For your FRIDAY

JasonPratt · February 04, 2018, 12:00:23 PM

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 03, 2018, 09:44:26 PM
As noted in another thread, I finally broke down and bought the most recent iteration of Strategic Command WWII: Storm over Europe, now one hundred percent more Matrixlithery. At full price, too.

Now I'm wondering... (2) how do "simultaneous" turns work in this game on pbem? (The '38 scenario seems to be the only one that features simul-turns.)

Okay, reading through the rules last night: what the devs mean by "simultaneous" turns in this game, is what all other turn based games mean by "alternate" turns. ;) What they mean by "alternate" turns, is that the players alternate playing on different turns. So Turn 1 the Axis plays, Turn 2 the Allies play, Turn 3 the Axis plays, etc., and each turn is a distinct period of time. So on the first week the Axis plays, on the second week the Allies plays, and so on into winter when it's more like this month the Axis plays, and the next month the Allies play.

Simultaneous turns mean that the Axis plays first this week then the Allies play this week, and so on. Effectively this means more turns per year; it also means more manufacture/political-points (or whatever MPP means) per year. So in that sense the game advances more quickly.

No campaigns in the vanilla game are simultaneous turns; and only one of the free fan-made campaigns available through Steam as free DLC count as simultaneous: namely the 1938 scenario. Which is what I want to play anyway, so... O0

Nefaro · February 04, 2018, 02:01:34 PM

Quote from: airboy on February 04, 2018, 01:25:57 AM
Pretty perfect Saturday.

Went on a pheasant shoot in the morning. Brisk, sunny, lots of Pheasants, lots of really happy hunting dogs.
Auburn won again at home and the wife and I went to the game.
UNC won, Dook lost to a team which had lost 11 straight.

I suppose all your stoplights were green, too?

:))

Sir Slash · February 04, 2018, 11:24:09 PM

Happy Hunting Dogs are the best kind. They wag their tails while they're pointing out prey and don't laugh at you when you miss your target.

JasonPratt · February 05, 2018, 11:07:05 AM

^ Cats, on the other hand, will criticize and mock you, before going about their own business until it's time for you to take them home.

Okay, let's see... got another FIRE IN THE GROGS ep posted up over the weekend, and ep 9 started. Our new GENESIS OF THE GROGS game has started up and is already roaring out of the gate in our first Turn.

I messed around learning and trying out some things in the new version of the Strategic Command WW2 game.

In Subnautica I finally got around to building my first base, which is literally one room and a hatch. Safely on dry land because there are scary demon things in the waters nearby. :hide: :timeout: :wow: Even on dry land I still have plenty to explore, having been here already, and food won't be a problem (although I should start some planters soon to ensure the food stays handy to Dry Base Gun). I've already knifed most of the cyclops judgment-stare spiders in the area, and they evidently don't respawn so I shouldn't be bothered by those further. Next up: abandoning my original escape pod and migrating stuff to this base. Maybe also building a harvest base between those areas in shallower waters away from the demon shark dinosaur thing(s) and the teleporting aliens. (At some point I should start a video series on this, too; I've been keeping footage for that.)

Jarhead0331 · February 05, 2018, 11:15:10 AM

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 05, 2018, 11:07:05 AM

In Subnautica I finally got around to building my first base, which is literally one room and a hatch. Safely on dry land because there are scary demon things in the waters nearby. :hide: :timeout: :wow: Even on dry land I still have plenty to explore, having been here already, and food won't be a problem (although I should start some planters soon to ensure the food stays handy to Dry Base Gun). I've already knifed most of the cyclops judgment-stare spiders in the area, and they evidently don't respawn so I shouldn't be bothered by those further. Next up: abandoning my original escape pod and migrating stuff to this base. Maybe also building a harvest base between those areas in shallower waters away from the demon shark dinosaur thing(s) and the teleporting aliens. (At some point I should start a video series on this, too; I've been keeping footage for that.)

I played a lot of this over the weekend. The problem with dry land is a complete lack of resources. I haven't been able to find any titanium, copper, quartz, etc. on the island. So if you want to build anything substantial, you'll have to bring all your building materials with you. I thought about setting up a little settlement there, but I've become quite comfortable in my base out at sea. I've got two large general purpose rooms on two levels, an observatory, a moon pool for docking my seamoth, a scanner room for recon, surveying and mapping, and lots of storage, lighting and power. I even have a nice place to sleep and a little study/office to maintain logs and records and to piece together and research all of the data logs I've discovered. I'm about to start building my first nuclear reactor so I no longer have to rely on solar panels...its then back into the deep in search of more wreckage sites. I still need to find prawn suit and cyclops fragments in order to complete the blue prints.

This is unquestionably one of the best, most polished sandbox survival games out there.

JasonPratt · February 05, 2018, 11:34:07 AM

Well, I've long since found that the dry land with the big story-gun on it doesn't have a complete lack of resources:

[spoiler]the cave system has quite a bit in itself, and the undersea cliffs and shelfs I've harvested a ton of things from. Plus there are lots of "nodes" of resources on them, for when I get that tool eventually, which I provisionally guess to be the laser cutter. No quartz that I've been able to find admittedly; nor creepvines nearby. I have to go back in the direction of my landing pod to get those and a few other things like table coral and sulfur. The main problem is the damned reapers. :pullhair: :hide:

Plus the teleportation gate on the island sends me to the floating jellyfish island place, with another more extensive cave system and potatos and watermelons and things like that which I'll be able to bring back and start planting.

It's a handy area to strike out for the Aurora, too, just outside the radiation zone, though come to think of it it looks a bit farther away visually than my lifeboat.[/spoiler]

Jarhead0331 · February 05, 2018, 11:47:06 AM

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 05, 2018, 11:34:07 AM
Well, I've long since found that the dry land with the big story-gun on it doesn't have a complete lack of resources:

[spoiler]the cave system has quite a bit in itself, and the undersea cliffs and shelfs I've harvested a ton of things from. Plus there are lots of "nodes" of resources on them, for when I get that tool eventually, which I provisionally guess to be the laser cutter. No quartz that I've been able to find admittedly; nor creepvines nearby. I have to go back in the direction of my landing pod to get those and a few other things like table coral and sulfur. The main problem is the damned reapers. :pullhair: :hide:

Plus the teleportation gate on the island sends me to the floating jellyfish island place, with another more extensive cave system and potatos and watermelons and things like that which I'll be able to bring back and start planting.

It's a handy area to strike out for the Aurora, too, just outside the radiation zone, though come to think of it it looks a bit farther away visually than my lifeboat.[/spoiler]

The laser cutter does not harvest nodes. It is used for cutting open locked doors and exploring wreckage of the Aurora. I believe there will be an attachment on the Prawn Suit that can harvest the resource nodes. I've unlocked all sorts of arm attachments for the prawn, but still don't have the blueprint for the actual suit!

I've been to the Aurora, but I haven't cut my way into it yet. I had other priorities at the time, but will return once I have a cyclops super submarine mobile base thing-a-majig.

JasonPratt · February 05, 2018, 12:25:02 PM

Dangit, I was hoping the laser did that... >:( Oh well. I suppose it'll be too much to hope that they get some FortCraftEvo cutter assembly-line things going instead. :D

Speaking of the laser cutting doors (which I did guess right about but hadn't been able to test yet), one of the scattered "rooms" I found on the sea floor has a locked door on each end, only one of which returns a UI message saying something has to be used to cut it open. The other door is just "locked" (and the cuttable door looks a little damaged). Is the 'merely' locked door merely aesthetic?

Jarhead0331 · February 05, 2018, 12:34:40 PM

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 05, 2018, 12:25:02 PM
Dangit, I was hoping the laser did that... >:( Oh well. I suppose it'll be too much to hope that they get some FortCraftEvo cutter assembly-line things going instead. :D

Speaking of the laser cutting doors (which I did guess right about but hadn't been able to test yet), one of the scattered "rooms" I found on the sea floor has a locked door on each end, only one of which returns a UI message saying something has to be used to cut it open. The other door is just "locked" (and the cuttable door looks a little damaged). Is the 'merely' locked door merely aesthetic?

Yes. There are some doors that are locked that you can do nothing with. Other doors can be cut open with the laser cutter and others have damaged wires that can be repaired with the repair tool. Once repaired, the door can be opened and closed normally. Gaining access to those pieces of wreckage is important. Its where you'll find a lot of blue prints, technology fragments and abandoned PDAs.

JasonPratt · February 05, 2018, 03:06:26 PM

Good! -- I'd feel extra doofusy if I ended the game with some locked doors I could never open, thinking I had just failed the game somehow.

Also, I'll be glad when I finally get to use the repair tool again after its one (admittedly very important) usage so far. I keep dragging it around hoping for the best, or for the worst rather!

Jarhead0331 · February 05, 2018, 03:30:04 PM

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 05, 2018, 03:06:26 PM
Good! -- I'd feel extra doofusy if I ended the game with some locked doors I could never open, thinking I had just failed the game somehow.

Also, I'll be glad when I finally get to use the repair tool again after its one (admittedly very important) usage so far. I keep dragging it around hoping for the best, or for the worst rather!

My repair tool is invaluable for making repairs to the seamoth. It gets banged up a lot from diving too deep, colliding with inattentive sea creatures and even from being chewed on by the larger, meaner denizens of the deep. Its also important to repair my base from time to time. How do you keep your seamoth in working order without it!?!

Also, make sure you get the blueprints for the battery and power cell rechargers. So critical for quality of life...

JasonPratt · February 06, 2018, 05:37:55 PM

Easy. Out of all the blueprints I've discovered, I haven't discovered enough of the rig that makes the seamoth yet (I think I do have enough plans for the seamoth itself but not for what constructs it). So I have no seamoth. Only the thing that drags me through the water.

To paraphrase Peter Venkman: "If I don't have a Seamoth, then it can't be damaged; and if it can't be damaged then it isn't damaged; and if it isn't damaged, then it's a check!" O0

(Igon: "...I'm not going to talk to you for a least a week. It's bad for me." "Hey, this is how I got through college!")

JasonPratt · February 08, 2018, 01:11:55 PM

So by now I've:

1.) Got my floating vehicle bay;

2.) Got my seamoth;

3.) Figured out how to place my scanner room (which is a finicky diva, though apparently less so than in past builds);

4.) Gotten through my first door requiring the repair tool;

5.) Finally found enough parts for my laser cutter;

6.) Gotten through my first doors requiring the laser cutter -- behind the first of which was nothing more than another pair of doors, one of which also required a laser cutter -- behind the second of which was a room filled with nothing but laser cutter parts. :pullhair: #:-)

7.) Upgraded my scanner room with everything but the most important thing (the HUD transmitter);

8.) Gathered enough spare minerals and made enough electronics for a portable mini-base (even one with a biomass reactor, although that leaves me with barely one slot in my backpack, so it's mainly for going around to find technology scans);

9.) Built a second permanent base (main room, biomass energy, solar power, fabricator, lockers, and scanner room, plus a growbed although nothing to grow there yet) near the Aurora wreck;

10.) Annnnnnnnnd I finished last night with a battery recharger at last! :clap: :nerd: What I'm missing now is a power-cell recharger. And more than one power cell. That's next on my list of things to do, since my Seamoth is almost dry. No pun intended.

11.) Also, essayed my first scouting of the Aurora wreck, but forgot to bring a fire extinguisher so all I could do was clean out the infestation of spider-eye things (on the port-bow quarter anyway) via talon to knife combat.

So, significant progress since Monday night.