. Commonly you'd see the "scoop real sand using a crane into a hopper within X time to get more time to scoop sand" and the classic baseball game which could be played with two players, one controlling the pitching and the other the batter, who would set off a flipper that would hit a ball into various chutes at the top of the playfield to indicate singles, fly outs, or home runs. There were also a lot of classic games like a stand up coin-op of Atari's Combat and the bar table inset version of space invaders. Memories.

  16. Posted

    Dev update concerning next major Stellaris updates:

     

    https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-33-the-maiden-voyage.932668/&utm_source=in-game&utm_medium=game-client&utm_content=devdiary&utm_campaign=stellaris_devdiary_20160516

     

    ... We will spend the rest of May and June only focusing on bug fixes and free upgrades to the game. We carefully listen to all your feedback, which has already made us alter our priorities a bit. As a veteran designer of our complex historical games, I was anticipating a fair amount of criticism regarding the mid-game in Stellaris compared to that of our historical games, but I was more concerned with the depth of the economy than the relative lack of diplomatic options, for example. I also find much of the feedback on the Sector system interesting; the GUI and AI concerns will receive the highest priority. One area I was not at all surprised to get flak for is the lack of mid-game scripted content, however. We simply took too long getting all the early and late game stuff in, and neglected a whole category of events called “colony events”, which were supposed to be the bread and butter of the mid-game for the Science Ships.

    We’ve been digesting and discussing your feedback and how to best go about improving the mid-game to make it more dynamic, both in the short and long run. Let’s start with our short term plans. When the game was released, we had already proceeded to fix a lot of issues. Together with some other pressing issues that have been reported, the plan is to release the 1.1 update - “Clarke” - near the end of May. We will try to cram as much as we can into this update, but the more fundamental stuff will have to wait until the next update (“Asimov”), which is scheduled for the end of June. The “Clarke” patch will mainly be a bug fix and GUI improvement update. Here are some of the highlights:

    "CLARKE" HIGHLIGHTS

    • Fixes to the Ethic Divergence and Convergence issues. Currently, Pops tend to get more and more neutral (they lose Ethics, but rarely gain new ones.)
    • The End of Combat Summary. This screen looks bad and also doesn’t tell you what you need to know in order to revise your ship designs, etc.
    • Sector Management GUI: There are many issues with this, and we will try to get most of them fixed.
    • Diplomacy GUI issues. This includes the Diplomatic Pop-Ups when other empires contact you, but also more and better looking Notifications, and more informative tooltips on wars, etc.
    • AI improvements: Notably the Sector AI, but also plenty of other things. This kind of work is never "finished"...
    • Myriads of bug fixes and smaller GUI improvements.
    • Late game crises bugs. There were some nasty bugs in there, blocking certain subplots and various surprising developments.
    • EDIT: Remaining Performance Issues. We know about them; they might even be hotfixed before Clarke.
    • EDIT: Corvettes are too good.

    After that, we’re moving on to the “Asimov” update, and this is when we can start making some major gameplay improvements to especially the mid-game. As you might have guessed, we plan to add some new diplomatic actions and treaties. Another thing that struck me during our discussions is that the normal lack of access to the space of other empires makes the game feel more constricted than intended. It limits your options since you can’t really interact much with the galaxy beyond the borders of your empire, and you only tend to concern yourself with your direct neighbors. This is bad for your Science Ships too, of course, since they might not be able to finish some of the grander “quests”. Compare the situation with Europa Universalis, where you usually have access to the oceans and can thus reach most of the world, or Crusader Kings, where you can even move through neutral territory with your armies. We also intend to add as much mid-game scripted content as we can. Thus, this is currently the plan for “Asimov”, but it’s not set in stone yet, so please bear with us if something gets pushed or altered:

    "ASIMOV" HIGHLIGHTS (NOT SET IN STONE!)

    • Border Access Revision: Borders are now open to your ships by default, although empires can choose to Close their borders for another empire (lowering your relations, of course.)
    • Tributaries: New diplomatic status and corresponding war goals.
    • Joint Declarations of War: You can ask other empires to join you for a temporary alliance in a war against a specific target.
    • Defensive Pacts.
    • Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.
    • More war goals: Humiliate, Open Borders, Make Tributary, etc.
    • Emancipation Faction. We had to cut this one at the last minute. Needs redesign.
    • Diplomatic Map Mode. Much requested!
    • Diplomatic Incidents: This is a whole class of new scripted events that causes more interaction with the other empires.

    Past “Asimov”, I can’t give you any kind of specifics yet, but I am currently leaning towards honing in on the following general areas for the “Heinlein” update (these are not promises!):

    CURRENT "HEINLEIN" INTENTIONS

    • Sector and Faction Politics: We are working on a design for this. I always wanted to make Factions more closely tied to Sectors, for example...
    • Federation and Alliance Politics: As a player, you need more ways of interacting with the other members, push your will through, and get elected, etc.
    • Giving Directions to Allies and Subject States.
    • Strategic Resource Overhaul: You should need these and search for them far and wide. They should be extremely important.
    • Battleship Class Weapons. Some Battleship front sections will be repurposed for an XL size weapon slot. There are currently four ship sizes but only three sizes to weapons, creating an imbalance. Also, Battleships should have fewer small weapon slots and have to rely on screens of smaller ships.
    • Fleet Combat Mechanics: Formations and/or more complex ship behavior is needed.
    • Mid-game scripted content: Guarded “treasures”, mid-game crises, colony events, etc.
    • Living Solar Systems: Little civilian ships moving around, etc.

    Again, remember that we need to be somewhat flexible when things don't work out or when something else takes priority, so please take these later plans with a large grain of salt. As always, we also listen keenly to your feedback, so keep it coming!

    Now, I am sure you are full of questions about the details, but hold your horses; it will all be explained in the coming dev diaries!

  17. Posted

    The influence you get for rivals varies with your war/pacifist leanings, as does the penalty for alliances.

     

    I've been so busy expanding my empire in my first game, and having been surrounded by Fallen Empires and spiritualists, that I haven't bothered to declare war at all because I still have plenty of space to expand into. Do xenophiles get influence points for making alliances and federations? I was avoiding them just to prevent needless wars that the allies would drag me into.

  19. Posted

    Another note from watching let's plays of the beta client: Mission updates are much more frequent now so you know if you're in the right spot for a mission when you jump into an encounter. This will improve my playtime 100% as I was afraid of wasting time looking for things.

  20. Posted

    A couple notes from playing:

     

    1) You can construct starports around planets that you've assigned to a sector, and start ships building there, but the colony ship that I had constructed at a sector-ized starport was under the sector's control and not mine. So it sits there. Argh. Bug?

     

    2) Remember, declaring rivalries gives you +0.75 influence points a month. So it's to your advantage to declare rivalries against powerless or far-away empires for influence.

  22. Posted

    From the Blorgcasts before launch, defense bases force enemies in the system to fight them. I'm not sure if they have a limited range in the system that improves with technology or if it's just system-wide by default but that's how they work in a general sense. They put restrictions on them so you can't blanket a system with endless defense bases to prevent a turtle defense.

  23. Posted

    I have gotten steamrolled twice trying to be a conqueror. The first time I think I might have declared war on a fallen empire accidentally, the second time one declared war on me. Time to start a third game as a friendlier race I think.

     

    Haha, yes, never piss off a fallen empire. I love that they exist though, as something that you can't immediately steamroll through in early or mid game.

  25. Posted

    Watching a number of you tube let's play previews, I'm glad to see that all the missions got a workover to the extent that most of the old missions should now be new again. It really shows that the Unidentified Signal Sources in the current client are really just placeholders. Looking foward to when I can dig in and start playing again.