[Sushi]

Noooooooo Maaaaaaaan's Skyyyyyyyyyyyy

Help, I've fallen in.

[0rph3u5]

Trying to play less Destiny 2: Forsaken now that the first cycle of the Dreaming City is coming to a close... I was actually very suprised just how much the semi-dynamic nature of the Dreaming City changes the flow of engagement with the game (unlike other hubs the Dreaming City is on three weeks cycle of changing hostile activity ever since the associated raid was completed for the first time)

[Turambar]

Playing Monster Hunter

then i took a break to play some Shadow of the Tomb Raider

then i took a break from that to play some Frostpunk and Surviving Mars

but really I'm just waiting for Soul Calibur 6

[Mammothtank]

I finished my Second or Third replay of X-Com: Terror From The Deep. I'm thinking of starting a new Open X-Com Files campaign.

(wishes that DMC 3 HD played well on my pc)

I've almost completed Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines as a Tremere. Boy did I underestimate how powerful this class would be.   

(wishes that DMC 3 HD played well on my pc so that he could prepare for DMC V)

And I've gotten back into Warframe. Now that I have a goal, and a Warframe I want to build. I think I actually have something keeping me into the game. The layout of the game content and story really, really gets grindy. So I'm headed for MR 10 to get me some new weapons as well as getting a Volt Neuroptics for my Chroma BP.

[Mpez]

Recently finished a light side Sith Warrior and sort of grey Scoundrel main plotlines in SWTOR (without the expansions). I think this game has a lot of really generic filler, but it's really good at signalling which content is the good stuff (= class missions). I started skipping most quests, focusing on the class stuff only later on.

The stories are fairly generic, but what elevates them is the fact that it's a Star Wars universe and you can play as characters that usually aren't the focus in most of the films (e.g. bounty hunter). The writers were pretty good at capturing the general feel of each class, both in the story and the mechanics. E.g. sith warrior is mostly a tank and in the cutscenes you can feel like Vader, smashing all opposition. There are a lot of things that you would expect, e.g. playing a sith there is constant tension between the master and apprentice, you are expecting everyone to backstab you all of the time. You can choose to undermine your master's strength by not killing some of the characters and convincing them to join your cause instead. You can expose an important jedi by killing and destroying everything that is important to them or converting all of the loved ones to the Dark side instead. Jedi can ambush your light sided sith and promise to stop your evildoing, after which you explain to them that you actually don't want to kill any jedi and wish them a good day (which makes things very awkward). Overall things are pretty basic, but nuances such as these make it worthwhile. The game would definitely benefit if they made it as a single player RPG though.

[deathspeed]

I gave World of Warplanes a whirl tonight.  I have no idea what I am doing, but it is fun shooting planes down. 

[0rph3u5]

Valkyria Chronicles 4

I don't have any point of comparison but the original in its PC release or PS4 remaster state, but this is sooooo good if you liked the original.

The narrative takes a while to get going, mostly because Squad E is written more like an established unit than the original's crew, who had to find a way to get along for several chapters first. But once it gets going both on a global and personal level its hard to let go. While it adheres to a romantic style like the original VC4 actually gives more dimension to most of its antagonists (as per Chapter 15), which serves it well by making the narrative less cookie-cutter IMO.
The whole thing is also enhanced by actually working with bios and characterisations of the non-essential squadmembers in optional missions.

Gameplaywise, some old issues make a return: multiple activations of a single unit can be just as powerful as they were before, lancers are still the odd ones out (esspecially since Snipers now got a lot more important for various missions and Tanks now activate for 1 CP), and some upgrade paths for you equipment are still dominant (guess which one).
BUT where they fixed things they did it well: the new Grenadiers actually make splitting your squad into multiple groups viable (even though anti-armor mortars threaten to make Lancers obsolete), the option to team up three units once per turn allows for much needed mobility for low mobilty units or to join esspecially powerful fireteams together for a hard hitting rush, and speaking of rush, the new APC is a gift to get across some missions.
Introduction of 4 new global orders on a seperate 2 per mission ressource also give depth to missions, esspecially since two of them (a global medevac and option to redeploy a previously destroyed tank) act als safety net for what used to be mission failing mistakes.

[0rph3u5]

The Wings of Dawn-tribute game in Stellaris continues - Picked it back up after I left dormant for a while...

End game crisis will begin in ca. 150 years at this point; Most notable events:

- The Sol Union has been experiencing a very handy period of political calm, despite a quest-line related flare up of militarist sentiment. (in order to keep the factions ideologically opposed to each other, and prevent a hegemonial federation to form before the end game crisis, the SU is a pacifist state by default)

- Using wormholes all factions have expanded away from the initial cluster. The DD and UGC expanded into the galacitic south, while another UGC project competed with New Britania in the galactic east. SU expansion was a bit slower, mostly because I didn't bother to explore the wormholes, but then established a prosperous enclave north of the galactic core.

- New Britania has been trying to conquer the Delest Dynasty several times now, but so far never succeded due to either direct Sol Union intervention or the UGC opening an unrelated second front somewhere.

- A tech race between the UGC and SU kicked off the L-Gate Crisis. As a result the DD holdings in the galactic south were decimated, while UGC recovered handly from the inital onslaught. But the brunt of the invasion was broken on the fortifications of the SU, which at the time controlled 5 of 7 L-Gates (at present it is 6 with the previously DD controlled gate having fallen into my hands). Almost as a reward for protecting the galaxy, the L-Gate Cluster became an SU territory.

- Currently work is underway for the SU to raise a 6th fleet to finally eclipse the New Britania on the power scale (currently at "Equivalent") and initate a war to vassalize this primary aggressor. If raising a fleet should not be sufficent, SU does have Colossus-technology... (building a Colossus usually kicks off an "everyone against the Colossus-owning faction"-war)

EDIT: small hickup to that last plan:

(if you are wondering about the species name, that is both quest and ascension related - the SU is now populated by a lot of Synths...)

[Colonol Dekker]

Currently driving cross country as is required by my job.  But I've got my net book loaded with space quest 1 to ..7 (?)   So plan on getting though them this week

[Det. Bullock]

Assassin’s Creed 2 (PC)
Being a tourist in renaissace Tuscany is fun!
I also like that whoever dubbed it in Italian peppered the dialogue with some toscanisms (accent and pronunciation are still standard though) that I doubt were present in the original english with random Italian phrases dialogues.
I had to reinstall it because it refused to start the story but now it doesn’t need both Steam and Uplay open to work, just uplay (weird thing is that the first time I installed it with uPlay it booted up Steam and started using steam for download).
I notice that now collectibles have actually a purpose, which was the thing that really bugged me about the first game.

[HLD_Prophecy]

We Are The Dwarves!

Cool indie title. Feels like XCOM a bit but it's more of what I wanted XCOM to be. Squad management like XCOM, real-time and paced like FTL. Give it a try!

[Firesteel]

Just started playing Neighbor, a horror VN about a woman who moves in next to an apparently haunted apartment and everyone else seems like they have a vague idea of what happened. It's excellent so far and perfect for October.

[Mammothtank]

Woah, Baldursgate 2 is just as confusing and open as I remember it being when it opens.


Also I just built Chroma and Nidus in Warframe. Sorely disappointed by the fact the new Story content weapon requires ****ing Ducats to make.

[0rph3u5]

The war to bring the Kingdom of New Britannia has come and gone in my Stellaris-game...

Highlights:

- The military build-up irreperably damaged all my diplomatic ties. All trade deals, migrations treaties and research agreements are off.

- The SF invasion was swift and decisive, only marginally held up by the logistical problem of "there not being any ground forces". I knew I forgot about something.

- CRF Task Force Kraken vs SF 9th Fleet: While the SU Fleets were marching from victory to victory, a small CRF task force began harrassing undefended systems, forcing me to pull the 9th Fleet and its Titan, the Enterprise, from the front lines. This heroic little outfit was called Task Force Kraken and commanded by one Manfred Richter. They led the 9th Fleet on a merry chase, until the Enterprise finally caught up. The resulting battle was rather unceremonious, with Task Force Kraken heroically charging the 9th Fleet only to be destroyed at maximum range by the Enterprise's long range weapons.

- The New Britannia goverment was able to hold out for years however due to galactic politics: As a result from a previous war the Mauthula-system was isolated from both the rest of New Britannia and from any route the SF could have taken to secure it. This dragged out the war signifacantly.

- The Fall of Ihefulian Prime: Seeing the CRF brough to its knees the DD tried and initially succeeded in an attack on the Mauthula-system - but if you thought this would bring the CRF-SF conflict to a swifter end you don't know Stellaris. As soon as the DD redeployed its fleet, the UGC swept in. Resulting battles between the DD and UGC fleets were a series of massarcres, and the DD capital of Ihefulian Prime became just another conquered planet. As a result the DD is now ruled from the planet Elysium in a SU surrounded enclave east of the galactic core.

Now, war between the UGC and SU seems inevitable ... (Somewhere during the build-up I managed to complete the Domination victory condition - colonize 40% of the initally habitable planets. I will stay on until the Endgame crisis however.)

[X3N0-Life-Form]

- The SF invasion was swift and decisive, only marginally held up by the logistical problem of "there not being any ground forces". I knew I forgot about something.

This is more or less how all my Imperium Galactica 2 games would go until fairly recently
- "OK, I've got the most kick-ass warfleet in the galaxy, time to squash my enemies"
*overruns enemy main fleets*
- "OK, turns out I can't capture any planet as most of them have a pair of buggy with a machinegun that were obsolete within the first in-game month or so"
*goes on to build deathkill mega tanks with blue death-beams of destruction, then starts over the whole galactic conquest thing*

[0rph3u5]

In Stellaris not being able to capture planets also means that you are blocked by FTL inhibitors.

Meanwhile, I fought the inevitible war with the UGC as a sideshow to my occupation of the DD. Traded a number of transit system for a wormhole and a staging area near the UGC captial.

[Scotty]

In Stellaris not being able to capture planets also means that you are blocked by FTL inhibitors.

This is not true.  If you bombard the planet you'll be able to destroy the Fortresses (which are typically toward the top third of buildings destroyed) from orbit and then move on.

[0rph3u5]

This is not true.  If you bombard the planet you'll be able to destroy the Fortresses (which are typically toward the top third of buildings destroyed) from orbit and then move on.

I know that but ...

in order to keep the factions ideologically opposed to each other, and prevent a hegemonial federation to form before the end game crisis, the SU is a pacifist state by default

... with bombardment capped due to the Pacifist Ethos (and trying to avoid that my economy goes futher down the drain because I run a majority pacifist state) that takes just about the same ammount of time it takes me to raise an army. This is BTW in my normal games I prefer to play a Machine Empire, no internal repucussions for shifting strategic paradimes (but then every Spiritualist Empire in galaxy tried to murder you for no reason anyway).

[Scotty]

"Takes just as long to raise armies" is still possible, though!  Even if you can't capture the planet you can still remove the inhibitors.

[CP5670]

I got a 55" LG E8 OLED TV and am using it as my main PC monitor. FS2 looks amazing and is the ideal game for it. The perfect blacks and high contrast look awesome in space, and the 4K resolution allows you to see ships clearly at a long distance. It also runs easily at 60fps even on my old 980 card. The size and contrast make it much more immersive than any PC monitor at about a 4' viewing distance. I find the resolution useful for office work or programming as well, as long as you don't set any single window to fullscreen.

The TV does involve some compromises over a regular monitor, especially for avoiding OLED burn-in. I set it to the minimum brightness setting (which is still brighter than I would like) in Windows, and jack it up only in games. I also use a screen saver and a high contrast theme in Windows. My brother has been using one like this for a few years now and hasn't seen any burn in, but reports on it vary. I use either 1080p at 120hz or 4K at 60hz with black frame insertion, depending on the game. The panel does 4K at 120hz internally but does not have HDMI 2.1, which is needed to support the bandwidth for it.