Dr Wookie

I've been mining for a couple of hours. Prospectors now give you loads of fragments per rock (30-50), and if you have empty bins in the refinery, it will automatically assign materials to them, making things a lot more automated. I also tried a hazardous extraction site, and that was pretty hair raising! I was chased by big beefy ships, but luckily my clipper could run away. Graphics are now considerably more shiny than they were, and the stutter I noticed in 1.3 seems to be gone

Man, these peripherals get crazy expensive, it's an outrage ! At the moment I'm staying with family back in the UK after my work visa expired for the US. I'll definitely bass up when I find a new job and new place to live

Heh, in my world that's completely normal, for example when presenting some new results at a conference or in a seminar that are not yet peer reviewed. This is done to prevent other people scooping discoveries, for example. It is expected in these cases that the proof will be presented when appropriate. Stupid bloody mindedness is also a possible explanation for the behaviour of the escapist

That was supposed to be breech before ... mages or templars. I went mage before

I listened to their podcast, despite it being utterly repugnant for their smugness and one guy's declared antagonistic attitude to CIG. They claim to have additional, stronger material that was not included in the article because it would identify the sources. It is possible that they haven't backed down because they have sufficient evidence to support a court case.

Elite Dangerous 1.4 is released today (servers are currently down while the new build is propagating). This is the full release on Xbox One, and Xbox pilots will share the same universe as the PC and Mac pilots. It doesn't look like Xbox pilots will meet PC pilots though. Headline features: - CQC Added! - Imperial Eagle added - Federal Gunship added - Federal Assault Ship added - Hazardous resource extraction sites added - Compromised nav beacons added - Legal salvage missions added - Added Outfitting for CQC - Changed how powerplant damage is handled - small chance of instant destruction, otherwise malfunctions and halved power output - Assign Imperial Eagles to those who should have them from their backer rewards Complete patch notes are here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=188174&p=2897925#post2897925 They are ginormous as normal

I have to say that bass sounds fun, and completely different to just playing emulated bass on the guitar. Emulated bass works well with headphones on so you don't hear the guitar itself, but it looks like I need to find a left bass

Who to ask for help when closing the bridge... Things got very strange the way I played it last time. I started again, after messing with the Keep so that the world should be significantly different... This time with added God baby

You can set the difficulty and speed of all or any part of a song in the riff repeater. When I went from 360 to PC, I lost all my progress, but used this to bump up songs to roughly where I was. The game keeps track of progress, and applies it to all songs, so successfully playing songs at higher difficulties bumps up the starting difficulties of new songs.Playing more difficult charts at slower speeds is probably more useful than simpler charts at full speed

I picked up trespasser, and am debating whether to continue with my endgame character, or start with a new one that would make the alternate choice in the big decision. Do you think the new changes would benefit a new game?

Are you playing Rcksmith or Rocksmith 2014? I know that for 2014, playing a different string registers as a success so long as the note is right. I'm guessing that since you have single note charts, you're playing the original. For that game, you can have single not charts, chord charts, and combo charts IIRC. I had both Rocksmiths on 360 before selling it and moving across the ocean, and now have them both on PC for the songs. In 2014, you only get one arrangement of each son, with alternatives available for Uplay points... progression goes from individual notes to chords smoothly (though going from a three note chord to a barre chord is quite a leap for me!)

Maybe I am being naive-- I successfully stayed in academia for decades, avoiding the real world-- but what if these people are horrified by the thought of people pouring more and more money into something that they know for sure can never be delivered in the form that was promised? What if they thought they were being brave and noble, and sacrificing, and simply made the mistake of confiding in Derek Smart first? I think that the ethics of the article itself rather depend on the motivation. Smear campaign or whistleblowing? The way a message is delivered is extremely important; I know this from personal experience! I was delivering a talk at a conference showing how pretty much everyone was doing something wrong, but I got heatstroke before my talk and was waaay too aggressive, meaning that everyone stopped paying attention. I had to wait for my paper to be published, in a calm and reasonable manner, before I got the message across

I didn't see that, sorry! It's only fair to be skeptical of both sides, until more information comes to light. Just because some people have delighted in causing harm towards CIG, it doesn't necessarily make them wrong. There'll be a convention next week, and I hope CIG really prove those detractors wrong. However, the test builds I have played have been mediocre to abominable

More star citizen stuff, the escapist has made a post on how the got their info, via emails, phone calls and Skype. They say that the correspondents verified themselves as CIG employees, to the satisfaction of their legal department; they say that some of those employees layer posted the same comments on glassdoor. They specifically say that none of the info came from Derek Smart. Whether or not the allegations of these employees are true is another matter, of course.

This week's newsletter was another good one, sneeking a peek at the landing HUD This is the newsletter text: "Your HUD will automatically show and hide certain gauges to keep the information relevant. As you approach the planet from a distance, you'll notice the first new thing on the cockpit display - the altimeter (the single vertical line seen to the right in the screenshot above). The altimeter will show you how close you are to the planet's surface, and help you control the speed of your approach. The pitch gauge can be seen in the very centre of the cockpit display - it will align itself to the planet's gravity. This gauge will help the player to determine which way is 'up' - a brand new concept for Commanders in the Elite Dangerous galaxy! The pitch gauge also contains a horizon line, which will help you determine when you're flying 'flat' to the surface. When you get very close to the surface, and you're nearing the point where you're ready to land, the heading gauge (seen at the top of the new information in the screenshot) will point towards the poles of the planet and help you orient your direction when landing. As you can see in the screenshot, your scanner will switch to the landing-assist display, just as it does when you're landing your ship at a starport, but showing you the nearby terrain. The representation of your ship will light up blue when you're okay to put her down. Now that you're safely down on the surface you're free to explore the entire planet in your SRV - who knows what you might find down there... we'll be revealing more in the coming weeks. " The newsletter also details another update to missionss in 1.5: we will be able to take timed missions, such as assassination attempts where the target will be at a specific time and place (just like the old days). We will also be able to take missions in space, although there is no daisy chaining just yet. However, there may be additional conditions for success, such as not being scanned .

As a scientist of nearly two decades, I think it only fair to include the Escapist piece, especially since it has been updated with responses from CR, and a detailed account of how the information was obtained (and approved by their legal department): http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company. I think that when we see the cast list for Squadron 42, we will get a better idea of how much truth there is. The employees speak of a truly extravagant cast list, far more so than any other game. I would love Star Citizen to be a huge success, but I have been increasingly worried about interviews given by Chris Roberts. In one he says that it won't be the be all and end all, but should be a good game; that one, I'm right on board with. However, in a later interview he said that the game should be thought of as the icing on the cake, with the journey being the real experience.

As I said before when I quit this game right before the end, I think it's a terrible move to have absolutely no gating of progress until suddenly right at the end. My first 60 hours or so with the game were great, the last 20 hours were terrible.

I'm on the verge of quitting Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls. Like I said in the Vita thread, I love the previous titles, but the gameplay in this one is soooo clunky! The story is interesting, and there are some cool mechanics but the third person shooting (yes shooting rather than murder solving) is a giant pain in the ass! In the normal gameplay, it's OK and even quite fun, but the setpieces require more and more precision, and they are infuriating! I am on Chapter 4 (probably out of 6), so I can only imagine them getting worse. Also, there's some particularly grim schoolgirl objectification in Chapter 3... it's understandable when done by other school kids, but then adults are made complicit, and the expects you to get a kick out of it too. Ugh!

I didn't get a look at the eclipse itself (late and low in the sky); however, I took this shot of the supermoon a few hours earlier

Heh, having basically said RTFM, I'm now going to expound on "Elite or GTFO" ! There is definitely a lack of information in the training missions, and that is likely because they evolved from the alpha test scenarios. What is worse, as the developers got better and better themselves, they decided to make the training missions harder to compensate, which was very short sighted. I think they were toned down for release, but I could not honestly judge this, because I have been playing it for nearly 2 years, since the first alpha. But the thing is that flying around is the easy part... learning how to make a living takes a lot longer. Tutorialising all of that would be difficult, especially as there is no consistent narrative to be experienced by each player. Learning the ropes is part of the journey; to be fair, some people have said that it stopped being fun once they finished learning it all. I don't think that anything is particularly difficult (apart from skilful flying), but there is a large volume of information to take in. People have said that the game is a mile wide and an inch deep, but there's at least a couple of feet below the surface. If you don't fancy taking the time to learn how to best balance power and weight for your combat ship when the best load outs cannot be all powered at once, or where and what to mine in order to balance profit, sanity, and risk of pirate attack, or how to force victims to drop cargo, or how the states of systems affect missions and influence, or many other things, the game might not be for you . Frontier have deliberately obfuscated many of the mechanisms, possibly to keep it from being overly gamey, so much of the learning has been a community effort. If you want to stick with it, I recommend joining one of the many communities. For my part, I will do my best to Answer any questions

Hi Adam , apologies if this sounds stupid, but do you know there are playable tutorials as well as videos? I know one person who didn't realise until I told them! If I recall correctly, there are tutorials on basic controls (shooting waste canisters in an asteroid field), docking and landing, travel in super cruise, and advanced combat (various scenarios). I think the latest tutorials (in the open beta) even give you tasters of several different ships. While the controls are relatively simple, there is a lot to learn about the game. I agree that the new player experience leaves a lot to be desired, especially since the early experience is so different from the game it's demoed as. The next update adds CQC (a close quarters combat championship, i.e. arena shooter) which is separate from the main game, and might serve as a good intro for some people. CQC is in public beta now, and expected to release in a couple of weeks. By the way, have you read the manual?

Heh, anything under a few million is basically free nowadays ! Here are a couple more screenies from the newsletter itself (I capped the previous ones from the live show). A lovely surface view FIrst rover cockpit!

The Elite Dangerous Horizons panel at EGX was very exciting, showing off lots of cool stuff for Season 2 beyond planetary landings! --- FIGHTER BAY FOR LARGER SHIPS This has been teased for a while, but larger ships will be able to install a fighter bay for extra defense options. IT looks like you get the Condor. If you leave your post to get into the fighter, the ship can engage auto-pilot to defend itself a bit. However, that may not be necessary because... --- MULTICREW SHIPS! Players will be able to cooperatively fly in the same ship, doing different tasks, so one person might fly, and another might operate the turrets. FD said that they weren't sure how big the crew could get, because of the problem of finding things to do for people, but the answer will be more than 2 --- CUSTOMISABLE PLAYER AVATARS Now more human-scale stuff is being added, there will also be more opportunitiy to see more of your character (for reasons as yet undisclosed). There are loads of sliders to create male and female characters... Hair is also available, but trick, and they don't want to show bad hair --- CRAFTING AND LOOT All professions will find different types of crafting components, and these will give ways to customise and personalise your ship. For example, making awesome green lasers could change the relative damage to shields and to armour. Some components will be very rare. SOme will be only found on planets. Some will be mined, others will be found in wrecks. --- VIPER MK4 The first shot of the Viper Mk IV was released; tougher than the Mk II with better internals, but less maneuverable. --- BOBBLEHEADS! In the early alpha testing, little bobbleheads were attached to the dashboard of the test sidewinders... they actually turned out to be very useful indicators of acceleration. Bobbleheads will return, with a special Braben bobblehead available for preorder now (I think I'll give this one a miss )

Is anyone at EGX? They are showing the Vive to the public for the first time . Elite Dangerous, which has supported the Oculus Rift SInce Alpha 1.1 in December 2013, is showing the game on Vive; it is also featured on the Vive stand at EGX. I take this to be a good omen for cross-platform VR compatability for pc games at least

Frontier teased crafting and looting at gamescom . I'm hoping that crafting is done by experts rather than yourself, since 34th century spacecraft are a bit more complex than daggers! They had previously mentioned finding guys who could tune some of your modules. By the way, they've just announced that ED is coming to Vive!