Dr Wookie

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Posts posted by Dr Wookie

  1. Posted

    Congrats on whatever's making you take the move Dr. Wookie, I assume it's an exciting opportunity.

     

    Been popping pirates out in the Ceti sector for the latest community goal, but after that I think I'll be running rare goods. Is the Diso corn route still amplified?

    Thanks Doc :), the opportunity came up 5 years ago, and now I have run out of extensions for my visa, but it has been fantastic time!

     

    I've had a bit of a play with the 1.3 beta, and am impressed. If you go on the forums there are a whole bunch of people whining about the two new ships, the ~500 kcr Diamondback and the ~2.4 Mcr Imperial Courier, because they are not magically the best in class as what they do.

     

    The Diamondback is pitched as a "combat explorer". It is fast and maneuverable, and gets up to ~24 ly even when fully equiped; it's sort of like a baby Asp or more combat-specialised Cobra, and it's freaking adorable. It has very little room for cargo though, but that's not really in its remit. Quite a bit of moaning was based on quoted maneuverability stats, which are incorrect.

     

    The courier is billed as a VIP transporter, so would probably be better used when passengers are added. In some ways it seems to be a beefed up eagle. I think the price tag is definitely largely due to bling, which may end up allowing a higher class of passanger

     

    There is a comprehensive and impressive screenshot thread covering most of the new changes here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=147904

     

    There are substantial spoilers for the some of the events going on right now, so if you're sensitive to that, then don't look too closely at the faction leaders.

     

    Powerplay itself looks promising, and I like that it is not a direct way of making money; instead, you gain influence within the faction on a weekly basis, and gain perks and access to special equipment that may help your profit.

     

    --- Each Power has an area of influence, and is looking to prepare systems for control or exploitation, expand, and fortify current systems; they may use various tactics for each (combat, financial, or social from what I've seen).

     

    --- Powers use Command Capital (CC) to achieve their goals, which are resolved on a weekly basis.

     

    --- There appear to be 5 ranks that the player can attain by gaining "merits". Rank 1 has no perks, and to be in the running for Ranks 2--5, you must have obtained at least 100 merits the previous week. These ranks are not permanent, and must be maintained by activity (if you want to engage)

     

    --- Perks I've seen include 5/10/15% extra money from trade within controlled systems, up to 50% extra money from bounties, or boosts to infulence change

     

    --- If you are with a faction for at least 4 weeks, high rank gives you access to Power-specific equipment, such as an extra-strong Prismatic Shield, or a Mining Lance that mines and does combat damage

     

    --- If you defect, you can expect assassins after you, and you cant chose another power for a certain amount of time

     

    --- Merits are gained by performing specific actions, such as running propaganda to new worlds, or sealed orders to clandestine agents (I went with Aisling Duval for the beta).

     

    --- However, your access to these materials is restricted based on rank, or ability to pay. Rank 1 has access to 10 power items per 30 minutes; however, you can get the next batch for 100,000 cr kinda like free to play mobile games, but with ingame cash

  2. Posted

    Have they added quite a few minable resources in the past? I see a lot more minerals and metals on the list the last couple of star ports I've visited, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm in a different area, or if it's new.

    It's probably a mixture of both :) not all stations demand/supply the same stuff, but also Painite was added in 1.2 to be taken from NPCs; Painite and osmium will be minable in 1.3

  4. Posted

    I got to Novigrad (sp?) yesterday, and it's part of the same huge map as Velen is... It took me a while to realise this because I kept trying to go there from the world map, and it went back to the Velen map since I had not opened up any signposts

  5. Posted

    The old worlds from the original game (lave, diso, Leesti, uszaa, orrere, zaonce and maybe reorte) are close together and have rares. Here has been a community goal reward at diso which gives up to 50 tons of diso ma corn, which sells for about ~700 k profit

  6. Posted

    Like a lot of games with very strong identities, this series isn't for everyone, as the thread so far has definitely shown! I used to really like BK when it came out, and am interested to see where they go with this.

    I got the impression that the small original goal was to help port the game to many different platforms, as they already had the money to develop for the lead platform. I have no problem at all with this approach.

    I like the art style, and really love the massively nostalgic BK-ass sample music. I'm not going to kickstart it, since it's comfortably met it's goal, but will definitely follow along with interest.

  7. Posted

    While th monsters are great, I'm not so keen on having high level versions look identical to lower level versions. I've cone across level twenty something ghouls that I rocked up on and got one-shotted.

    Also, I had my first go with Ciri last night

    She is much more mobile than Geralt, but lacking many of his tricks. I don't know if it's just because it's early on, but all I could do was thwack with my one sword, and teleport-dodge. Maybe more powers will be unlocked later.

  8. Posted

    Interesting, less hardpoints means I won't be able to keep up my mining/fighting hybrid setup. Really it sounds like my Cobra is better in pretty much every way.

    Depending on the target, 3 medium could be considerably more effective than 2 medium and 2 small lasers, but otherwise I tend to agree with you based on just those numbers. I always got the impression that when buying Gutemaya ships, a substantial portion of the cost goes towards flash and swagger (the interior of the Clipper is by far the swankiest I've seen so far). The Clipper can be extremely fast though, with a boost >400 m/s while carrying >200 tons.

  9. Posted

    This week's Dev Update said that powerplay beta will start next Tuesday, May 26.

     

    Some base Courier stats have been teased: costs  twice as much as Type 6, so about 2 million credits, has 3 medium hardppoints, 4 utility points, a jump range of 7.8 lyr, a speed (probably not boosted) of 270 m/s, and a default capacity of 12 tons. Obviously all of these stats have considerable scope for improvement with upgrades

     

    New cheating tools have been put in place, and people have been banned this week for cheating in community goals as well as account trading

     

    Powerplay will include updates to shields so that the values persist in supercruise; this prevents commanders in wings from jumping out and back again with recharged shields

  10. Posted

    I just about lost it yesterday (well I've been packing for an intercontinental move and am feeling the strain) when one of the story cutscenes was punctuated with two rabbits vigorously humping in the background :D! I'm not sure whether it was just in the scene and rendered real time or intentional, but it was great :P!

     

    I'm back in the second area, still having NOPE NOPE NOPE moments when explorin (and running away), but having a fantastic time; I'm really into it now. Cruel really, since I have to sell my monitor next week, and my laptop won't run it... it will probably be a wee while before I get the chance to play again, so will make the most of this holiday weekend

  11. Posted

    I decided to look at a few videos that other people had made of the Witcher 3 on various platforms, and it has eased my concerns about my GPU's performance. I was initially worried because the intro movie was very hitchy, but it seems to have been hitchy for everyone. I put a load of settings on Ultra, and things seem to be running along nicely.

     

    I completed the first big mission, spent a little while in the second area, but exploration kept butting me up against skull-rated enemies, so I decided to go back to the first area for a while and fully explore there before going back to the second place.

     

    I was initially thrown by the changes to alchemy: now you make each potion once, and it gets refilled by meditating so long as you have hard alcohol. I've made some bombs and oils too, but am not sure how they restock.

     

    I'm getting used to fighting too, mixing up stabbing and melting and forcefielding and shooting, along with dodging; I really like that they put the thought into big rolly dodges and small sidesteppy dodges

  12. Posted

    Hmm, has there been any ballpark announced for the price of an Imperial Courier. I'm really interested in getting an Imperial Clipper, but that's a long way away at this point.

    Not sure yet, but we'll have an idea when the beta starts; it was due to start tomorrow, but is delayed by a few days. It's definitely less than the clipper, and the required rank is much lower too (DB mentioned that it could be Master rank, which is the 3rd one up, and 4 below that required for the Clipper).

  13. Posted

    Ship and part prices are generally static, but can be cheaper if you get discount for being allied, or if there is a sale as a result of a community goal. If you go from a ship wih large jump distance to one with smaller distance, then it is possible (though unlikely) to be stuck in that system.

    If you want to go bounty hunting definitely get a kill warrant scanner! Normal scans only give local bounties (and there are often no bounties in anarchy systems); the KWS gives you bounties from all jurisdictions, and these are often more than the local bounty. However, if a ship is clean locally, and wanted elsewhere, then shooting it will mark you a criminal!

  14. Posted

    I had a lot of fun using a a Viper with 2x fixed pulse lasers and 2x gimballed autocannons. I think the ship is only about 300k so that should be doable for you, I used the autocannons because the Viper is always short on power so 4 energy weapons wasn't really feasible. Just fly into a Resource Extraction Site (ideally on a planetary ring with high metal content, in a high population system) and kill anything that's Wanted. Also don't fight stuff that's much bigger than you unless there's some system authorities around to help, though if you do get into trouble, the Viper is generally fast enough that if you divert all power to engines you should be able to escape.

     

    This was what I did for the vast majority of my E:D playtime and it was mostly fun. Probably the most frustrating part about it is when you inevitably accidentally hit a System Authority Vessel a single time, you'll get a bounty and they all aggro, so you're forced to fly back to a station and pay it.

    I'm not sure when you last played, but some new mechanics have been added to see whether it was accidental friendly fire or not. For example, 1 hit to a ship who is not targeted is usually dismissed as an accident.  I used to run with C3 burst lasrs, and I think friendly fire detection systems took a dim view, what with 3 successive pairs of  high power hits :P!

  15. Posted

    Man, I love that Dan cared enough about Kirkhope versus Wise that he put together a quiz for it for the Bombcast.

    Yeah that was awesome! I got all of them right, including the tie breaker :P. I don't know much of Wise's music but I can recognise Kirkhope's stuff pretty much instantly it seems (apart from the tiebreaker, but I eventually recognised the tune). I'm pretty excited for Yuka-Laylee (sp?) in theory, but I'm not sure if I'm still in a place to enjoy that sort of game.

  16. Posted

    Wookie, most of what you're saying is complete Greek to me. How would I know to make those connections for trade routes? Where can I learn that?

    Every commodity tells you in its description what kind of economy produces it, and what types consume it.; it even gives nearby example systems for you to import from or export to. But there are also general relationships between different types of economy. For example agricultural economies make food and alcohol for everyone, including extraction systems; extraction economies extract and sell minerals to refineries, which sell metals to industrial and high tech economies, which produce crop harvesters or agri-medicines etc for agricultural worlds. 

     

    Bounties are pretty high now, and lots of people farm pirates in resource extraction sites to great effect. Try it and see... there's no rush to make tons of cash, honestly!

     

    What was so bad about the rare run? Is it the number of jumps? Did you sell your shields and die horribly? Taking rares to systems that produce other rares will likely reduce profits, because everyone and their grandma has being doing that for months, and demand is lower; you could try a few systems over.

  17. Posted

    I've put a few hours in, and I like what I see so far! I've mostly been tearing round the country side, doing things here and there, rather than out and out storying. I died quite a bit to start with, mostly due to my thinking that parrying works well against animals :P! As a handy hint says, dodging is better for those guys.

     

    I love the open hostility and fear shown by the villagers even going by them; it all goes towards making the world seem like a living place (with lots of dying).

     

    I have already encountered an enemy that practically impossible to kill just by swinging a sword at it, but reading the beastiary is a huge help. Thinking before slaughtering seems like a good bet to me.

     

    Also, I've seen a fair few comments round the interwebs complaining that the visuals have been dumbed down with respect to earlier footage, because of consoles. Well, my i7-4770, 8 GB RAM and GTX 970 struggle with the highest settings, so that's clearly not the case :).

  19. Posted

    Only about 8 hours to go until preloads are unlocked! Over the weekend, Eurogamer republished a great article about the origins of CD Projekt (Red and Blue... is that why Galaxy is purple? :P): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-06-seeing-red-the-story-of-cd-projekt

     

    Also, if you're playing on Xbox One, you might want to read this article about the good and bad of the day 1 patch: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-should-you-install-the-witcher-3-day-one-patch

     

      Kirk Hamilton has written an excellent beginner's guide to the Witcher universe, going through lore and major characters before discussing the previous two games (with spoilers, obviously). The first half is useful (containing a minor spoiler for Witcher III in its description of Ciri).http://kotaku.com/a-beginner-s-guide-to-the-world-of-the-witcher-1704506152

  20. Posted

    Wookie, that gold and black paint job is pretty swank. Congrats on the Python!

     

    Also nice community medal. I confess I stalked you just enough to look up your astronomy publications. With the end of spring term and publication deadlines burning a hole in my free time I haven't had much chance to catch space lately.

    Heh, good luck with that   :P! All of my papers are written with an audience of experts in mind, and conciseness is more important than entertainment (hence loads of jargon).

     

     

    Help I'm back in Elite. Used the equity from the backer Eagle to get a hauler, and I've put about 200k into it to upgrade various parts and pieces. Via one website that gins up trade routes, I can make about 20k profit per cargo load on sites 20-30 LY apart. Which means I can buy the million credit ship in... maybe about 10 hours of doing nothing but running beryllium back and forth. What else can I do as a poor space trader to make some cash and get a ship that isn't straight peanuts? I know I've asked this question before, but the game has no internal resources and I don't know which external ones are the best.

    Right now,  Shifnalport in Diso has been flooded with Diso Ma Corn. a rare commodity that costs <400 credits but gives ~15,000 (yes thousand) credits profit per ton about 150 lightyears away. Normally only a few tons are available at a time, but thanks to a community goal, you can buy up to 50 tons at once. Rare goods trading may be your best bet in general, especially if you pick up a Cobra on the way to a Type 6. Thrudd's seems to be a good place to look, especially for rares, though I don't use it

     

    Also, it is a terrible idea to buy a ship when you can only just afford it; it is a good idea to have at least enough to get a few upgrades, a hold full of cargo, and still have money left over for the insurance.

     

    I don't use external sight, because I prefer to find routes by myself, but I recommend finding a generally wider route just for variety if nothing else, e.g. agricultural to extraction to refinery to high tech to agricultural. Also, systems away from the core and off the beaten path are more likely to yield better profits. 

     

    You also might want to try a trading community goal (such as the one in Wolf 406 right now). If you can get to Wolf 406 and bring metals to Hamilton Gateway (any kind, tonnage is more important than worth), then the rewards once the goal is completed are often in the millions, depending on your reward tier, and the tier of completion

  22. Posted

    Thanks to a timely community goal reward and a sale on Faulcon de Lacy ships in Zaonce, I traded in all of my ships to get a Python :D!

     

    11269484_10153963228064152_1094051837359

     

    This is another build as I go job, so I will probably be in this ship for quite a while :P!

     

    In more general, other-people-care news, the Powerplay beta has been pushed back by up to a week according to the latest newsletter; heh, releasing the day after the Witcher 3 means I would probably not have played much of it anyway :P! 

     

    Also, Elite Dangerous is released for Mac

     

    The peek of the week was of the Imperial Courier in space, quite slinky

     

    73a90acaae2b1ccc0e969709665bc62f.jpg

  23. Posted

    I would also be up for photo contests :)

    Thanks Wookieepedia, that's one of my all time favourite shots... That's snow behind them, and they were chasing each other around basically by my feet, so I was very lucky. Also that train yard shot is great!

  24. Posted

    Looks like I'm set for Elite Dangerous, SOLD (so long as the text is readable) :)! I'm also looking forward to Albino Lullaby, and GTA V in OR. Maybe also (please please please) Fallout 4?

  25. Posted

    They are also doing an enhanced edition for pc, which will be free for people who already bought it. They say they have substantially altered the end game, which is great news because that was pretty terrible even though the rest of the game was excellent.