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Video Games: A (Sonic 3D) Blast From The Past


KiDisaster

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BSG: Deadlock is really heating up. I unlocked the Artemis-class Battlestar (basically the Galactica from the original 1970s show) and it kicks arse. It has two air wings, massive bow guns (like the ones on Pegasus in the reboot) and a top deck full of heavy cannons. You have to get it underneath the enemy for maximum effect but once there it chews through the bad guys like anything. Combined with two Adamant-class frigates (with their insane broadsides and missile volleys) and four Manticore gunboats equipped with upgraded torpedoes, it makes for a formidable force. You can also drop a Mantictore and attach the fleet to Ragnar Anchorage (which it turns out in the First Cylon War was a mobile shipyard and was only retired to Ragnar at the end of the war; who knew?) to get two extra squadrons of Vipers. Here's the first time I used it.

The only problem is that my secondary fleet was on the other side of the Twelve Colonies and was too old-school, with only two Adamants and four Manticores. It was jumped by a Cylon fleet containing their heavy-hitters: three Cerebrus-class cruisers (the First Hybrid ship from Razor) and a full-on basestar. To my surprise I did pretty well, since the Cerberuses (Cerberusi?) attacked piecemeal, so I could hammer them with missiles and the Adamant's broadsides one-by-one. I lost two Manticores in the process, but I was able to hammer the basestar from range with missiles before closing with the Adamants and taking care of it with another stacked broadside volley. The basestars blow up real good.

This caused another issue in that the AI seemed to decide I was some kind of unstoppable badass so on the next mission with the same fleet, before I could reinforce, I was jumped by four full basestars. To quote someone else, "We can't handle four." I somehow managed to take out two of the basestars (one of them was helped by friendly fire), which was some consolation before I got torn to pieces. I would have taken a third with a ramming manoeuvre, but the basestar fell back and destroyed the Manticore with a last-minute missile volley. Fracking toasters.

Also a nice touch, the war has turned into a three-sided struggle since Sagittaron refused to sign the Articles of Colonisation and not only rebelled against the other colonies but actively tried to sabotage the war effort, which actually felt pretty true to the setting.

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5 hours ago, Werthead said:

BSG: Deadlock is really heating up. I unlocked the Artemis-class Battlestar (basically the Galactica from the original 1970s show) and it kicks arse. It has two air wings, massive bow guns (like the ones on Pegasus in the reboot) and a top deck full of heavy cannons. You have to get it underneath the enemy for maximum effect but once there it chews through the bad guys like anything. Combined with two Adamant-class frigates (with their insane broadsides and missile volleys) and four Manticore gunboats equipped with upgraded torpedoes, it makes for a formidable force. You can also drop a Mantictore and attach the fleet to Ragnar Anchorage (which it turns out in the First Cylon War was a mobile shipyard and was only retired to Ragnar at the end of the war; who knew?) to get two extra squadrons of Vipers. Here's the first time I used it.

The only problem is that my secondary fleet was on the other side of the Twelve Colonies and was too old-school, with only two Adamants and four Manticores. It was jumped by a Cylon fleet containing their heavy-hitters: three Cerebrus-class cruisers (the First Hybrid ship from Razor) and a full-on basestar. To my surprise I did pretty well, since the Cerberuses (Cerberusi?) attacked piecemeal, so I could hammer them with missiles and the Adamant's broadsides one-by-one. I lost two Manticores in the process, but I was able to hammer the basestar from range with missiles before closing with the Adamants and taking care of it with another stacked broadside volley. The basestars blow up real good.

This caused another issue in that the AI seemed to decide I was some kind of unstoppable badass so on the next mission with the same fleet, before I could reinforce, I was jumped by four full basestars. To quote someone else, "We can't handle four." I somehow managed to take out two of the basestars (one of them was helped by friendly fire), which was some consolation before I got torn to pieces. I would have taken a third with a ramming manoeuvre, but the basestar fell back and destroyed the Manticore with a last-minute missile volley. Fracking toasters.

Also a nice touch, the war has turned into a three-sided struggle since Sagittaron refused to sign the Articles of Colonisation and not only rebelled against the other colonies but actively tried to sabotage the war effort, which actually felt pretty true to the setting.

Based on some of your comments, I assume there is grand strategic map, right? Or how does moving the fleets work?

Also, why do ships look like they're listing after getting hit?

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Back to Attila with the ERE and hardest difficulty playthrough. On turn three I have not only smashed the Visigoths into oblivion, but the short lived Macadonian state met an ignominious end with their last commander being hunted down off the coast of Thessaly and summarily sent to the bottom of the deep.

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Turn five, the Garamantians declared war on me, so I bolstered my African holdings.

Then I hit the end turn button and have the Alans attacking in northern Thrace! On turn five! They must've made a beeline straight for me.

I fought with the garrison, did a bit of damage but lost. Then as the turn wheel kept going I alt tabbed out to mess around.

You'll imagine my surprise, then, when I opened the game again and found that the Sassanids were attacking Edessa! (sorta northeastern syria)

Normally when a faction declares war on you there's a little interactive window that pops up. Apparently they were so fucking pissed they bypassed that part altogether.

Anyway, two full stacks broke themselves against Edessa, as I always maintain a fairly strong garrison there for just such an occasion and I am now at war with a resurgent Africa, a mobile screening force for the Huns in Greece, and the entire Eastern world.

Alright game, my move.

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On 23/10/2017 at 3:51 AM, Corvinus said:

Based on some of your comments, I assume there is grand strategic map, right? Or how does moving the fleets work?

Also, why do ships look like they're listing after getting hit?

Yes, there's a grand strategic map of the Twelve Colonies (all four sub-systems, based on the canon maps created for the TV show). You build ships at Ragnar, form fleets and send them to hotspots, a bit like Total War. You get income from each of the colonies, but that stops if a Cylon fleet besieges them. If a Cylon force cuts them off for too long, they secede, a bit like XCOM. However, you can win them back by rescuing them. You also research new ships and weapons and recruit and assign officers to your fleets, which give them bonuses as they level up and get experience.

Ships have different armour on different parts of the ship. If you suffer a missile barrage, rotating the ship to present a different face to be hit by the next barrage is a good idea (bearing in mind weapon firing arcs as well).

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In Elite: Dangerous I've got my Cobra MKIII fairly decked out as a good little all-purpose ship.  I recently spent a lot of time travelling to a new area of the galaxy on an invite from an engineer (the weapons guy) only to discover the engineering function is basically a big grind for little reward, so I don't know how far down that path I'll go.  The game is getting a bit repetitive at this point, and I see how it's such a common complaint.  Maybe that's all the game was intended to be, but some more elaborate missions and storylines to get involved with would be a big help for continued playability in my eyes.  Let me join up with an NPC squadron or some big battles with wingmates... or sign me on as protection for convoys.  There's tons of possibilities that seem like they'd be fairly easy to implement with what they have in the game already.  I still want to get into some of the bigger ships so I'll probably keep playing for awhile yet.

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5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

How EA have decided that the future is microtransations, open world, loot boxes and milking players for all they are worth. Don't expect to see any more single-player focused linear games from EA any time soon. Or ever.

Same will happen with Blizzard. Dont know how many people know they own King the makers of Candy Crush. 

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1 hour ago, Tinker said:

Same will happen with Blizzard. Dont know how many people know they own King the makers of Candy Crush. 

Blizz were never really known for making linear, story-based single player games anyway (apart from the campaign modes in Warcraft & Starcraft I guess but those weren't the focal point) and they led the charge on the latest loot box craze with Overwatch and HOTS.

So nothing's gonna happen to Blizzard, they're well ahead of the game on this one. Unfortunately.  

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1 hour ago, KiDisaster said:

Blizz were never really known for making linear, story-based single player games anyway (apart from the campaign modes in Warcraft & Starcraft I guess but those weren't the focal point) and they led the charge on the latest loot box craze with Overwatch and HOTS.

So nothing's gonna happen to Blizzard, they're well ahead of the game on this one. Unfortunately.  

Only Blizzard game I have played in th last 10 years is Diablo 3 and only completed that once.

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6 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Blizz were never really known for making linear, story-based single player games anyway (apart from the campaign modes in Warcraft & Starcraft I guess but those weren't the focal point) and they led the charge on the latest loot box craze with Overwatch and HOTS.

So nothing's gonna happen to Blizzard, they're well ahead of the game on this one. Unfortunately.  

The single-player campaigns in WarCraft and StarCraft (less so StarCraft II, which was a bit of a hot mess) are very iconic though, with memorable storylines, events and characters. But yeah, I can't see Blizzard making a WarCraft IV or StarCraft III that wasn't resolutely multiplayer-focused.

The problem with crafting a single-player experience is that it takes a lot of time, money (on lots of voice actors, AI programmers and writers) and other things that are often only seen once and then never again. I can kind of see the argument that a well-crafted single-player game lasting 10-20 hours (for a linear game) or even 50-200 hours (for an open world game) doesn't make sense when you have people playing multiplayer modes of games for 1,000 hours plus over several years, spending more money on tons of upgrades and things in the meantime.

The argument against that is being able to have both, which the Call of Duty franchise to its credit has always done (even if the SP story is bullshit, or lasts 6-7 hours), or when companies sell a bazillion copies of a single-player game regardless (Bethesda and Creative Assembly are in that bracket with their games, BioWare unfortunately never were).

What is annoying is when a formerly SP-focused franchise gets taken over by multiplayer and the focus shifts to that, and as a result of that we don't get another game in the series for a long, long time. That's happened with GTA, where the focus is on GTA Online and they haven't really started work on GTA6 yet, despite 5 coming out over four years ago now.

Thankfully we have the indie and Kickstarter space. The number of great-looking games which are either SP or have a strong SP mode as well as multiplayer is quite high: BattleTechPhoenix PointWasteland 3Pillars of Eternity II, Obsidian's new game (which apparently is a SP RPG) etc.

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16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The single-player campaigns in WarCraft and StarCraft (less so StarCraft II, which was a bit of a hot mess) are very iconic though, with memorable storylines, events and characters. But yeah, I can't see Blizzard making a WarCraft IV or StarCraft III that wasn't resolutely multiplayer-focused.

The problem with crafting a single-player experience is that it takes a lot of time, money (on lots of voice actors, AI programmers and writers) and other things that are often only seen once and then never again. I can kind of see the argument that a well-crafted single-player game lasting 10-20 hours (for a linear game) or even 50-200 hours (for an open world game) doesn't make sense when you have people playing multiplayer modes of games for 1,000 hours plus over several years, spending more money on tons of upgrades and things in the meantime.

The argument against that is being able to have both, which the Call of Duty franchise to its credit has always done (even if the SP story is bullshit, or lasts 6-7 hours), or when companies sell a bazillion copies of a single-player game regardless (Bethesda and Creative Assembly are in that bracket with their games, BioWare unfortunately never were).

What is annoying is when a formerly SP-focused franchise gets taken over by multiplayer and the focus shifts to that, and as a result of that we don't get another game in the series for a long, long time. That's happened with GTA, where the focus is on GTA Online and they haven't really started work on GTA6 yet, despite 5 coming out over four years ago now.

Thankfully we have the indie and Kickstarter space. The number of great-looking games which are either SP or have a strong SP mode as well as multiplayer is quite high: BattleTechPhoenix PointWasteland 3Pillars of Eternity II, Obsidian's new game (which apparently is a SP RPG) etc.

To be fair, GTA online is pretty great to play. And Red Dead 2 is coming out.

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2 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

To be fair, GTA online is pretty great to play. And Red Dead 2 is coming out.

Yeah, my guess is that GTA6 will be a thing after RDR2 comes out. They may even make GTA6 compatible with 5, which would both save them some work and allow a massive expansion to GTA Online later on. The only concern is they may decide to drop a SP storyline, but given it's Rockstar's thing (the Housers are very much frustrated movie writers) and RDR2 has a vigourous SP mode, maybe not.

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On 10/22/2017 at 7:45 PM, Pony Queen Jace said:

My glorious republic, last champion of a Teutonic Europe, teeters at the edge of a bayonet.

Poland turned savage again with the aid of perfideous Courland while I am battling in India.

Are you playing Civ?

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19 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Nah brah, kickin' it old skool on Empire: Total War.

I have Civ 6 but I haven't been too into playing it. I don't think they have an earth map.

Ah okay. Your play by play is intriguing so I was thinking about getting whatever it was you were playing. Civ was my guess. Last time I played a game like that was Cossacks so I'll need a refresher. Thanks!

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Back on BSG Deadlock, last time I met four basestars I did not do well. This time I arranged it so one of my heavier-hitting fleets was in the area so the forces were a bit more balanced. Still, four basestars (the best Cylon ship in the game) versus an Armetis (which is only the second-best battlestar), two Adamant frigates and three Minotaur gunships was still a big ask, especially given the cloud of Raiders they could put out (a basestar can hold two squadrons each, so that's 8 squadrons versus 4 squadrons of Vipers).

So at the start of the battle I retreated my Vipers behind my main fleet, turned the Artemis towards the basestars and launched a massive flak barrage. That had the positive impact of taking out a squadron or so of Raiders and also created a protective shield against the Cylon missile barrages. Unfortunately that left my rear side unprotected: you can only fire flak to starboard or port, not both simultaneously, so the Raiders got behind me and started chewing me up. I had to send the Vipers in and they got wiped out due to sheer superiority of Cylon numbers. They did delay the Raiders by several turns though, which later proved instrumental.

I switched the Minotaurs to a highly aggressive strategy, boosting their attack power to sacrifice speed. Fortunately the basestars focused their attacks on the Armetis, allowing the Minotaurs relative free reign to keep firing on the basestars with their big guns and hitting them with missiles. The real heroes were the Adamants, though. Stacked one on top of another (the "Adamant wall" tactic) and set to maximum firepower, they "orbited" each basestar in turn (like Galactica and Pegasus in the Resurrection Ship battle) and hammered them into oblivion with missile broadsides and their big guns. The Artemis also closed to close range. It couldn't use its bow guns (which are badass) but its top-mounted batteries still dealt out ridiculous damage. I blew up each basestar in turn followed by a single rogue Nemesis gunship. At the end of the battle it got touch and go because the Raiders finished off the Vipers and turned on the Minotaurs. They nearly destroyed one, but the mission ended before it could get taken out, so it lived to fight another day.

The war's now gotten serious: Sagittaron is attacking the other colonies outright and the Cylons have just acquired nukes. Gulp.

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On 10/15/2017 at 3:07 PM, Ded As Ned said:

Yeah I had no idea it was so groundbreaking until I read up on the series.  Disappointed I didn't catch it in the beginning... but ce'st la vie.

 I'm about halfway to outfitting my Cobra3 the way I want.  Took on my first mining mission yesterday during a long session (kids are gone for the weekend)... and I'm embarrassed it took me about 4 hours to figure out I was going about it all wrong.  Once I figured out a much more time-efficient strategy it went rather quickly.  Pirates kept coming after me (even though I had nothing of value in my cargo hold).... but with the help of the authorities we made light work of them.  I don't like the federation security forces poking their noses in all the time to "save" me (and scanning my ship)... I'm assuming the independent systems don't have that, or at worst the anarchy ones.  Contemplating a move to a less regulated section of the galaxy when I'm ready.

Decided to go exploring in my cobra.  Headed 'south' and found some undiscovered planets about 840 light years from my starting point (Avalon system in thr Empire).  At that point I headed back, the return trip lasting 90 jumps.

On selling my exploration data I made most 4 million credits and was credited with discovering about 2 dozen new planets, which now have my name marked against them as the discoverer :)

Next goal is to increase Imperial rank, then Federation rank, and save up for my Asp Explorer.

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If I were to play Elite or Bsg on the pc, what are the controls like?  Are they primarily mouse driven or can you do mostly keyboard or controller pad?  They both sound like they're in my wheel house but using a mouse as the primary input is a no go for my hands.

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